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In this paper, I examine the place of the Canadian Football League's (CFL) Saskatchewan Roughriders in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan's political history. Drawing on Canadian political economy and affect theory, I argue that political despair has been a defining feature of the Saskatchewan experience, an affective dimension of the province's place in the Canadian political economy. During difficult times, the historically mediocre Roughriders have served as a convenient metaphor—the scrappy underdog. In more recent years, however, a more prosperous Saskatchewan and more successful Roughriders team has led to the emergence of the "Rider Nation," a political identity based on a rejection of this despair. This identity, I argue, has been successfully captured by Premier Brad Wall and his conservative Saskatchewan Party, who have worked to locate themselves as the leaders of the Rider Nation and harbingers of "better times." Ultimately, however, I argue that the Rider Nation is an exclusionary identity, centred solely on the experience of white settler Saskatchewanians while erasing those experiences of Indigenous peoples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the significance of global 1968 protest movements in Canadian politics. Topics include the impact of social movements on Canadian historiography, the role of indigenous history and historiography within Canadian history, and political responses to 1960s protest movements in Canada in relation to austerity and neoliberalism.

The article offers the author's perspective, as a Canadian, on disaster capitalism. The author says that foreign aid is one of the instruments of the nation's foreign policy, but voters seldom contemplate capitalism's priorities when they decide how to vote. He adds that Canadians are entitled to derive benefits from such aid. He also argues against the idea of reshaping such policy to prioritize capitalism's interests abroad.

This article addresses the debate about the relative utility of accommodative federalism as a method of conflict management in multinational states. Comparative scholarship on this issue assumes that territorial reform translates into political stability or instability through policy substance. This article tests that assumption against processes of institutional accommodation of Catalan and Quebecois demands for autonomy and recognition. The comparison demonstrates the absence of a linear relationship between institutional change and political instability. When autonomy for minority regions is extended without symbolic recognition, subsequent majority response unfolds in the policy arena, mostly through attempts to symmetrize autonomy arrangements (self-amplifying sequence). However, when the extension of territorial autonomy is combined with formal symbolic recognition, it paves the way for majority political backlash (reactive sequence). Open political opposition by a segment of majority political community, in turn, stimulates secessionist sentiment among members of minority community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1990s, there has been a global proliferation of discourses of political reconciliation. In Canada, major debates regarding the place of Quebec and Indigenous peoples in the federation have seen the concept of reconciliation being mobilized by different groups to address these key constitutional relationships. This is a complex development, as reconciliation is understood and used in widely varying ways depending on the political projects different actors seek to advance. While much recent scholarship has critically analyzed the divergence between Indigenous and state conceptions of reconciliation, there has been little comparative analysis that considers the deployment of the concept in both constitutional relationships. Many gaps also remain in accounting for the emergence of reconciliation as a political concept in Canada and in considering the implications of framing constitutional relationships through this ambiguous and widely contested term. This article addresses these gaps by drawing on an analysis of royal commission reports and Supreme Court decisions to explore the character of early appearances of the term as a political concept and to provide an initial sketch of the role the concept plays in Canadian politics by comparing its use with respect to constitutional relationships with Quebec and with Indigenous peoples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In early 1960s Canada one question dominated political debate and discourse in the areas of foreign and security policy – whether or not Canadian armed forces would adopt nuclear weapon roles in North America and Europe. By focusing mainly on groups and individuals within civil society, the following analysis portrays a deeply divided Canada. On the one hand, supporters of liberal internationalism believed that acquiring nuclear weapons would make Canada a less effective and influential international actor and make nuclear war more likely, while on the other hand, conservative internationalists took the opposite position – that by assuming nuclear roles Canada’s international influence and effectiveness would increase and nuclear war would be less likely. In other words, the nuclear acquisition debate exposed deep divisions in Canadian society between those who viewed their country as either a ‘soft’ or a ‘hard’ middle power. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The influence of party connection on the selection of judges has long been an issue in Canada This article considers whether such connections adversely affect the appointment of women judges to federally appointed courts. The answer appears to be yes. Using political donations as a proxy for party connection, the data analyzed here suggest that as the number of appointees with connections to the government rises, the number of women appointees falls. However, for appointments to provincial courts by the government of Ontario, the prevalence of political connections among judicial appointees is less prominent, suggesting that different systems of judicial appointment may help to lessen these effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the first half of the twentieth century, northern Quebec was under federal jurisdiction. Tired of English Canadian supremacy and increasingly aware of northern Quebec’s considerable natural resources, which could provide a solid basis for future moves toward independence, the Quebec government began to take over responsibility for its northern territories in the 1960s. It established a regional administration to take charge of its northern affairs and sent officers to northern Quebec’s remote communities. For two decades, both governments administered the region and imposed two political systems on the local Inuit. This article is based on lengthy fieldwork and archival research. The historical background is described to show how Nunavik has developed as a political and social entity through its relationships with the Quebec and Canadian governments. This conflictual situation has created tensions in the Inuit community, resulting in political dissensions over the goal of self-government. Finally, this article details how the Inuit have exploited federal–provincial tensions to further their own interests. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This review essay identifies major monographs about the study of government and political institutions in Canada published in English over the past 50 years. Our review is woven around a general argument that key books about Canadian political life have mirrored the evolution of the discipline in the country as a whole. For instance, important books on federalism were written at turning points in Canada's constitutional history, while the recent uptick in social diversity and political communication studies mirrors broader societal trends. Equally, greater diversity in hiring within the academy has contributed to a broadening of subject matter, perspectives, methodologies and authorship. Thus, we explore the intersection between scholarship and society, with political scientists and their books as much products of their time as they have been contributors to the evolution of the political world around them. The sources that we identify have given shape to the study and practice of Canadian domestic politics. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Characterized as 'Canada's forgotten people' since their defeat in the 1885 Battle of Batoche, the Métis have recently re-emerged on Canada's policy agenda. How did the Métis, once vilified as traitors of Confederation, come to re-position themselves as a rights-bearing Aboriginal group in the Canadian federation? In this article, we apply John Kingdon's (1995) multiple streams model to help explain the resurgence of Métis rights on Canada's contemporary policy agenda. We argue that the changing legal and political landscape that surrounded Canada's crisis of unity provided a window of opportunity that allowed Métis policy entrepreneurs to bring the issue of Métis rights onto Canada's policy agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the participation of immigrant women in political surveys in Canada as a form of political participation. Investigating immigrant women's participation in the various components of the Canadian Election Studies, this study highlights the structuring impact of pre-migration experiences with gender inequalities from two different perspectives. The larger the gender inequalities in immigrant women's country of origin, the lower their retention rate to the post-election surveys, and the greater their propensity to provide non-responses to political survey-items. This study contributes to a better understanding of immigrant political integration and the related impact of pre-migration experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Past studies have shown that religion plays an important role in voting behaviour in Canada. Yet, little is known about the changes this religious vote has undergone over the past few decades. Using Canadian Election Studies data, we analyze the evolving impact of religious affiliation and level of religiosity on vote choice in federal elections between 1965 and 2011. We find that, as the marginal impact of Catholic and mainline Protestant traditions has declined, the effect of level of religiosity has gained in importance. In 2011, religious citizens were overall more likely to vote Conservative and secular individuals were more likely to vote NDP both in Quebec and in the rest of Canada. Some distinct voting patterns also remain for non-mainline Protestant groups in the ROC and religious nones in Quebec. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents an overview of the intent of the Canadian government to legalize assisted suicide and euthanasia. The topics discussed include ways on how the Canadian Supreme Court ended the concerns and debates on euthanasia, the proponents of euthanasia, and stance of Canadians as well as medical establishments on the issue.

Indigenous peoples have, to varying degrees, turned to the courts to litigate their ongoing disputes with Canada's settler colonial governments. Scholars have examined well the ways courts are used for strategic political ends by a variety of Indigenous and non-Indigenous litigants and are laden with settler values and institutional logics that are foreign to Indigenous peoples. However, it is less clear what effect turning to the courts in pursuit of strategic goals has on specific relationships between Indigenous peoples. This gap is more pronounced in Métis scholarship where there have been few final appellate cases. This paper argues the interaction between the Manitoba Métis Federation and Treaty 1 peoples seeking leave to intervene at the Manitoba Court of Appeal in MMF v. Canada illuminates the way litigating Indigenous-settler disputes can advance divisive, exclusionary, zero-sum political relationships between Indigenous peoples. These fractious interactions serve to undermine the construction of a co-ordinated and related inter-Indigenous decolonizing politics. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The 1979 classic Prairie Capitalism controversially asserted, "we find no confirmation of the thesis that provinces, heavily dependent on the exploitation and sale of staples, are thereby placed in a permanent position of political dependency vis à vis external capital" (Richards and Pratt 1979, 8). Developments in the years since have confirmed the book's analysis, and this has clear implications both for our understanding of the trajectory of Canadian capitalism, and for our assessment of the core tenets of Canadian political economy. Further, an appreciation of the contemporary utility of this aspect of the analysis in Prairie Capitalism is a necessary corrective to the contemporary " resource colony" discourse associated with Canada's bitumen sands industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1973, the federal government of Canada invited Aboriginal groups to enter into comprehensive land claims negotiations to settle outstanding claims not addressed by historical treaties. After eight years of negotiations, the Inuvialuit became the second group in Canada to sign a modern treaty, doing so in 1984. Missing from that agreement, however, was a self-government chapter, which was not open to negotiation at that time. In 1996, the Inuvialuit initiated selfgovernment negotiations with the Crown but have yet to conclude an agreement despite increased institutional capacity. What explains this puzzle? Drawing upon the existing literature on land claims negotiations, Aboriginal self-government and historical institutionalism, we analyze a variety of primary and secondary sources to argue that a number of institutional and non-institutional factors have prevented the Inuvialuit from successfully completing self-government negotiations with the Crown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In light of recent interest in the theoretical foundations of policy paradigms, this paper aims to specify the qualities that differentiate paradigmatic from non-paradigmatic policy ideas. While the incommensurability thesis that underlies the concept of paradigms has been the target of much criticism, there is something intuitively appealing about the incommensurability of policy alternatives that is not yet fully understood. Hesitant to abandon completely the notion of incommensurability, this paper emphasizes the relative nature of ideational commensurability and provides an account of how the exclusivity of a paradigm may wither in relation to competing perspectives. The empirical section demonstrates this pattern of paradigmatic policy-making by examining solutions advanced to alleviate problems in Canadian trade-industrial policy between 1975 and 1995. Contrary to the popular perception that paradigmatic ideas yield policy stability, the findings suggest that even in areas where clearly articulated paradigms initially exist, strictly paradigmatic thinking is often fleeting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the definition of success in First Nations drinking water service as voiced by the First Nations technical community of practice. The research explores success stories to identify success themes and factors to formulate a workable definition for policy-makers. Researchers interviewed sixteen technical practitioners in Ontario using a semi-structured approach. Data analysis revealed a definition of success that extends beyond the technical boundary to include professional growth, employment, local action and a facilitating policy environment. This comprehensive definition provides a basis for policy and program considerations to increase First Nations buy-in and foster a constructive environment for drinking water improvements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The comparative literature on party systems has convincingly demonstrated that electoral rules, social cleavages and their interaction can explain much of the cross-national variation in the size of party systems. This literature, however, has thus far ignored campaign finance laws. This article argues that various campaign finance laws exert more or less restrictive pressures on party competition. It develops a new theoretical concept, fund parity. The study demonstrates the positive relationship between fund parity and party system size and employs additional tests to supplement the regression analysis in order to account for potential endogeneity issues. The findings underscore an intuitive – but heretofore untested – relationship: increasing parity makes party competition more permissive and increases the size of the party system. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The truth and reconciliation commissions of Latin America and Africa are paradigms of transitional justice, often regarded as part of the process of transitioning from authoritarian to democratic rule. But truth commissions are also common in first-world settler states, which raises the question of what "transition" such commissions effectuate in Canada, Australia, and the United States. This paper examines the efforts of Canada' s Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples to resolve a controversy over a government relocation of Inuit families in the 1950s for which the relocatees were demanding compensation. Concurrent with historical controversies in the Canadian courts concerning Aboriginal rights and title, the historical controversy over the relocation raised questions about the Canadian state' s ability to "hear the voices" of First Nations people, who objected that their accounts of the past had been disregarded by government-contracted historians and courts alike. I argue that the Royal Commission' s efforts to hear the voices of Inuit relocatees, showcased in nationally televised hearings, was a phatic ritual in which communicative contact between marginalized citizens and the state was ritually established. The ritual was presented as a remedy for failures to achieve phatic communion among citizens and state--a condition of communicative contact held up as essential to the realization of liberal democratic ideals. The work of the Royal Commission and other truth commissions highlights the growing prominence of communication, particularly liberal communicative events construed as "open," "equal," and "free," as a concern of both theory and practice in liberal democratic polities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regionalization tendencies have often been regarded, in academic and political debates, as a serious challenge for Canadian federalism and the national unity of Canada. This article argues that regionalism—and increased regionalization processes in the context of neoliberal globalization tendencies—is not a contradictory force that threatens federalism and national unity, but that it is and has historically been a decisive feature of Canadian civic nationalism from the beginning of the nation-building project. As a consequence, and for better or worse, processes of devolution under the current politico-economic regime will stabilize Canadian national unity rather than undermine it: regionalization can strengthen civic nationalism in Canada by adding a cultural dimension as a vehicle that negotiates between individual citizens, identity groups, and state institutions. Regionalisms—such as Québécois nationalism—are malleable structures of belonging and provide institutional frameworks (e.g., informal constitutions) and forums of dialogue that enrich the political culture of federalism. We conclude that increased regionalization can help to strengthen Canadian (and other forms of) civic nationalism by preventing them from slipping into monistic unitarism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As developed states have faced increasing ethnocultural diversity, debates have arisen over what tools the state has at its disposal to help create peaceful, tolerant, and cohesive diverse societies. This research note has two purposes. First, it builds on existing theoretical research on multicultural policies to propose a typology of multicultural policies from non-devoted immigration or multicultural ministries. Second, it argues that there is space for policies aimed to accommodate and recognize immigrants and ethnocultural minorities in health care policy and - by extension - other policy areas. Such initiatives would both improve the quality of service for immigrants, ethnocultural minorities, and majority group Canadians and greatly enhance the likelihood of recognition and comprehensive integration of minorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The history of Canadian Medicare is reviewed to demonstrate the extent to which non-universal alternatives almost became the norm in Canada. While this historical survey focuses on the most critical dimension of universal coverage - the drive to have all Canadians insured on the same terms and conditions - it also addresses the second and third dimensions of universality, the extent of user fees and the breadth of coverage, respectively. However, that there is no single national narrative on health coverage, in part because of the highly decentralized nature of the Canadian health system. Ultimately, public-sector health system coverage is a policy decision taken at the sub-national level by the provincial rather than the federal government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the tradition of democratic theory, elections are recognized as important mechanisms of accountability. However, the migration of public decision-making responsibility away from elected representatives and the emergence of new governance actors necessitate a fuller conceptualization of accountability relationships. As governments pursue partnerships with societal actors and disperse authority across multiple levels, questions of public input and accountability within the democratic governance process arise. In this paper, cases of authority migration in the provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Nova Scotia between the years of 1946 and 2005 are used to examine the accountability relationships between new governance actors and both government and society. The existence and relative strength of accountability relationships are evaluated using the rules stipulated in the provincial legislation. Political ideology of governing parties, geographic scale of new jurisdictions and period in time are evaluated as predictors of the strength of the accountability relationship overall. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Sixty years ago, in late 1953, Quebec launched the hearings of the Royal Commission on Constitutional Problems—or Tremblay commission. Commenting the publication of its report, political scientist Alexander Brady boldly argued in this journal that Quebec had been, until the late 1950s, the “guarantor” of Canada's fiscal system's flexibility (1959: 270). Emphasizing the system's evolution since the 1950s “constitutional problems,” some specialists now contend, as the economist Robin Boadway does, that Canada became the “textbook best-practice of fiscal federalism” (2007: 99). The Tremblay commission's sixtieth anniversary and the termination, in 2014, of the current agreement on federal transfers, provide an opportunity to reassess this evolution and question the validity of this kind of statement. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The provocative debate over the Canadian seal hunt features emotional imagery, selective use of facts, a media relations battle, and political lobbying. This paper explores different forms of propaganda employed in the sealing controversy by animal rights groups and by the governments of Canada and of Newfoundland. It argues that Newfoundland nationalism is a central variable. This perspective can help gauge the effects of propaganda and explain the government's defense of a controversial policy. It concludes that propaganda, nationalism, and political marketing are independent categories that bear strong similarities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An essay is presented concerning the organization Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) Canada and its use of human rights language in its advocacy efforts in Canadian politics. It examines communications between the MCC Canada's Ottawa Office, called the Ottawa Office, and the Canadian government, Mennonite negotiation of conscientious objection, and MCC Canada's work with Canadian Indigenous communities.

Educational publishing sits at the intersection of industry, culture and education. Pedagogical aims must be balanced with the need for publishers to make a profit, while also acknowledging Canadian national identity and culture. The events of central interest are related to the tensions between two publishers’ associations in the wake of the sales, in 1970, of Canadian publishers Gage and Ryerson Press to American interests. The Canadian Book Publishers’ Council was comprised mainly of American branch plants and the Independent Publishers Association membership was Canadian-owned publishing companies. The two associations became bitter rivals, engaging in ‘fratricidal warfare’, as they lobbied the provincial and federal governments and fought to maintain their places in the textbook market. About 65% of total sales revenues from publishing in Canada came from textbook sales in this period. Both governments and commercial interests had to balance Canadian sovereignty with commercial gain and educational goals. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In July 2009 the Canadian government abruptly imposed visa requirements on all Mexicans traveling into Canada. This action sought to curtail the unprecedented rise in the number of Mexican asylum seekers reaching Canadian soil. Based on a series of interviews conducted with Mexican asylum seekers and refugees in Montreal, Canada, this paper seeks to explore critically the causes of this phenomenon. In particular, we are interested in analyzing the ways in which Mexican asylum-seeking constitutes an "act" of citizenship (following Isin, 2008), and how this act should be contextualized and understood within the rapidly evolving context of the North American geopolitical space. Indeed, as their stories demonstrate, Mexican asylum seekers actively question and rework dominant political and economic discourses associated with contemporary North America. Their stories suggest that Mexican mobility is not simply driven by economics but is also deeply political in nature. Second, their stories demonstrate that political, economic and social violences are embedded within the contemporary transnational edifice of North American governance. Finally, their stories highlight the deep inequalities in access to mobility within North America. In sum, Mexican asylumseekers force into a transnational arena issues that destabilize received notions about Mexico and Mexicans, and in so doing attempt to rework the limits of contemporary transnational justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the intersection of the history of women’s movements, history of civil society, migration policy and social work, this article examines the approach that the women of the Canadian Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) took toward the issue of immigration and the work they undertook with migrants during the 1920s and 1930s. Following an initial time (from the 1870s to the post-war period), when the legal reform and the nationalization of immigration policies were predominant, a transnational approach to assisting immigrants emerged within the YWCA. In the context of the post-war period, when the federal state intervened in the reception of migrants and called for the closure of borders, the YWCA forged close ties with major international organizations rising in Europe. Transcending the imperial and national spheres, and orienting itself toward a less sectarian and no longer women-oriented action, throughout the 1930s the Canadian YWCA contributed to the emergence of a new humanitarian and transnational approach to assisting migrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The articles in this issue suggest that intergovernmental governance takes a different form in Canada and the EU, raising questions about the transference of practices and institutions from one to the other. In both systems, non-hierarchical modes of governance provide coordination in social policy. Hierarchy also plays a role, though not in a manner that one might expect. In the EU, hierarchy is tempered by members' direct participation in policy formulation. In Canada, hierarchy is important, but within rather than between governments, resulting in executive dominance of the intergovernmental process at the expense of devolving power to civil society and sub-provincial governments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the alignment of different governance arrangements and alternative accountability mechanisms in international development policy making in Canada and the European Union ( EU), with a particular focus on relationships between governments and non-governmental organizations. The Canadian case illustrates an entrepreneurial mode of governance that aligns with fiscal auditing and performance management mechanisms, while the networked governance model of the EU relies more heavily on accountability instruments of public reporting and deliberation. The article concludes that the European accountability regime likely provides policy makers with more opportunities for social policy learning but would be difficult to implement in Canada given the underlying action logic of the federal government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Bologna Process that created the European Higher Education Area is an elaborate open method of coordination ( OMC)-type process involving the member states, interested parties, social partners and experts. It is the product of the incentives of the actors who created and who sustain it; it embodies a purpose. Is such a process relevant for policy making on postsecondary education in the Canadian federal system? One would need to know if there is a compelling vision, objective or anxiety that motivates the key actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate election timing by Canadian provincial and federal governments from 1976 to 2008. Using monthly data, our provincial regressions indicate that lower unemployment and the prospect of increasing unemployment spur election calls. Our federal regressions also suggest that lower unemployment triggers elections and the effect is stronger at the federal level than at the provincial level. We present evidence that US monthly unemployment rates are lower before Canadian variable-date federal elections but are not lower before US fixed-date elections. This finding further indicates that Canadian politicians have used our variable-date election system to exploit favourable conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building on the 1962 Glassco Commission report, this article argues that the duality of collective and individual ministerial responsibility in the Canadian Westminster model is under-recognized and remains highly relevant. While reforms since the 1960s favoured individual responsibility, the growing impact of information and communications technologies ( ICTs) gives renewed significance to collective responsibility. This article reviews accountability challenges arising from ICT-influenced changes in the federal government's organization and relationships, including the shift from a traditional vertical departmental model towards an increasingly horizontal one. Accountability for this re-collectivized environment risks ineffectiveness for two reasons: the prime minister's view of his own role, and Parliament's difficulty in dealing with horizontal issues. If the risks are not recognized, Canadian democracy will be diminished. Sommaire En se fondant sur le rapport Glassco de 1962, le présent article soutient que la dualité de la responsabilité ministérielle collective et individuelle dans le modèle de Westminster au Canada n'est pas suffisamment reconnue et demeure hautement pertinente. Alors que, depuis les années 1970, les réformes ont encouragé la responsabilité individuelle, l'incidence croissante des technologies de l'information et des communications ( TIC) donne une importance renouvelée à la responsabilité collective. Cet article passe en revue les défis de la responsabilité découlant des changements influencés par les TIC dans l'organisation et les relations du gouvernement fédéral, y compris le glissement d'un modèle ministériel vertical traditionnel vers un modèle de plus en plus horizontal. L'imputabilité pour cet environnement re-collectivisé risque d'entraîner l'inefficacité pour deux raisons : la perception qu'a le Premier ministre de son propre rôle, et la difficulté qu'a le Parlement à traiter les questions horizontales. Faute de reconnaître les risques, c'est la démocratie canadienne qui sera perdante. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay brings environmental and diplomatic history into conversation in order to examine the Trudeau government's response to the 1969-70 voyages of the oil tanker "Manhattan" through the Northwest Passage. By passing the "Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act" and extending Canada's territorial sea to 12 miles, Ottawa successfully instrumentalized the heightened environmental concern of the period in order to press Canadian claims to sovereignty in the Arctic. The essay demonstrates that this custodial approach was consistent with the functionalist tradition in Canadian liberal internationalism. More broadly, it reveals the promise of re-examining Canadian international history through the prism of environmental history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 1960s, the gender gap in subjective political competence was assumed to reflect women's lack of socioeconomic resources, their confinement to the domestic sphere and their gender role socialization. Since then, women have moved into the labour force in vast numbers and conceptions of gender roles have been radically altered under the influence of the feminist movement. Yet, the gender gap in subjective political competence persists. This paper uses the Canadian Election Studies (1965–2008) to analyze gender differences in subjective political competence across time. Not only is the association between affluence and subjective political competence weaker for women, but the effect of affluence has weakened over time for women but not for men. Few generational effects are found; this suggests that the politicizing role of feminist socialization is much weaker than had been anticipated. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article seeks to provide a constructivist account of Canadian foreign policy, linking identity and policy, through the concept of strategic culture. It focuses on Canada's dual ethnocultural identities (Anglophone and Francophone) and the bicultural and Atlanticist strategic culture that stems from it. It argues that this strategic culture helps explain France's significant importance (together with the United Kingdom and the United States) in defining the normative boundaries of Canada's multilateralism and legitimacy to use of military force abroad. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses politics and government in Canada during 2010. According to the article, 2010 marked over five years of a minority government. The article states that the Conservative government focused upon what it called its Economic Action Plan. The article also offers a statistical breakdown of the membership of the Canadian parliament by political party affiliation, as well as a listing of changes in government ministries. The article also discusses the Conservative government's refusal to permit government funding of abortion in Canada, allegedly ignoring a decision by the Canadian supreme court concerning a Canadian prisoner at the U.S. detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the dismissal of a junior member of state.

This study assesses the impact of majority and minority governments on legislative activity in the Canadian House of Commons. The quantitative analysis spans the 22nd to the 40th Parliaments (1953–2009) and examines legislative productivity and success by government type. The analysis of descriptive data confirms that minority governments are somewhat less productive and successful than their majority counterparts. However, the analysis emphasizes significant variation for majority governments. Neither governing context guarantees success or failure as contextual factors largely condition legislative activity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines how religious and cultural stereotypes of India and Pakistan affected the perceptions and attitudes of Canadian policy-makers and the Diefenbaker government from 1957 to 1963. Canadian policy-makers initially believed that India's elites shared numerous commonalities with the West that were rooted in a shared language and a similar judicial and democratic parliamentary system. Through these 'commonalities' officials believed that India would align with the West as the Cold War intensified. Such assumptions proved to be ill-considered. The Indian government practised a doctrine of non-alignment in the 1950s, and senior Canadian officials regarded this as hypocritical and even anti-Western. By contrast, Pakistan aligned with the West and raised its anticommunist rhetoric. A growing pool of Canadian officials looked to Islam, Hinduism, and cultural stereotypes to explain why Pakistan differed from India and perceived the threat of communism in the same way as the West. These officials also re-evaluated the importance Ottawa placed on ties with New Delhi. The election of Prime Minister John Diefenbaker in June 1957 hastened this trend. Diefenbaker viewed communism in binary terms and concluded that, unlike India, Pakistan was on the 'right side' in the Cold War. The Diefenbaker era saw Ottawa relegate India to the periphery of its foreign policy interests and bilateral relations with Pakistan at their apogee. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the announcement of the multicultural policy in October of 1971, the Federal Government appointed members of ethnic communities to the newly created Canadian Consultative Council on Multiculturalism to participate in the formulation of recommendations which would address the challenges of implementing that policy. When the work of that committee was concluded, some of the ethnocultural groups took the initiative to create a new body which would continue addressing policy matters of concern to the cross section of communities. Thus, the Canadian Ethnocultural Council, a grassroots organization comprised of voices representing many ethnic and racially diverse communities and organizations, was established in 1980. It played a key role in shaping the implementation of the policy. This paper discusses that role and the precedent set by the Canadian Ethnocultural Council in implementing cross cultural cooperation at the grassroots level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governments, upon assuming office, most often seek to refocus foreign policy according to the preferences of the new prime minister and the primary means of accomplishing this has been to release a white paper outlining the priorities of the new government. This article will demonstrate that discussions of trade issues reinforce existing studies questioning the innovation and impact of white papers. The purpose of this analysis, however, is not to dwell on the utility of white papers and foreign policy reviews but instead search for a deeper understanding of why trade policy is discussed in an unoriginal and superficial manner. The focus of the article is on the period from 1968 to the present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Citizenship and Immigration Canada's new citizenship guide, Discover Canada, received significant coverage in the national media and among popular bloggers when it was released in late 2009. Among the more controversial responses were allegations that the guide served a partisan political purpose. It was 'an incremental step in the rebranding of Canada into a conservative country, full of people more inclined to vote Conservative.' This paper investigates the veracity of this claim by documenting the historical evolution of Canada's citizenship guides. It finds that while Discover Canada departs notably from its immediate, Liberal-sponsored, predecessors, it is not so different from the initial documentation produced under the Liberal governments of Pierre Elliott Trudeau. To suggest that the new guide has fundamentally altered the national image is therefore a profound exaggeration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay discusses the concept and use of the word sovereignty as it relates to the Inuit indigenous peoples in the Arctic region of Canada and the assumption of sovereign claims by the Canadian government. The author reviews the history of the Canadian government's administration of northern Canada following World War II and the westernization of the Inuit that followed. Also explored are modern agreements between the government and Inuit in western Canada regarding self-determination, settling land claim issues in northeastern Canada, and treaties between Canada and the Inuit of northern Quebec and Labrador.

Multiculturalism studies in Canada evolved into three major visions and debates after World War II. In the early 1970s, the British and French peoples assumed monolingual-monocultural states, and expected that others would assimilate into their dominant cultures. In the 1970s, this was changed to official bilingual and multicultural visions where more diversity was accepted. By the 1980s, demographic diversity called for debates on equal rights for all, without discrimination and prejudice. Multiple identities, however, often clash, but slowly more diverse visions and structures emerged. Here is a brief summary of the historical and sociological changes that occurred in Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents an analysis of the Canadian government's research and policy-making processes in connection with oppositional political terrorism during the time between the McDonald Report (1977) to the Third Kelly Committee (1999). In particular, the article examines this subject by reviewing popular, scholarly, and governmental literature; relying on personal experiences; and, most importantly, focusing on information gathered during a series of interviews with key informants conducted over a 14-year period. The article concludes with a list of factors that impeded government research and policy development connected with this subject and policy area and a handful of suggestions for overcoming these difficulties which may improve the Canadian government's ability to effectively deal with future acts of terrorism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most influential tools that the state wields in developing citizenship is public education. The 19 royal commissions and major reports on education completed in provinces across Canada between 1947 and 1994 offer valuable insight into what the Canadian state conceives as ideal citizenship. The following work attempts to answer two research questions: (1) When do provincial governments desire to change the direction of education (and construction of citizens)?; and (2) How do provincial governments define the ideal citizen once reform is initiated? This essay finds that through three eras of reform, the pedagogical focus on citizenship moved from the individual to the community to a diluted form with no unifying vision. The sum of these attempts at change and conceptions of ideal citizenry leads one further from an accepted meaning of the continually elusive notion of Canadian citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper expands on the work of Higgins, whose 1979 review remains the only synthetic overview of the field, by presenting an updated analysis of the study of municipal, local and urban issues in Canadian political science. We conclude that despite several discursive shifts—from the descriptive works of the 1950s and 1960s, through to the blossoming of interdisciplinary research in the 1980s and 1990s—Higgins' principal conclusion, that the various streams of urban politics continue to be studied in relative isolation from each other, still rings true. Despite the recent broadening of the literature, productive scholarly debates within and across research clusters are rare, and where debates do emerge, they are more often driven by current events and normative claims than by theoretical innovations. To remedy these deficiencies, we propose several bases for a new urban research agenda that is more methodologically and theoretically diverse and connected to work in other disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Since the 1990s, a prevalent theme in the comparative literature on liberal–democratic state responses to increasing international migration holds that the expansion of rights protections for non-citizens has undermined restrictive border control policies. The argument presented in this article suggests that this is too partial an understanding of the ways in which control and rights intersect—the control–rights nexus. Accordingly, it analyzes Canadian policies towards asylum seekers from the 1950s to the 1980s to explore the ways in which the restriction of rights can undermine state control policies by generating rights-based politics, encouraging the circumvention of control policies and creating administrative inefficiencies. Altogether, the analysis provides an important refinement of the study of the control–rights nexus and allows for a more complete understanding of control policies and politics in liberal–democratic states. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]