¹ “Variations in Party Support in Federal and Provincial Elections; Some Hypotheses,” this Journal, IV (June 1971). Also, Wilson, John and Hoffman, David, “The Liberal Party in Contemporary Ontario Politics,” this Journal, III (June 1970).Google Scholar

² Perlin and Peppin, “Variations in Party Support,” 282.

³ The constituency of Thunder Bay, federally and provincially, encompasses, in the main, the provincial District of Thunder Bay and is wholly outside the city by the same name. Both city ridings at one time included parts of the present riding of Thunder Bay. The larger urban populations so effectively dominated these ridings that past variations in riding boundaries can be safely ignored.

⁴ Our rationale for adding lawyers was the intimate connection between the legal profession and the business community and the traditional importance of lawyers as leaders in business-supported parties. The leaders of the Progressive Conservative party of Ontario from 1943 to the present, for example, have all been lawyers. In the event, the addition was not significant. Only half-a-dozen names were added to the list and these could not significantly affect the results of the survey based on 211 questionnaires and 83 replies or a 39.3 per cent return. One respondent tore off the sheet which contained the provincial questions and another ignored the federal page. We are thus effectively dealing with 82 returns.

⁵ In the provincial sphere, although 45 per cent of respondents reported donating to the party of their choice, only 38 per cent of the most government-affected businessmen did so. Federally, 21 per cent of respondents reported making donations, but only 16 per cent of those most government-affected did so. Distance from the federal election may have dimmed memories somewhat, although, as we shall see, our respondents showed a surprisingly strong memory for past political activity.

⁶ While respondents were invited to rank their reasons for voting as they did, the methods of responding to this question were so varied as to nullify useful tabulation based directly on respondent ranking. We therefore adopted a scheme of weighting the responses in order to produce a meaningful rank order of importance. First or only choices were given a weight of three; second and third choices, and one of three unranked choices, a weight of two, and all other indications of support a weight of one. On this basis the most popular choice was the local candidate in the 1968 federal election. He received 21 choices of the first category, 15 of the second, and 4 of the third for a score of 97. The most popular provincial choice was the provincial leader with a score of 80.

⁷ Canadian Annual Review for 1968, ed. Saywell, John (Toronto, 1969), 41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁸ Sixty-one voted Progressive Conservative provincially, 54 Liberal federally; 7 contributed to the provincial Liberals and 4 to the federal PCS; 2 contributed to the NDP in both elections.

⁹ Or perhaps this is an indication of the claim that while the Liberals are able to depend upon “funds raised mainly from anonymous (so far as the public is concerned) corporate donors” ( Bain, George, Toronto Globe and Mail, 10 February 1972Google Scholar) the Conservatives depend more on small and medium-sized businessmen.

¹⁰ Duverger uses the term “cadre” to describe parties which are “groupings of notabilities for the preparation of elections, conducting campaigns and maintaining contact with the candidates.” Duverger, Maurice, Political Parties (London, 1954), 64.Google Scholar Since “cadre” is not in common use in Canada we will use the more popular word “élite” for these parties and “the élite” to describe the “notabilities” who manage such parties.

¹¹ Forty indicated that they were Liberal-inclined and four NDP; 14 of the Liberals indicated party membership as did 2 for the NDP.

¹² One to the Conservatives, the balance to the Liberals.

¹³ Fifty-two identified with the Conservatives, five with the NDP and nine abjured party identification.

¹⁴ Dr Johnston received 10,092 votes; Jim Foulds of the NDP received 11,461.

¹⁵ The exceptions are John Chappie (Liberal), the scion of an important local merchant family, and Ron Knight, also Liberal. Chappie was in the line of offices which would have led to a Chamber presidency when he fell out with his colleagues over the proposed amalgamation of the two cities and stepped aside (information supplied by Mr Chapple personally). Knight achieved local fame as the host of an open-line radio talk show. His discernible political convictions would have made him an ideal Social Credit candidate, but as Social Credit has never been able to offer even a token candidate in Thunder Bay he had to look elsewhere. After the élite of the Fort William Liberal Association moved heaven and earth to deny him their nomination (according to a past president of that association) he moved over to Port Arthur and managed to become the choice of the candidate-hungry Port Arthur Liberals. (One of his nominators admitted ruefully to the writer later that neither he nor his wife listened to Knight's radio show and thus did not know what they were getting their party into.) Swept along by adoring housewives for whom his program provided a platform to articulate grievances and frustrations, Knight won the seat for the Liberals. But it was not a Liberal seat for long. He quickly fell out with his party's caucus at Queen's Park and ended up sitting as an independent, or as he preferred to call it as a “free” member. He did not seek re-election. It is significant that both of these “deviants” were Liberals, the unchosen élite party provincially, both lasted only one term, and both were succeeded by CCF/NDP. In both cases it may be noted that the PCS started with candidates who lacked status in the business community. In Fort William in 1963 the candidate was C. Assef, a local billiard hall owner and school trustee who was Lebanese by origin, not a large ethnic group in the Lakehead. In Port Arthur in 1971 the PCS started with Gordon Crompton, owner of a fried chicken concession, but shortly before the election was called switched to Chamber past-president and physician Dr Charles Johnston. The palace revolution involved is known to have created dissatisfaction among rank-and-file PCS and undoubtedly aided the hard-running NDP candidate to slip in.

¹⁶ Three were teachers and one was a mildly maverick dentist, school trustee, and Chamber member. Twenty-five per cent of the city's dentists are Chamber members. Similarly 13 per cent of the doctors and 25 per cent of the lawyers belong. However, many doctors are in clinics and many lawyers in firms both of which by the Chamber constitution only register a limited number of their personnel as members. As a result, these figures do not indicate the full measure of Chamber support from among these professions. In the 1968 federal election, the Ontario candidates of the NDP included 27 school teachers or university instructors, 9 clergymen, 9 businessmen, and 5 lawyers. In the same campaign successful Liberals in Ontario numbered in their ranks 26 lawyers and 14 businessmen out of a total of 64, and successful Progressive Conservatives included 3 lawyers and 8 businessmen from 17 winners. Six teachers won for the Liberals and four lost, but the Conservatives appeared to offer teachers and housewives only to lost causes; all of them, six and two respectively, lost. The provincial pattern is much similar with the Conservative winners including 17 lawyers and 32 businessmen. Winning Liberals included 7 lawyers and 9 businessmen out of 21. Both parties elected 3 teachers. Sources: 28th General Election 1968. Report of the Chief Electoral Returning Officer (Ottawa) and Canadian Parliamentary Guide. Not all members list occupations so the Ontario statistics which depend on the Guide are incomplete.

¹⁷ When the writer lived in the Ottawa area he was impressed by the number of public servants who felt impelled to vote, federally and provincially, for the party in power lest a hint of deviation threaten their jobs or their promotions. This in spite of the well-established secret ballot and the equally well-established political activity of the wives of some “non-political” civil servants. We feel that it is safe to assume that at least some of the employees of a politically committed employer will feel pressed to go his way. (Some, of course, will deliberately vote against him as has been the tradition in Cardinal, Ontario, where the main employer was a prominent Conservative and the town Liberal.) Similarly, a colleague tells how during the 1930s his father habitually went through his factory on the day before election inquiring after the voting plans of his employees. After the event he carefully checked the poll returns looking for “liars.” This was more possible in days gone by and in small open-shop communities than in the unionized urban centres of today, but we suspect this type of political pressure is not entirely absent even now.

The closeness of the Chamber vote to the popular vote for the non-chosen élite party candidates in federal PCS and provincial Liberals is striking. It would seem to indicate that the hard core party faithfuls among Chamber members is very similar to that of the general population, while the less-committed Chamber members swing sharply one way and then the other.

¹⁹ The time was January 1972. Provincially the Progressive Conservatives had just been returned to the great satisfaction of the business community. Federally, the government was taking a number of measures to assure business of its good will. A business delegation was met and was assured that tax reform measures would be modified to meet businesses’ most serious objections; Mr Benson was the hero of the hour for his handling of the international monetary crisis as it affected Canada, and federal-provincial relations were quiet. Locally, the grain boats had been standing off in the harbour like members of a wartime convoy all season signifying an almost-record grain shipping year. Thunder Bay businessmen had little to complain about concerning either level of government.

²⁰ In 1962 the federal government collected $6.4 billion in taxes while the provinces collected under $3.6 billion. The provinces spent $3.4 billion against the federal government's $6.8 billion. This provincial spending power was assisted by $279 million from the federal government in transfer payments which the federal government probably had the odium of collecting while the provinces received the kudos for spending. Recent fiscal arrangements whereby the provinces are getting increasingly into income and corporation taxing, succession duties, and the like may modify business attitudes toward the two levels of government in time. Source: 1967 Canada Yearbook (Ottawa).