Polarization in Canada, real or not?

OAKVILLE, ONT.—When it comes to politics, we Canadians are becoming increasingly polarized. Or are we? After all, maybe all the gloomy warnings we’re hearing these days about how our society is becoming divided along stark ideological lines is nothing but media hype or exaggeration. So, always eager to get to the bottom of things, I recently “attended” a Zoom conference put on by the Institute for Liberal Studies, which featured Eric Merkley, a postdoctoral fellow from the University of Toronto, who discussed his extensive academic research on political polarization both here in Canada and in the United States. Surely, he would provide me with answers. Unfortunately, however, since Merkley is an expert in “quantitative political science," his discussion was peppered with phrases like “bi-modal coefficients" and “latent factor analysis," meaning a lot of it went over my non-academic head. Yet, I still managed to glean some interesting tidbits of information from his talk, which I’d like to share. First off, Merkley’s basic conclusion was that, based on his analysis, political polarization is indeed occurring in Canada, but not to the same degree as is happening in America. So why is it happening in Canada? Well, part of it, argues Merkley is that Canadians are simply becoming more consistent in their ideology. What that means is right-leaning Liberals are drifting to the Conservatives, while left-wing Conservatives are moving towards the Liberals. So basically, Canadians are sorting themselves out into more distinct ideological tribes, the upshot of which is that the Liberal Party is becoming more and more left-wing, the Conservative Party, more and more right-wing. The natural result of this growing ideological divergence between the two parties is polarization. On the other hand, however, Merkley’s research also shows there’s an increasing affinity between Liberals and New Democrats. Another cause of political polarization in Canada according to Merkley is “elite opinion.” More specifically he argues it’s our “elites” (political party leaders, other prominent politicians, media personalities) who are actually becoming more ideological and more partisan. This matters because many people will look to opinion leaders for their cues on how they should view the world, supporting the opinions of leaders they like, opposing the opinions of leaders they don’t. So, when leaders act in a polarizing manner, they will breed polarization in the general population. For instance, Merkley noted how, after U.S. President Donald Trump slammed NFL players for kneeling during the American national anthem, polls showed that Republicans began to view the league much less favourably, while Democrats viewed it much more favourably. At any rate, as we become more divided over ideology, it leads to what Merkley calls, “affected polarization”—which, put into regular English, means political partisans start to hate each other. Making matters worse, social media has a tendency to create the perception that the other side is more extreme than it really is. Hence, progressives on social media tend to perceive all conservatives as racist, fascistic, gun-toting rednecks, while, for their part, conservatives tend to perceive all progressives as elitist, immoral, communists. But the good news is, despite these social-media-fuelled perceptions, Merkley points out that while Canadians are becoming more consistent ideologically and thus more divided along partisan lines, their opinions are not becoming more extreme. That puts us in better shape than the United States, where polarizing ideological beliefs on both the left and right are very much more intense. Part of the reason for this, says Merkley, is that American ideological polarization is reinforced by factors such as race, religion and culture. So, polarization in Canada is real, but it’s not reached alarming American-style levels. Gerry Nicholls is a communication consultant. The Hill Times