Regional Perspectives on Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms: A Re-examination of Democratic Elitism

Canadian Journal of Political Science

Volumn 33, Issue 2, 2000, Pages 359-382

  Vengroff, Richard ^a   Morton, F L ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY   (Canada)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0034392865     PISSN: 00084239     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/s0008423900000135     Document Type: Review

References (49)

1. Support for research on this article was provided by a Canadian Studies Research Grant from the government of Canada. The encouragement of Daniel Abele and Michele Jones of the Canadian embassy in Washington, D.C., is much appreciated. We also thank Carmen Cirincione, Martha Gibson, Patrick James, Christopher Manfredi, Paul Sniderman, George Sulzner, David Yalof and the anonymous reviewers of the JOURNAL for comments on an earlier draft. Various earlier drafts were presented at meetings of the New England Political Science Association, the Canadian Political Science Association and the American Council on Quebec Studies.
2. Paul M. Sniderman, Joseph Fletcher, Peter Russell and Philip Tetlock, The Clash of Rights (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996).
3. Ibid., 26, 42.
4. The survey was conducted in 1987, prior to the formation of the Reform party.
5. Ibid., 197.
6. Herbert McClosky, "Consensus and Ideology in American Politics," American Political Science Review 58 (1964), 361-82. See also, Herbert McClosky and Alida Brill, Dimensions of Tolerance: What Americans Believe about Civil Liberties (New York: Russel Sage Foundation, 1983).
7. Herbert McClosky, "Consensus and Ideology in American Politics," American Political Science Review 58 (1964), 361-82. See also, Herbert McClosky and Alida Brill, Dimensions of Tolerance: What Americans Believe about Civil Liberties (New York: Russel Sage Foundation, 1983).
8. Sniderman et al., Clash of Rights, 25-26.
9. Ibid., 3, 7, 52, 53.
10. Ibid., 52.
11. Ibid., 53.
12. Ibid., 53-54.
13. Ibid., 51.
14. Ibid., 24.
15. Ibid., 198.
16. Ibid., 84, 115, 123, 137, 142, 147, 150, 171, 197, 209.
17. Ibid., 171.
18. Ibid.
19. This however, ended with the 1995 election of the Mike Harris Conservative government, a result perhaps more consistent with the Sniderman et al. thesis than with ours.
20. F. L. Morton, Shawn Ho and Mathew Hennigar, "Charter Politics as Centre-Periphery Politics: A Study of What Governments Do in Court," paper presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association, St. Catharines, Ontario, 1996.
21. Seymour M. Lipset, Continental Divide (New York: Routledge, 1990).
22. Jon Alston, Theresa Morris and Arnold Vedlitz, "Comparing Canadian and American Values New Evidence from National Surveys," American Review of Canadian Studies 26 (1996), 301-14.
23. Ronald Inglehart, Modernization and Postmodernization (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), 4; also Neil Nevitte, The Decline of Deference, (Toronto: Broadview Press, 1996), 12.
24. Ronald Inglehart, Modernization and Postmodernization (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), 4; also Neil Nevitte, The Decline of Deference, (Toronto: Broadview Press, 1996), 12.
25. Nevitte, The Decline of Deference.
26. Ronald Inglehart, Neil Nevitte and Miguel Basanez, The North American Trajectory (New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1996).
27. Richard Simeon and David Elkins, "Regional Political Cultures in Canada," this JOURNAL 7 (1974), 397-437; and John Wilson, "The Canadian Political Cultures: Towards a Redefinition of the Canadian Political System," this JOURNAL 7 (1974), 438-83.
28. Richard Simeon and David Elkins, "Regional Political Cultures in Canada," this JOURNAL 7 (1974), 397-437; and John Wilson, "The Canadian Political Cultures: Towards a Redefinition of the Canadian Political System," this JOURNAL 7 (1974), 438-83.
29. Nevitte, The Decline of Deference.
30. Michael Adams, Sex in the Snow: Canadian Social Values at the End of the Millennium (Toronto: Viking, 1997).
31. Ian Brodie and Neil Nevitte, "Evaluating the Citizens' Constitution Theory," this JOURNAL 26 (1993), 235-60; and Ian Brodie and Neil Nevitte, "Clarifying Differences: A Rejoinder," this JOURNAL 26 (1993), 269-72.
32. Ian Brodie and Neil Nevitte, "Evaluating the Citizens' Constitution Theory," this JOURNAL 26 (1993), 235-60; and Ian Brodie and Neil Nevitte, "Clarifying Differences: A Rejoinder," this JOURNAL 26 (1993), 269-72.
33. Alan C. Cairns, "A Response to Ian Brodie and Neil Nevitte," this JOURNAL 26 (1993), 261-68.
34. Réjean Pelletier, "Postmaterialism and the Crisis of Parties in Quebec," Quebec Studies 24 (1997), 74-93.
35. Howard Cody, "Canada's Reform Party and Federal Symmetry," paper presented to the Association for Canadian Studies in the United States (ACSUS), Minneapolis, 1997.
36. F. L. Morton, The Charter Revolution and the Court Party (Toronto: Broadview Press, 1999).
37. Sniderman et al., The Clash of Rights.
38. Ibid., 50.
39. Ibid., 51.
40. See figure 2.13, in ibid., 50.
41. This represents the n that we were able to use. The sample of police officials was not included in this study.
42. These same groupings were employed with both the Sniderman et al. and the World Value Surveys. Since our concern is for the influence of regional/cultural differences on Charter attitudes and we include Alberta as a separate category from the prairies, we regrouped the regional attachments of elites in the Sniderman et al. study by comparing telephone area codes with region. This allowed us to sort out the Alberta sample and accurately assign individuals to regions by differentiating between an individual's province and current residence, especially for those working in Ottawa.
43. Items were selected to represent the key issues or issue groupings in the data set and the book on the basis of sample size. Since some questions were asked only of randomly selected subsets of the mass sample, wherever possible, we rely on questions posed across the board.
44. Charter education sessions offered since the 1980s in both Ottawa (National Judicial Institute) and Vancouver (Western Judicial Education Centre) reinforce this common socialization perspective.
45. The recent debates and Supreme Court ruling regarding the protection of gay rights in Alberta and the subsequent inaction of Premier Ralph Klein reinforce
46. Slightly more than half of the mass sample is composed of females (51.4%). It is interesting to note that the gender variable does not appear among the variables in the elite samples. It is assumed, based on other studies of gender disparities among elites, that it is heavily skewed in favour of males.
47. This may be related to the fact that during the decade preceding the Clash of Rights survey the governments of Alberta and Quebec were both involved in bitter policy battles with the federal government.
48. Martin Shapiro, Courts: A Comparative and Political Analysis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 24.
49. F. L. Morton, "The Effect of the Charter on Canadian Federalism," Publius 24 (1995), 173-88.