Beyond the prairies: The basis of Reform support in Ontario and its implications for the Canadian party system.

The thesis explores three questions: On what basis were Ontario voters courted during the 1993 federal election by the Reform Party of Canada? What are the political, economic, and demographic predictors of Reform support in Ontario? What are the implications of Reform support in Ontario for the Canadian party system? The thesis proceeds to structure the exploration of these questions within three schools of thought: post-modernism, political party systems theory, and theories regarding the emergence of collective behaviour. The thesis explores these questions using a variety of methodologies, including re-examinations of electoral data in order to control for rural, sub-urban, and urban effects, demographic and economic data gathered from Statistics Canada, and a questionnaire completed by Reform Party candidates in the 1993 federal election. The thesis explores the effect of previous federal, provincial, and referendum voting patterns on Reform Party support. The thesis concludes that: (1) the Reform Party vote in Ontario is the vote of the ideologically-committed right wing, (2) the Party's support is concentrated in mid-sized urban Ontario and defies a rural description, (3) the support is that of the economically secure who are facing declining opportunities, (4) the politicization of citizen alienation through the themes of parliamentary reform and populism has been key in developing activism in Ontario, and fiscal conservatism is a solidifying agent of this conversion. The thesis explores the implications of the Reform Party's success in Ontario, particularly whether the party can escape the inherent difficulties between populism and parliamentary democracy. The thesis concludes with a discussion of whether the party is the harbinger of fundamental change in the Canadian political party system. (Abstract shortened by UMI.