Talk:Politics of Canada

"Realignment"

The subsection labeled "Realignment" is utterly inappropriate. It has nothing to do with the one single source for this section being "wrong," as User:Rjensen brings up. It is simply a matter of proportionality. There are hundreds of journal articles published every year, thousands of newspaper articles, and so on. It it just obviously inappropriate to pick one of these articles, decide you like its thesis, and stick it into a broad high-level overview article. Rjensen's preferred "realignment" section gives this one paper almost as much attention as the entire country's entire judicial system, for example. The Behiels paper asks whether the Conservatives are the new "natural governing party," using a stock phrase referring to the Liberals' longstanding dominance of federal politics, but that dominance is not even covered at all in the current Wiki article.

Of course there is room in the article for a discussion of historical, current, and prospective electoral prospects for all the various political factions. But that is very different from the present thinly sourced Conservative puffery. TiC (talk) 10:25, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

TiC's last sentence says it all-he is really unhappy not with the Wiki article but with the recent trends in Canadian politics and that is the reason he does not want readers to learn about recent scholarship. He reveals his blatant POV and partisanship. (For the record I am not Canadian and have no stake in Canadian politics.) He says there are so many articles out there that none should be chosen--a strange and unhappy twist of the RS rule,. If he has RS that are important he should ADD them, rather than subtract what other Wiki editors (and journal editors) consider important scholarship. Rjensen (talk) 13:10, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Please refrain from speculating about my motives, which are irrelevant in any case.

I do not have to re-write the entire article in great detail in order to achieve balance, just because another user wants to include a paper he likes. To say otherwise is silly.

I suggest that the "realignment" section be scaled down and merged into the "political conditions" section. Perhaps after "They gained 10 seats here, whereas in 2004 they had no seats" we can add, "Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper has described his long-term goal of displacing the Liberals as the natural governing party of the country, a political realignment that some observers see as successfully underway." That I think would be a reasonable compromise. But the subsection, especially with such an expansive choice of words, is clearly too much. TiC (talk) 15:13, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Hey, I've noticed you have been editing elsewhere (including adding references to Behiels' paper to Stephen Harper and his own Wiki bio) so I assume you still think this is important, but you haven't addressed this any further. What do you think of merging the "realignment" subsection into "political conditions?" TiC (talk) 15:07, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Political scientists have been using the concept of realignment for many decades, so it's not a weird or novel idea. It's mainstream scholarship looking at long-term (many years) trends, as opposed to journalism that looks at the last few months. So a subsection under "political conditions" works ok. Behiels is one of the most prominent political scholars in Canada, so his ideas as presented in a major scholarly journal are important to include. Reducing a complex argumkent to the trivial "some observers see as successfully underway" degrades the information available.Rjensen (talk) 18:45, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

The importance of political realignment in a general sense is not at issue here. Behiels is reasonably prominent although I'm unsure that American Review of Canadian Studies is a "major" journal. In any case, even if both of those assertions are true and verifiable, it is obvious that there are a great many articles written by prominent political scholars and published in major scholarly journals; you still haven't explained clearly why this particular article should be used, other than personal preference.

Also, since this thesis seems to be Behiels's, I'm a little confused by why the summary says 'many journalists, political advisors, and politicians argue' for it. Is that actually documented in the source, or are those just unsupported attributions meant to promote a particular conclusion? They sure sound like it.

Just to make my main point clear once again: highlighting this particular paper with such prominent positioning and effusive language, in the context of a high-level summary covering the entire topic "Politics of Canada," is effectively non-NPOV because it imputes undue importance to a particular view. Not incidentally, this is exactly what the editors at Stephen Harper concluded about this section, and yet it seems clearly more relevant in that article than in this one.

At this point maybe we need a third opinion. TiC (talk) 17:45, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

it's Behiels who says that "a great many journalists, political advisors, and politicians argue that a new political party paradigm is emerging." He is summarizing for the American audience the consensus of a large Canadian literature of scholarly papers and political commentary. One gets the distinct impression that TitaniumCarbide has not read Behiels --and he has not cited ANY RS to support his position. He assumes that because there are a lot of scholarly articles out there, there surely must be at least one that agrees with his position. But that is reliance ignorance, not verifiable RS.Rjensen (talk) 20:53, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for answering the question about the gated source which I don't have access to. Please note that I do not have a position about whether Behiels is right, that has never been the issue, and repeatedly implying otherwise is disingenuous at best.

Also: why are you now making the section even longer. This is not what I would call collaborative editing. TiC (talk) 21:26, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

I made it longer because the shorter version was badly misunderstood. This is a major topic of great interest to many scholars and students of Canadian politics. most people in the US, Canada, Australia and the UK can get access to articles by going through their local library.Rjensen (talk) 23:10, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Third opinion

I have come to this page following a request made for a third opinion at WP:3O. I haven't interacted with either of the editors engaged in discussion and I haven't edited this article before, so I would suggest I am sufficiently neutral to offer an opinion. I'm not really here to vote for one opinion or the other but to help find a way forward that's beneficial for the article and the editors involved.

I think the current section gives WP:UNDUE weight to a single source and a particular POV. This is not to say that it is not valid, but that it doesn't seem very balanced to present one source as the basis for an entire section. I only looked at the WP:3O page 40 minutes ago, so haven't been able to view the source yet, but does Behiels list the "great many journalists, political advisors, and politicians" or is it just an assertion? From a quick Google there is clearly comething afoot in the Canadian political landscape, sources such as this from the Journal for International Relations and Global Trends and this paper about the Canadian conservative governments foreign policy being based around the aim of becoming the "natural governing party". There are decent looking blog articles noting it too, so there must be further, better sources out there.

I think the information would be better portrayed in a manner similar to Politics of UK#Current political landscape (which is actually out of date...) or Politics of Australia#Contemporary Australian national politics, rather than under a heading of Realignment, which is too specific.

Finally, I looked at Realigning election and discovered that Rjensen has added Behiels' work there as well. Does the phrase in that article "...argue that a new political party paradigm is emerging, one based on the drive for a right-wing political party capable of reconfiguring the role of the state – federal and provincial – in twenty-first-century." and in this article as "They see a new power configuration based on a right-wing political party capable of sharply changing the traditional role of the state – federal and provincial – in twenty-first-century" need quotes in the article, as it is repeated in both places – is it a WP:PARAPHRASE of Behiels' article or reformulated for inclusion in the articles?

Thoughts? Bigger digger (talk) 16:48, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

those suggestions are very useful indeed. I moved the section, added information from and cites to Lang (2010) and Bloomfield and Nossal (2007), as suggested, and listed the six main books that Behiels is summarizing. I also made the text in the realignment article congruent with this one.Rjensen (talk) 21:48, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

First off Rjensen, you really should read WP:PARAPHRASE: for copyright reasons Wikipedia cannot closely follow the structure or language of its sources. The line about the voting proportions and a "rump" are too close to Lang's original text. This is different to academic writing, so it's fair enough that you might not realise, but it is important that you correct it.

Secondly, as you're the politics academic, are those sources I found actually any good? I know little about Canadian politics or research in this field. For balance, are there people out there suggesting other reasons for the Conservative's ascendancy?

That's all I can think of for now, I look forward to your response. Bigger digger (talk) 01:04, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Hello i have just been made aware of this additions :(. Not sure what to do here. I have some serious problems with this additions. I personal should not get involved because of my personal views of how Rjensen adds what i believe are POV addition that are never balanced. This quotes that are always used are not the normal views on the matter. I would like someone (besides me) to look at additions. I believe conclusions are being made by way of quoting and misrepresenting. We have paragraph after paragraph that are based on just POVs conclusions by one author. I also believe there is as per the norm with Rjensen additions a major synthesis of published material that advances just one position. Again i feel i should step back and not revert as i am biased towards his additions in general, but hope that now that i am the third to voice concerns that the previous or next editors will revert the additions. Moxy (talk) 01:36, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

working with Moxy is hard 1) because of his personal attacks and 2) his avoidance of all RS. The two are related -- he objects to my introducing scholarship into the articles. The section is now sourced with six major recent books and three recent scholarly articles (two of which were suggested by the independent third party)--which is far more than the rest of the article combined. Rjensen (talk) 03:05, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Yep we have problems you and I ....Your right i hate the fact you are always quoting authors out of context. Your whole section is a copy and past of POV's from authors (and only one side of there argument at that). Your using the quotes all the time to sneak in POV statements and weasel words that would not be acceptable in any other format. And the fact ref like Behiels cites Tom Flanagan, Harper's Team: Behind the Scenes in the Conservative Rise to Power (2nd ed. McGill-Queens U.P., 2009); Chantal Hébert, French Kiss: Stephen Harper's Blind Date with Quebec (Knopf Canada, 2007); William Johnson, Stephen Harper and the Future of Canada (2nd ed. McClelland & Stewart, 2006); Lloyd Mackay, Stephen Harper: The Case for Collaborative Governance (ECW Press, 2006); Bob Plamondon, Full Circle: Death and Resurrection in Canadian Conservative Politics (Key Porter Books, 2006); and Paul Wells, Right Side Up: The Fall of Paul Martin and the Rise of Stephen Harper's New Conservatism (Douglas Gibson Books, 2007). look like a synthesis of published material. Moxy (talk) 05:06, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

yes it is synthesis--Behiels did the synthesis and Wiki reports it. Moxy seems to have his own sources on Canadian politics, but he does not tell us what they are.Rjensen (talk) 07:50, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Cant address the real concerns raised of undo weight, pov and weasel wording. I will have to fix all this up ...will do it this coming weekend by balancing this out using widely published works on the topic that can be seen by our readers--> Canadian Politics By James Bickerton - The Oxford Handbook of Canadian Politics By John C. Courtney, David E. Smith - In search of Canadian political culture By Nelson Wiseman - Skating on Thin Ice: Canadian-American Relations in 2010 and 2011 By Alexander Moens..............Moxy (talk) 08:35, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Conservatives in power Section POV Bias

The section called "Conservatives in power" has some serious POV bias. Using a single primary source, it suggests that there have been a realignment of Canadian political thought in favour of the Conservatives. This is totally false. In fact, despite their recent slew of election victories, the Conservative popular vote in Canada is at or near their all-time low. One has to only look at the recent election results and do the math. During the 1980s conservative popular vote was substantially above 50% of the popular vote. This trend continued in the 1990s, but was splitting the vote between two conservative parties (the PC and Alliance), leading to successive Liberal majorities. This phenomenon ended in the 2000s with the merger of the two parties. The real reason for the Liberal party's demise and the Conservative party's ascent is the New Democratic Party which has gained significant support in every election in the 2000s, eventually pushing the Liberal party (as well as the BQ) into the background. The NDP's rise has caused a vote-split in seat-rich Ontario in the Conservatives' favour.

I will try to look for some sources and redo the section. Poyani (talk) 18:05, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Poyani has his personal opinions but he has no RS. He should read the contemporary media (Economist, Globe and Mail, MacLeans) that report on the realignment, or scholarly monographs such as How Ottawa Spends, 2010-2011: Recession, Realignment, and the New Deficit Era by G. Bruce Doern and Christopher Stoney (2011). The section in question uses ten different sources--and note the major media have stressed the theme of a major realignment. The Economist said, "the election represents the biggest realignment of Canadian politics since 1993."[8] Lawrence Martin, commentator for the Globe and Mail said, "Harper has completed a remarkable reconstruction of a Canadian political landscape that endured for more than a century. The realignment sees both old parties of the moderate middle, the Progressive Conservatives and the Liberals, either eliminated or marginalized."[9] Maclean's said, the election marked "an unprecedented realignment of Canadian politics" as "the Conservatives are now in a position to replace the Liberals as the natural governing party in Canada."[10]. Rjensen (talk) 21:30, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Yep this additions have come up before when they were added long time ago and still have not been fixed. I gave refs in the section above and this cause Rjensen to simply stop talking about the problem. We have this addition added with sources to people like Eugene Lang (co-founder, Canada 2020: Canada’s Progressive Centre). We also have a blatant Synthesis of published material that advances a position Behiels cites Tom Flanagan, Harper's Team: Behind the Scenes in the Conservative Rise to Power (2nd ed. McGill-Queens U.P., 2009); Chantal Hébert, French Kiss: Stephen Harper's Blind Date with Quebec (Knopf Canada, 2007); William Johnson, Stephen Harper and the Future of Canada (2nd ed. McClelland & Stewart, 2006); Lloyd Mackay, Stephen Harper: The Case for Collaborative Governance (ECW Press, 2006); Bob Plamondon, Full Circle: Death and Resurrection in Canadian Conservative Politics (Key Porter Books, 2006); and Paul Wells, Right Side Up: The Fall of Paul Martin and the Rise of Stephen Harper's New Conservatism (Douglas Gibson Books, 2007). This is all written with a nice POV by someone that is clearly on one side of the fence Conservapedia User:RJJensen .Moxy (talk) 22:32, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

there are now numerous RS that talk about realignment, and none have been presented that support the belief of Poyani that there is no realignment here. Please read the quotations. As for synthesis, that synthesis was done by scholars in RS and we report it here. As for my own politics, Moxy is totally mistaken--I am not a Canadian and I have never taken any position for or against any policy, party or personality in Canadian politics. I'm neutral. :) Perhaps Moxy should tell us where HE stands in Canadian politics so we can discount his personal POV?? Rjensen (talk) 02:51, 5 June 2011 (UTC)