A leader from Quebec boosts the fortunes of the Liberal party in that province. This, in turn, has helped make Quebec the veto player in twentieth-century Canadian elections and the Liberals the “natural” governing party. Although Quebec is no longer as critical as before, a leader from the province still makes a big difference. Full impact from the pattern requires more than one election to unfold. Patterns outside Quebec are similar, if fainter: the Liberal party is not punished for choosing a Quebecker and may even be helped. The early success of the pattern moved the Liberals to alternate between Quebec and non-Quebec leaders, such that the party is now led by a Quebecker more often than not. Maintaining alternation has never been easy and is only getting harder.

This article explores the role of the numbered treaties relative to the continuity of the settler colonial project in Canada. Although the treaties are often invoked to characterize the federal government's commitment toward strengthening or renewing its relationship with Indigenous peoples at a symbolic level, there remains a disjuncture between the “nation-to-nation” depictions of treaties and the complex political relationships that Indigenous peoples have called for since their signing. This article explores the inconsistent ways in which treaties have been taken up within Canadian legal and political institutions, arguing that the incoherency surrounding treaties promulgates the notion that treaties are being implemented while simultaneously obscuring, distorting and minimizing the rights of Indigenous peoples in practice. It demonstrates that the failure to engage with treaties as the locus of Indigenous peoples’ distinct political relationship with the Canadian state functions to continually produce conditions of colonization and dispossession through the denial of Indigenous sovereignty and jurisdiction as affirmed in treaties.

In view of the robust link often inferred between autonomous journalism and the strength of a society's democratic institutions, and against the background of current challenges to journalists’ traditional roles as purveyors of timely and independent information, we interviewed 352 Canadian journalists about their social and political roles and the influences on their news choices. Comparison of their responses against an international data set (N = 27,567) suggests that Canadian journalists place greater value on detached monitorial roles and claim relatively greater autonomy from commercial and other influences on their work. Further, in comparing these findings to an influential panel study from 1996 to 2003, we conclude that the Canadian journalists’ “credo,” focused on neutral reporting and oriented more to perceived public interest than to business or audience interests, remains surprisingly intact despite contemporary pressures on news forms and business models. This professed neutrality is mitigated by a desire to promote diversity and tolerance.

We present the results of a 2014 survey of Canadian parliamentarians, journalists and bloggers in which respondents were asked to rank competing definitions of open government. Overall, respondents preferred to define open government in terms of access to information and sources. However, controlling for age, ideology and language, we also found that respondents in the different positions ranked definitions of open government differently. Journalists are more likely than any other group to define open government in terms of access to information and sources. In contrast, parliamentarians who were members of a governing party were as likely to choose definitions of open government that emphasized public participation as they were to choose definitions that emphasized access to information. Opposition parliamentarians share more similarities with government parliamentarians than with journalists. These results suggest that key actors in the Canadian policy landscape define open government in ways that are consistent with their institutional interests. We suggest that these results reflect ways in which open government operates more like a buzzword, which helps explain the common pattern whereby opposition parties make promises to be more open and, after taking power, operate in less open ways. Moreover, these results raise questions about the extent to which open government can actually operate as an organizing principle.

This study draws on the 2013 General Social Survey to investigate whether social capital is positively associated with the political participation and engagement of 15- to 24-year-old Canadians. It also assesses whether social capital can help overcome the participation gap between youths with different educational qualifications. Trust in family was the only social tie that was positively associated with the turnout of eligible voters in federal and municipal elections. Associational involvements and generalized trust in strangers were more frequently related to informal political activism and an interest in politics. Online social connections were unrelated to any measure of participation and engagement. Some forms of social capital can help address the marginalization of youths from formal and informal politics, but tertiary education is most closely associated with voting.

Two distinct strands of conservative Canadian economic nationalism—associated with the ideas of John Rae and Isaac Buchanan—helped to inform the country's protectionist National Policy of 1879. These strands of nationalism were much less influenced by Listian ideas than was economic nationalist thought in many other countries at this time. This study of their content, intellectual sources and influence contributes empirically and analytically to debates in Canadian political economy and international political economy, while also advancing historical scholarship. The arguments also have some potential contemporary relevance in an age when protectionist economic nationalism is rising in the US and elsewhere.

In the 2014 reference, the Supreme Court sought to discover the Senate's “essential nature” in order to determine what reforms parliament could legislate unilaterally. Making use of a classification model found in comparative and historical studies, the Court concluded that the Senate was a “complementary legislative body of sober second thought.” This article re-examines the Court's narrow definition of the Senate's perceived role and presents evidence that its essential characteristics are direct continuations of various pre-Confederation design principles. Limiting a description of its architecture to a single model that eclipses all other roles the Senate may play shifts the debate on Senate reform, which in the recent past has laid emphasis on resolving the conflict among the models embedded in the upper chamber's essential characteristics. The article concludes by reviewing previous constitutional initiatives that aimed at bringing those models more in tune with modern Canada and by making suggestions about how reform proposals could better succeed.

It is well established that political parties play a key role as gatekeepers to elected office. This article explores the local determinants of a diverse candidate pool. In particular, we seek to uncover the district- or riding-specific party factors that are related to women's participation in the parties’ candidate nomination stages. That is, why do some nomination races in a party have no women contestants, while others have many? Using data from an original survey of party constituency association presidents, as well as extensive nomination data from Elections Canada, we demonstrate that a number of local factors are related to the presence of women contesting a party's nomination. Local party associations with a woman serving as president, as well as associations that hold earlier and longer nominations, are significantly more likely to see a woman enter the contest. The results are important since they call attention to what parties do at the grassroots level, as well as highlight practical solutions for parties seeking to have more diversity in their candidate pool.

Canada has taken part in six wars since 1945, all of which have been conducted under US leadership. Despite such military interventionism, there have been no systematic comparative analyses of Canada's decisions to take part in US-led wars. The objective of this article is to develop and test a theoretical framework about why Canada goes to war. More specifically, it seeks to account for variations in Canada's provision of combat forces to multinational interventions led by the United States. It assesses leading theoretical explanations by examining five post–Cold War cases: the wars in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Libya; the war against ISIS; and the refusal to take part in the invasion of Iraq. The article concludes that Canada's willingness to go to war is shaped primarily by a desire to maintain transatlantic alliance unity and enhance Canada's alliance credibility. Threats to national security, the legitimacy of the intervention, government ideology and public opinion are not found to consistently or meaningfully shape Canadian decisions to take part in US-led wars.

Canada has long claimed the Northwest Passage as its “internal waters,” while the United States and other countries argue it is an “international strait.” The latter “free sea” position originates in Hugo Grotius, often styled the “father of international law.” However, Grotius later qualifies his own position by granting to coastal states the right to regulate maritime traffic. Grotius's works also inspire the English School of International Relations: an “international society” approach that Canada has historically followed in its overall foreign policy. Hence, a twenty-first-century Grotian vision might suggest a compromise amenable to Canada: Canada would grant passage to conforming American vessels, thus facilitating international trade, but Canada would also gain powers of effective jurisdiction, allowing it to secure and conserve the fragile environment. Canada might thus re-envision sovereignty not as a zero-sum contest for status symbols but as the exercise of functional jurisdiction for the common good of international society.