The Rise of Penal Populism in Canadian Conservative Party Politics

• In Event: Turn! Turn! Turn! Political Communication in Times and Contexts of Change

Abstract

With a string of anti-establishment leaders and parties emerging across the world, most agree that we are living a populist moment. And while populist forces often mobilize different particular morphologies depending on their national context, there have nevertheless emerged many generally similar global characteristics of populism. In particular, through an appeal to a common people, contemporary populism has tended to rely on a combination of anti-elitist, nativist, and anti-immigration sentiments and arguments.

This paper examines whether this is true of contemporary Canadian populism. I contend that while much of the focus on populism globally has tended focused on its xenophobic, anti-immigrant manifestations, this has risked obscuring the ascendance of another salient manifestation of populism in Canada: penal populism. Like other forms of populist rhetoric, penal populism speaks to the perspective that we must be “tough on crime” because crime victims and Canadian communities (“us”) have been victimized by dangerous and over-privileged criminals (“them”). Drawing on a mixed-method analysis of conservative party and activist politics in Canada, I forward two central arguments about Canadian populism: first, that conservative parties’ increasingly focus penal populism marks a clear departure from previous eras of conservative party politics and governments, and two, that penal populism relies on racialized logics and rhetoric that are familiar to other forms of nativist populist rhetoric.

Author

• Kelly in Gordon