In this month’s American Review of Canadian Studies, a couple of American academics take a look at the voting patterns in Canada’s House of Commons for the 2005 vote on same-sex marriage. The trio of academics concluded that voting patterns on Bill C-38, the Civil Marriage Act were special, even rare, because of “unusually strong evidence of constituency characteristics influencing the voting behavior of MPs.”
The final vote in the House of Commons — I remember sitting in the Press Gallery above the Speaker’s Chair watching the historic tally — went 158 to 133 in favour of the bill. Continue reading Was the 2005 vote on same-sex marriage a model for the way it should be done in the Commons?