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  • 标题:Did the 2013 municipal elections destabilize municipal politics in Quebec?
  • 作者:Mevellec, Anne
  • 期刊名称:Canadian Journal of Urban Research
  • 印刷版ISSN:1188-3774
  • 出版年度:2014
  • 期号:December
  • 语种:English
  • 出版社:Institute of Urban Studies
  • 摘要:Could the municipal political scandals uncovered by the Charbonneau Commission exert an influence on a main characteristic of municipal politics: the stability of its politicians? This paper intends to explore this issue during the 2013 Quebec elections. To verify adherence and/or deviation from established trends, we adopt a diachronic view that considers the two previous elections (2005 and 2009). Three factors are taken into consideration when interpreting voter trends: (1) voter participation and the competitiveness of the elections; (2) the role of municipal political parties; and (3) the incumbency advantage. We observed (1) more competitive elections; (2) a shrinking number of political parties but evidences of their general stabilization; (3) a slight renewal of municipal politicians due more to withdrawal from office than to electoral defeat. Finally, our analysis of electoral data also uncovered variable dynamics within Quebec communities of different sizes.
  • 关键词:Elections;Political parties;Scandals

Did the 2013 municipal elections destabilize municipal politics in Quebec?


Mevellec, Anne


Abstract

Could the municipal political scandals uncovered by the Charbonneau Commission exert an influence on a main characteristic of municipal politics: the stability of its politicians? This paper intends to explore this issue during the 2013 Quebec elections. To verify adherence and/or deviation from established trends, we adopt a diachronic view that considers the two previous elections (2005 and 2009). Three factors are taken into consideration when interpreting voter trends: (1) voter participation and the competitiveness of the elections; (2) the role of municipal political parties; and (3) the incumbency advantage. We observed (1) more competitive elections; (2) a shrinking number of political parties but evidences of their general stabilization; (3) a slight renewal of municipal politicians due more to withdrawal from office than to electoral defeat. Finally, our analysis of electoral data also uncovered variable dynamics within Quebec communities of different sizes.

Keywords: municipal election, Quebec, incumbency, municipal political parties

Resume

Les elections municipales quebecoises de 2013 se sont tenues dans un climat defavorable aux elus municipaux. Ce contexte peut-il avoir eu une influence sur ce qui caracterise le plus la politique municipale, c'est-a-dire la stabilite de son personnel politique ? Cet enjeu est interroge a partir de trois tendances documentees dans la litterature ; (1) la competitivite des scrutins, (2) la presence des partis politiques municipaux; (3) la prime au sortant. L'analyse des resultats de 2005, 2009 et 2013, nous permet de conclure que: (1) la competitivite des scrutins est de plus en plus forte ; (2) si le nombre des partis politiques a baisse, leur presence est confortee dans les villes moyennes et grandes ; (3) le renouvellement du corps politique est davantage lie au depart de la vie politique d'anciens elus plutot qu'a des votes de sanction. Finalement, l'analyse des donnees montre des tendances differentes selon la taille des municipalites.

Mots cles: elections municipales, Quebec, partis politiques municipaux, prime au sortant

Introduction

The municipal elections that occurred across Quebec in November 2013 came hot on the heels of a multitude of political scandals at the municipal level on a scale never before seen in Canada. One idea that is frequently circulated (though is yet to be proven) is the notion that political scandals not only repel citizens from participating in municipal democracy, but also destabilize the municipal political landscape. This article seeks to discover if this was indeed the case in Quebec in 2013.

In Canada, municipal elections represent a fairly peripheral subject in both political science and in urban studies (Eidelman and Taylor 2010). While this relegation is not specific to Canada (see e.g., Lehingue 2009), there is currently a widespread surge of interest in this subject owing to major comparative electoral studies in Europe (Back, Heinelt, and Stewart 2006; Guerin and Kerrouche 2008) regarding the professionalization process of local elected officials. The 2013 Quebec municipal elections provide an opportunity to ask similar classic electoral sociology questions within a Canadian context as well.

A brief review of the literature on municipal elections in Canada yields a number of observations. The first is that this subject occupies a residual place in textbooks and works on municipal governance (Tindal and Nobes Tindal 2008; Sancton 2011; Sancton and Young 2009). However, when it does take place, the discussion is most often centred on the

voting system (i.e., the ward vs. the at-large systems). Authors also speak to the presence of municipal political parties in Quebec City, Montreal, and Vancouver, but generally do so to highlight their exceptionality. A number of authors have also made efforts to focus on certain aspects of municipal elections, including the electability of women (Gavan-Koop and Smith 200S) and ethnocultural minorities (Andrew et al. 2008; Simard 2004), as well as on the cost of election campaigns in large metropolises such as Toronto (MacDermid 2009) and Calgary (Young 2008).

Indeed, a majority of the literature deals, for the most part, with municipal politics in markedly metropolitan settings. Thus, provincial capitals are generally well addressed; as an illustration, we can refer to the work of Stanwick (2000) on Toronto and of Cutler and Matthews (2005) on Vancouver. There are fewer works on mid-sized cities, although we can cite the research led by Breux and Bherer (2011) on medium-sized cities in Quebec, or Spicer's (2012) work on Hamilton. However, the 1997 finding of Kushner, Siegel, and Stanwick regarding the absence of generic works on municipalities of all sizes still holds true.

Furthermore, the existing body of literature is dominated by inquiries into the office of the mayor (Siegel, Kushner, and Stanwick 2001; Stanwick 2000; Urbaniak 2009). Notwithstanding some exceptions, very few studies deal with municipal councillors. The exceptions include studies on councillors in Ontario elections (Kushner, Siegel, and Stanwick 1997); the accessibility of municipal councillors in Toronto following amalgamation (Kushner and Siegel 2003); the remuneration of councillors (Schobel 2014); and the role of councillors (Koop 2014; Mevellec 2011). Without denying the contribution and the diversity of these works, it is clear that the study of municipal politics in Canada is dominated by a twofold characteristic--namely (1) a monographic viewpoint that limits the scope of inquiry; and (2) a nearly exclusive focus on large metropolitan cities.

Ultimately, the value of each of these works cannot compensate for the fragmented portrait they provide of municipal politics. However, the province of Quebec offers an opportunity to consider an alternate, less monographic approach. Through the institutional production of election data, it is possible to undertake a longitudinal examination of municipal politics in Quebec and, more broadly, to produce more general knowledge on municipal elections in a transforming world. Indeed, data collected by Quebec's Ministry of Municipal Affairs (i.e., MAMROT) now makes it possible to compare various characteristics of the candidates who ran, both successfully and unsuccessfully, in the 20051, 2009, and 2013 municipal elections in Quebec--that is, for the years in which simultaneous voting was implemented. The availability of this data enables us to break with the notion that municipal elections are merely "second order" elections in order to establish the municipal election process as a legitimate subject of study in itself.

The 2013 Quebec elections are particularly interesting, as they came on the heels of a widespread loss of public confidence in municipal officials. Since 2009, many fraudulent practices tied to the financing of election campaigns and the awarding of municipal contracts have been revealed by the work of the so-called Marteau squad and, subsequently, by the Commission of Inquiry on the Awarding and Management of Public Contracts in the Construction Industry (i.e., the Charbonneau Commission). In 2011, the Government of Quebec passed Bill 109, the Municipal Ethics and Good Conduct Act, which required that municipal councils adopt a code of ethics and that elected officials take training in ethics and professional conduct.

Amid the maelstrom of the Charbonneau Commission, several leading figures in Quebec municipal politics were unseated. Some were removed over criminal charges (e.g., Gilles Vaillancourt, mayor of Laval from 1989-2012; Richard Marcotte, mayor of Mascouche from 1992-2012; and Michael Applebaum, mayor of Montreal from 2012-2013), while others succumbed to political and public pressure and resigned (e.g., Gerald Tremblay, mayor of Montreal from 2002-2012). In addition to uncovering the unsavoury behaviour of individuals, the Charbonneau Commission also provided an opportunity for light to be shed on the previously ambiguous role played by some municipal political parties, particularly those in Montreal and Laval, in the awarding of municipal contracts--and also, unfortunately, in illegal political financing schemes. Public confidence in elected municipal officials suffered greatly across Quebec, as was widely reported in the media in a virtual avalanche of negative press. One Montreal Gazette headline on March 6, 2013 read "Fraud probe sweeps through Montreal city hall," while another on March 19, 2013 claimed that "False invoices lead to cash for political coffers".

Could the municipal political scandals uncovered by the Charbonneau Commission exert an influence on that which primarily characterizes municipal politics: the stability of its politicians? This stability (i.e., the trend of municipal politicians to demonstrate longstanding, consistent involvement in local affairs) has been highlighted in a variety of contexts. For instance, in their research regarding a municipal poll conducted in Europe in 2004, Guerin and Kerrouche (2008: 195) indicate that, "While only a third of all mayors have been in office for over ten years, most have immense experience of public life, [with] two-thirds having been elected to their first position in local government leadership more than ten years earlier." In Canada, Kushner, Siegel, and Stanwick (1997) have addressed this stability in terms of its benefit to the incumbent within the context of Ontario. In Quebec specifically, such stability has also been documented against the background of municipal amalgamations; in particular, both Simard (2004) and Mevellec (2008) have shown that while the municipal elections of 2001 offered a chance for new (and sometimes diverse) candidates to emerge, voters still elected incumbents (2).

This paper intends to explore the stability of municipal politicians during the 2013 Quebec elections. As a baseline, we will use the analyses and results set out in Mevellec (2011) and Collin (2011), which relate to the 2009 Quebec municipal elections. In these studies, three trends in stability were identified: (1) an increase in the amount of competition/candidacies; (2) a growing role for political parties in electoral competitions; and (3) the continued benefit to the incumbent. Given that these trends were identified for the 2009 municipal elections in Quebec, this paper asks: Do these three trends still hold true for the 2013 Quebec municipal elections, which occurred in the wake of numerous political scandals?

This study has drawn from the official candidate databases compiled by MAMROT based on the Quebec municipal elections of 2005, 2009, and 2013. These sources have made it possible to document the age and gender (3), political affiliation, and electoral success of all candidates across all 1,103 municipalities in Quebec, as well as the incumbencies for 2009 and 2013.

This work's main contribution lies in its documentation and analysis of the prevailing characteristics of the 2013 Quebec municipal elections with regard to the stability of elected municipal officials. To achieve our aim of identifying adherence and/or deviation from established trends, we will adopt a diachronic view that considers the two previous elections. Three respective factors will be taken into consideration when interpreting the three voter trends: (1) voter participation and the competitiveness of the elections; (2) the role of political parties; and (3) the turnover of politicians.

1. Did the political climate tarnish the attractiveness of municipal political participation in Quebec?

Following an election, the first questions asked tend to concern voter participation. Indeed, so-called "voter turnout" is considered to be the truest measure of citizen participation within a democracy (Nakhaie 2006). In Quebec, voter participation is measured only in those municipalities in which the mayor has not been elected by acclamation (Champagne and Patry 2004). This method of calculation excludes roughly half of all municipalities in Quebec (mainly rural ones).

According to MAMROT data, the voter participation rate for the 2013 Quebec municipal elections averaged 47%. This figure reflects a slight increase as compared to the 2009 rate of 45% (4), but indicates an overall decrease as compared to levels for the period between 1996 and 2002, which Champagne and Patry (2004) place at between 49 and 56%. While it can be difficult to settle on a consensus, various sources indicate that voter participation rates remain between 40 and 45% on average in municipal elections in Canada. Sancton (2011) estimates the normal participation rate to be between 30 and 40%, while Tindal and Nobes Tindal (2008) calculate it to be 40% (5). Therefore, the 2013 Quebec election appears to have been a success in an electoral landscape in which voters are rare.

Tindal and Nobes Tindal (2008) propose two non-exclusive hypotheses to explain any pronounced increase in voter participation for a given election. The first involves the importance of the election issue. In the case of the 2013 Quebec municipal elections, the publicized scandals related to the management of several municipalities may have helped to encourage voters to actively participate in choosing their future council members. The second hypothesis involves increased election competition. In other words, it postulates that the larger the number of candidates, the more inclined voters will be to vote. It is this second idea that is particularly relevant to this paper, as the 2013 municipal elections saw a notable increase in the number of local candidacies across medium and larger cities in Quebec.

The competitiveness of municipal elections (that is, the attractiveness of holding political office) can be measured by the number of candidacies--something we will discuss further on. The number of municipal politicians who are actually elected to their seats (as opposed to being elected by acclamation) can also help gage competitiveness. Table 1 shows that in 2013, 4,400 elected officials (519 mayors and 3,881 councillors) were actually elected without opposition. This represents nearly one in every two elected municipal officials in Quebec. Yet Table 1 also shows an overall decline in the number of elected officials who take municipal office without opposition--a trend that applies across municipalities of all sizes. This general trend is nonetheless most pronounced in medium and larger cities (i.e., those with 20,000-500,000 residents), particularly with regard to municipal councillors. In these cities, the rates of decline in the number of unopposed elected officials between 2009 and 2013 exceeded -30%.

It is plain to see that electoral competition has been gradually increasing in municipalities of all sizes in Quebec. As strong as this overall trend may be, however, there remain many municipalities in Quebec where "true" elections did not take place in 2013. Indeed, according to MAMROT, in 2013 there were 247 municipalities in which the entire council was elected unopposed (i.e., by acclamation), which is fairly consistent with the data for the 2005 and 2009 elections. On the other hand, the data also reflect the fact that, for the first time since MAMROT began recording data, the proportion of mayors elected without opposition fell to below 50% (6).

The result of this decrease in the number of "elected" officials appointed unopposed is, obviously, an increase in the total number of candidacies (i.e., people running for office) across Quebec. Table 2 illustrates this trend for all municipalities in Quebec, as well as how this trend breaks down by size of municipality. The 2013 elections confirmed the trend observed in 2009 (Mevellec 2011), which showed a continued increase in the number of candidacies; clearly, winning municipal office has remained an attractive option to many, even in the aftermath of the well-publicized political scandals.

The issue of the number of candidacies is important, as it allows us to observe the attractiveness of local political office over time, for a near-constant number of seats (7) and for various sizes of municipality. By observing the rates of change, we can see that the attractiveness of office is at its highest in cities with 20,000-500,000 residents. In fact, from 2005 to 2013, we can see a 51% increase in mayoral candidacies and a 34% rise in councillor candidacies. For both mayor and councillor positions, the percentage of change in the number of candidacies was higher between 2009 and 2013 than it was for the period from 2005 to 2009, which illustrates an acceleration in the trend of wanting to be elected to municipal council.

The candidate-to-seat ratios for the various sizes of municipality have also been calculated for the 2005, 2009, and 2013 election years. Notably, the number of candidates for each seat has risen with the size of the city. For instance, in 2013, in municipalities with fewer than 10,000 residents, the ratio was an average of 1.6 candidates per mayoral position and 1.45 candidates per councillor position. In cities with 20,000-500,000 residents, these ratios rise to 3.16 and 2.77, respectively. Lastly, in the province's only two truly metropolitan cities with populations larger than 500,000 (i.e., Montreal and Quebec City), these figures reach an average of 4.5 candidates for the office of mayor and 4.0 candidates per seat on council. We can thus conclude not only that the competition in 2013 was fiercest for the office of mayor across the board, but also that the degree of competition rose with the size of the city. (8)

By clarifying the electoral dynamic in the 2013 Quebec municipal elections from the point of view of the number of candidacies, we are able to draw two important conclusions. The first is that even though the Charbonneau Commission findings may have discredited municipal politics to a certain extent, the 2013 Quebec municipal elections saw a continuation of the ongoing trend of the growing attractiveness of municipal political mandates. The second conclusion is that, particularly in 2013, this attractiveness seemed to be strongest in cities with 20,000-500,000 residents.

2. Did the political climate disrupt the prevalence of municipal political parties in Quebec?

As mentioned in the introduction, municipal political parties in Quebec have occupied a central focus in the Charbonneau Commission inquiries. In the months and years leading up to the 2013 municipal elections, the rather ambiguous (and oftentimes unsavoury) role played by these parties--particularly those in Montreal and Laval--was stigmatized by the media. In this context, did the prevalence of municipal political parties decline across Quebec preceding the 2013 elections?

On the day of the 2013 elections, the Chief Electoral Officer of Quebec (i.e., the DGE) announced that there was an overall decline in the number of municipal political parties fielding candidates in that year's elections (DGE 2013). According to the DGE's report, the number of parties across Quebec municipalities dropped from 194 in 2009 to 180 in 2013 (see Table 3). Indeed, for the province as a whole, the 2013 election saw a notable break in the upward trend in the number of municipal political parties active across Quebec, which has been documented as consistently growing since the late 1990s (Mevellec and Tremblay 2013).

While there is no question that a reduced number of municipal political parties was the general province-wide trend, this decline did not hold true for the 52 cities with 20,000-500,000 residents. What's more, this same group of cities saw a rise in the number of "labelled" candidacies (i.e., those that were aligned with a political party). This was due to the fact that, in 2013, a strong majority of political parties were able to field "complete" lists of candidates (i.e., parties with as many candidates as seats up for election).

The 2013 election data suggests that the partisan phenomenon is becoming a permanent fixture in the municipal political landscapes of the province's cities. Indeed, after spreading throughout all municipalities in Quebec from 2001 to 2009, the parties appear to be concentrating themselves in medium and larger cities. In fact, in 2013, while political parties were operating in only 46% of municipalities with over 5,000 residents, they were present in more than 63% of cities with 20,000-500,000 residents. In addition, as proposed in Mevellec and Tremblay (2013), it appears that a contagion effect is at play; examining elections over time shows that rival parties often appear in municipalities where previously only one party existed. One of the strategies used to take on a municipal party in power, therefore, seems to involve the creation of a second party. (9)

With the use of the data collected during the 2005, 2009, and 2013 elections, it is possible to identify those cities that are engaged in "party politics" and those that have heretofore skirted this political and electoral practice. For instance, 36 of the 52 cities with 20,000-500,000 residents had at least one municipal political party present in at least one municipal election since 2005 (10). This suggests that the presence of political parties is relatively deep rooted in the majority of medium and larger cities in Quebec--with two exceptions. First, 2013 marked the first year that the cities of Gatineau, Candiac, L'Assomption, and Beloeil saw the emergence of political parties. Second, political parties emerged only for a single election in three other cities (i.e., in Saint-Hyacinthe in 2005; and in Shawinigan and Victoriaville in 2009). Beyond these seven instances, however, municipal political parties have had a relatively stable presence in the other 29 medium and larger cities in Quebec that engage in party politics (i.e., have been present in at least two of the three elections).

This observation is particularly notable in terms of qualifying the two main arguments commonly put forward in an effort to minimize the municipal party politics phenomenon. The first of these arguments is that parties are merely campaign organizations (Breux and Bherer 2012). Indeed, the lifespan of political parties has been estimated at less than two mandates by both the DGE and our own analyses; in this way, municipal political parties do resemble election teams. However, it is also the case that 12 of the province's cities with 20,000-500,000 residents had a political party that was active or successful during all three consecutive elections. This suggests that, particularly when they are successful, an institutionalization process may be occurring for municipal political parties. This analysis cannot be confined to the election alone, but must bring into consideration the modes of operation and the effect of parties when they endure. This research has yet to be carried out.

The second argument put forward to minimize the role of municipal political parties in Quebec is that these parties serve the main purpose of financially benefitting candidates' campaigns. Until the 2013 reform, Quebec's Act Respecting Elections and Referendums in Municipalities (AERM) authorized parties to accept up to $1,000 from each voter (L.R.Q., chapter E-2.2, art. 431). Furthermore, some of the election spending incurred by parties could be reimbursed depending on the election outcome. For instance, if a party-affiliated candidate was elected or obtained at least 15% of votes, they would be reimbursed for 50% of their election expenses from the municipality's general funds (L.R.Q., chapter E-2.2, art. 475). Following revelations regarding rampant secret financing in municipal politics, the AERM was amended in June 2013. Since then, individual contributions have been set at $300 for party-affiliated candidates and independents alike, and municipalities are to reimburse 70% of eligible campaign expenses for all candidates (both independent and party-affiliated) who have been elected or who obtained at least 15% of votes (L.R.Q., chapter E-2.2, art. 475 and 476). Therefore, the financial justification argument can be considered insufficient to explain the role of municipal political parties in Quebec--particularly since Gatineau, Candiac, L'Assomption, and Beloeil all presented political parties for the first time in 2013, when any supposed financial advantage had been extinguished. This argument will be fully tested during the next municipal elections, when the law will have been in place for more than one mandate.

We have seen that municipal political parties are pervasive in municipal politics in Quebec, although the extent of their influence remains unproven. One effect of these parties, however, seems to be their ability to get candidates elected. Table 4 illustrates the relative success of parties in having their candidates elected. Specifically, the success rate of candidates who are members of political parties is higher than that of independent candidates (i.e., 39% for the former as compared to 33% for the latter).

Building on the work of Mevellec and Tremblay (2013), we can postulate that this elevated success rate is at least partly due to the sizable financial and organizational resources obtained by the parties for their candidates. However, the relative success of parties in having their candidates elected should be a call to researchers to further understand what link--if any--exists between a candidate's membership in a municipal political party and his or her electoral success.

By showing the development and extent of the party politics dynamic that is so specific to Quebec, this section enables us to draw two main conclusions. First, that while party politics continued to represent a pervasive force in the 2013 Quebec municipal elections, the trend towards an increased presence of political parties (observed across the province since the late 1990s) generally began to lose steam in 2013--although the increasing presence of these parties seems to be an ongoing phenomenon in medium and larger cities. Second, these parties appear to be relatively effective in their ability to have their candidates elected. Importantly, our lack of conclusive research on the topic leaves us far from able to cast doubt on the role of these political parties, even though several of them have been called into question by the Charbonneau Commission.

3. Did the political climate disrupt the benefit to incumbents?

Our final avenue of inquiry into the effect of political scandal on the stability of municipal politics in Quebec focuses on the benefit to incumbents. The literature on the benefit to incumbents (which has been produced in both Europe and North America) speaks in particular to the distinction between candidates' original resources (i.e., those they had prior to their first successful election) and the resources they acquired during their term(s) in office. It has not been clearly demonstrated that the resources acquired in office are what actually

allow incumbent candidacies to succeed in reelection (Trounstine 2011). Regardless of the origin of these resources, for our purposes, the benefit to the incumbent describes the relative ease with which incumbent candidates are reelected to office. In connection to incumbent benefit, many researchers have examined the possibility of limiting the number of municipal mandates that an individual can serve (Luttberg 2004), as well as the possible justifications for such limits in terms of modernizing public administration (Marrel and Payre 2005). However, no such term limits were at play in the 2013 Quebec municipal elections.

Given the electoral climate in Quebec in 2013, it was possible to believe that a renewal of the political landscape was underway--particularly given the departure of more incumbents from office than had been seen in previous elections. One could wonder whether the publicized municipal scandals and the subsequent discrediting of those in office might have altered the mechanisms favouring incumbents, even for a limited time.

A close look at the MAMROT data reveals that, while the total number of all candidacies available in the province increased by 3.85% between 2005 and 2009, the number of incumbent candidacies remained stable between 2009 and 2013, with a difference of only 0.13%. It is possible that these incumbents were nonetheless influenced in some way by the events leading up to the elections; perhaps a desire to distance themselves from the scandals or to leave a different legacy motivated them to run for reelection. Regardless, across Quebec as a whole, incumbents won a moderately smaller proportion of available seats in 2013 than they did in 2005 and 2009--although, as illustrated in Table 5, no dramatic drops in incumbency occurred.

Once again, however, Quebec's medium and larger cities proved to be exceptions. As Table 5 shows, a notable decline in the number of incumbent candidates running for reelection in 2013 can be found in those cities with 20,000-500,000 residents, where only 359 incumbents ran (as compared to the 437 incumbents who ran in 2009). We can therefore conclude that 2013 saw an evaporation of incumbent politicians running for reelection in medium and larger cities, and thereby many of these districts were left "orphaned." This leads us to believe that the lack of reelected incumbents in 2013 in medium and larger cities was not necessarily due to voters penalizing those politicians who had theretofore been in power. Rather, it seems clear that one major variable at play was the fact that a large number of outgoing politicians simply chose not to run again in 2013.

We can also ask questions regarding the success rate of incumbent candidates in the aftermath of Quebec's political scandals. In 2009, in cities with 20,000-500,000 residents, the success rate for incumbent candidates was 84%, both for the position of mayor and councillor. This figure is consistent with that of the International City Management Association, which is also the one used by Krebs (1998). However, the 2013 data for these same cities show a slight decline in the success rate of incumbents, which did not surpass 81.8% for mayors or 79.7% for councillors (12). Therefore, while medium and larger cities saw fewer incumbent candidates choosing to run in 2013, there does appear to have been at least a small degree of voter backlash at the polls, as those incumbents who did run were slightly less successful with voters than they had been in the past. Therefore, the 2013 results allow for a more nuanced picture of the work of Kushner, Siegel, and Stanwick (1997), which found that the larger the city, the firmer the grip of incumbent candidates on the election.

Our analysis of incumbent candidates revealed some other interesting trends. For instance, in Quebec in 2013, women were more likely than men to become candidates, with a variation of over 20%. However, according to Gidengil and Vengroff (1997), the benefit to the incumbent particularly favours men. By not running for office, therefore, male outgoing elected officials potentially leave the way open for women politicians. Further analysis would determine if an increase in the number of women elected to municipal politics in Quebec actually took place in these orphan districts.

By taking a closer look at trends in incumbency during the 2013 Quebec municipal elections, this section has enabled us to draw two conclusions. First, that there was an exodus of incumbent candidates in medium and larger cities, although this was largely due to the decision of many outgoing candidates to retire from municipal politics. Second, Quebeckers did not manifestly use the voting booth to penalize their incumbent candidates for the events leading up to the elections. It remains to be shown if the lack of incumbent candidates made way for a sort of "renewal" in the municipal offices of these cities.

Conclusion

The objective of this text was to examine the 2013 Quebec municipal elections while taking into account the troubled political climate in which they took place. The guiding belief behind this work was that the public image of local representative democracy has been tarnished by the political scandals that have shaken a number of Quebec municipalities since 2009. While opinion polls could contribute to this discussion, we chose to address the actual behaviour of voters and candidates in the 2013 elections. Our analyses examined the influence of this shaken public confidence on political stability, which is a well-recognized characteristic of municipal politics in Quebec and elsewhere. Specifically, three facets were chosen for examination based on their ability to provide a snapshot of the dynamics and inertia of political stability in Quebec municipalities in 2013. These facets were: (1) the attractiveness of democratic municipal participation in Quebec; (2) the prevalence of municipal political parties in Quebec; and (3) the dis/advantage to incumbents.

In a media environment that was highly critical of elected municipal officials, we saw that voters in 2013 still chose to go out and vote at a rate similar to the 2005 and 2009 elections. Indeed, we observed neither a citizen tidal wave looking to oust incumbents nor excessive voter apathy in the face of this confidence crisis. Moreover, we believe that the increased number of candidacies for seats in municipal politics reflects the growing attractiveness of these positions--a continued upward trend that is consistent with previous elections. This leads us to conclude that the well-publicized scandals that led up to the 2013 elections had no particularly negative effect on the attractiveness of municipal political office at large. While Quebec's distinctive municipal political parties were somewhat negatively impacted by these municipal scandals, they seemed to survive overall in the 2013 elections. To agree with Lehingue (2009), however, this remains a largely understudied and poorly understood area. A final avenue of analysis considered a possible renewal of municipal politicians thanks to the slightly raised departure (and sometimes failure) rates of incumbent candidates, with the interpretation that the lack of reelected incumbents was generally due more to withdrawal from office than to electoral defeat.

Finally, our analysis of electoral data also uncovered variable dynamics within Quebec communities of different sizes. Indeed, the three trends noted above are not observed to the same degree in all municipalities in Quebec. Specifically, for each analysis employed, the group of cities with 20,000--500,000 residents proved to have the largest increase in candidacies, the most notable retention or affirmation of municipal political parties, and one of the largest drops in the number of incumbent candidacies. Together, these findings suggest that medium and larger cities have been the theatre of more aggressive electoral competition than other cities. Indeed, in this specific range of cities, voter and candidate behaviours did in fact lead to the demonstrable destabilization of municipal politics in 2013. Therefore, we are led to reaffirm the academic and social value in looking beyond huge metropolitan centres to consider smaller cities as legitimate subjects of study in their own right.

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Anne Mevellec

Ecole detudes politiques/School of Political Studies

University of Ottawa

Notes

(1) In 2005, three municipalities postponed calling their elections by one year. The implementation of simultaneous voting was therefore not complete until 2009.

(2) Simard (2004) in particular has demonstrated that although there were more candidacies from ethnocultural minorities in 2001, these were seldom successful. In her study, Mevellec (2008) has shown that voters chose to reelect incumbent mayors in order to ensure a political transition in the context of the new city of Saguenay, created in 2001.

(3) The data concerning gender are used in another article in this special issue. Upon analysis, the data on the age of candidates and elected municipal officials do not reveal any notable trends, according to Mevellec's (2011) findings. There is no data available on the ethnocultural origins of elected municipal officials.

(4) Figures available on the MAMROT website. See http://www.electionsmunicipales. gouv.qc.ca/je-minforme/resultats-anterieurs-de-2009-et-2005/ (Accessed April 15,2014).

(5) The Union of British Columbia Municipalities (UBCM) reports that the voter participation rate in the 2008 municipal elections in British Columbia was 27.78% (UBCM 2010). According to Bourgeois and Strain (2009), New Brunswick had a voter participation rate of 45% during the 2008 municipal elections.

(6) Further to this, Champagne and Patry (2004) have noted that, from 1996 to 2002, 59% of mayors in Quebec were elected by acclamation. This situation is not unique within Canada, however. In fact, after collecting comparable data for Alberta, LeSage and McMillan (2009: 448) note that, "By our calculations, using 2004 election data available from Alberta Municipal Affairs, 47 per cent of rural municipal council members and 38 per cent of village council members are acclaimed ... Seventeen of the 109 town councils are wholly composed of acclaimed members, and 38 per cent of town mayors are acclaimed ... Acclamations are not restricted to the province's smaller municipalities; four of Calgary's fifteen council members were acclaimed in 2004."

(7) According to MAMROT, the number of seats up for election was 8,111 in 2005; 8,078 in 2009; and 8,050 in 2013. This data is available on the following website: http://www.electionsmunicipales.gouv.qc.ca/pub/elections/statistiques_ elections_2013_candidat_elus.pdf et http://www.electionsmunicipales.gouv. qc.ca/je-minforme/resultats-anterieurs-de-2009-et-2005/ (accessed April 14, 2014).

(8) On these points, our data confirms the findings of Kushner, Siegel, and Stanwick (1997) in regards to Ontario, although the Quebec data can be differentiated due to the fact that the 1997 Ontario figures referred to ratios of no larger than 3.0 candidates per seat even in large municipalities.

(9) This no doubt explains why, in six cities with 20,000-500,000 residents, there were more than three political parties running in the 2013 election. Notably, Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu saw a race between six political parties, of which five fielded complete lists of candidates.

(10) The presence of municipal political parties has been strengthened over time in large cities (i.e., in cities with more than 100,000 residents). Gatineau was the final large city to see the emergence of a political party, "Action Gatineau" (see Chiasson, Gauthier, and Andrew in this issue). However, the parties do not function on the same scale or have the same influence in all the large cities in the province. For example, in the large city of Trois-Rivieres, the "3R" party only fielded a single candidate for mayor in 2009.

(12) This latter figure appears to approach the figures for New Brunswick proposed by Bourgois and Strain (2009), which puts the election success rate of incumbent candidates at 75% since 1966.
Table 1: Changes in the number of unopposed (i.e., acclaimed)
elected officials in Quebec municipalities of various sizes
(2005, 2009, and 2013)

                                             2005     2009

All municipalities            Mayors         605      548
                              Councillors   4,302    3,984
More than 500,000 residents   Mayors          1        0
  (i.e., Montreal and Quebec  Councillors     5        2
  City)
20,000-500,000 residents      Mayors          10       10
                              Councillors    117      108
10,000-20,000 residents       Mayors          12       13
                              Councillors     94       80
Fewer than 10,000 residents   Mayors         582      525
                              Councillors   4,086    3,794

                               2013    Rate of
                                       change
                                       2009 to
                                       2013(%)

All municipalities             519     -5.29%
                              3,881    -2.58%
More than 500,000 residents     0        0%
  (i.e., Montreal and Quebec    1       -50%
  City)
20,000-500,000 residents        7       -30%
                                73     -32.40%
10,000-20,000 residents         5      -61.53%
                                53     -33.75%
Fewer than 10,000 residents    507     -3.42%
                              3,754    -1.05%

Table 2: Change in the number of candidacies for the office of mayor
And councillor in Quebec municipalities of various sizes (2005,2009,
and 2013)

                                    2005     2009     2013    Rate of
                                                               change
                                                              2009 to
                                                              2013 (%)

All municipalities   Mayors        1,778    1,935    2,031     4.96%
                     Councillors   10,269   10,803   11,198    3.65%

More than 500,000    Mayors          73       84       99      17.85%
residents            Councillors    442      440      470      6.81%
(i.e., Montreal
and Quebec City)

20,000-500,000       Mayors         104      126      158      25.39%
residents            Councillors   1,071    1,199    1,445     20.51%

10,000-20,000        Mayors          79       81      104      28.39%
residents            Councillors    442      500      532      6.40%

Fewer than 10,000    Mayors        1,522    1,644    1,670     1.58%
residents            Councillors   8,314    8,664    8,751     1.00%

Table 3: Municipal political parties and the number of "labelled"
candidates fielded (2005, 2009, and 2013)

                                           2005     2009     2013

Number of municipal political parties      162 *   194 **   180 **
authorized  by the Chief Electoral
Officer throughout Quebec

Number of municipal political parties       52       55       61
that fielded candidates in cities of
20,000-500,000 residents

Number of "labelled" candidates fielded     580     627      663
by municipal political parties in cities
of 20,000-500,000  residents

Source: * DGE Annual report 2005/2006--Appendix III http://www/
electionsquebec/qc/ca/documents/pdf/
rapport-annuel-dge-2005-2006.pdf (accessed April 24, 2014); ** DGE
report http://www/election- squebec.qc.ca/francais/
actualite-detail.php?id=5523 (accessed April 24,2014)

Table 4: Number of candidates and elected officials (both
independent and members of municipal political parties) in the 2013
Quebec municipal elections in cities with 20,000-500,000 residents

                       Number of    Number of
                       candidates   candidates
                                     elected
Independents              940          311
Members of municipal
  political parties       663          259
Total                    1,603         570

Table 5: Outgoing candidacies and outgoing elected officials in the
2009 and 2013 elections (11)

                                                2009

                                  Outgoing     Outgoing      Outgoing
                                 Candidacies    Elected    candidacies'
                                               Officials     rate of
                                                             success

All                  Mayors          848          680          80%
municipalities     Councillors      4,370        3,603         82%

More than            Mayors          14           12           85%
500,000            Councillors       57           42           73%
residents (i.e.,
Montreal and
Quebec City)

20,000-500,000       Mayors          38           32           84%
residents          Councillors       399          337          84%

10,000-20,000        Mayors          37           28           75%
residents          Councillors       174          132          75%

Fewer than           Mayors          759          608          80%
10,000 residents   Councillors      3,740        3,092         82%

                                                2013

                                  Outgoing     Outgoing      Outgoing
                                 Candidacies    Elected    candidacies'
                                               Officials     rate of

                                                             success
All                  Mayors          835          658          78%
municipalities     Councillors      4,390        3,664         83%

More than            Mayors           3            3           100%
500,000            Councillors       22           17           77%
residents (i.e.,
Montreal and
Quebec City)

20,000-500,000       Mayors          33           27           81%
residents          Councillors       326          260          79%

10,000-20,000        Mayors          28           23           82%
residents          Councillors       157          122          77%

Fewer than           Mayors          771          605          78%
10,000 residents   Councillors      3,885        3,265         84%

                                 Outgoing candidacies :
                                     rate of change
                                     2009-2013 (%)

All                  Mayors              -1.53
municipalities     Councillors           +0.46

More than            Mayors              -78.57
500,000            Councillors           -61.4
residents (i.e.,
Montreal and
Quebec City)

20,000-500,000       Mayors              -13.16
residents          Councillors           -18.3

10,000-20,000        Mayors              -24.32
residents          Councillors           -9.77

Fewer than           Mayors              +1.58
10,000 residents   Councillors           +3.88

The data provided by MAMROT does not identify outgoing candidacies
in 2005.
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