By Paul Fraumeni, Thursday, May 10th, 2012, UofT

So, people are talking. But what does Obama’s declaration mean for the likelihood of him being a two-term president? And what does it mean for Mitt Romney and the Republican Party? U of T Scarborough political scientist Professor Christopher Cochrane, an expert in analyzing the left-right debate in politics, offers his take.

Read the full Q&A online at UofT’s Research & Innovation.

By Monique Muise, THE GAZETTE May 1, 2012

…Voter turnout among Canadian youth has been on the decline since the 1970s. In 2008’s federal election, only 37 per cent of eligible voters aged 18 to 24 cast a ballot. Turnout was only slightly better among those age 25 to 34, at 48 per cent.

Quebec was something of a bright spot that year. The turnout for the 18-24 age group here was nearly 10 percentage points higher than the nationwide average, at 46.8 per cent. Still, more than half of eligible young voters in the province chose not to participate in the selection of their next federal government. When Quebecers headed back to the polls in December 2008 to elect a new provincial government, the situation only deteriorated. A study conducted by Université Laval for Elections Quebec in 2009 revealed the turnout among the 18-24 demographic was only about 41 per cent.

Peter Loewen, a political-science professor at the University of Toronto who recently co-authored a report on youth voter engagement in Canada, maintains that despite that abysmal track record, there are several reasons to be optimistic about youth voter turnout when Premier Jean Charest does finally call an election.

“First, (young Quebecers) have now been mobilized and politicized in large numbers,” he noted. “Second, this has occurred around an issue which is directly related to party politics and party policy.”

If the tuition issue is settled and an election isn’t called until several months after that, however, some of that democratic fervour could wear off, he added.

“I don’t think young people’s political memories are necessarily shorter than anyone else’s,” Loewen said. “But I do think it’s possible that the air will be let out of the balloon if Charest can broker a compromise.” … Read the full article from The Montreal Gazette by clicking here.

Posted: May 3, 2012

Stephen Harper’s federal majority win a year ago was seen by many as the green light for the Conservatives to push ahead with legislative changes that weren’t possible under their previous minority, but the government has run into a string of stiff court challenges.

Justice Marc-Andre Blanchard’s decision to uphold Quebec’s challenge to a federal bid to phase out the gun registry is the most recent example.

Bill C-19 received royal assent on April 5, effectively killing the registry, and it also calls for all the information obtained by the registry to be destroyed. Quebec has been fighting the bill on the grounds that it wants a provincial registry and would like to use the federal information that taxpayers have already paid to gather. The federal court justice decided April 20 to extend an injunction barring the destruction of information from the provincial gun registry until June 13.

As a result of the injunction, the registry is still in effect in Quebec despite the federal efforts to dismantle it, and all firearm owners in the province must continue to register their guns. Justice Blanchard says he expects the case to eventually end up in front of the Supreme Court.

Besides the battle over the gun law, recent judgements against federal government legislative changes include:

• A new law that would allow emergency use of wiretaps (2012)
• Dismantling the Canadian Wheat Board (2011)
• A proposed shutdown of Vancouver’s Insite supervised injection site (2011)
• The creation of a single Canadian securities regulator (2011)
• Rules allowing greater foreign ownership of telecommunications companies (2011)

CBC News spoke Peter Russell, Professor Emeritus of political science at the University of Toronto and one of the leading experts on Canadian constitutional politics, to get his insight into how the government formulates its policies and legislation, and what influences court rulings.

Read excerpts from the interview at CBC.ca.

We are proud to announce that Dr. Peter Loewen is a winner of a 2012 Ontario Early Researcher Award (ERA)!

The ERA program helps promising, recently-appointed Ontario researchers build their research teams of undergraduates, graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, research assistants, associates, and technicians. The goal of the program is to improve Ontario’s ability to attract and retain the best and brightest research talent.  The award will support Peter Loewen’s research project entitled Understanding electoral behaviour and public attitudes from large self-selected samples.

Read about UofT’s 2012 ERA Winners In UofT News here.

View descriptions of  the ERA winners’ work here.

Action Canada is Canada’s leading public policy fellowship.  Fellows are chosen from all sectors, including business, science, government, academia, and the professions. The program revolves around working conferences held across Canada, during which Fellows interact with leaders from government, industry, the media, academia, and NGOs. In addition, Fellows work in teams on policy projects that have, in past years, inspired Canadian public policy.

Find out more at www.actioncanada.ca.

Graduate students are invited to participate in the Environmental Studies Section (ESS) Graduate Student Paper Award Competition sponsored by the Environmental Studies Section of ISA. The award was established in 2011 to recognize the best paper with an environment-related theme presented at the ISA Annual Convention.

The Award Committee consists of the Executive Committee of the ESS plus the ESS representative to the journal, Global Environmental Politics. The ESS Chair appoints a member of the Executive Committee to chair the award committee.

The awardee receives a $100 prize plus consideration for publication by the journal Global Environmental Politics.

Article by Peter Goodspeed Apr 21, 2012 in the National Post

…During Iran’s 2009 Green Revolution, the Revolutionary Guard effectively monitored cellphone traffic and activity on social media Internet sites such as Twitter and Facebook to identify and arrest anti-government ringleaders, says Ron Deibert, director of the Canada Centre for Global Security Studies and the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs.

The rise of social networks, cloud computing, and mobile technologies has created new challenges to privacy and most users are unaware of the implications, he says.

Once characterized by its openness and the free exchange of ideas, cyberspace is being re-shaped by technological change. An underworld of cybercrime has given rise to a cybersecurity industrial complex that feeds a cyberarms race, and fuels an increasingly intense geopolitical contest over the domain itself, says Mr. Deibert.

“Together, these driving forces are creating a kind of ‘perfect storm’ in cyberspace that threatens to subvert it entirely either through over-reaction or the imposition of heavy-handed controls,” he says…

Read Peter Goodspeed’s full article at The National Post online.

Article by Kate Allen, Staff Reporter, The Toronto Star; Published On Fri Apr 20 2012

…David Rayside, a professor of political science and sexual diversity studies at the University of Toronto, says that angst over the death of the Gay Village is long-standing and largely overstated.

But the question of whether demographic change is diluting it beyond recognition carries much more weight.

“Is it becoming more respectable and therefore exclusionary? That’s a very good question,” he says, adding that this struggle reflects a larger anxiety.

“The drive to secure (gay) rights — including parenting rights — was widely supported. But there are lots of same-sex couples who have no interest in getting married. There is anxiety that this will reinforce the marginalization of people who cross gender lines, and who are non-conformist in other ways,” he says.

The Gay Village, however, still has a “powerful symbolic role” for Rayside.

“It’s a place that stands for a kind of visibility and assertiveness that remains unique in the city,” he says, including for gay “refugees” from hostile families, towns, and countries.

“There’s still lots of prejudice out there — much more than people realize.”

Read the full article online at TheStar.Ca.

National Post Staff Apr 24, 2012

…Experts said misleading poll numbers masked the final-week gaffes that spooked voters away from the Torier-than-thou Wildrose Alliance Party.

Lawrence LeDuc, an expert on Canadian politics at the University of Toronto, said the election was always a lot more volatile than the coverage suggested.

“There isn’t just one explanation for the result,” he said. “Voter turnout, strategic voting and the gaffes all probably contributed. But we’ll never know with any certainty how much each one mattered.”

Read the full article on The National Post online.

As the Department’s letter of nomination put it: “Peter Russell is one of the great treasures of Canadian academia and a giant in the study of Canadian politics and law. Peter has made signal contributions to no fewer than four thematic areas that fall within the orbit of Canadian politics: judicial politics, constitutional politics and reform, the politics and rights of indigenous peoples, and the practice of parliamentary government. The breadth and depth of his scholarship, the impact of his work, and his engagement in public affairs are simply stunning….Extraordinary scholar, dedicated teacher, respected public intellectual and engaged citizen – Peter Russell has profoundly shaped Canadian scholarship and Canadian public life. He richly deserves the Mildred Schwartz Prize.”

The award will be presented at the American Political Science Association meetings in New Orleans later this year. Check your APSA program for the date and time of the annual business meeting of the Canadian politics section to honour Peter in person.