Much of political science rests on assumptions about how policy makers and citizens behave. However, questions remain about how public policy can improve the government–citizen relationship. In this research note, we present behavioural insights (BI) as one way to address this gap. First, we argue that BI can be strategically used both to alleviate administrative burdens and to enhance citizen experience. Second, we argue that BI interventions can assist in several stages of the policy process, strengthening causal inferences about policy efficacy. Third, we present original data from Canada's ongoing experimentation with BI across multiple jurisdictions and areas of public policy. We conclude by acknowledging the myriad pathways through which BI research can engage with public policy to support the enhancement of citizen-oriented service delivery.

Perceptions of numbers (numerical estimations of migrant flows) and mental images (beliefs about characteristics and motives of immigrants) have been shown to be important predictors of cross-national immigration attitudes. However, this finding has seldom been verified in Canada. As a result, we know little about how Canadians estimate the amount and type of migrants coming into the country, what drives the generation of these numbers and images, and what the consequences of numerical estimations and mental images of immigration are for public attitudes toward immigration. Using nationally representative cross-sectional survey data from 2019, this article reports that Canadians generally overestimate the number of refugees and asylum-seekers coming into the country but are comparatively less prone to overestimating the overall number of immigrants. Canadians also rely on mental images about the reasons for immigrating to Canada that diverge from the realities of Canada's immigration program. We document how reliance on these numbers and images is driven by the type of media consumed, feelings of threat, and individual-level characteristics of Canadians. In doing so, this article demonstrates that mental images strongly influence Canadians’ attitudes toward immigration; numerical estimates also matter, but less so. Furthermore, perceptions of the number of migrants arriving affect latent preferences toward immigration—such as ethnocentrism, perceptions of “threat,” and border insecurity—while mental images shape both preferences for lowering immigration intake and latent preferences.

Public support is a critical component of any court’s institutional legitimacy. Understanding the roots and durability of such support is therefore crucial. This article uses survey data to explore public attitudes towards Canadian courts from 2008 to 2019. This time period is especially relevant given the comparatively tumultuous relationship between the Supreme Court and the Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper (2006–2015). Notably, partisanship now appears to be a defining characteristic of court support in Canada, with Conservative Party supporters being less likely to support the courts. While institutional trust is also found to be a strong predictor of court support, this suggests public attitudes towards Canadian courts may no longer be as well shielded from the effects of changing political circumstances as they once were.

Although Canada's first documented case of COVID-19 appeared in mid-January 2020, it was not until March that messaging about the need to contain the virus heightened. In this research note, we document the use of the media's construction of risk through framing in the early stages of the pandemic. We analyze three dimensions of the health risk narratives related to COVID-19 that dominated Canadians’ concerns about the virus. To capture these narratives, we examine print and online news coverage from two nationally distributed media sources. We assess these frames alongside epidemiological data and find there is a clear link between media coverage, epidemiological data and risk frames in the early stages of the pandemic. It appears that the media relied on health expertise and political sources to guide their coverage and was responsive to the public health data presented to Canadians.

The influence of party connection on the selection of judges has long been an issue in Canada This article considers whether such connections adversely affect the appointment of women judges to federally appointed courts. The answer appears to be yes. Using political donations as a proxy for party connection, the data analyzed here suggest that as the number of appointees with connections to the government rises, the number of women appointees falls. However, for appointments to provincial courts by the government of Ontario, the prevalence of political connections among judicial appointees is less prominent, suggesting that different systems of judicial appointment may help to lessen these effects.

In 2006, the Canadian government introduced a new component to its process of selecting Supreme Court justices, a review committee composed of members of Parliament. Tasked with interviewing justices prior to their appointment to the bench, the committee met four times, interviewing only five of the eight judicial candidates appointed to the bench before the Conservative government announced the committee's termination in 2014. This study offers the first comprehensive analysis of the performance of this ad hoc judicial review committee. Using an original dataset, we find that MPs asked little by way of probing questions, such as those related to policy or a candidate's previous jurisprudence. However, we do find some evidence that the hearing process was used to further the political aims of the participating political parties.

Despite an extensive dialogue on the subject of immigration, there has been little systematic cross-national investigation into the framing of immigration in the news media. Understanding the evolution of frames is an important piece of how we conceive of the link between the public's political priorities and policy makers’ responses. While the multi-directional relationships that exist between media, public policy and public opinion often pose challenges to precisely extracting media effects, there is still much that can be said about how the content and tone of immigration frames change over time in response to major policy changes or focusing events. Using automated content analysis (ACA) of print news data from Canada and Britain, I examine immigration framing from 1999 to 2013, identifying immigration-related frames in print news coverage and identifying trends in the volume and tone of frames over time. Results offer insight into striking commonalities in the frames used by each country's print media, and the divergent evolution in the emphasis on certain frames over others, largely predicated on coverage of focusing events.

Governments often introduce financial incentives to citizens in order to encourage ‘personally responsible’ behaviour. Examples of these types of incentives include tax-deferral or tax-free incentives around retirement savings. These types of incentives are shown to matter to investment strategies in the aggregate, but we still lack a full explanation as to how individuals respond to these types of incentives, and what role media play in advertising these incentives. This paper illustrates the potentially vital role that media play in enhancing contributions to one incentive-based policy, the Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP) in Canada (2000–2013), using aggregate contribution data, media data, as well as individual-level survey data from the Canadian Financial Capability Survey. Results show that media advertising of the programme influences contribution outcomes and, while media may not outweigh lifecycle effects such as proximity to retirement, it is nonetheless an essential – and overlooked – motivator for contributions to late-life savings.

While the act of adopting a new portfolio raises a number of interesting queries, little attention has been paid to portfolio adoption, what motivates and what conditions predicate it. The Canadian case provides an excellent laboratory to test some broadly held assumptions about portfolio adoption, particularly given the contrast of the ten provinces' unique political cultures with their shared jurisdictional roles. We illustrate our case using a dataset that contains information on 85 portfolio adoptions in the Canadian provinces since 1982. Findings suggest little by way of a clear set of partisan or institutional motivations for portfolio adoption, although there is some evidence that governments are more likely to adopt portfolios in the first 100 days of governing and they are more likely to do so when elected with larger caucuses, possibly because of the need to find larger roles for party loyalists.

This study examined the socioeconomic pathways linking partnership status to physical functioning, assessed using objective measures of late life physical functioning, including peak flow and grip strength. Using Wave 4 of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), we ran multilevel models to examine the relationship between partnership status and physical function in late life, adjusting for social-network characteristics, socioeconomic factors, and health behaviours. We found a robust relationship between partnership status and physical function. Incorporating social-network characteristics, socioeconomic factors, and health behaviours showed independent robust relationships with physical function. Co-variates attenuated the impact of cohabitation, separation, and widowhood on physical function; robust effects were found for singlehood and divorce. Sex-segregated analyses suggest that associations between cohabitation, singlehood, divorce, and widowhood were larger for men than for women. Results suggest that social ties are important to improved physical function.