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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]

Copyright of Canadian Political Science Review is the property of Canadian Political Science Review and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

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]

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Kanada-Studien is the property of Gesellschaft fuer Kanada Studien e.V. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

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]

How do Canadians engage with the political content provided by governments, political parties and parliamentarians in Canada? Employing data from the 2014 Canadian Onlitie Citizenship Survey, this article explores how Canadians use digital communications to become informed about, discuss and/or participate in politics. The results suggest that less than half of respondents use the Internet to engage in Canadian politics and while governments, politicians and parties have made extensive forays into cyberspace, politics is a minor online activity for Canadians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]