POLS 1400 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Royal Assent, Red Tory, Elections Canada
18 Oct 2016
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Week 4: federal elections, voting, and electoral systems. An organized group that nominates candidates and contests elections in order to influence the personnel and policies of government. Functions: organized public opinion; provide leadership; provide symbols of allegiance; provide integration. Pre-requisites: active leadership; freely recruited following; procedures; ideology; issues. History of political parties in canada: 1867-1896: one party dominance, 1896-1921: classic two party system, 1921-1993: two-plus party system, 1993: multi party with dominant party. Sources of party finance: membership fees, individual contributions, contributions from corporations and unions. The decline of political parties: fair elections act, rise of interest groups: doing a much better job of informing citizens than parties can, tv/media, public opinion polls, professionalization of politics . Who has the right to vote: youth/children- decrease the age of voting, criminals behind bars, homeless people, new canadians, mentally handicapped canadians, aboriginal canadians- only since 1960 federallyx. Difficult for women and minorities to get elected.
