Political parties in Canada

what are the main political parties and who are their leaders?

the liberal party of canada lead by mark carney, the conservative party of canada lead by pierre polievere, the green party lead by elizabeth may, the new democratic party (NDP) lead by don davies, the bloc quebecois lead by yves-francois blanchet and the people's party of canada led by maxime bernier.

what are the definitions and functions of parties?

parties are organizations that offer slates of candidates to voters at election time, in democracy parties aren’t created by the state, nor are they agents of the state

the parties then try to get elected to achieve their goals and the joining and leaving of the parties must be voluntary

the parties must have broadly similar opinions, they need to have a broad church and a big tent

what do broad church and big tent mean?

the broad church is the party and how it must accommodate everyone on the spectrum, the blue tent must accommodate all shades of blue while the red tent must accommodate all shades of red and the job of the party leader is to kick some people out depending on the stance of the leader

what are the 7 functions that political parties play in a democracy?

they integrate citizens into the political system (best way to get involved is through a party), develop policy, elite recruitment (mark carney), organization of government, structuring the vote, organizing public opinion, and interest aggregation

what are participatory opportunities?

political parties are often heralded as making modern democracy possible and as provider of participatory opportunity (ordinary people can get involved), for non-members and members

why are parties important?

because brokerage politics are a vehicle for national unity in a geographically, linguistically and ethnically diverse country

why is parliamentary democracy a team sport?

it’s dominated by political parties, MPs sit with their respective government and government is formed and operated along party lines but most importantly, party politics are seen in the voting record of MPs

who is the party?

MPs, dues-paying members (grassroots/the base), and electoral district association (EDA) members

what are the 3 faces of the party?

the party in public office: members in parliament/gov who win elections → they want to win it’s their only goal

the party on the ground: party members, activists…, the diehards for the game

the party in central office: national organizational leadership → people who think politics is a vocation, they work behind the scenes to coordinate strategy and messaging. and the volunteers want ideology: they’re doing it because they believe in the message and don’t want it to be diluted

what are the origins and evolution of canada’s party system?

the cons and libs are the historically dominant political parties and during the formative canadian party system, the libs and cons shared many ideas and policies, libs are the ones who successfully straddled english & french canada and the cons were against free-trade while the libs were for it but in 1988 the positions switched

what are the historic ideologies of canadian two parties?

libs identified with free trade and provincial rights and after 1885, the LPC emphasized economic liberalism and individualism, the libs are decentralized and the charter of rights and freedoms was created by P.E.Trudeau who was a liberal PM

the cons were the ones connected to the british gov, centralization and economic protection

who were the tories?

the party that turned into the conservative party of canada by stephen harper → the pc and alliance parties were merged to create the CPC, a decentrist party that sought to bring the west in

the alliances wanted lots of democratic reform, wanted referendums, supreme court judges…

what is a brokerage party?

A brokerage party is a political party that seeks to attract a broad coalition of voters by balancing various interests and ideologies, aiming for a pragmatic approach to policy-making rather than firm ideological commitments. the libs are a brokerage party because they pick ideas that are popular and side with them, they go where the prevailing win is, it’s all about what’s politically convenient

why is ideology dangerous?

ideology + regionalism = loss

brokerage theory makes what claims about canada’s historically dominant parties?

they lack cohesive and distinct visions (the libs have no clear vision) and they’re flexible and opportunistic because it is the path to victory (the libs take what the cons give them and run with it, they’re pragmatic in their policy approaches and adapt to changing voter preferences.

is canada a class based system?

no because class is different in each province → regionalism

what determines who will vote for who?

the level of education, people are a mix of socially progressive but fiscally conservative, there’s globalists vs nativists