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The Role of Opposition in a One-Party Dominant System: The Case of Ontario*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

Lawrence Leduc  and
Walter L. White
Lawrence Leduc
Affiliation:
University of Windsor
Walter L. White
Affiliation:
University of Windsor
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Type
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Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 7 , Issue 1 , March 1974 , pp. 86 - 100
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1974

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References

1 See Bagehot, Walter, The English Constitution (London, 1963).Google Scholar

2 See Crick, Bernard, The Reform of Parliament (New York, 1965)Google Scholar, Butt, Ronald, The Power of Parliament (London, 1967)Google Scholar, and Modern Parliaments Change or Decline, ed. Lowenberg, G. (Chicago, 1971).Google Scholar

3 See Waite, P.B., The Life anil Times of Confederation, (Toronto, 1962).Google Scholar

4 This is, of course, not an entirely new observation. C.B. Macpherson's now classic description of Alberta as a “quasi-party system,” and J.M. Beck's reference to the long period of Liberal dominance in Nova Scotia as a “one-and-a-half party system” are variations on a similar theme. See Macpherson, , Democracy in Alberta (Toronto, 1953), 273ffGoogle Scholar; and Beck, , The Government of Nova Scotia (Toronto, 1957), 156.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 The statistics employed here may slightly overstate the case for Manitoba, particularly prior to 1958. See Donnelly, M.S., The Government of Manitoba (Toronto, 1963).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 See the argument advanced by Long, J.A. and Quo, F.Q. in “Alberta: One Party Dominance,” Canadian Provincial Politics, ed. Robin, Martin (Scarborough, 1972), 1–2.Google Scholar

7 “Patterns of Opposition,” Political Oppositions in Western Democracies, ed. Dahl, Robert A. (New Haven, 1966)Google Scholar, chap. 2, 332–5.

8 See, for example, the discussion of inter-party competition in Kornberg, Allan, Canadian Legislative Behavior (New York, 1967), 111–12.Google Scholar

9 “Political Oppositions in Western Democracies,” 335–6.

10 The interview data cited in this paper were obtained from two sources. The first of these was a mail survey of legislators (excluding cabinet members) which was carried out in October 1970. Sixty responses to the questionnaire were obtained from among the 95 backbenchers to whom it was originally sent, an overall response rate of 63 per cent. The 60 responses obtained do not conform proportionately to the party distribution in the legislature, Conservatives being somewhat under represented, although a sufficient number of responses was obtained from each of the three parties to allow comparison by party, the most important single consideration of this paper. The second source of data employed here was a series of personal interviews with 16 of the original respondents which took place during the summer of 1971. The 16 interviewed did not constitute a “sample” of the 60 respondents, but rather were selected primarily because of their responses to the mail questionnaire. The mail and interview portions of the study are complementary in that the interviews were specifically intended and designed as a follow-up to the mail survey. They were not however related statistically in any way.

11 An interesting discussion of the policy role of backbenchers in the British House of Commons may be found in Lynskey, James J., “The Role of Backbenchers in the Modification of Government Policy,” Western Political Quarterly, XXII (1969), 333–47.Google Scholar

12 Within this group, 27 per cent reported that more than three-quarters of their time was allocated to dealing with constituency problems. While it is not surprising to find a high degree of constituency orientation among backbenchers in a parliamentary system, the numbers here are indeed impressive. Although we have no comparative data for other provincial legislatures, it is interesting to note that Hoffman and Ward found 52 per cent of Ontario federal mps embracing a “constituency dominant” areal role. Hoffman, D. and Ward, N., Bilingualism and Biculturalism in the Canadian House of Commons (Ottawa, 1970), 80.Google Scholar

13 The percentages are 40 and 10, respectively. Gamma = 0.34.

14 Gamma = 0.75.

15 In a complete enumeration of Ontario legislators, Robert Williams found that 44 per cent were lifetime residents of their constituencies, and another 19 per cent had resided in the constituency more than 20 years prior to their election. “Recruitment to the Ontario Legislature,” paper presented at the 43rd Annual Meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association, St John's, Newfoundland, June 1971.

16 The rural-urban dichotomy used here is based on respondents’ self classification. In the survey responses, 28 legislators classified their ridings as “urban,” 25 as “rural,” and 7 were not ascertained. Some caution is in order regarding further generalization from the rural-urban classification. Because a strong correlation exists between the rural-urban classification and party, it is quite possible that some of the differences observed between urban and rural legislators may only mirror partisan differences (or vice versa). The breakdown of our respondents shows that Conservatives tended to come from rural areas, while ndp members were overwhelmingly urban. While it would be most desirable to control for the third variable in these tables, the cell frequencies unfortunately become too small to be of much value (and may, in fact, be rather misleading). We have thus relied rather heavily on the interviews for guidance in interpreting many of the findings reported here.

17 It does not of course follow that the balance necessarily opted for the constituency position. In fact, the Conservatives indicated a rather high propensity to abstain from such a vote, while most of the remaining ndp respondents said that they would “follow conscience.” The findings contrast somewhat with those of Hoffman and Ward for the federal House of Commons, where the Liberals appeared by far to be the most likely to support the party in the event of such a hypothetical conflict, and the ndp members least likely to do so. See Bilingualism and Biculturalism in the Canadian House of Commons (Ottawa, 1970), 74.

18 Williams found that, among Ontario legislators, the ndp members were least likely to stress the “ombudsman” function as a source of satisfaction in the work of a legislator, while the Liberals were the most likely to do so. “Recruitment to the Ontario Legislature,” 30. Hoffman and Ward, similarly found that among federal mps the Conservatives were most inclined toward a “constituency-dominant” role (closely followed by the Liberals), while the ndp members tended overwhelmingly toward the “nation-dominant” or “shared-focus” role perceptions. Ibid., 80.

19 Only 11 per cent of the federal ndp respondents accepted a “constituency-dominant” role. Bilingualism and Biculturalism, 80.

20 The findings on residence are very close to those reported by Williams, “Recruitment to the Ontario Legislature,” 5.

21 A comparison with the Hoffman and Ward data for Federal mps is not as meaningful here because the Liberals, as the governing party, show a response pattern to this question similar to that of the Conservatives provincially. The ndp respondents however appear to place the same emphasis on “strategy” as do their provincial colleagues. Bilingualism and Biculturalism, 163.

22 See our discussion of this typology on pp. 89–90. These concepts are developed at greater length in Dahl, “Political Oppositions in Western Democracy,” 336–46.

23 See the discussion on pp. 95–7. Also Williams, “Recruitment to the Ontario Legislature,” 4–6 and 18–25.