Legislative Professionalism in Canadian Provincial Assemblies

• In Event: Poster Session: International Collaboration & Canadian Politics
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Canadian Politics

Abstract

An index of legislative professionalism developed by Squire (1992, 2017) characterizes American state legislatures according to their incentives to attract skilled and competent members. Legislative professionalism, in the American state context, is a function of compensation, staff, and time in session. Higher scores provide an indication of legislatures that may attract members who consider themselves full-time, dedicated representatives. Professionalism scores are related to a number of other factors such as legislative turnover, electoral contestation, public opinion regarding legislatures, and (arguably) diversity of membership. There have been applications of legislative professionalism to Canadian provincial legislatures (Moncrief 1994, 1998; Squire 2008), but the measures are quite dated and limited, compared to the American state legislative experience. Within the past few years, many Canadian provinces have made considerable changes to the institution ranging from changes in compensation to reductions in the number of seats (Marland 2019). This research creates legislative professionalism scores for provincial and territorial assemblies in Canada from 2000 to 2022. Components of legislative professionalism include member financial compensation, sitting days, and the budget for the legislative assembly (a proxy for legislative staff). Implications of changes in professionalism for Canadian parliamentarians is discussed.

Authors

• James W. Endersby, University of Missouri

• Thomas Ambrose Martin, University of Missouri