Post-dicting Electoral Cleavages in Canadian Federal Elections, 1949–68: Material for a Footnote

Abstract

The first systematic correlation of socio-demographic factors and party preference in Canadian federal elections was made by Escott Reid in 1933. No expansion or even replication followed until the mid-1950s when John Meisel, using data obtained by sample survey of individuals, continued the enquiry begun by Reid on the basis of aggregate statistics. Since then – especially after 1960 – many data have been collected and some studies made on the links between party preference and factors such as religion, language, region, social class, and age. But these studies, even for the variables that have received most attention – religion, region, and class, for example – give us findings which remain scattered over time and space, like building materials on different construction sites. We need an overall view of the relationship between socio-demographic factors and party preference – if only to facilitate the interpretation of more refined but narrowly focussed studies; and we need such a view to extend over more than one or two elections.