Canadian Politics

A07(a) - Parties, Leaders, and Incumbents

Date: May 30 | Time: 03:15pm to 04:45pm | Location: Classroom - CL 232 Room ID: 15702

Chair/Président/Présidente : Peter Ryan (Mount Royal University)

Discussant/Commentateur/Commentatrice : JP Lewis (UNB Saint John)

Who Gives? Campaign Donations in Canadian Federal Elections: Holly Ann Garnett (Royal Military College of Canada)
Abstract: The 2015 Canadian federal election saw a record amount of money spent by candidates and parties on their campaigns. With the Liberals are estimated to have spent about $40 million and the incumbent Conservative party almost $50 million, the amount of money spent on elections appears to be increasing in Canada at an alarming rate, even allowing for the longer campaign in 2015. Although money is required in politics to mobilize and educate voters about important issues, it may become a problem if the sources and recipients of money are not representative. The uneven allocation of money among parties and candidates may create an uneven ‘playing field’. Parties and candidates with full coffers may be better able to get their message out, and entice citizens to vote for them through well-organized and flashy campaigns. This paper therefore asks: Who benefits from campaign funding? It will employ the under-utilized Elections Canada expense reports from 2004-2015 to cast light on the role of money in Canadian democracy, and its differential effects for under-represented population groups (including gender, ethnicity, profession, party, incumbency, competitiveness of the race, riding demographics, and location).

Liberal Leaders and Liberal Success: The Impact of Alternation: Richard Johnston (University of British Columbia)
Abstract: The Liberal party dominated 20th-century Canadian politics by dominating Quebec. Over the same period, the party regularly rotated its leadership between Quebec and elsewhere. The link between these facts has been studied but in a fragmentary and time-bound way. The analyses were not situated on the big stage of one-party domination. The paper shows that leaders from Quebec were critical to Liberal success in that province, and they also had a positive impact in the rest of Canada. The latter effect has become more important to the extent that Quebec is no longer the pivot for government. The paper reviews the history of Liberal strategy. It deploys electoral data from Confederation to the present and proposes an estimation model for parallel analyses in Quebec and the rest of Canada. Following the basic estimation is an account of critical details, to probe the mechanisms of effect and to test the robustness of the overall estimation. Does merely switching to a Quebecker induce a shift, or does the impact need time to unfold? Does shifting away from a Quebecker simply reverse an initial gain, or is there an asymmetry, possibly one where subsequent losses outweigh earlier gains, such alternation has saddled the Liberals with a hostage to fortune? Finally, are certain elections highly leveraged in either exaggerating the pattern or masking it?

991.Johnston.pdf

Ministerial Appointment in Canada and the Electoral Value of a Minister: Benjamin Ferland (University of Ottawa)
Abstract: Many studies have indicated that MPs who won their election with a significant margin of victory in their riding are more likely to be nominated as cabinet minister. While this result seems intuitive, it contradicts a rational choice model where political actors want to maximize their electoral gains while minimizing their costs. In the paper, I propose different explanations that link a MP’s electoral result with her likelihood of being appointed minister. These explanations also account for the electoral temporal dynamics. Empirically, I first examine the electoral value of a cabinet minister in Canada since 1867. I then model ministerial appointment in Canada as a function of the electoral results at the district level.