This thesis deals with the role of House leaders in the organization and conduct of business in the Canadian Parliament. The position of House leader in the parliamentary parties has emerged out of a complexity of factors and pressures placed upon the parliamentary system during the last thirty years. It may now be said that House leaders form the primary communication channel between the political parties concerning the business of the Canadian House of Commons. The adversary system in parliament, reinforced by the traditional position of the opposition, requires that the parties cooperate in organizing the conduct of parliamentary business. The House leaders meet informally and privately to negotiate and to arrange the timing of debates and other matters. The House leaders perform other important duties within their parties. The Government House leader is responsible to the prime minister and cabinet for the overall management of the House, management of the government's legislative schedule, and assistance in the development of legislation. The contemporary Government House leader is also involved in long-range legislative planning. Opposition House leaders keep their parties informed about House activities and perform important strategy and organizational duties. All House leaders are involved in procedural debates and parliamentary reforms. House leaders are appointed from within the parliamentary party and any authority they possess for making interparty agreements comes from the party. That they are normally senior and respected members and have unique contacts with the other House leaders are factors which usually enhance their influence and persuasive powers over the party. The development of the position of House leaders has decreased the influence of party whips; yet the whips remain and the roles of House leaders and party whips may now be seen as complementary. House leaders naturally must operate within the formal rules of the House, and changes in these rules affect the role of the House leaders. The inability to develop a working time allocation mechanism for Commons legislative activity leaves informal communications between the House leaders as the crucial method of scheduling and limiting these debates. The role performed by House leaders has become more significant and it is now recognized that House leaders hold powerful positions in the Canadian House of Commons. As government business increases yet further in amount and complexity the role of House leaders may be expected to become still more significant in the Canadian parliamentary process. / Arts, Faculty of / Political Science, Department of / Graduate

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Many of the institutions of Canada are modelled upon those of Great Britain. Since the origin of the Canadian question period are founded on those of Great Britain, a brief preliminary discussion of the British practices is necessary. Thus the first chapter of this thesis will be devoted to a study of the question period at Westminster, from its origins in 1731 until it evolved into its modern form in the closing years of the nineteenth century. [...]

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The purpose of this thesis is to examine the degree to which the Parliament of Canada was able to control the defence policy, administration and expenditures of the Canadian government in the 1945-1962 period. Because of the distribution of power between the two houses of Parliament, the thesis is primarily concerned with the House of Commons. In the second last chapter, however, the role of the Senate is analyzed. The House of Commons has four principal (although not mutually exclusive) techniques through which it attempts to exercise control. These include critical debate, control of finances, select committees and the question period. The use of each of these techniques is analyzed separately. Also, each of the four is analyzed with reference to the party in opposition. Hence for each technique, the 1945-1957 and the 1957-1962 periods were dealt with separately. The analysis of the defence debates and question period indicated striking differences in the pattern of opposition between the two periods. In the 1957-1962 period the Liberal opposition was concerned primarily with destroying the prospects of the government for the ensuing election. Hence the Liberals strove to discredit the defence programme of the government. Policy and politics were the major issues. Both in the debates and the question period the opposition dealt harshly and exhaustively with the defence policy of the government. The Liberal opposition virtually ignored, however, the administration of the defence departments. In contrast, the Progressive Conservative opposition of the 1945-1957 period devoted most of its energies, during question time and the debates, to the implementation of policy and administration of defence. Their efforts were culminated by their success in obstructing the 1955 amendment to the Defence Production Act. On the other hand, the Progressive Conservatives did not debate critically the major steps taken in the development of Canadian defence policy. Indeed, they never questioned the broad defence road that the government chose to follow. House of Commons control of defence expenditures was a myth. No direct control over the estimates was exercised. Nor did the debates in Supply serve, even indirectly, to indicate that the House of Commons still retained control of the purse. Moreover, statutory controls were less effective for defence than the other functions of government. In the 1945 to 1957 period, select committees were appointed with post-audit functions only. In five of these years the Public Accounts Committee dealt with irregularities in defence expenditures as a result of its examination of the annual Report of the Auditor General. Because of its broad duties, circumscribed powers and partisan atmosphere, however, this Committee was not especially effective. In 1951, however, after completing its examination of the Auditor General's Report, the Public Accounts Committee dealt specifically with defence expenditures and served usefully to inform members of current developments in the defence establishment. The work of the 1951 Public Accounts Committee was continued by the Special Committee on Defence Expenditures that met between 1951 and 1953. This Committee, despite the lack of permanent staff, received an enormous amount of evidence on the administration of defence. Its usefulness was cut down, however, by the partisan atmosphere which prevented the Committee from making constructive reports to the House. After dealing with the Currie Report in 1953, the Committee was not re-appointed. Thus, the only effective and continuous post-audit scrutiny was carried out by the Defence Branch of the Office of the Auditor General. Its efficacy was hampered too, however, by the failure of the House to develop a technique for dealing regularly with Report; for the House proper never debated the Auditor General’s Report and the Public Accounts Committee did not meet regularly during these years. Since 1957, the Public Accounts Committee has met annually and reported to the House without partisan interference, examples of ineffective administration and waste. Constructive recommendations have often been included. The Committee thus has not only strengthened its own usefulness as an effective organ of post-audit control. It has also increased the effectiveness of the Auditor General by guaranteeing more publicity for his annual report than it had been receiving in earlier years. These years also marked the initial ventures in pre-audit control through select committee. In 1958 and 1960 the defence estimates were dealt with through these committees. Although the work of these committees, especially the 1958 committee, was an improvement over the performances of Committee of Supply, they appeared to have no inherent advantages over what a better informed Committee of Supply could reasonably be expected to accomplish. Moreover, there was evidence that these select committees might be used as the focal point for interest group pressures. Finally, the defence policy discussions which accompanied the review of the estimates clearly would have been more effective had they been held in the House of Commons. Thus, since the Senate played no significant role, the record of Parliament in controlling defence was very poor. There was no effective pre-audit control of expenditure and post-audit control was at no time comprehensive. Defence debates in the 1945-1957 period seldom probed into the implications of policy decisions. In more recent years, although the debates have been more comprehensive, they have not been at a very high level of sophistication. Both these shortcomings, it might be noted, were closely related to the dearth of information available on defence. It is suggested that a select standing committee of the House might possibly help to strengthen parliamentary control. Such a committee, if left to investigate problems of administration, technology and weaponry, as well as past expenditures (all matters of fact) might serve two purposes. First, it might accumulate sufficient relevant information to permit more sophisticated policy debates and more informative discussion of the estimates. Second, it would permit better control of past expenditure through detailed and comprehensive investigation of defence. / Arts, Faculty of / Political Science, Department of / Graduate

In this dissertation, the first two chapters seek to understand and quantify how different types of frictions shape individual and market outcomes. This strand of my current research studies questions in urban settings such as the role of ridesharing platforms in mitigating the search and match frictions prevalent in taxi markets and how information frictions can hinder the growth small and medium sized firms in developing countries. The final chapter of my dissertation studies the consequences of electoral accountability in democracies. This strand of research studies the role of electoral incentives in shaping the allocation and provision of effort by politicians. The first chapter of my dissertation, co-authored with Motaz Al-Chanati, studiesthe sources of efficiency gains in ridesharing markets. The key motivation arises from the fact that in many decentralized transportation markets, search and match frictions lead to inefficient outcomes. Ridesharing platforms, who act as intermediaries in traditional taxi markets, improve upon the status quo along two key dimensions: surge pricing and centralized matching. We study how and why these two features make the market more efficient; and explore how alternate pricing and matching rules can improve outcomes further. To this end, we develop a structural model of the ridesharing market with four components: (1) dynamically optimizing drivers who make entry, exit and search decisions; (2) stochastic demand; (3) surge pricing rule and (4) a matching technology. Relative to our benchmark model, surge pricing generates large gains for all agents; primarily during late nights. This is driven by the role surge plays in inducing drivers to enter the market. In contrast, centralized matching reduces match frictions and increases surplus for consumers, drivers, and the ridesharing platform, irrespective of the time of the day. We then show that a simple, more flexible pricing rule can generate even larger welfare gains for all agents. Our results highlight how and why centralized matching and surge pricing are able to make the market more efficient. We conclude by drawing policy implications for improving the competitiveness between taxis and ridesharing platforms. My second chapter, co-authored with Jonas Hjort and Golvine de Rochambeau, studies the role of information frictions amongst firms in developing countries. Evidence suggests that many firms in poor countries stagnate because they cannot access growth-conducive markets. We hypothesize that overlooked informational barriers distort market access. To investigate, we gave a random subset of medium-sized Liberian firms vouchers for a week-long program that exclusively teaches “sellership”: how to sell to corporations, governments, and other large buyers. Firms that participate win three times as many formal contracts a year later. The impact is heterogeneous: informational sales barriers bind for about a quarter of firms. Three years after training, these firms continue to win desirable contracts, are more likely to operate, and employ more workers. In my final chapter, I analyze how politicians in Canada allocate their time and effort when faced with competitive elections. In particular I study how well the so-called discipline effect work in democratic elections and how does it affect the allocation of time and resources of politicians. To do this, I present causal evidence of the effect of electoral vulnerability on subsequent performance of Canadian Members of Parliament along various dimensions. More specifically, I document a politician’s substitution of effort across different tasks in response to plausibly exogenous variation in electoral vulnerability. Using party opinion polls on the day before the election as an instrument, I estimate that more electorally vulnerable politicians substitute effort away from attending the parliament and instead spend more money in their constituency and more money in the following election campaign. These MPs spend more on salaries to their staff, travel to and from the constituency and advertising to constituents. I also find evidence that electorally vulnerable MPs find it harder to raise money for their next election but are compensated by transfers from the political party they belong to. This substitution of effort towards constituency and campaign activities is rationalized with a simple political economy model where politicians can influence a voter’s belief about their ability by exerting effort on more costly, but informative actions.

This study explores the range and variance of interest group activity in constituency campaigns in the 1988 federal election as reported in the Constituency Party Association dataset created in 1991 for the Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing. SPSSPC+ was used to analyze the relationships between variables in four main areas: political party affiliation, geographic variables, constituency association characteristics, and the specific issues the interest groups were promoting or opposing. The most significant finding was that interest groups were actively involved in half of the riding association election campaigns, either supporting or opposing local candidates. The cursory treatment of electoral involvement in the interest group literature provides an inadequate explanation for this widespread phenomena. This study provides an initial profile of interest group involvement in constituency campaigns. The exploration of the data revealed that interest groups were more likely to be involved in the local campaigns of candidates associated with the governing party. They were less likely to be involved in Quebec constituency campaigns, and more likely in wealthy competitive riding campaigns. The most frequently mentioned issues that motivated interest groups locally were abortion, followed by free trade.

This study explores the range and variance of interest group activity in constituency campaigns in the 1988 federal election as reported in the Constituency Party Association dataset created in 1991 for the Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing. SPSSPC+ was used to analyze the relationships between variables in four main areas: political party affiliation, geographic variables, constituency association characteristics, and the specific issues the interest groups were promoting or opposing. The most significant finding was that interest groups were actively involved in half of the riding association election campaigns, either supporting or opposing local candidates. The cursory treatment of electoral involvement in the interest group literature provides an inadequate explanation for this widespread phenomena. This study provides an initial profile of interest group involvement in constituency campaigns. The exploration of the data revealed that interest groups were more likely to be involved in the local campaigns of candidates associated with the governing party. They were less likely to be involved in Quebec constituency campaigns, and more likely in wealthy competitive riding campaigns. The most frequently mentioned issues that motivated interest groups locally were abortion, followed by free trade. / Arts, Faculty of / Political Science, Department of / Graduate

It is well recognized that the 1993 election campaign catapulted the Reform party into the national political scene, but our understanding of how this was possible is quite limited. Drawing on the work in cognitive psychology on attitude change, the work on the news media coverage of elections, and the political science work on election campaigns, this thesis locates the impetus for Reform's success in the dynamic flow of information about the party that was available in television news broadcasts and voters' likelihood of being persuaded by that information. This link is developed by an analysis that makes use of a content analysis of the 1993 campaign, the 1993 Canadian Election Study, and a merged analysis of the election and news data. The Reform party began the campaign as a minor component of the news coverage of the election, but the news media coverage changed dramatically. Reform was provided with more news access than its support indicated it deserved and that coverage focused on what became a major theme of the election; the welfare state and the role of government. Coverage of Reform underwent a further change as it both decreased and focused on cultural issues during the last two weeks of the campaign. Using a two-mediator model of attitude change, the analysis shows that people who were predisposed to agree with Reform's anti-welfare state message and who were likely to be aware of the news information, changed both their perceptions of the party and increased their support for the party. Further support for the impact of the media is derived from the analysis of voter response to the second change in news coverage. The analysis suggests that campaigns do matter, but that the size of the impact is dependent upon the underlying uncertainty associated with the parties and candidates, and on the degree to which the information flow of the campaign changes. The information flow contributes to both learning and priming among people who receive and accept new information. While voters respond reasonably to new information, the outcome will depend on what information voters are given and what information actually reaches the habitually unaware segments of the population.