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BQ in the House: The Nature of Sovereigntist Representation in the Canadian Parliament

2008; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 14; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/13537110802473274

1557-2986

Lori Young, Éric Bélanger,

Electoral Systems and Political Participation

Abstract We address the behavior of separatist parties participating in state legislatures in well-established democracies, taking the Bloc Québécois (BQ) as a case. Analysis of oral questions asked in the Canadian House of Commons reveals a broad set of issues addressed by the BQ; its aggregate priorities comprising many issues of federal concern. It is shown that the BQ's attention to issues of separation in Question Period mainly follows, rather than leads, public support in Quebec for sovereignty. The party appears on the whole limited in its ability to mobilize public support for sovereignty and to pursue its separatist agenda more rigorously. Lori Young is a graduate student in the Department of Political Science at McGill University. Her research interests include mass media and political communications, political behavior, public opinion and policy, Canadian and Quebec Politics, as well as quantitative research methods. She has a forthcoming publication in Political Communication. Éric Bélanger is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at McGill University. His research interests include political parties, public opinion, voting behavior, as well as Canadian and Quebec Politics. His work has been published in several scholarly journals such as Comparative Political Studies, Political Research Quarterly, Electoral Studies, Publius: The Journal of Federalism, and the Canadian Journal of Political Science. Notes 1. A previous version of this article was presented at the 2007 annual meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association, Saskatoon. We thank Stuart Soroka for very helpful comments and for granting us permission to use his data on oral questions in the Canadian House of Commons. We also thank Maurice Pinard for providing the public opinion data used in this article, and Jason Sorens for sharing with us his data on separatist parties in democracies. 2. Lynda Erickson, “The October 1993 Election and the Canadian Party System,” Party Politics, Vol. 1, No. 1 (1995), pp. 133–43. 3. For example, Scott L. Althaus, Collective Preferences in Democratic Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003); Robert S. Erikson, Michael B. MacKuen, and James A. Stimson, The Macro Polity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002); Benjamin I. Page and Robert Y. Shapiro, The Rational Public: Fifty Years of Trends in Americans’ Policy Preferences (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992). 4. For example, Frank R. Baumgartner and Bryan D. Jones, Agendas and Instability in American Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993); Frank R. Baumgartner and Bryan D. Jones, (eds.) Policy Dynamics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002); Stuart N. Soroka, Agenda-Setting Dynamics in Canada (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2002). 5. The list of parties in Table 1 is derived from Sorens’ data on all secessionist parties in well-established democracies from 1970–2000, kindly provided by the author. See Jason Sorens, “Globalization, Secessionism, and Autonomy,” Electoral Studies, Vol. 23, No. 4 (2004), pp. 727–52; Jason Sorens, “The Cross-Sectional Determinant of Secessionism in Advanced Democracies,” Comparative Political Studies, Vol. 38, No. 3 (2005), pp. 304–26. 6. Arend Lijphart, The Politics of Accommodation: Pluralism and Democracy in the Netherlands, 2nd ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974); Joseph R. Rudolph and Robert J. Thompson, “Ethnoterritorial Movements and the Policy Process: Accommodating Nationalist Demands in the Developed World,” Comparative Politics, Vol. 17, No. 3 (1985), pp. 291–311. 7. See Donald L. Horowitz, “Patterns of Ethnic Separatism,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 23, No. 2 (1981), pp. 165–95; Ted R. Gurr, Minorities at Risk: A Global View of Ethnopolitical Conflicts (Washington, DC: U.S. Institute of Peace Press, 1993); R. William Ayres and Stephen M. Saideman, “Is Separatism as Contagious as the Common Cold or as Cancer? Testing the International and Domestic Determinants of Secessionism,” Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, Vol. 6, No. 3 (2000), pp. 91–113; Stephen M. Saideman and R. William Ayres, “Determining the Causes of Irredentism: Logit Analyses of Minorities at Risk Data from the 1980s and 1990s,” Journal of Politics, Vol. 62, No. 4 (2000), pp. 1126–44; Barbara F. Walter, “Explaining the Intractability of Territorial Conflict,” International Studies Review, Vol. 5, No. 4 (2003), pp. 137–53. 8. For instance, in Gunther and Diamond's typology of party species, separatist parties are classified as either “nationalistic” or “ethnicity-based.” According to these criteria, the best one can expect from a tolerant pluralist nationalist party is a “semi-loyal or anti-system stand regarding issues of territorial governance” (p. 181), whereas ethnicity-based parties “do not advance a programme (whether incremental or transformative) for all of society” (p. 183). See Richard Gunther and Larry Diamond, “Species of Political Parties: A New Typology,” Party Politics, Vol. 9, No. 2 (2003), pp. 167–99. 9. See Herbert Kitschelt, The Radical Right in Western Europe: A Comparative Analysis (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1995). 10. Marc Swyngedouw and Gilles Ivaldi, “The Extreme Right Utopia in Belgium and France: The Ideology of the Flemish Vlaams Blok and the French Front National,” West European Politics, Vol. 24, No. 3 (2001), pp. 1–22. 11. Anna Cento Bull and Mark Gilbert, The Lega Nord and the Northern Question in Italian Politics (New York: Palgrave, 2001). 12. Lawrence C. Mayer, Erol Kaymak, and Jeff W. Justice, “Populism and the Triumph of the Politics of Identity: The Transformation of the Canadian Party System,” Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, Vol. 6, No. 1 (2000), pp. 72–102. 13. Sorens, “The Cross-Sectional Determinant,” pp. 304–326. 14. Trevor Lloyd, “Partition-within-Partition: The Irish Example,” International Journal, Vol. 53, No. 3 (1998), pp. 505–21. 15. Jeff W. Justice, “Of Guns and Ballots: Attitudes Towards Unconventional and Destructive Political Participation among Sinn Féin and Herri Batasuna Supporters,” Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, Vol. 11, No. 3 (2005), pp. 295–320. 16. Swyngedouw and Ivaldi, p. 1. 17. Chris Ross, “Nationalism and Party Competition in the Basque Country and Catalonia,” West European Politics, Vol. 19, No. 3 (1996), pp. 488–506; Mayer, Kaymak, and Justice, pp. 72–102. 18. Jeffrey C. Talbert and Matthew Potoski, “The Changing Public Agenda Over the Postwar Period,” in F. R. Baumgartner and B. D. Jones (eds.) Policy Dynamics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), pp. 189–204. 19. For instance, while it is true that criticizing the government for its handling of some other federal issues may help the BQ to make the case that sovereignty is desirable (for example, the problem of the “fiscal imbalance” in the early 2000s), the party must ultimately choose whether to ask a question about how to resolve the fiscal imbalance or how to separate from Canada. Regardless of how the question is framed, substantively addressing the fiscal imbalance necessarily forfeits a substantive question about sovereignty, reflecting finite issue priorities. 20. Erin Penner, Kelly Blidook, and Stuart N. Soroka, “Legislative Priorities and Public Opinion: Representation of Partisan Agendas in the Canadian House of Commons,” Journal of European Public Policy, Vol. 13, No. 7 (2006), pp. 1006–20. 21. Alain Noël, “Distinct in the House of Commons: The Bloc Québécois as Official Opposition,” in Douglas M. Brown and Janet Hiebert (eds.), Canada: The State of the Federation 1994 (Kingston: Institute of Intergovernmental Relations, 1994), p. 26. 22. For example, Donald S. MacDonald, “Challenges Facing Canada in 1994,” The Round Table, Vol. 83, No. 331 (1994), pp. 361–65. 23. Cf. Toronto Star, 2 Oct. 1993, p. B2. 24. Noël, p. 24. 25. Hansard, Debates, 35th Parliament, 1st Session, 1994–1996, January 19, 1994 (Ottawa: Canadian Government Publishing, 1994), p. 33. 26. Noël, p. 29. 27. Lucien Bouchard, Un nouveau parti pour l’étape décisive (Montreal: Fides, 1993), p. 106. 28. Thomas W. Gold, The Lega Nord and Contemporary Politics in Italy (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2003). 29. Damian Tambini, Nationalism in Italian Politics: The Stories of the Northern League (London and New York: Routledge, 2001). 30. Ross, 1996, pp. 488–506. 31. Anthony Fusaro, “Two Faces of British Nationalism: The Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru Compared,” Polity, Vol. 11, No. 3 (1979), pp. 362–86. 32. Roger Levy, “Finding a Place in the World-Economy. Party Strategy and Party Vote: The Regionalization of SNP and Plaid Cymru Support, 1979–92,” Political Geography, Vol. 14, No. 3 (1995), pp. 295–308. 33. Sorens, “The Cross-Sectional Determinant,” pp. 304–326. 34. Cameron D. Anderson and Elisabeth Gidengil, “Explaining the Vote for Sub-State Nationalist Parties: The SNP and the Bloc Québécois Compared,” paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Political Studies Association, Aberdeen, 2002. 35. Jack Brand, James Mitchell, and Paula Surridge, “Social Constituency and Ideological Profile: Scottish Nationalism in the 1990s,” Political Studies, Vol. 42, No. 4 (1994), pp. 616–29. 36. Neil MacCormick, “Is There a Constitutional Path to Scottish Independence?,” Parliamentary Affairs, Vol. 53, No. 4 (2000), pp. 721–36. 37. Levy, p. 305. 38. Bull and Gilbert, 2001, pp. 42–66; Gold, 2003, pp. 79–128. 39. Tambini, pp. 74–5. 40. Lloyd, 1998, pp. 508–513. 41. Ross, p. 500. 42. Ibid. 43. Marijke Breuning and John T. Ishiyama, “The Rhetoric of Nationalism: Rhetorical Strategies of the Volksunie and Vlaams Blok in Belgium, 1991–1995,” Political Communication, Vol. 15, No. 1 (1998), p. 12. 44. Noël, p. 25. 45. Noël, pp. 22–28; Anderson and Gidengil, pp. 1–25; André Blais, “Quebec: Raising the Stakes,” paper presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association, Calgary, 1994; Maurice Pinard, “Les fluctuations du mouvement indépendantiste depuis 1980,” in Maurice Pinard, Robert Bernier, and Vincent Lemieux (eds.), Un combat inachevé (Québec: Presses de l'Université du Québec, 1997), pp. 69–99. 46. With respect to the empirical analysis of issue attentiveness in the House of Commons, we refer to issues of “national unity” (rather than sovereignty) to reflect question coding. Indeed, questions about sovereignty were coded under a composite category of national unity issues relevant to all federal parties. 47. Soroka, pp. 66–73. 48. Anyone familiar with Question Period will know that a single question may touch on multiple topics. For reliability, in the case of a discrepancy, coders were trained to code the topic of the question asked rather than any issues raised in the preamble. The measure therefore captures the topic of substantive questions, not question framing. Practically speaking, this means that the salience of partisan issues may be underestimated—each party can and does tend to frame questions in terms of its core policy agenda, but questions are coded as such only when a substantive question is asked. Nevertheless, the measure empirically accounts for partisan agendas (below and elsewhere), suggesting that parties’ use of substantive questions meaningfully reflects their issue priorities. For a full description of the dataset design, coding methodology, and general trends, see Penner, Blidook, and Soroka, pp. 1009–1011. 49. James E. Crimmins and Paul Nesbitt-Larking, “Canadian Prime Ministers in the House of Commons,” Journal of Legislative Studies, Vol. 2, No. 3 (1996), pp. 145–71; Michael Howlett, “Predictable and Unpredictable Policy Windows: Institutional and Exogenous Correlates of Canadian Federal Agenda-Setting,” Canadian Journal of Political Science, Vol. 31, No. 3 (1998), pp. 495–524; Soroka, 2002; Penner, Blidook, and Soroka, pp. 1006–1020. 50. Abraham Diskin and Itzhak Galnoor, “Political Distances Between Knesset Members and Coalition Behavior: The Peace Agreement with Egypt,” Political Studies, Vol. 38, No. 4 (1990), pp. 710–17; Marijke Breuning, “Belgium's Foreign Assistance: Decision Maker Rhetoric and Policy Behavior,” Res Publica, Vol. 36, No. 1 (1994), pp. 1–21. 51. Penner, Blidook, and Soroka, p. 1009. 52. Daniel N. Chester and Nona Bowring, Questions in Parliament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962); Mark N. Franklin and Philip Norton (eds.), Parliamentary Questions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993); Soroka, pp. 66–73. 53. See Pinard, pp. 66–99; Gilles Gagné and Simon Langlois, Les raisons fortes: nature et signification de l'appui à la souveraineté du Québec (Montreal: Presses de l'Université de Montréal, 2002). 54. See Penner, Blidook, and Soroka, pp. 1008–1009. 55. Lowess-smoothing uses locally weighted least squares regression to graph the curvilinear relationship of the data points. The greater the bandwidth specified, the smoother the resulting trend line. See William S. Cleveland, “Robust Locally Weighted Regression and Smoothing Scatterplots,” Journal of the American Statistical Association, Vol. 74, No. 368 (1979), pp. 829–36. 56. Alain-G. Gagnon and Jacques Hérivault, “The Bloc Québécois: The Dynamics of a Distinct Electorate,” in Jon H. Pammett and Christopher Dornan (eds.), The Canadian General Election of 2004 (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2004), pp. 139–69. 57. For a more in-depth look at these constitutional issues during that period, see Alain-G. Gagnon, “Québec-Canada's Constitutional Dossier,” in Alain-G. Gagnon (ed.), Québec: State and Society, 3rd Edition (Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2004), pp. 127–49. 58. Gagnon and Hérivault, p. 153. 59. Soroka, p. 30; James P. Winter, Chaim H. Eyal, and Ann H. Rogers, “Issue-Specific Agenda-Setting: The Whole as Less Than the Sum of the Parts,” Canadian Journal of Communication, Vol. 8, No. 2 (1982), pp. 1–10. 60. Note that Figures 3 and 4 are less smoothed (bandwidth = .1) than Figure 1 (bandwidth = .2). Thus, the trend lines for Figures 3 and 4 follow the data more closely than Figure 1, even though all figures are produced using the same data. 61. Page and Shapiro, 1992; Éric Bélanger and François Pétry, “The Rational Public? A Canadian Test of the Page and Shapiro Argument,” International Journal of Public Opinion Research, Vol. 17, No. 2 (2005), pp. 190–212. 62. See C. W. J. Granger, “Investigating Causal Relations by Econometric Models and Cross-Spectral Methods,” Econometrica, Vol. 37, No. 3 (1969), pp. 424–38. 63. With a three-month lag, the Granger test's chi-squared value for BQt-3 → PO′ decreases to 3.68 and does not reach significance. With lags of more than three months, public opinion continues to Granger cause BQ attentiveness, but the reverse causal effect entirely ceases to be statistically significant. Complete results available upon request. 64. Bruno Maltais and Guy Lachapelle, “Pourquoi la lune de miel des Québécois avec le gouvernement Charest n'a pas duré,” in François Pétry, Éric Bélanger, and Louis M. Imbeau (eds.), Le Parti libéral: enquête sur les réalisations du gouvernement Charest (Québec: Presses de l'Université Laval, 2006), pp. 23–40. 65. Hansard, Debates, 36th Parliament, 2nd Session, 1999–2000, October 13, 1999 (Ottawa: Canadian Government Publishing, 1999), pp. 52–55. 66. Thomas J. Courchene, “Quebec and the Canadian Federation: From the 1980 Referendum to the Summit of the Canadas,” in Michael Murphy (ed.), Quebec and Canada in the New Century: New Dynamics, New Opportunities (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2007), pp. 201–32. 67. Peter Leslie, “Canada: The Supreme Court Sets Rules for the Secession of Quebec,” Publius: The Journal of Federalism, Vol. 29, No. 2 (1999), pp. 135–51; Andrée Lajoie, “The Clarity Act in Its Context,” in Gagnon, Québec: State and Society, pp. 151–64. 68. The House did not sit in January of 2000. 69. Gagnon and Hérivault, pp. 145–148. 70. Ibid. 71. Éric Bélanger and Richard Nadeau, “The Bloc Québécois: A Sour-Tasting Victory,” in Jon H. Pammett and Christopher Dornan (eds.), The Canadian Federal Election of 2006 (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2006), pp. 122–42. 72. Kanchan Chandra, Why Ethnic Parties Succeed: Patronage and Ethnic Head Counts in India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). 73. Sorens, “Globalization, Secessionism, and Autonomy,” pp. 727–752. 74. Courchene, pp. 201–232. 75. Noël, pp. 22–28; Richard Simeon, “Canada: Federalism, Language, and Regional Conflict,” in Ugo M. Amoretti and Nancy Bermeo (eds.), Federalism and Territorial Cleavages (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004), p. 117. 76. Bélanger and Nadeau, pp. 122–142. 77. Douglas M. Brown and Janet Hiebert (eds.), Canada: The State of the Federation 1994 (Kingston: Institute of Intergovernmental Relations, 1994), p. 7. 78. Simeon, p. 115.