A great number of polls have been made public by the media during the 1985 electoral campaign in Quebec. The polls correctly predicted the winning party, but were not very good for forecasting the actual vote. A difference of 3 percent has been observed between the prediction and the vote with respect to the Liberal party and third parties considered as a whole. It is shown that the discrepancy must be attributed more to those who do not answer polls at all than to those individuals not willing to reveal their vote intention. Finally, the campaign seems to have had a small impact on the vote, the Liberal party increasing its share by 2 per cent and third parties loosing many votes among those who were tempted to support them at the beginning of the campaign.

One of the most distinctive concepts for the study of public policy in Canada is that of policy or governing instruments. This article describes the origins of this literature, provides an overview of its theoretical claims, and evaluates some of these claims. It is argued, first, that the literature is too directly tied to particular theories of the state and of the policy-making process and that those ties are both unnecessary and constrain the usefulness of the concept of policy instruments. Second, the treatment of coercion as the central feature differentiating policy instruments is questioned and an alternative formulation is proposed.

This note extends the authors' earlier work on incumbency in Canadian federal and Ontario provincial elections by examining riding by riding results in the 1984 federal and 1985 Ontario provincial elections. In particular, the authors test their earlier hypothesis that incumbency effects are swamped by large shifts in voter preferences. The results indicate that incumbency had a significant impact, and that this impact was not reduced by the large shift in votes in the 1984 federal election. The authors reject the hypothesis that large shifts in party allegiance reduce incumbency effects.

This article examines the effect of the resource amendment (section 92A) on Canada's political economy. The analysis of the consequences of section 92A moves beyond the immediate changes in the distribution of legislative jurisdiction to examine the broader political implications. It is argued that the resource amendment is politically significant in several respects. It removes certain irritants from federal-provincial relations. By augmenting and clarifying provincial powers, the provinces' role in resource development is strengthened. The expansion of provincial legislative capacity gives the provinces more legitimacy and power at the political bargaining table.

We report on findings from alternative ways of assessing the meaning given to “left” and “right” by respondents in the 1984 National Election Study. Approximately 40 per cent of the sample supplied definitions of the concepts; in comparison, about 60 per cent stated their feelings toward left-wingers and right-wingers and described their political orientations using a seven-point left/right rating scale. Left signified socialism or communism for about one-half of those who supplied definitions, and dislike for left-wingers seemed to be associated with these conceptions of left. Right, which was much more highly regarded than left, signified conservatism for one-quarter of those who defined the term. We also factor analyzed respondents' self-ratings on the left/right scale along with their answers to 15 attitude statements. Left was weakly associated with support for labour's use of the strike weapon. In a criterion group of respondents who had completed university and who had ventured definitions of left and right, self-ratings correlated with factors tapping attitudes toward the military and toward economic disparity and social welfare. As expected, respondents' ratings of themselves on the left/right scale were more similar to their ratings of their preferred parties than to their ratings of other parties. The relationship between self-ratings and ratings of preferred parties generally varied directly with the strength of party identification. We conclude with some observations about the political utility of political labels such as left and right.

Abstract. This study provides data to answer a number of important questions concerning the financing of the three main political parties at the federal level between 1974 and 1984. It analyzes both the regulated campaign expenditures by parties and candidates and the unregulated party expenditures outside official campaign periods. The main focus is on the importance of different sources of contributions to each party: individuals, corporations, trade unions, and interest groups. New details are provided on large contributions by individuals and corporations, and on the contributions of the largest 500 nonfinancial enterprises in Canada. Finally, the study notes that despite new federal legislation concerning political contributions and expenditures in 1974 the relationship between contributions and influence remains shrouded in secrecy.

Prior to the 1984 Canadian federal electoral campaign, public opinion polls were predicting a Liberal victory. During the period of the campaign, the polls predicted a Conservative victory. What was it that produced this change among the electorate? This article attempts to respond to this question on the basis of an exploratory study carried out in the riding of Sudbury. The study shows that the focus of the election was less on the campaign platforms of the different parties than on the impossible mission facing the Liberal party and especially its leader.

Only in Prince Edward Island have voters tended to elect provincial administrations of the same party stripe as the federal government. The authorargues that this has not occurred purely by chance and that, in fact, provincial campaigns have historically revolved around the issue of being “in line” with Ottawa. Presently, support for federal-provincial partisan congruence is rooted in those Islanders who can be characterized as “political animals” as well as in the dominant groups of the Island's social structure. The author concludes that the deviating provincial election of 1982 does not represent a fundamental change in the Islanders’ political orientations.

It is widely held in the Northwest Territories that consensus rather than partisanship may be the most appropriate principle to guide the anticipated restructuring of the Territories' government. This note argues to the contrary that the social basis for consensus politics is absent in the NWT and that present practice in the Legislative Assembly of the NWT owes more to nonpartisanship than to consensus and does not predict a consensual future. However, this practice also does not necessarily point to a parliamentary system in the future; this study identifies four alternative systems as possibilities. It argues that, whatever the format of the Assembly, consociationalism, including significant devolution of power to local governments, represents the most promising direction to explore because it reflects the Territories' social structure and addresses the fundamental concerns of the cultural communities of the NWT.

Interpretation of the intentions of government in policy matters is a crucial, if normally implicit, aspect of policy analysis. Canadian policy analysts enjoy a significant advantage in having at their disposal a large body of legal-historical evidence of policy conflict between levels of government, which, if properly interpreted, can aid the process of determining the intentions of government policy. Using an example of conflicting interpretations of government intentions contained in the literature on Canadian political economy, it is argued that the use of legal-historical records can aid policy analysts by providing evidence of policy alternatives not only in the case of policy decisions, or “acts of commission,” but also in the case of nondecisions, or “acts of omission.”

At the end of 1983, after a long and bitter political struggle, the Swedes adopted a system of wage earner funds. The five regionally-based funds are directed by boards dominated by employees. Using funds transferred to them by government, they invest in Swedish companies, primarily by buying shares on the stock market. The fund scheme will enable employees collectively to own about 10 per cent of Swedish business by 1990. They could control far more. Only experience can determine the impact of this new form of social ownership. But possibly the Swedes have found a socially and democratically appealing means of retaining the advantages of a market system while integrating social and economic forces.

This note traces the reasoning behind Riker's addenda to Duverger's law, which exempts Canada and India from its general determinism. Characteristics common to Canada and India, but not to other countries using the plurality electoral system, are examined. The study finds that the uniqueness of those two federal nations employing the simple-majority system lies in the dominance of one national party, the weakness of the conventional alternative governing party, and the persistence of ideological parties of the left.