Polarization Eh? Ideological Divergence and Partisan Sorting in the Canadian Mass Public

Abstract

There has been increasing concern among commentators and scholars about polarization in Canada. This note uses the Canadian Election Study from 1993 to 2019 to measure trends in ideological divergence, ideological consistency, and partisan-ideological sorting in the Canadian mass public. It finds only mixed evidence that Canadians are diverging ideologically and becoming more polarized—ideological distributions are unimodal and trends toward more dispersion are slight and driven entirely by the last two election cycles. Canadians are, however, becoming modestly more ideologically consistent and much more sorted—that is, partisanship, ideological identification, and policy beliefs are increasingly interconnected. These findings call for additional research on the causes and consequences of mass polarization in Canada and further efforts to situate these results, along with findings from the United States, in a comparative context.