Legal Research

Public Policy Forum Has Data on MPs

By Simon Fodden

The Public Policy Forum has released a report, “(Not as) Male, (Not as) Educated, (Not as) Experienced & (Still) White,” [PDF] by Jonathan Dignan, analysing the makup of our 39th Parliament and comparing it to comparable data for the current U.S. House of Representatives and the British Parliament. Among the many interesting nuggets are the facts that (only?) just under 16% of MPs are lawyers; 86.5% have attended university but only 32% have university degrees; and the cost of campaigns in Canada is much less than those in the U.S. and much more than those in the U.K:

The average cost per candidate:

?US: $517,000 (CA$527,340)
?Canada: $61,704.75
?UK: £7,162.18 (CA$16,683)

Full post as published by Slaw.ca on September 05, 2008 (boomark / email).