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Abstract

A wedge issue is a strategic campaign tool that is used to exploit divisions within an opposing party's support base and as a result, attract those voters to a party's own electoral advantage. As defined by Hillygus and Shields (2009), a wedge issue involves specific topics and policies which parties exploit to divide the opposition and attract potential new voters, increasing their own prospects of forming a winning coalition. However, the literature is largely focused on the United States, leaving Canada comparatively underexplored, with limited research that primarily focuses on a single issue, gun control. This study addresses that gap by examining patterns among a large range of issues, revealing which topics could be potential wedge issues for the country’s three major federal parties: the Liberal Party, the Conservative Party, and the New Democratic Party (NDP). Moreover, the study explores the influence and strategic potential of wedge issues within Canada’s unique multi-party system, where parties must balance being on the offensive, as well as the risk of being targeted by more than one opposing party. To understand the foundations of wedge issues, framing and priming are key components in political psychology, which are used to help exploit the wedge issues by different parties. Together, parties can use these tools to strategize how to employ wedge issues, without risking their own voter base in the process. Using survey data from the 2019 and 2021 Canadian Election Studies (CES), I was able to examine changes in issue salience over time and highlight the most prominent issues within each time frame. Categories including the environment, the economy, immigration, women, role of government and others, with a specific focus on the environment and immigration to provide a deeper scope on the patterns. This study examines which issues may benefit Canadian parties, identifies patterns of wedge issue dynamics in a multi-party system, and highlights the issues most advantageous to each party.