FIF 638 - Everything You Need to Know About Canadian Politics
Course Description
Canadian politics is often overshadowed by its more fantastical American counterpart. Yet, despite its lack of high drama, our federal politics are highly complex as we wrestle with governing a diverse country in a changing world. The course will cover everything you need to know to easily follow federal politics in Canada. We’ll discuss some of the most important questions of Canadian politics, such as: What powers does the Canadian federal government actually have? What is the relationship between Canada’s federal government, the provinces and cities? How has political competition changed in Canada since Confederation? What is the relationship between federal political parties and their provincial counterparts? How does federal policy-making work? How well does Canada accommodate its diverse population? Why do Canadians vote the way they do? Why has the Liberal Party been so dominant historically? What does recent Canadian political science research say about Canadian politics?
Course Details
Course Learning Outcomes
By completion of this course, successful students will be able to:
- Identify the most important issues in Canadian federal politics, some historical and more background in nature, some more topical.
- Discuss Canadian federal politics.
Paul Fairie has been a sessional instructor at the University of Calgary in political science since 2010. Paul is also a data scientist at Centrality Data Science in Calgary, and a regular contributor to the Globe and Mail where he tries to make political science research accessible to the general public.