Resumen de Institutional change and partisanship in the Canadian Senate

Michelle Caplan, Christopher Alcantara, Mathieu Turgeon

• The Canadian Senate was originally designed to act as an independent check onthe House of Commons but over time, rampant and increasing partisanshiprendered the Senate illegitimate in the eyes of the public. In 2014, Liberalleader Justin Trudeau tried to reverse these trends by expelling all LiberalSenators from his party in hopes of reducing partisanship and restoring theSenate to its original, independent function. To what extent did this decisionreduce partisanship? Using a difference-in-differences design, we analysealmost 7000 interventions over an 11-year period to find that partisanshipremains strong in the Senate, with ex-Liberal Senators more likely to raisewomen’s issues compared to Conservative Senators post-2014. This trendseems consistent with the Liberal Party’s strong and the Conservative Party’sweak feminist agenda after the Liberals formed the government in 2015.