Brokerage Parties in Canada

Rhys Molander - POL 322 - 301378206

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 In Canadian politics parties are the primary driver of political discussions and for

the representation of those discussions in parliament. However since confederation

each of the 23 prime ministers have come from either the Liberal or the Conservative

party of the time. Since Canada has been controlled by a two party system since

formation the question has come up whether the difference between the parties is

ideological or just an issue of who holds government. This is the split between the

brokerage and responsible models of government of which Canada appears to be a mix

of both.

The brokerage model posits that parties operate on an institutional model rather

than an ideological one. This means that parties operate on an centrist consensus

model to maximize voter turnout and the party platforms converge to appear quite

similar. (Wesley, 2009, 212) In brokerage parties though the political differences still

exist but they are within the parties rather than between the parties. This can mean that

while political differences are worked out within parties there may not seem to be as

much of a difference between parties to a voter on the outside.

In a responsible party model the parties have clear ideological lines to provide

alternative policies from their competitors, the parties are also internally consistent. This

provides greater choice between platforms to voters. Any democracy is unlikely to be

entirely within the brokerage model or the responsible model but may lean more to one

side or another as Canada has been theorized to do towards the brokerage model.

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(Wesley, 2009, 213) The most recent election that could give an example of party

politics on the national level would be the election in October of 2019 which while not

necessarily a ‘standard’ election it will provide insight on the current state of the

Canadian party system. Using the party platforms of the 2019 election and past analysis

of Canadian elections where on the scale between the brokerage and responsible

models can be determined.

To analyze the platforms of parties the traditional left-right model will be utilized.

The left wing is regularly defined as using the government to ensure the well-being of

people through the use of social welfare programs, nationalization, and other courses

characterized by collectivization. The right wing is the reverse with positions on the

government, they prefer no intervening in markets and commonly lean towards

conservative social beliefs. The center of course a compromise between the social

welfare of the left and the free markets of the right. (Gagnon et al., 2016, 110) Since the

party platform is the first way that parties communicate their views to the public, it will be

used as the main definer of where parties lay on the left-centre-right scale.

The Liberal Party is characterized by the political scientists and routinely by the

party itself as being positioned in the centre, this was no different in the 2019 election in

which it moved towards the centre from its more centre-left position during its successful

2015 campaign. The party was still under the leadership of Justin Trudeau who had

been through multiple scandals during the past four years with the most influential being

that of SNC-Lavalin. As such it was looking primarily to keep it government and so it

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took a moderated approach. Firstly this can be reflected by their stances on the

economy which included a mix of tax raises and tax cuts, it also included a variety of

bursaries to businesses to promote various causes from sustainability to small business

in general. This shows that while the Liberal party is willing to intervene in the economy

it does not do so directly but instead through grants and taxes. They continued their

trend of placing emphasis on the Middle Class and continued to prefer running a deficit

to making major cuts on spending. (​CBC News,​ 2019) On security, the Liberals held an

interventionist point of view with a focus on peacekeeping and soft influence rather than

the erratic actions of the Trump administration in the states. (​Maclean’s​, 2019) The

climate had become a much greater topic during the 2019 election and the Liberals

addressed it with the carbon tax, though they also continued to support the construction

pipelines through BC. (​CBC News​, 2019) The Liberal Party avoided the use of

ideological language making their slogan “Forward” in an attempt to highlight the

successes of the previous four years. Ultimately they made it through with a minority

government.

Going into the election the conservatives had just suffered a split as Maxime

Berneir formed the People’s Party of Canada and was hoping to make a return to power

under party leader Andrew Scheer. The party was focused on taking advantage of the

scandals which Trudeau's first four years saw while trying to keep social conservatives

by avoiding taking a clear stance on many of the social causes that were supported by

the other three parties. On the economy the conservatives took their expected platform

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of giving tax credits, cuts, and reducing taxes in general. The conservatives also

planned to reduce the deficit that had formed by creating austerity measures and cutting

funding to many services. On the subject of security the conservative party opposed

increasing restrictions on firearms and wanted to follow in the interventionist steps of the

United States in taking aggressive action against Iran. For climate the conservative

platform paid lip service to subsidies towards companies producing green technology

but sided mostly with the oil and gas industry by planning to approve projects that were

still in the pipeline and by repealing the federal carbon tax. (​CBC News, 2019)

Individualist aspects of the conservative party were amplified in campaign

advertisements that promised to put money in canadian’s pockets and using the slogan

“It's time for you to get ahead.” The conservative party, especially that of the Harper

years can very much reflect the idea of a brokerage party that avoids ideological debate

and rather offered change in “personnel and style than a significant alteration of the

socioeconomic structure.” (Gagnon et al, 2016, 163) This way of campaigning made an

impact on the other parties as they too drifted to meet this form in order to compete with

the conservatives.

The New Democratic Party was hoping to take advantage of the problems that

had arisen during the Liberal Party’s four year majority in parliament. While the new

leader Jagmeet Singh had made a good impression during rallies and the leaders

debates the party still had major issues selecting candidates and preparing for the

upcoming election, which was worsened by the negative media coverage that

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accompanied it. The actual campaign of the New Democrats avoid the focus on the

middle class and rather referred to Canadians in general, it also echoed the rising tide

of left-wing change that had been occuring in the United States with the slogan “a new

deal for people.” This suggested a more radical change than what would occur under

the Liberals or Conservatives but avoided announcing a specific ideological position. On

the economy the NDP took the stance of increasing taxes on the wealthy in order to

fund expanded government initiatives with a focus on a national pharmacare program.

On the flip side the actual budget was not as much of priority with no target date to

balance the budget. On security the NDP wanted to give cities greater power over gun

regulations and to specifically target hate crimes and discrimination. As with previous

campaigns domestic policy concerns came before foreign policy. The climate was a

major point on the NDP’s agenda with it following in the steps of the progressive

democrats in the United State’s proposals of a ‘Green New Deal,’ but Singh had trouble

taking a stance on some of the oil and gas projects that had been under development,

especially with those in British Columbia. (​CBC News,​ 2019) The 2019 election saw the

worst loss for the NDP since 2004 with many of their seats lost to the Bloc Quebecois.

This loss had been attributed to several issues being poor party management, or

positions such as if it was the parties move away from the ideological moderation of the

Layton era or it was that the party had not moved far enough left to distinguish itself

from the Liberals.

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 The 2019 election finally saw climate change become a leading issue with every

party being compelled to face it. The Green Party was well positioned and prepared for

this and with it finally left fringe party status behind and was recognized as a major

party. It is somewhat unique compared to the other three parties in that it could both be

seen as an ideological and a brokerage party. The party is unified by the goal of

environmentalism but has many differing opinions within the party structure on how to

reach its green goals. The idea of the party only being environmentally oriented is also

one that it has been trying to shake by adopting a more diverse number of policies to

provide an alternative to the three major parties. Economically its platform is certainly

more similar to the NDP than to the Conservatives or Liberal, with a raise in taxes on

wealth in order to balance the budget, the Greens were differentiated from the NDP

positions by endorsing the implementation of Universal Basic Income in Canada. Their

environmental policies were of course the most extensive out of any of the parties, with

plans to phase out oil and gas and make massive investments into sustainable

technologies. (​CBC News,​ 2019) The Green party campaign made an attempt to detach

itself from the left right scale through the slogan, “Not Left. Not Right. Forward.”

By the platforms the parties appear to be riding the thin line between brokerage

and responsible politics. The party platforms have clear policy differences which do not

seem to be communicated to the voting population as the parties do not hold absolute

control over public perception. The media may be partially responsible as while those

within the parties consider each other distinct media coverage is not featuring this as

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much. Coverage of party campaigns will usually highlight the personalities of candidates

sometimes overlooking policy differences. There may also be a split caused by differing

perspectives between the priorities of the electorate and the party platforms thus

making it appear that there is no difference between parties on the issues that matter to

voters. In this the parties may provide the policies but not the politics and leadership

desired by the electorate. It is this area where how the voters perceive the parties

matters more than how the parties actually are. (Wesley, 2009, 229)

The system of catch-all brokerage parties is also being hit by the establishment

of new forms of campaigning to adapt to new networking technologies. The new

campaign form has been called catch-enough because rather than focusing on getting

as many votes as possible these parties use voter information to focus their promises to

specific demographics. This is driven by new methods in data analytics driven by the

explosive growth of social media giving access to greater personal information and

targeted advertising. (Gagnon et al. 2016, 20) The new marketing orientation of political

campaigning may be bringing to an end the ideas of responsible and brokerage parties.

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 References

2019 federal election platform guide: Where the parties stand on everything. (2019,

April 30). ​Maclean's​. Retrieved from

https://www.macleans.ca/politics/2019-federal-election-platform-guide-where-the-

parties-stand-on-everything/

Gagnon, A. G., & Tanguay, B. (2016). ​Canadian Parties in Transition​ (4th ed.).

Totonto, (Ont.): University of Toronto Press.

Watters, H. (2019, September 17). How do the main parties compare on these

issues? ​CBC News.​ Retrieved from

https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/elections/federal/2019/party-platforms/

Wesley, J. J. (2009). In Search of Brokerage and Responsibility: Party Politics in

Manitoba. ​Canadian Journal of Political Science,​ ​42(​ 1), 211–236. doi:

10.1017/s0008423909090088