Religion and Canadian Party Politics

Religion and Canadian Party Politics
Author: David Rayside
Publisher: UBC Press
Total Pages: 449
Release: 2017-06-07
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0774835613

Religion is usually thought of as inconsequential to contemporary Canadian politics. Religion and Canadian Party Politics takes a hard look at just how much influence faith continues to have in federal, provincial, and territorial political arenas. Drawing on case studies from across the country, this book explores three important axes of religiously based contention in Canada. Early on, there were the denominational distinctions between Catholics and Protestants that shaped party oppositions. Since the 1960s, a newly politicized divide opened between religious conservatives and political reformers. Then from the 1990s on, sporadic controversy has centred on the recognition of non-Christian religious minority rights. Although the extent of partisan engagement with each of these sources of conflict has varied across time and region, this book shows that religion still matters in shaping party politics . This detailed look at the play of religiously based conflict and accommodation in Canada fills a large gap and pulls us back from overly simplified comparisons with the United States. More broadly, this book also compares the role of faith in politics in Canada to that of other Western industrialized societies.

Religion and Canadian Party Politics

Religion and Canadian Party Politics
Author: David Rayside
Publisher: UBC Press
Total Pages: 448
Release: 2017-05-26
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780774835602

Religion is usually thought of as inconsequential to contemporary Canadian politics. This book takes a hard look at just how much influence faith continues to have in federal, provincial, and territorial arenas. Drawing on case studies from across the country, it explores three important axes of religiously based contention – Protestant vs. Catholic, conservative vs. reformer, and, more recently, opponents vs. defenders of accommodating minority religious practices. Although the extent of partisan engagement with each of these sources of conflict has varied across time and region, the authors show that religion still matters in shaping political oppositions. These themes are illuminated by comparisons to the role faith plays in the politics of other Western industrialized societies.

Social Conservatives and Party Politics in Canada and the United States

Social Conservatives and Party Politics in Canada and the United States
Author: James Harold Farney
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 177
Release: 2012-01-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1442612606

"The strength of the Tea Party and Religious Right in the United States, alongside the Harper Conservatives' stance on same-sex marriage and religious freedom in Canada, has many asking whether social conservatism has come to define the right wing of North American politics. In this timely and penetrating book, James Farney provides the first full-length comparison of social conservatism in Canada and the United States from the sexual revolution to the present day. Based on archival research and extensive interviews, it traces the historic relationship between social conservatives and other right-wing groups. Farney illuminates why the American Republican Party was quicker to accept social conservatives as legitimate and valuable allies than the Conservative Party of Canada. This book will be indispensable for understanding why a movement so powerful among American conservatives has been distinctively less important in Canada and how the character of Canadian conservatism means it will likely remain so."--Publisher's website.

Pro-Family Politics and Fringe Parties in Canada

Pro-Family Politics and Fringe Parties in Canada
Author: Chris MacKenzie
Publisher: UBC Press
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2006-01-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0774843675

Pro-Family Politics and Fringe Parties in Canada explores the organizational and ideological nature of political parties that are initially formed to do the work of social movements. Specifically, it examines the development of the Family Coalition Party of British Columbia (FCP) from its origins as a group of alienated Social Credit Party members to its rebirth as the Unity Party of British Columbia, and through its struggles as a marginal political entity along the way. While addressing the FCP's relationship to the larger North American pro-family movement, Chris MacKenzie also deftly demonstrates how the party can be seen as organizationally congruent with its ideological antithesis, the Green Party. Basing his findings on seven years of field research, he identifies the obstacles that political parties involved in social movement work must overcome in order for them to achieve their goals. He concludes that, despite their invaluablecontribution to democracy, such party / movements have limited political institutionalization. Consequently, their only realistic goal may be to merge their ideals with those of another, larger political body. This book makes a substantial contribution to our understanding of the genesis, development, and impact of political party / movements in Canada. Moreover, it provides useful insight into the dynamics and issues that make up the current pro-family movements in Canada and the United States.

The Canadian Party System

The Canadian Party System
Author: Richard Johnston
Publisher: UBC Press
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2017-09-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0774836105

The Canadian party system is a deviant case among the Anglo-American democracies. It has too many parties, it is susceptible to staggering swings from election to election, and its provincial and federal branches often seem unrelated. Unruly and inscrutable, it is a system that defies logic and classification – until now. In this political science tour de force, Richard Johnston makes sense of the Canadian party system. With a keen eye for history and deft use of recently developed analytic tools, he articulates a series of propositions underpinning the system. Chief among them was domination by the centrist Liberals, stemming from their grip on Quebec, which blocked both the Conservatives and the NDP. He also takes a close look at other peculiarities of the Canadian party system, including the stunning discontinuity between federal and provincial arenas. For its combination of historical breadth and data-intensive rigour, The Canadian Party System is a rare achievement. Its findings shed light on the main puzzles of the Canadian case, while contesting the received wisdom of the comparative study of parties, elections, and electoral systems elsewhere.

God's Province

God's Province
Author: Clark Banack
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
Total Pages: 291
Release: 2016-06-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0773599312

Compared to the United States, it is assumed that religion has not been a significant factor in Canada’s political development. In God’s Province, Clark Banack challenges this assumption, showing that, in Alberta, religious motivation has played a vital role in shaping its political trajectory. For Henry Wise Wood, president of the United Farmers of Alberta from 1916 until 1931, William "Bible Bill" Aberhart, founder of the Alberta Social Credit Party and premier from 1935 until 1943, Aberhart’s protégé Ernest Manning, Alberta’s longest serving premier (1943–1968), and Manning’s son Preston, founder of the Alberta-based federal Reform Party of Canada, religion was central to their thinking about human agency, the purpose of politics, the role of the state, the nature of the economy, and the proper duties of citizens. Drawing on substantial archival research and in-depth interviews, God’s Province highlights the strong link that exists between the religiously inspired political thought and action of these formative leaders, the US evangelical Protestant tradition from which they drew, and the emergence of an individualistic, populist, and anti-statist sentiment in Alberta that is largely unfamiliar to the rest of Canada. Covering nearly a century of Alberta’s history, Banack offers an illuminating reconsideration of the political thought of these leaders, the goals of the movements they led, and the roots of Alberta’s distinctiveness within Canada. A fusion of religious history, intellectual history, and political thought, God’s Province exposes the ways in which individual politicians have shaped one province’s political culture.

Faith in Democracy? Religion and Politics in Canada

Faith in Democracy? Religion and Politics in Canada
Author: Boris DeWiel
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 205
Release: 2009-01-14
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1443804290

This collection of essays questions the capacity of Canadian democracy to promote religious pluralism and recognize disparate faith groups as legitimate players on the political stage. These are more than rhetorical questions, as issues and public policies in contemporary Canada reflect an increasing concern that religion and religious belief ought not to intrude in political debate and matters of governance. Despite playing an active role in Canadian politics in the past, religious faith now risks relegation to the private sector. Efforts to push religious belief outside the public square set a dangerous precedent, provide rationale for further exclusion rather than inclusion, and logically culminate in monism rather than pluralism. Faith in Democracy focuses on contemporary challenges to religious pluralism in Canada with attention to the changing religious landscape throughout the country. These challenges are both old and new. They include such tasks as reconciling universal and particular perspectives of liberalism in law and recognizing the limits of secularism as an emergent dominant faith. How Canada responds to these challenges will not only influence public policy, but also test its commitment to democracy.

Faith, Politics, and Sexual Diversity in Canada and the United States

Faith, Politics, and Sexual Diversity in Canada and the United States
Author: David Rayside
Publisher: UBC Press
Total Pages: 480
Release: 2011-03-07
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0774820128

For decades, agitation by lesbians, gays, and other sexual minorities for political recognition has provoked a heated response among religious activists, many of whom fear that moral decay is a necessary accompaniment to the public recognition of sexual diversity. For their part, queer rights groups worry about the policy ramifications of accommodating faith in the public sphere. This remarkable comparative study explores the interplay of sexual diversity and religious faith in the United States and Canada, and examines how interest group mobilization, political party ties to religious constituencies, court rulings, public policy, and debates over sexuality within faith communities have contributed to conflict and bridge-building in both countries. A timely discussion of faith, sexuality, and political conflict, Faith, Politics, and Sexual Diversity reveals that, despite the presence of tenacious anti-gay sentiment, religious adherence does not invariably entail opposition to the political recognition of queer rights.

The Oxford Handbook of Canadian Politics

The Oxford Handbook of Canadian Politics
Author: John Courtney
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 569
Release: 2010-04-29
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 019533535X

The Oxford Handbook of Canadian Politics provides a comprehensive overview of the transformation that has occurred in Canadian politics since it acheived autonomy nearly a century ago, examining the institutions and processes of Canadian government and politics at the local, provincial and federal levels. It analyzes all aspects of the Canadian political system: the courts, elections, political parties, Parliament, the constitution, fiscal and political federalism, the diffusion of policies between regions, and various aspects of public policy.

C. S. Lewis on Politics and the Natural Law

C. S. Lewis on Politics and the Natural Law
Author: Justin Buckley Dyer
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 173
Release: 2016-08-08
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1107108241

This book shows how Lewis was interested in the truths and falsehoods about human nature and how these conceptions manifest themselves in the public square.