Provincial Counterparts Research Articles

Federalism and Entrepreneurship: Explaining American and Canadian Innovation in Pollution Prevention and Regulatory Integration

Conventional wisdom provides an increasingly strong endorsement of far‐reaching decentralization and delegation of authority to bureaucratic agents as the most likely mechanisms to attain such central environmental policy goals as pollution prevention, cross‐media regulatory integration, and development of reliable measures of environmental outcomes. Canada would appear an unusually fertile context for such Innovation, given its far‐reaching deference to individual provinces and their environment ministries in environmental policy. Comparative analysis of select sub national governments in Canada and the United States suggests that the states in general are far ahead of their provincial counterparts in most of these areas of innovation. Despite all the opprobrium heaped on the American environmental policy system, a combination of federal policy tools and state policy entrepreneur ship appear to contribute directly to this innovation in some states and are almost completely absent in the Canadian system. These findings suggest a need for careful study of the mix of intergovernmental policy tools and principal‐agent relations most likely to realize desired environmental policy goals.

Leadership Selection Processes and Careers: A Comparison of Australian and Canadian Premiers

In a recent analysis of the role and office of premier in Australia, Sharman, Hughes and Tuffin demonstrate that its fundamental characteristics derive ‘not from interaction with the broader political context but from the inherent logic of [the] constitutional system’. In this paper we test this argument by comparing Australian state premiers with their Canadian provincial counterparts. If Sharman et al. are correct about the institutional imperatives of leadership careers, Canadians and Australians ought to have similar career patterns given the basic similarities between the two systems. Where differences exist, they may be explained by the selection processes used by parties to choose their leaders.

Freedom of information in Canada

To the surprise of some, the Canadian federal government and four of the ten provinces recently have enacted freedom of information legislation. The evolution of the new national Access to Information Act and its provisions are discussed here together with relevant contemporary initiatives taken at the provincial level. There can be no doubt but that the new federal Canadian freedom of information scheme contains many features which will disappoint those who have advocated legislation of this kind. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that the new Canadian statute, together with its provincial counterparts, constitute important and hopefully irreversible steps in the direction of a more open and accountable set of political institutions in Canada.

Deferential Federalism: The Politics and Policy Implications of ‘Collaborative’ Federalism Since 1994

The topic of this essay is Canada’s evolving federalism. It will examine the development of "collaborative federalism"1 in Canada since the mid-1990s, analysing the politics operating behind it in order to i) detail the stances taken by recent federal governments in their dealings with the provinces and ii) show the consequences of these stances on national policy objectives and social programs. It is this author’s contention that federal governments over the last two decades have intermittently engaged in convenient deference toward their provincial counterparts and that, when this has been done, it has been detrimental to pan-Canadian policy objectives generally and social programs in particular. First of all, the Agreement on Internal Trade (AIT) of 1994 showcases the weaknesses of framework-oriented policy initiatives that characterize collaborative arrangements. Next, the Canada Health and Social Transfer (CHST) created in the 1995 federal budget highlights how easily the federal government can defer greater authority onto the provinces and what this means for social programs [...]

Two Birds with One Stone: The political and environmental motives of Quebec’s climate change policy

In 2000 Quebec was about to host its provincial counterparts for that year’s Joint Meeting of Ministers of the Environment and Energy in an effort to work in unison for the benefit of all Canadians and the environment. Quebec’s Ministers were clear about their position on climate change policy. In their province, Quebec’s policy will prevail. Federalism lies at the heart of the political dispute between Quebec and the federal government over the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol. Quebec has pressured the federal government to maintain its commitments to the international community, and has been critical of its approach to meeting them. It has seriously considered the commitments Canada has made, and in the process, diverged from federal climate change policy by taking a more global perspective. This has enabled the province to generate greater provincial powers within Canada, in line with the Quebec Liberal Party’s concept of federalism. This essay will investigate climate change policy in Quebec after the Quiet Revolution, focusing on the differences between this province and the federal government’s approach to international climate change agreements—specifically the Kyoto Protocol. Quebec has developed firmer climate change policy than the federal government. While this is possible because of Quebec’s energy industry and the fact that it does not have to compromise with other jurisdictions in the federation, it has provided an additional outlet for the Quebecois sense of distinctiveness in Canada. This essay will argue that Quebec pursues a more ambitious climate change policy than the federal government in order to increase its provincial powers within the Canadian federation.[...]