I should like to comment on the fine article, “Party Loyalty and Electoral Volatility: A Study of the Canadian Party System,” by Paul M. Sniderman, H.D. Forbes, and Ian Melzer in the June 1974 (vii, no. 2) issue of this journal. This article should be a major corrective in the study of Canadian political parties. In addition, the authors provide a number of useful insights which should fruitfully guide future research on parties.

In the beginning of their article they point out that there is a “consensus among students of Canadian politics on the functions of parties and the nature of voting in Canada,” which consensus they call “the textbook theory of party politics.” Among the elements of this theory, according to the authors, is the interpretation that both major, old-line Canadian parties, the Liberals and Progressive Conservatives, are brokerage parties, and are, therefore, indistinguishable. Although the authors present evidence that calls into serious question other aspects of the “textbook theory,” such as the supposed lack of validity of the concept of party identification in Canada and the purported high level of electoral volatility of the Canadian voter compared to the British and American voter, the authors at the end of their article still accept important elements of the “textbook theory.” Thus, on page 286 they incorporate into their conclusion the idea that “it is surely true… that the major parties advance very similar platforms and share the same overall economic ideology.”

I was disturbed, and I understand my distress was shared by many others, to see the pages of such a respected scholarly periodical as the Canadian Journal of Political Science being so badly misused by a political bureaucrat for partisan purposes. I refer to the review of my book Nationalism, Communism, and Canadian Labour by Terence Morley, a longtime functionary of the New Democratic party, and now a graduate student at Queen's University.

Because I was critical of some of the activities of the CCF in the 1940s, made some kind remarks about the Communist party, and questioned some of the policies of international unions, Morley labels my book a “Waffle-inspired tract.” What utter nonsense! I am not a member nor even a supporter of the Waffle, as should be readily apparent to any intelligent reader of the book. Indeed, if Morley had done any reading over the past year since the book appeared he would have noted that in their reviews and speeches, Waffle leaders were critical of the book's implications – and rightly so given their ideology. But, quite clearly, to the Terence Morleys of Canada, to be even mildly critical of the ccf, immediately marks one as an enemy – as a member of the “Waffle” – just as critics in past years were denounced as “Communists.”

Although he is clearly unaware of the fact, I am, and have been for as long as I remember, a supporter of Mr Morley's own party.