Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T22:05:48.206Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Opinion Structure of Party Activists: The Reform Party of Canada*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

Keith Archer  and
Faron Ellis
Keith Archer
Affiliation:
University of Calgary
Faron Ellis
Affiliation:
University of Calgary
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article provides a systematic examination of the social bases and ideological and policy orientations of the Reform party of Canada through a study of the attitudes of delegates attending its 1992 national assembly. We identify the core political attitudes of Reform activists, and examine whether their positions on policy matters are distinctive and whether they are characterized by internal cohesion or division. We then examine the party's mobilization strategy to determine the extent to which this strategy produces systematic cleavages among party activists. Our analysis reveals that Reform promotes a distinctive position on a number of salient political issues. However, we also challenge the view that Reform activists are united by a unidimensional right-wing ideology. We conclude by discussing the impact of party mobilization on future divisions within the party.

Résumé

Cet article présente un examen systématique des fondements sociaux et des tendances idéologiques ou politiques du Reform Party, basé sur l'étude des attitudes politiques des délégués à l'assemblée nationale tenue en 1992. En plus d'identifier les principes clefs des militants Reform, nous examinons leurs orientations politiques en vue de déterminer si celles-ci sont distinctes et si elles reflètent la cohésion ou une pluralité d'opinions. Par la suite, nous examinons la stratégic de mobilisation du parti afin de voir dans quelle mesure celle-ci a crée des différences entre ses adhérents. Notre analyse révèle que le Reform Party met de l'avant des positions distinctes touchant plusieurs enjeux politiques importants. Cependant, nous contestons l'opinion voulant que les militants réformistes soient unis par une idéologic consensuelle de droite. Nous terminons en considérant l'effet de la présente stratégic de mobilisation sur les divisions internes du parti au cours des prochaines années.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 27 , Issue 2 , June 1994 , pp. 277 - 308
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1994

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 See the Statement of Principles as approved at the founding convention of the party, November 1, 1987, at Winnipeg and formally adopted as policy at the first policy assembly August 14, 1988, at Calgary, and the party's founding constitution as adopted at Winnipeg, November 1, 1987. “The Statement of Principles and Policies,” is published by the Reform party of Canada in its Blue Book: Platform and Statement of Principles (1988) and Building New Canada: Principles and Policies (1991).

2 At the party's annual assembly in 1991, delegates decided by a 96 per cent majority to petition the party membership to approve by way of a referendum expansion of the party beyond the Manitoba-Ontario provincial boundary, but not into Quebec. The party membership overwhelmingly (92%) endorsed the expansion proposal.

3 Prime Minister Brian Mulroney's first cabinet contained 13 ministers from western Canada; seven sat on the 15-member Priorities and Planning Committee of the cabinet. “A sign of change in government was to be found in the fact that Vancouver had more cabinet ministers than Montreal,” Courtney, John wrote in “Reinventing the Brokerage Wheel: The Tory Success in 1984,” in Penniman, Howard, ed., Canada at the Polls, 1984: A Study of the Federal General Elections (Durham: Duke University Press, 1988), 205Google Scholar. In 1987, cabinet ministers from Alberta included Joe Clark as secretary of state for external affairs, Don Mazankowski as deputy prime minister and Harvie André who held several cabinet positions during the first mandate and sat in the inner cabinet. Other high-profile western ministers included Pat Carney from British Columbia, Ray Hnatyshyn from Saskatchewan and Jake Epp from Manitoba. All of Alberta's 21 MPs sat in the government caucus, 19 of 28 BC MPs were Tories, while both Saskatchewan and Manitoba elected 9 out of 14 MPs to the government caucus.

4 The Reform party refers to its conventions as “assemblies.” Of the five Reform assemblies held since 1987 (Winnipeg, 1987; Calgary, 1988; Edmonton, 1989; Saskatoon 1991; Winnipeg, 1992), only the 1992 assembly had voting delegate representation from constituencies outside western Canada. Of the 1,330 delegates attending the 1992 assembly, 1,290 were sent questionnaires by mail, of whom 893 responded, for a response rate of 69.2 per cent, the highest ever achieved for a survey of party convention delegates.

5 See, for example, Perlin, George, ed., Party Democracy in Canada: The Politics of National Party Conventions (Scarborough: Prentice-Hall, 1988)Google Scholar; and Perlin, George, “Attitudes of Liberal Convention Delegates toward Proposals for Reform of the Process of Leadership Selection,” in Bakvis, Herman, ed., Canadian Political Parties: Leaders, Candidates and Organization, Research Studies of the Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing, Vol. 13 (Toronto: Dundurn, 1991), 57–96Google Scholar; Blake, Donald, “Division and Cohesion: The Major Parties,” in Perlin, , ed., Party Democracy in Canada, 32–53Google Scholar; Archer, Keith and Whitehorn, Alan, “Opinion Structure among Party Activists: A Comparison of New Democrats, Liberals and Conservatives,” in Thorburn, Hugh, ed., Party Politics in Canada(6th ed.; Scarborough: Prentice-Hall, 1991), 144–159Google Scholar; and “Opinion Structure among New Democratic Party Activists: A Comparison with Liberals and Conservatives,” this JOURNAL 22 (1990), 101–13; Archer, Keith, “Leadership Selection in the New Democratic Party,” in Bakvis, , ed., Canadian Political Parties, 3–56Google Scholar; Whitehorn, Alan, “The New Democratic Party in Convention,” in Perlin, , ed., Party Democracy in Canada, 272–300Google Scholar; Whitehorn, Alan and Archer, Keith, “The Gender Gap amongst Party Activists: A Case Study of Women and the New Democratic Party,” in Gingras, F. P., ed., Gender and Politics in Contemporary Canada (forthcoming, 1994)Google Scholar; and “Party Activists and Political Leadership: A Case Study of the NDP,” in Mancuso, Maureen, Price, Richard and Wagenberg, Ron, eds., Leaders and Leadership in Canadian Politics (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1994), 28–52.Google Scholar

6 Macpherson, C. B., Democracy in Alberta: Social Credit and the Party System (2nd ed.; Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1962)Google Scholar; Bell, Daniel, The Coming of Post-Industrial Society: A Venture in Social Forecasting (New York: Basic Books, 1973)Google Scholar; and Offe, Claus, Contradictions of the Welfare State (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1983).Google Scholar

7 Lipset, Seymour Martin and Rokkan, Stein, “Cleavage Structures, Party Systems, and Voter Alignments: An Introduction,” in Lipset, Seymour Martin and Rokkan, Stein, eds., Party Systems and Voter Alignments: Cross-National Perspectives (New York: Free Press, 1967).Google Scholar

8 Hartz, Louis, ed., The Founding of New Societies (New York: Harcourt Brace and World, 1964)Google Scholar; Horowitz, Gad, Canadian Labour in Politics (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1968)Google Scholar; Bell, David V. J., The Roots of Disunity (2nd ed.; Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1992)Google Scholar; and Inglehart, Ronald, The Silent Revolution (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977).Google Scholar

9 See Lipset and Rokkan, “Introduction,” in Party Systems and Voter Alignments; Rae, Douglas, The Political Consequences of Electoral Laws (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968)Google Scholar; Alan Cairns, “The Electoral System and the Party System in Canada, 1921–1965,” this JOURNAL 1 (1968), 55–80; and Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing, Reforming Electoral Democracy, Vol. 1 (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1991).Google Scholar

10 See Brodie, Janine and Jenson, Jane, Crisis Challenge and Change: Party and Class in Canada (2nd ed.; Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1989).Google Scholar

11 For an insightful application of this theory for “left-libertarian” parties, see Kitschelt, Herbert, The Logics of Party Formation: Ecological Politics in Belgium and West Germany (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989).Google Scholar

12 Cooper, Barry, Kornberg, Allan and Mishler, William, eds., The Resurgence of Conservatism in Anglo-American Democracies (Durham: Duke University Press, 1988).Google Scholar

13 Courtney, John C. and Perlin, George, “The Role of Conventions in Representation and Accommodation of Regional Cleavages,” in Perlin, , ed., Party Democracy in Canada, 128–131Google Scholar; Brodie, Janine, “The Gender Factor and National Leadership Conventions in Canada,” in Perlin, , ed., Party Democracy in Canada, 177–179Google Scholar; and Stewart, Ian, “Class Politics at Canadian Leadership Conventions,” in Perlin, , ed., Party Democracy in Canada, 160–171.Google Scholar

14 Perlin, “Attitudes of Liberal Convention Delegates,” 60.

15 Archer, “Leadership Selection in the New Democratic Party,” 6.

16 Whitehorn and Archer, “Party Activists and Political Leadership.”

17 Archer, “Leadership Selection in the New Democratic Party,” 8.

18 Ibid., 6; and Whitehorn and Archer, “Party Activists and Political Leadership.”

19 The sole exception is for the party's lone member of parliament, who received her delegate credentials as a result of her position as an MP. Two respondents to our questionnaire stated that their province of residence was Quebec. Because the party is not formally organized in Quebec these two individuals were either delegates from a recognized constituency association who had recently moved to Quebec or party members from Quebec who attended as observers.

20 Whitehorn, “The New Democratic Party in Convention.”

21 Porter, John, The Vertical Mosaic (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1965)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Komberg, Allan, Smith, Joel and Clarke, Harold D., Citizen Politicians-Canada: Party Officials in a Democratic Society (Durham: Carolina Academic Press, 1979)Google Scholar; Perlin, ed., Party Democracy in Canada; Whitehorn and Archer, “Gender Gap amongst Party Activists.’

22 Perlin, “Attitudes of Liberal Convention Delegates,” 61.

23 Whitehorn, Alan, Canadian Socialism: Essays on the CCF-NDP (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1992)Google Scholar; and Whitehorn and Archer, “Gender Gap amongst Party Activists.”

24 Whitehorn and Archer, “Party Activists and Political Leadership.”

25 Ibid.

26 The comparative data in Table 2 have been replicated from Perlin, “Attitudes of Liberal Convention Delegates,” for the Liberal party; Blake, “Division and Cohesion,” 32–53, Johnston, Richard, “Ideological Structure of Opinion on Policy,” in Perlin, , ed., Party Democracy in Canada, 54–70Google Scholar, Brodie, Janine “The Gender Factor and National Leadership Conventions in Canada,” in Perlin, , ed., Party Democracy in Canada, 172–187Google Scholar, for the Conservatives; and Whitehorn and Archer, “Party Activists and Political Leadership.”

27 Kornberg et al., Citizen Politicians-Canada.

28 Perlin, “Attitudes of Liberal Convention Delegates,” 62.

29 Ibid.

30 Archer, “Leadership Selection in the NDP.”

31 Whitehorn and Archer, “Party Activists and Political Leadership.”

32 Blake, Donald, “Division and Cohesion: The Major Parties,” in Perlin, , ed., Party Democracy in Canada, 32–52.Google Scholar

33 The major exceptions to this ordering were on the issues of bilingualism and civil liberties. For further discussion, see Archer and Whitehorn, “Opinion Structure among NDP Activists.”

34 Ibid.

35 Ibid., 108.

36 Johnston, Richard, “The Final Choice: Its Social, Organizational and Ideological Bases,” in Perlin, , ed., Party Democracy in Canada, 204–242Google Scholar, especially Tables 1 and 2.

37 For many Reformers, this process is captured by the sentiment that they did not leave the Conservative party, rather, the Conservative party left them.

38 Johnston, Richard, Blais, André, Brady, Henry E. and Crête, Jean, Letting the People Decide (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1992).Google Scholar