Legislative Activity in the Canadian House of Commons: Does Majority or Minority Government Matter?
This study assesses the impact of majority and minority governments on legislative activity in the Canadian House of Commons. The quantitative analysis spans the 22nd to the 40th Parliaments (1953–2009) and examines legislative productivity and success by government type. The analysis of descriptive data confirms that minority governments are somewhat less productive and successful than their majority counterparts. However, the analysis emphasizes significant variation for majority governments. Neither governing context guarantees success or failure as contextual factors largely condition legislative activity.
Committee performance in the Senate of Canada: some sobering analysis for the chamber of ‘sober second thought’
While Senate reform is a continual topic of interest for partisans, academics, and the media in Canada, the nature of the Senate's legislative activity is less widely reported. That the Senate provides sober, well-researched political advice through its committee work is the refuge of ardent Senate defenders. However, what type of policy work do Senate committees accomplish and in what volume? This paper investigates Senate committees' policy reports and legislative output with an original dataset covering the 34–40th parliaments (1988–2011). The findings highlight committees' contributions to the legislative process, empirically testing long-held hypotheses about the Senate's legislative behaviour.
Parliamentary Experience and Representational Role Orientations in Canada
The hypothesis that legislators' role orientations reflect both preelection and "on the job" experiences has seldom been tested. Panel data on Canadian freshman MPs indicate that although new members have reasonably accurate general images of their jobs before entering the House, considerable change in the emphasis accorded constituency occurs during the first term. As anticipated, MPs representing rural ridings tend to give increasing emphasis to constituency in representational role style and focus. In contrast, progressively ambitious MPs de-emphasize constituency-particularly in their representational styles. Contrary to expectations, relationships between experience as a parliamentary secretary and the salience of constituency in representational roles are very weak. The paper concludes by arguing that political ambition is a key variable for understanding shifts in legislators' role orientations, and that future research should explore interactions between ambition and members' parliamentary office-holding experiences.