The Permanent Campaign in Canada

Abstract

This paper makes the case that a postmodern, permanent campaign has entered Canadian politics. Via the need for aggressive donor machinery based on the current state of campaign finance legislation, the continued presence of negative pre-writ advertising campaigns and the technological markings of the postmodern campaign’s extended reliance on various forms of media offerings, a permanent campaign is at the very least a plausible institutional outcome in the Canadian context, despite the lack of explicit literature on the topic. By firstly defining the permanent campaign and its American origins, this paper dissects the history of campaigns in Canada along a pre-modern, modern and postmodern delineation. It then proceeds to analyze the history of campaign finance law and technology’s influence on political branding in Canada. The paper concludes by posting some recommendations about how to isolate and remedy some of postmodern campaigning’s potentially harmful effects on voter turnout and engagement in the spirit of fostering a more inclusive and less cynical democracy by altering legislation on political advertisement, campaign financing and the electoral system.