politics

Many Canadians who will not vote Green will confide that they rather like Elizabeth May. She stands out as the only female party leader, and given her fourth-party status she can speak with a candour others won’t risk.

Societies have conversations with themselves. Sometimes these conversations are so noisy that everyone is forced to pay attention. In Canada, our noisiest conversations since World War II have been Quebec sovereignty and the War Measures Act.

As this year’s federal election approaches, the Conservative government is increasingly crystallizing its offer to voters around a single promise: security. The economy has been removed from the party’s display window, replaced by the global fight against ISIS and its sympathizers, some abroad, some next door.

What has Stephen Harper done to Canada? To some, that‟s a rueful, rhetorical question. To them it‟s obvious: this government has changed the country drastically and for the worse.

What does the public expect from governments, and how well do they believe their country, province and local municipality are governed?

Over the past eight years, the federal Conservatives have seldom missed an opportunity to show Canadians how seriously they take crime and how eager they are to make convicted offenders sorry for their transgressions.

The AmericasBarometer is a multi-country public opinion survey on democracy, governance and civic engagement, conducted every two years by a consortium of of research partners across the western hemisphere. The 2014 survey included 26 countries, encompassing 99% of the population of the Americas.

When U.S. President Barack Obama won 71 per cent of the Hispanic vote in 2012, it dealt the final blow to an idea that had been popular during George W. Bush’s years: that Hispanic Americans’ conservative values on social issues (rooted in their predominantly Catholic religiosity), made them “natural” Republicans.

Much has been made of a purported rightward shift in Canadian values. But research shows that Canadians still want government in their lives, and a majority are not embracing conservative social values.

Justin Trudeau, leader of a Liberal Party that many recent polls have found nudging ahead of the Conservatives, is fond of describing his growing army of young volunteers across the country.