Political Leadership and Representation in Canada: Essays in Honour of John C. Courtney (review)

Academics honoured by Festschrifts can surely ask for no more than well-written original research studies and interpretive analyses from former students and eminent senior colleagues on topics central to their teaching and research interests. Such is the accomplishment of this fine volume in honour of John Courtney, one of Canada’s most respected political scientists, edited by three University of Saskatchewan colleagues.

Courtney has written authoritatively on Canadian political and governmental institutions: political parties, especially their leadership selection processes; the workings of Parliament; and the complex rules and procedures for conducting elections. The book’s title, reflecting Courtney’s intellectual enthusiasms, presages the authors’ explorations of Courtneyesque topics.

Reviews of edited collections often note a certain ‘unevenness’ – a polite way of saying that some contributions are strong, some decent, and others less than decent. Not so here. Each chapter well repays reading; none could be described as weak. Especially impressive is the extent of original research and the authors’ capacity to convey their findings in clear, jargon-free prose – even those relying heavily on statistical data and quantitative techniques. A few words about each chapter.

In pursuing one of Courtney’s central interests – party leadership conventions – Ken Carty perceptively analyses the long-term transformation of Canadian political parties, emphasizing organizational changes, such as the relationship between the central party apparatus and local constituency associations.

Elisabeth Gidengil and André Blais contribute a sophisticated (yet readily understandable by non-quantitative types) analysis demonstrating the surprisingly low and apparently declining influence of party leaders on vote choice in Canada. They also produce intriguing data showing that virtually all federal political party leaders’ personal popularity declines over time.

Cristine de Clercy seeks out long-term trends in national party leaders’ ‘survival’ – their time in office. In this useful contribution to the sparse Canadian literature on politicians’ departure from office, she shows clearly that survival rates are declining across all parties. Despite observing that political success, measured by electoral victories, is the best guarantee of survival, she does not explicitly compare prime ministers’ tenure with that of opposition leaders, which would have made for a more convincing argument.

The case studies in Leslie Seidle’s analysis of ‘citizens speaking for themselves’ are three recent experiments in public involvement in policy review and development, reflecting dissatisfaction with traditional channels of political representation. Seidle’s clear-eyed assessment of their strengths and shortcomings leads into an important discussion of the relationship between new forms of public participation and conventional representative institutions.

Four decades after Courtney’s dissertation on royal commissions, Gregory Marchildon revisits his research question and finds royal commissions useful and legitimate vehicles for developing new policy approaches. Marchildon proposes a set of criteria for determining when recourse to royal commissions is appropriate and applies them to two influential examples: the Hall Commission of the 1960s and the recent Romanow Commission.

Peter Ferguson’s welcome, if discouraging, chapter looks at the effectiveness of recent changes to the Elections Act, requiring news media to provide standardized information on and citizen access to political polling data. Following a helpful review of political polling and media reportage on it, he presents data demonstrating convincingly that ‘the law has failed to produce compliance,’ leaving voters without the information needed to make informed decisions about polling results.

In identifying and explaining what he terms Canada’s ‘democratic malaise’ George Perlin focuses on civic education, or rather the lack of it, warning that neglect of this essential element ‘will progressively weaken our democracy.’

Stéphane Dion, in an essay written during his time on the backbenches, considers institutional reform and finds himself in agreement with Courtney’s dictum that ‘yesterday’s reform often is today’s problem.’ Dion takes issue with the conventional wisdom about growth of an all-powerful ‘centre’ – the prime minister and his entourage. While predictably cautious about sweeping Senate reform, he argues for significant...