Exploring Essay Questions on Canadian Politics

Choose one essay question from the list below, or formulate your own essay question.

Suggested Essay Questions

1) Does Canada suffer from a “democratic deficit”, and if so, what are some of the main institutional factors that contribute to this.

2) Some observers claim there is an increased centralization of power within federal Cabinet and, further, the office of the Prime Minister.  What evidence is there of this, what is the purpose of this trend, and what have the effects been?

3) Assess the causes and consequences of the failures of the Meech Lake and/or Charlottetown Accords.  What were these accords trying to accomplish? 

4) Are Canadians truly a sovereign people?  What are some institutional factors contributing to your answer?

5) What is the purpose of federalism? Does Canadian federalism work? 

6) How have the institutions of Canadian federalism tried to answer or accommodate the claims of Quebec nationalism?  Have these accommodations been adequate?  

7) Is Canada a country run by elites? What are some institutional factors that contribute to your answer?

8) How is material or economic welfare important to citizenship?  How has the Canadian state acted to ensure such welfare?  

9) Explain the “legalization of politics” in Canada since the introduction of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982.  Is this good for democracy?  

10) Choose a group and explain how its members have improved the recognition of their rights through appeal to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.  What have been the reasons for their relative successes or failures?  

11) Choose a Charter case and explain how it reveals more than one right, freedom, or other public good confronting another.  What was the court’s decision?  What has public, political, or academic reaction been to this decision?   

12) Discuss the significance of elections financing reform since 1974.  Assess the normative principles behind these changes.  Have they made Canadian democracy better?

13) Discuss the role of the media in determining how parties run their electoral campaigns in Canada.  

14) Discuss the purpose of the Charter’s minority language education rights and why it has received mixed reaction in different parts of the country. 

15) What reforms would you suggest to the Indian Act, reserve system, or Treaty system in Canada?  Why? 

16) Discuss the proposals put forth in the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples.  Contrast different critical receptions of this report.  

17) How has the introduction of the Aboriginal and Treaty Rights (section 35) of the Constitution Act 1982 shaped indigenous claims to self-governance and/or sovereignty? 

18) Have the political persuasions of Prime Ministers had a significant effect on the orientation of Supreme Court, through PMs’ appointments of Justices?

19) What role has the Supreme Court of Canada played in the expansion of rights since 1982, the introduction of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms? What kind of rights has the Court tended to defend and which has it tended not to defend, in its interpretation of the Charter?

20) Are political parties still relevant to Canadian democ