James W.J. Bowden's Blog
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A blog (primarily) on Canadian and Commonwealth political history and institutions. I started this blog in 2011, originally as a means of making the Manual of Official Procedure of the Government of Canada publicly available online. My area of academic expertise lies in Canadian political institutions, especially the Crown, political executive, and conventions of Responsible Government.
James W.J. Bowden's Blog
1M ago
The accolades poured in for Jean Chretien, Prime Minister of Canada from 1993 to 2003, as he became a nonagenarian in January. They came even from some unlikely sources, such as former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper.[1] Chretien’s enduring success ..read more
James W.J. Bowden's Blog
2M ago
While I was looking at the proposals of the first iteration of the Federal Electoral Boundaries Commissions published in part I of the Canada Gazette in 1965, an unusual splash of colour amidst the drab black and white pages caught my eye ..read more
James W.J. Bowden's Blog
3M ago
If Canadians think of electoral redistribution at all, they might hold this vague notion that Canada eliminated partisan gerrymandering by delegating the task from politicians to independent boundaries commissions. They might also recall having read or heard something in the ..read more
James W.J. Bowden's Blog
4M ago
The House of Commons will expand yet further in 2031 once the Population Estimates for 1 July 2031 become available. On 19 December 2023, Statistics Canada’s most recent population estimates for 1 October 2023,which showed the largest growth in ..read more
James W.J. Bowden's Blog
5M ago
On 14 November 2023, the Government of Quebec updated its administrative consolidation of the Constitution Acts to what should be its 4th edition and recognised a constitutional amendment that the legislature of Saskatchewan added to the text of section 90 ..read more
James W.J. Bowden's Blog
5M ago
British Columbia became the first province to adopt fixed-date election laws in 2001, and the law first took effect for the province’s general election of 2005. Newfoundland and Labrador followed suit and enacted Canada’s second fixed-date election law in 2004 ..read more
James W.J. Bowden's Blog
6M ago
On 23 October, Jean Chrétien sat for an interview with Daniel Thibault of Radio-Canada to mark the 30th anniversary of the general election of 1993, in which he led the Liberals to victory and the first of three consecutive parliamentary ..read more
James W.J. Bowden's Blog
7M ago
A Politician’s Propensity toward Platitude Destroys His Career After Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the President of Ukraine, addressed a joint sitting of the House of Commons and Senate on Thursday, 21 September 2023, Anthony Rota, the Speaker of the House of Commons ..read more
James W.J. Bowden's Blog
8M ago
The Legislative Assembly of Northwest Territories convened in Inuvik – above the latitudinal treeline and thus away from the fires – on 28 August, though most MLAs had logged on remotely via Zoom because the fires had forced many of ..read more
James W.J. Bowden's Blog
8M ago
Wildfires Prompt a Special Sitting of the Legislative Assembly In August 2023, the skies turned an ominous orange over large swathes of the Northwest Territories as gargantuan wildfires gobbled up forests and inched ever closer toward the edge of Yellowknife ..read more