Policy Politics Canada

At a time when Canadian political institutions are being fundamentally questioned, this book provides a comparative perspective on the distinctive features of the Canadian policy process hich have enabled conflict to be resolved in the past. In comparison with other Western industrial nations, Canada's policies in some arenas appear as models of workable compromise; in others, they stand out as marked by continuing irresolution. In this first book-length treatment of Canadian public policy in comparative perspective, Carolyn Tuohy focuses on constitutional change, health care delivery, industrial relations and labor market policy, economic development and adjustment, oil and gas policy, and minority language rights.What distinguishes Canada's characteristic policy process is its quintessential ambivalence: ambivalence about the appropriate role of the state, about definitions of political community, and about individual and collective values and conceptions of rights. Embedded in the country's political institutions, it has deep roots in Canada's relationship to the United States, its history of English-French tensions, and its regional diversity.Examining in particular the delicate federal-provincial division of power and the legislative-judicial relationship, Tuohy discusses how the constitutional debates of the 1980s and 1990s are testing Canada's institutions to resolve conflict. Author note: Carolyn J. Tuohy is Professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto.

Carolyn J. Tuohy is Professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto.

Editors' PrefacePreface1. IntroductionThe Roots of AmbivalenceThe Institutionalization of AmbivalenceThe Organization of InterestsConclusionsNotes2. Constitutional ChangeContextAgendaProcessConsequencesReadingsThe Péquiste Manifesto -The Federal Response to Quebec's Constitutional Agenda -The Quebec Referendum -Entrenched Rights versus Parliamentary Supremacy -The Quebec Liberals' Constitutional Position during the 1980 Referendum Campaign -The Meech Lake Accord (Excerpts) -Trudeau's Criticism of the Accord -One Legislator's AmbivalenceNotes3. Health Care DeliveryContextAgendaProcessConsequencesReadingsA Health Charter for Canadians -Governmental Insurance and Clinical Judgment: A Medical View -The Canadian Medical Association and Canadian Medicare -The Canadian Nurses Association and Canadian Medicare -A Consumers' Coalition Seeks a Community-Based Health Plan -Extra-Billing and the Universality of Social Programs -The Medical Profession Seeks a Partnership with Government -The Policy Agenda of the 1990s at the Provincial LevelNotes4. Industrial Relations and Labour-Market PolicyContextAgendaProcessConsequencesReadingsThe Business View of Labour-Management Cooperation -Labour's Approach to Social Partnership -Government as a Catalyst in Labour-Management Cooperation -An Evaluation of Government Adjustment Assistance -Labour on Collective Bargaining and Labour-Market PolicyNotes5. Economic Development and AdjustmentContextAgendaProcessConsequencesReadingsThe BCNI Critique of Canadian Industrial Policy -Labour's Goals: Full Employment and Greater Public Control -The Macdonald Commission on Canada-U.S. Trade -Labour's Focus on Full Employment -The Commons Debate on the Free Trade AgreementNotes6. Oil and Gas PolicyContextAgendaProcessConsequencesReadingsThe Gordon Commission's View of Foreign Investment in Canadian Oil -Western Canadian Resistance to the National Energy Program -The Federal Defence of the National Energy Program -The Business Community and the National Energy Program -Federal and Provincial Powers over Natural ResourcesNotes7. Minority Language RightsContextAgendaProcessConsequencesReadingsTrudeau on Language Rights -Lévesque on Francophones outside Quebec -The Manifesto of Quebec's Radical Nationalists -The Union Nationale Government on the Status of French -The Courts on Linguistic Education Rights -Language Rights in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom -The Commissioner of Official Languages on MulticulturalismNotes8. Competence and Crisis: Canada's Ambivalent InstitutionsElite Accommodation: The Role of Mediating InterestsPartisanship and FederalismThe Need for Institutional ChangeSummaryReferencesIndex