Newspapers, magazines, and other general interest publications are important sources for public policy research. The news is often the first venue in which government policy direction is articulated, and is particularly useful if the policy is significant or controversial. Reading news coverage is also an efficient way to identify bills under consideration, key stakeholders, and other important information.
Suggested databases for news articles include:
Users may also wish to consult the Hill Times, a politics and government weekly newspaper which is especially useful for detailed, insider, information.
Tip: If you become overwhelmed by the number of repetitive articles you find, try restricting the sources. Certain news sources fulfill a role as “newspapers of record” and provide excellent and detailed coverage of Canadian politics and current affairs. Unless the issue is a regional one, you may wish to start off restricting yourself to two or three major papers such as the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, and the National Post. Factiva works best if you opt to go this route:
See also: Guide to Finding Newspapers Articles
All of the parties and most of the candidate maintain a presence on Social Media. The Candidate and Parties section of this guide will help you to find the individual accounts. Politwitter was a formerly useful way to track political tweets via different ways, but is no longer in operation -- their website does still have an archive of content that can be accessed, however. The Hashtags page is another useful index.
| General Twitter Hashtags | #cdnpoli #elxn43 #CanadaVotes |
| Conservative Party | @CPC_HQ (Twitter) cpcpcc (Facebook) @cpc_hq (Instagram) |
| Pierre Poilievre (Leader of the Opposition) | @PierrePoilievre (Twitter) Pierre Poilievre (Facebook) @pierrepoilievremp (Instagram) |
| Green Party | @canadiangreens (Twitter) GreenPartyofCanada (Facebook) @thegreenparty_canada (Instagram) |
| Elizabeth May & Jonathan Pedneault, Co-Leaders | @ElizabethMay (Twitter) ElizabethMayGreenLeader (Facebook) (Instagram) |
| Liberal Party | @liberal_party (Twitter) LiberalCA (Facebook) @liberalca (Instagram) |
| Justin Trudeau | @JustinTrudeau (Twitter) JustinPJTrudeau (Facebook) @justinpjtrudeau (Instagram) |
| New Democratic Party | @NDP (Twitter) NDP.NPD (Facebook) @ndpcanada (Instagram) |
| Jagmeet Singh | @theJagmeetSingh (Twitter) jagmeetndp (Facebook) @jagmeetsingh (Instagram) |
| People's Party of Canada | @peoplespca (Twitter) peoplespca (Facebook) @peoplespca (Instagram) |
| Maxime Bernier | @MaximeBernier (Twitter) hon.maximebernier (Facebook) @hon.maximebernier (Instagram) |
Aggregators and Quick Lookup Resources
Major Polling Firms
These are the polling firms most often mentioned in the news. There are others and they may be found using the CBC's Poll-Tracker and the 338canada.com sites.
Polling Data and Microdata Resources
The underlying data for many polls and surveys, including the Canadian Election Study, are made available to researchers after the fact for study. The following sites provide access to the major ones and provide the tools for online analysis or for downloading and subsequent analysis using statistical software packages such as SAS, SPSS, Stata, and R.
Scholarly articles offer greater analysis and may have the historical perspective not found in popular works such as newspapers and general interest magazines. Try the databases listed below or see the full list of subject research guides to see the key databases for a subject area.
Suggested databases for journal articles:
Note: It takes some time for academic articles to be researched, written, and accepted for publication. Don’t count on finding one unless the issue has been around for some time or is very significant.
Note: It takes some time for academic articles to be researched, written, and accepted for publication. Don’t count on finding one unless the issue has been around for some time or is very significant. You may find some books that have been written quickly, for profit, in anticipation of the election but it is unlikely they'll be scholarly.
Try searching the Library Catalogue by keyword first. If you this too many items, use the Advanced Search and limit by searching the subject fields. Most of the time, if a book is on Canadian government policy, the word Canada will appear in the subject field. You can search for as many different concepts as you wish, limiting yourself to searching the subject field and linking them together by selecting AND on the left. A search might look like this:
