“The Elite vs. The People’s Party of Canada: Maxime Bernier and the Manifestation of Populism in Canada”

Abstract

The purpose of this Major Research Paper (MRP) is to determine if measuring populism is possible simply by reading political leaders’ tweets. In this MRP, the manifestation of populism in Canada is measured by analyzing the tweets of the People’s Party of Canada leader Maxime Bernier, Conservative Party leader Andrew Scheer, New Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh and Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau. This MRP seeks to determine whether Maxime Bernier or any other federal party leader is a populist by analyzing their tweets during the 2019 federal election campaign through a detailed coding scheme. Before analyzing the tweets using a mix of quantitative and qualitative research analyses, I provide a literature review and a clear definition of the term populism. I also present a short history of populism in Canada and determine where the applicable party leaders fit into this history today. A main challenge with identifying populism is that it is widespread on the right and on the left. I observed that both Bernier and Singh are populists. This result aligned with the literature on populism that confirms populism can be found anywhere along the political spectrum. Keywords: Populism, Canadian Politics, Electoral Politics, Elections, Twitter, Political Parties