Transforming Redistributive Politics in Canada

Keith Banting, Queens University

John Myles, University of Toronto

The Fading of Redistributive Politics

Organizational Politics

Political parties

Business and Labour

Civil Society Organizations

Institutional Politics

A more decentralized federation

A more centralized bureaucracy

Ideas

Taxation policy

Labour market policy

Organizational Politics: The Combatants

Political Parties

Economic Interests: Business and Labour

Civil Society organizations

Changing party politics

Initial restructuring under the old politics 1993-97: unusual electoral slack

A subsequent realignment of party system? Decline of centre party; left-right polarization

Comparative perspectives Polarization common under majoritarian electoral systems

Polarized party systems tend to be dominated by the right;

conservative governments are three times more likely under such

electoral systems (Iversen and Soskice 2006).

Canada has never been governed (at the federal level) by a party of the left; but neither, uniquely among majoritarian systems, was it dominated by a party of the

right. That part of Canadas electoral history seems to have ended. (Johnston)

Changing group politics

Weakening of voices speaking for economic

interests of low-income Canadians Unions (versus business representation)

Social movements, advocacy organizations

Socially oriented research/think tanks

Patterns of political engagement Lower voter turnout among the poor and unskilled

Protest politics no longer the vehicle of the dispossessed

The Battlefield: Changing Institutional politics

Federalism: decline in federal role Decentralization

Social policy no longer seen as an instrument of territorial

integration

Bureaucratic shifts

From line departments (advocates)

... To central agencies

Provinces and redistribution

Can provinces reinvigorate redistribution? Additional constraint of regional tax competition

Comparative studies of fiscal federalism

Constraint when intergovernmental transfers are low

Redistribution declined more at the provincial than the

federal level (Frenette, Green and Milligan 2009)

Changes in social assistance

Changes in taxation

Gini Coefficients, All Family Units, After Tax Income, Ontario and Quebec, 1976-2009

0.24

0.26

0.28

0.3

0.32

0.34

1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008

Ontario

Quebec

Importance of policy coalitions QUEBEC: coalitions among the historic champions of

the welfare state

EUROPE: social policy innovations increasingly

depend on new cross-class coalitions beyond the historic champions of the welfare state (Husermann 2010).

CRITICAL ROLE OF THE MIDDLE CLASS

Choice: tax cuts versus social spending

Does the middle class align with the top or bottom?

SOCIAL POLICY FUTURES