Policy Options

Welcome to our full issue on the 2011 election. We’re very confident that in years to come this issue of Policy Options will be a frequent and important point...

POLICY OPTIONS: Prime Minister, thank you for doing this. Congratulations. PRIME MINISTER STEPHEN HARPER: Thank you. PO: You’ve just come from the cabinet shuffle this morning where you had...

Quelle belle soirée, what a great night. And friends, I have to say it: a strong, stable, national, majority Conservative government. Friends, great things are only accomplished by many...

Back in the 1980s, a phenomenon known as “western alienation” was all the rage. Many westerners — and particularly Albertans — were feeling shut out of the federal political...

The expected incremental change election turned into a seismic shift for all of Canada’s federal political parties. For the Conservatives, the 2011 election should be considered a capping achievement:...

On May 2, Canadian federal politics awoke from the plunged it nearly two decades ago. The bizarre 1993 election saw the destruction of Canada’s founding political party and an...

At 6.00 a.m. on the second Monday of the spring campaign, Jim Flaherty was at the Pickering GO station, meeting commuters on their way to work in Toronto. From...

The old liberal “Fortress Toronto” fell on election day, and the sweep of suburban ridings by the Conservatives continued. Only a single Liberal, John McCallum, managed to hang on...

Framing the ballot question is the most important task of any party leader in a national election. Is it “time for a change” or time to “stay the course”?...

At the start of the 2011 election, three barriers stood between Jack Layton and the Prime Minister’s Office: the Bloc Québécois, the Liberal Party of Canada and the Conservative...

It was a telling moment. Michael Ignatieff’s Liberals had just brought down the government. The Conservative war room had shown its hand, the phrase “reckless coalition” welded into every...

The 2011 election may have lacked substance, but it certainly did not lack drama. Commentators and partisans alike have dissected the result to account for the success of both...

On Friday, March 25, the opposition Liberals, NDP and Bloc Québécois joined forces in a coalition and defeated Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s minority Conservative government on a little-understood partisan...

The 2000 campaign was the first election when everyone had a cellphone. Imagine that: instantaneous communication between all campaign team members and candidates! In 2004 it was the BlackBerry...

A prevailing feature of elections in Canada in recent years, and more prevalent than ever in the most recent federal election, has been the regular release of polling on...

Quand on a commencé à dévoiler les résultats du scrutin du 2 mai 2011, les électeurs québécois ont été d’abord étonnés, puis renversés. Chez certains, en particulier chez les...

On a beaucoup parlé de la vague orange qui, imprévue que surprenante, a déferlé sur le Québec, emportant presque tout sur son passage, le Bloc québécois, notamment, ainsi que,...

The most troubling finding in our post-election research for any incumbent facing voters this year is this: Your voters are restless. From the eruption of Danielle Smith in Alberta,...

The 2011 federal election saw the emergence of a majority Conservative electoral coalition. Built gradually over the last four elections, as shown in table 1, it may dominate Canadian...

The people who know Stephen Harper best say the word that describes his mood the night of May 2 is relief. Just shy of 10 years since his return...

Late on the night of May 2 as election results from across Canada poured in, veteran observers of the Canadian political scene were greeted with two sights most probably...

“Game changer” resides at the very summit of insipid terms used to interpret our daily politics. However, its application to the results of the May 2 federal election can...

Sans contredit, les élections du 2 mai 2011 marquent un tournant dans l’histoire politique canadienne. Les conservateurs ont obtenu une victoire majoritaire et le Nouveau Parti démocratique est devenu...

On May 2, the headlines screamed that al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden had been killed by a US Navy SEAL team. Later that evening, a secondary US TV channel...

The federal election of 2011 marked a tectonic shift in Canada’s political landscape. “Tsunami” was the other metaphor used. One point was clear, however. Good news for the Conservatives...

Every generation, the politics of Canada faces a sea change in the electoral map. Just before the Charlottetown Conference of 1864, John A. Macdonald and George-Étienne Cartier developed a...

In 1993, Kim Campbell famously said that elections are no time to talk seriously about policy. This was certainly true for environment, climate change and energy issues in the...

Canada has elected its first majority government in 11 years, and one with considerable experience in governing and a prime minister who is now, after Germany’s Angela Merkel, the...

L’élection fédérale d’octobre 1993 a été un véritable tremblement de terre. Au pouvoir depuis 1984, le Parti progressiste-conservateur a alors été balayé et s’est retrouvé avec seulement deux députés,...