Some Correlates of Regime Support in Canada

This paper is concerned with the distribution and foundations of public support for the political regime in Canada. Support for the regime historically has been a matter of concern to Canadian elites. The recent provincial electoral victory of the Parti Québécois, a party dedicated to making Quebec an independent nation, has made regime support and maintenance matters of concern to average citizens as well. The analyses that follow are based upon data gathered in a nation-wide survey of the Canadian electorate in 1974. We focus on the following areas: the extent to which socio-demographic and attitudinal variables conventionally employed in studies of political behavior are related to levels of regime support; the relationships between the direction and strength of partisanship and support for the political regime; the relationships between attitudes toward key political institutions and political actors and the level of regime support; and finally, the effects of major structural and cultural factors (i.e. federalism and regionalism) on support for the regime. From the perspective of comparative political analysis, research in these areas allows us an opportunity to comment on and expand the base of the existing empirical research on regime support. From the more particular perspective of Canadian politics, our analysis may help to clarify the impact on regime support of ethnicity, regionalism, federalism and a British-model parliamentary system.