Canadian Studies Announcements

In This Issue:

News from Canada

• Canada’s Federal election is today; resources to understand the campaign

Upcoming Events

• 2025 Canadian Federal Election Watch Party

• Student Research Showcase: Canadian Multiculturalism in a Global Context

External Events

• Canadian Election Watch Party & Potluck in San Francisco

• Canadian Films at CAAMFest 2025

NEWS FROM CANADA

Canadians head to the polls today to elect a new Parliament. Final pre-election polls show good signs for incumbent prime minister Mark Carney and his Liberal Party, which is on track to win a majority government with a five-point lead over the rival Conservative Party and its leader, Pierre Poilievre. This represents one of the most astonishing political comebacks in Canadian history, and a dramatic reversal from the party’s positions in January, when the Conservatives a 25-point lead over the Liberals.

Unusually for a Canadian election, the campaign was fought over both domestic and international issues. The Conservatives hoped to make the election a referendum on Liberal leadership under former PM Justin Trudeau, and his record on issues from immigration to housing policy. However, the rapid deterioration of Canada-US relations under the Trump Administration has unexpectedly catapulted the issue to the top of voter’s minds over the last few months.

Preliminary results will likely be available by Monday night. If one party has a decisive win in the eastern provinces, the election will likely be called earlier in the night. The first polls will close in Newfoundland at 8:30 pm NT (4:00 pm PT). Polls in Ontario and Quebec mostly close at 9:30 pm ET (6:30 pm PT), which will be key to determining the scope of the winning party’s victory. Polls in British Columbia will close at 7:00 pm PT.

As we await the final results, here are some resources to understand this unprecedented campaign. And don’t forget that you are welcome to join us for an election watch party tonight on the Berkeley campus – see details and RSVP below!

• Compare the election promises of Canada’s major parties (CBC News)
• “‘Strange Data in the Polls’: Election Day Nears in Canada” (Politico)
• Canada elections center from BBC News
• Live election coverage from CBC News
• Live election coverage from CTV News

UPCOMING EVENTS

If you require an accommodation to participate in an event below, please let us know with as much advance notice as possible.

Monday, April 28 | 5:30 pm | IGS Library, 109 Philosophy Hall | RSVP

Please note that this event will start 30 minutes later than originally scheduled.

Join friends from the Bay Area’s Canadian community for a live viewing party as we await results from Canada’s 45th Federal general election. Who will be the next Prime Minister, and what’s in store for US-Canada relations? Come and exchange predictions and punditry with others who share a passion for Canadian politics! We’ll provide refreshments and expert commentary. This event is open to all, but RSVPs are required.

This event is cosponsored by the Consulate General of Canada in San Francisco and the Institute of Governmental Studies.

Tuesday, May 6 | 12:30 pm | 223 Philosophy Hall | RSVP

Learn about the research Canadian Studies funds through our Edward E. Hildebrand Graduate Research Fellowships, as recipients present overviews of their projects. Speakers will evaluate the success of Canada’s multicultural model in an international context, considering the integration of new immigrants, Quebec, and Indigenous nations.

The Role of Migration Destination Contexts in Lebanese Transnational Voting Across Canada, the USA, & the UAE

Nadia Almasalkhi, PhD student, Sociology

External voting has become an increasingly significant avenue for transnational political engagement, yet participation remains uneven across diasporic communities. This comparative study examines how host-country contexts shaped diasporic electoral mobilization in Lebanon’s 2018 and 2022 parliamentary elections, focusing on the Lebanese diaspora in Canada (Ontario and Quebec), the United States (California and Michigan), and the United Arab Emirates (Dubai and Abu Dhabi). Drawing on 112 semi-structured interviews, this research analyzes how national immigration regimes, political systems, local community composition, and consular practices influenced voter participation, mobilization strategies, and barriers to electoral engagement.

Public Reason and Canada’s Constitutional Crisis

Britt Leake, PhD candidate, Political Science

Britt’s research examines the conditions under which democracy succeeds or fails in societies with extensive ethnolinguistic or religious diversity. Britt will explore Canada’s failed constitutional reform efforts in the 1980s and 1990s the through the lens of the Habermas-Rawls debate on public reason, a concept in political philosophy examining the circumstances under which citizens divided by different worldviews can endorse a shared constitutional order. Why did several ideologically distinct attempts at consensus all fail to gain legitimacy with key political constituencies? Britt argues that the key to real constitutional consensus might be the pursuit of urgent, shared interests. Canada’s relative stability and lack of external threats in the late twentieth century made it harder to articulate the shared interests needed to overcome cultural divides, in contrast to times when the threat of American expansionism drove Canadians towards unity.

EXTERNAL EVENTS

Monday, April 28 | 4:30 pm PT | San Francisco, CA | RSVP

Join the San Francisco Canadian Expat Meetup Group for a casual potluck and election watch party. Watch the election results come in with fellow Canucks at The Beacon’s Club House in SF! Bring your favourites or join the optional potluck. (BYOS – Bring Your Own and Share enough for 4 – 6 people + whatever you’d like to drink.)

Canadian Films at CAAMFest 2025

May 8-11 | San Francisco, CA | Buy tickets

Four Canadian films will be screened at this year’s CAAMFest, the nation’s leading showcase for Asian-American films hosted by the Center for Asian American Media (CAAM). The films include:

• Between Pictures: The Lens of Tamio Wakayama, a documentary chronicling the journey of a Japanese-Canadian photographer from the Civil Rights-era US South to Vancouver’s former Japantown.
• Made in Ethiopia, a documentary exploring the impact of a new Chinese factory on a rural Ethiopian farming community.
• Mongrels, a drama that follows a Korean family that immigrates to the Canadian prairies amidst a troubling feral canine infestation.
• A Stone’s Throw, which follows Amine, a Palestinian elder, through two exiles from Haifa to Beirut to a Gulf oil platform.

Canadian Studies Program

213 Philosophy Hall #2308

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