Making Sense of Regional Voting in the 1997 Canadian Federal Election: Liberal and Reform Support Outside Quebec

Abstract

Abstract This article uses a regression decomposition approach to explore the meaning of the gaps in electoral support for the federal Liberal party between Ontario, the West and Atlantic Canada, as well as the gap in Reform party support between the West and Ontario in the 1997 federal election. The analysis proceeds in two stages. The first stage involves determining whether the regional vote gaps reflect “true” regional differences or whether they can be explained simply in terms of differences in the sociodemographic makeup of the regions. Having ascertained that the gaps are not spurious, the second stage of the analysis probes the beliefs and attitudes that underlie them. The authors conclude that the gaps are driven not just by differences in political orientations and beliefs from one region to another, but also by more fundamental differences in basic political priorities.