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Using an original dataset of appointments to Ontario's provincial and superior courts from 1972 to 2012, this article explores whether the system of judicial appointment affects the representation of women on the bench. In addition to providing a comprehensive review of judicial appointments in Ontario, the article finds that since the introduction of new judicial appointments systems by the federal and Ontario governments in 1989, the provincial system appointed approximately 5 percent more women judges. The data also reveals that Conservative parties were less likely to appoint women to the bench than the Liberal Party and NDP over this forty-year period. If diversity on the bench is to be a serious policy objective for governments, this research indicates that certain approaches may prove more effective than others. In particular, Ontario's provincial nominating committee system has been more successful in appointing women judges—especially in the years it actively recruited women applicants—than the federal government's review committee system.

AbstractPublic support is a critical component of any court's institutional legitimacy. Understanding the roots and durability of such support is therefore crucial. This article uses survey data to explore public attitudes towards Canadian courts from 2008 to 2019. This time period is especially relevant given the comparatively tumultuous relationship between the Supreme Court and the Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper (2006–2015). Notably, partisanship now appears to be a defining characteristic of court support in Canada, with Conservative Party supporters being less likely to support the courts. While institutional trust is also found to be a strong predictor of court support, this suggests public attitudes towards Canadian courts may no longer be as well shielded from the effects of changing political circumstances as they once were.

AbstractThis article analyzes an important discretionary power of the Supreme Court of Canada, the ability to award costs. With the use of an original data set, we explore trends in costs awarding in public interest litigation at the Supreme Court from 1970 to 2012. Our findings suggest that, over time, the Court has tended to favour nongovernment parties over government parties where the former are less likely to pay costs when they lose and more likely to receive costs when they win. In these cases, costs orders were more likely to benefit public interest litigants, such as nongovernmental organizations, than individual litigants and businesses. Together, these findings suggest a sensitivity to access to justice concerns when making costs orders, though some may argue that this sensitivity by the Court does not extend far enough.

Deciding how to regulate money during elections is a critical policy choice faced by every democracy. Over the last two decades, both the United Kingdom and Canada have implemented substantial revisions to their electoral laws, including policy measures designed to regulate third party spending. Despite similar policy objectives, the countries' approaches to regulation differ, leaving the potential for significant variation in third party spending outcomes. These differences between countries, with otherwise very similar policy goals and systems of government, provide a unique opportunity to build and test a comparative policy evaluation framework for third party campaign spending. By examining these differences and similarities, this article builds a framework for election policy evaluation that can be adapted to serve as a template for future policy evaluation, facilitating comparative research.

AbstractThe influence of party connection on the selection of judges has long been an issue in Canada This article considers whether such connections adversely affect the appointment of women judges to federally appointed courts. The answer appears to be yes. Using political donations as a proxy for party connection, the data analyzed here suggest that as the number of appointees with connections to the government rises, the number of women appointees falls. However, for appointments to provincial courts by the government of Ontario, the prevalence of political connections among judicial appointees is less prominent, suggesting that different systems of judicial appointment may help to lessen these effects.

AbstractIn 2006, the Canadian government introduced a new component to its process of selecting Supreme Court justices, a review committee composed of members of Parliament. Tasked with interviewing justices prior to their appointment to the bench, the committee met four times, interviewing only five of the eight judicial candidates appointed to the bench before the Conservative government announced the committee's termination in 2014. This study offers the first comprehensive analysis of the performance of this ad hoc judicial review committee. Using an original dataset, we find that MPs asked little by way of probing questions, such as those related to policy or a candidate's previous jurisprudence. However, we do find some evidence that the hearing process was used to further the political aims of the participating political parties.

Introduction:Identifying and studying trends in Canadian politics /Vincent Raynauld,Mireille Lalancette andErin Crandall --Part 1:Trends in political engagement and democratic practice.Social uses of the web by environmental activists: a look at digital engagement /Ghada Touir,Florence Millerand, andGuillaume Latzko-Toth ;Rethinking digital activism as it unfolds: ambient political engagement on Twitter during the 2012 Quebec Student Strike /Vincent Raynauld,Mireille Lalancette, andSofia Tourigny-Koné ;Bytes and bitumen: a case study of mediated discourse on, and digital advocacy for, TransCanada's proposed Energy East Pipeline /Patrick McCurdy andJacob Groshek ;Transforming the disengaged: social media and youth in Canada /Shelley Boulianne ;Trolling Stephen Harper: internet memes as online activism /Mireille Lalancette,Tamara A. Small, andMaxime Pronovost ;From spheres to trajectories of publicness: exploring How the 2010 Toronto G20 Protests were communicated through social platforms /Thomas Poell