A New Right? Moral Issues and Partisan Change in Canada

Objective. Beginning with the 1993 election, Canada's Progressive Conservative Party was replaced as the dominant force on the political right by the more ideological Reform Party/Canadian Alliance. This article examines what specific issues most centrally motivated this seismic shift among conservative Canadians. Method. Using data from the 1993, 1997, and 2000 Canadian Election Studies, we employ bivariate analyses and multinomial logit voting models to determine whether constitutional, economic, nativist, or moral issues most clearly differentiate PC supporters from R/A voters. Results. Regional concerns are important and other issues have sporadic impacts, but moral traditionalism is the most consistent and powerful factor distinguishing supporters of the new party from supporters of the old one. Conclusions. Although existing studies have focused primarily on other sources of R/A support, moral traditionalism is clearly a key factor in explaining the party's ascendancy. This phenomenon, we contend, is part of a larger trend toward postmaterial politics in Western democracies.