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Religion and Grassroots Social Conservatism in Canada

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 September 2019

Sarah Wilkins-Laflamme Open the ORCID record for Sarah Wilkins-Laflamme [Opens in a new window]  and
Sam Reimer
Sarah Wilkins-Laflamme*
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology and Legal Studies, University of Waterloo, 200 University Avenue West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 3G1
Sam Reimer
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, Crandall University, 333 Gorge Rd., Moncton, NB, E1G 3H9
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: sarah.wilkins-laflamme@uwaterloo.ca
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Abstract

With a decisive Liberal party electoral victory in 2015, observers are now wondering if religious conservatism's role in the Canadian political landscape is waning. Using data from the Canadian Election Study (CES) from the years 2004 to 2015, we find that respondents’ attitudes toward same-sex marriage and women working outside the home have moved left on the spectrum among both the general population and more religious voters. However, this does not go hand in hand with a decline in the effect strength of religiosity on the Conservative vote, which remains significant across the five federal elections examined in this study. Conservative religious voters now make up a smaller share of the adult population, but their issue positions on sexual morals and gender roles, along with the wider conservative value orientation these issues represent, remain important in their vote choice.

Résumé

Avec la victoire électorale décisive du Parti libéral en 2015, les observateurs se demandent maintenant si le rôle du conservatisme religieux dans le paysage politique canadien s'estompe. En utilisant les données de l'ÉÉC 2004-2015, nous constatons que les attitudes des répondants à l'égard du mariage homosexuel et des femmes qui travaillent hors du foyer se sont déplacées à gauche sur l'échelle, tant parmi la population générale que parmi les électeurs plus religieux. Toutefois, cela ne va pas de pair avec une diminution de la force de l'effet de la religiosité sur le vote des conservateurs, qui demeure importante dans les cinq élections fédérales examinées dans la présente étude. Les électeurs religieux conservateurs représentent maintenant une plus petite part de la population adulte, mais leurs positions sur la morale sexuelle et les rôles sexuels ainsi que l'orientation plus large des valeurs conservatrices que ces questions représentent demeurent importantes dans leur choix électoral.

Keywords

religionconservatismsame-sex marriagegender rolesvote choicefederal electionsissue positionsvaluesCanada
Type
Research Article/Étude originale
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 52 , Issue 4 , December 2019 , pp. 865 - 881
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 2019 

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