Canadian Politics

A11(b) - Parliamentary Politics

Date: Jun 4 | Time: 10:15am to 11:45am | Location: SJA-240E

Chair/Président/Présidente : J.P. Lewis (University of New Brunswick)

Discussant/Commentateur/Commentatrice : J.P. Lewis (University of New Brunswick)

Building and Maintaining Legislative Support: Strategies of Minority Governments in Canada: Gala Palavicini (University of Alberta), Scott Pruysers (Dalhousie University)
Abstract: Minority parliaments are increasingly the norm around the world, as multiparty systems typically prevent any party from forming a single-party majority government. While many political parties around the world respond to this challenge by forming coalitions to secure legislative majorities, Canadian parties have largely avoided formal coalitions. Instead, they employ various strategies in order to govern with a minority of seats in the legislature. Drawing on a series of semi-structured interviews with senior parliamentary officials from three federal parties (Liberals, Conservatives, and New Democrats), this paper explores recent Liberal (2019, 2021) and Conservative (2006, 2008) minority governments. In doing so, this paper addresses two main questions: (1) What are Canadian elites' attitudes toward coalitions? and (2) What strategies do minority governments use to secure the necessary legislative support?

Standing Room Only? The Role of Gender in Determining Who Gets A Seat on Parliamentary Committees: Jocelyn McGrandle (Columbia College)
Abstract: The representation of women in politics has been well examined in numerous contexts around the world. Focusing specifically on Canada, the representation of female MPs has been studied federally (Tremblay 1998; Young 2013) and provincially (Trimble et al. 2013), as has the representation of women in cabinet posts, both provincially (Studlar and Moncrief 1999; Trimble and Tremblay 2005; Byrne 2009; Tremblay and Stockemer 2013) and federally (Studlar and Moncrief 1997; Trimble and Tremblay 2005; Tremblay and Stockemer 2013). Most recently, the representation of women has been studied in Cabinet committees as well (Ie 2021). What remains to be studied, however, is the representation of women in parliamentary committees, particularly House of Commons Standing Committees. As a key institution in parliamentary systems, committees have been noted for their influential role in policy making (Strøm 1998; Murray and Sénac 2018; Riera and Cantu 2018; Espírito-Santo and Rodrigues Sanches 2020; Kroeber 2024). It therefore stands to reason that those who participate in committees are influential actors. The fact that we have not examined the representation of women in committees means that their role within the Canadian Parliament, and therefore their influence, is not fully understood (Pansardi and Vercesi 2017). Further, it has been noted by many scholars that committees, and in particular, committee assignments, are structured by country specific patterns, and therefore lessons from one locale cannot necessarily be extrapolated to others (Riera and Cantu 2018; Martin and Mickler 2019; Espírito-Santo and Rodrigues Sanches 2020). This study seeks to fill this lacuna and improve our understanding of representation in the Canadian House of Commons.

Representation and Responsiveness: Assessing Women's Group Lobbying in the Canadian Parliament: Erica Rayment (University of Calgary), Elizabeth McCallion (University of Toronto)
Abstract: The extent to which legislative institutions and actors respond to women’s needs and interests is an essential aspect of feminist democratic representation (Celis and Childs 2020). Women’s advocacy groups stake representative claims on behalf of women in the political sphere and serve an important bridging function between legislators and women in the population. In this paper we examine whether and to what extent lobbying by women’s advocacy groups informs legislative activity in the Canadian parliament. Drawing on an analysis of contact records compiled by the Lobby Commissioner and the content of parliamentary debate, we track patterns of lobbying activity by women’s advocacy groups from 2008 to 2023 in order to assess (1) whether women’s group lobbying responds or contributes to legislative policy action on women’s issues and (2) whether parliamentarians who are lobbied by women’s advocacy groups raise these groups’ issues in parliamentary debate. This study conceives of representation as a relational process and contributes to the literature on women’s representation in legislative contexts by assessing the responsiveness of parliamentarians to the lobbying efforts of the affected representatives of women.