Category: Canada

Anything related to Canada or Canadians

Fall term 2013

The year is off to a rapidfire start.

As part of the PhD, I need to do a second core seminar this year. I have chosen to take public policy because it accords well with my interests and experience, and apparently has a less onerous reading load than either comparative politics or international relations. I have been advised against taking courses with excessive reading requirements, given the need to re-take my Canadian politics comp in December.

PhD students are expected to take two courses in each term, so I am also taking an environmental politics and policy course. In addition, I am working as a teaching assistant for a course in U.S. government and politics, with three seminars back to back on Thursdays.

At our termly general meeting on the 25th, I will not be running for re-election to the executive of Toronto350.org. Nevertheless, I have some obligations to discharge with them, including two on-campus workshops on divestment and the October 15th film screening (free tickets still available).

In the background at all times, I should be thinking about and preparing for my re-comp in December. I find that I have already forgotten a lot of what I crammed for it the first time. When I re-take it, I will need to demonstrate both a comprehensive knowledge of the literature and an ability to formulate complex and convincing arguments. Toward the latter objective, I should be building up a database of convincing (and conventional, I’ve been warned off controversy) answers to recent comp questions.

Jeffery’s “In View”

My friend Chelsea Jeffery has an exhibition of photographic equipment on at Pearson Airport in Toronto, entitled: “In View: Moments from Canadian Photographic History”. It includes a variety of cameras and prints, as well as related materials like catalogs and

I headed out there today to have a look and take some photos.

More information is available through the Photographic Historical Society of Canada.

Tom Flanagan’s ‘Ten Commandments’

In 2007, Harper strategist Tom Flanagan enumerated ten ‘commandments’ for the effective use of power by the Conservative party:

  1. Unity. The various factions and splinter groups within the CPC coalition have to get along.
  2. Moderation. “Canada,” says Flanagan, “is not yet a conservative or Conservative country. We can’t win if we veer too far to the right of the median voter.”
  3. Inclusion. This means francophones and minority groups.
  4. Incrementalism: “Make progress in small, practical steps.”
  5. Policy. “Since conservatism is not yet the dominant public philosophy, our policies may sometimes run against conventional wisdom. The onus is on us to help Canadians to understand what they are voting for.”
  6. Self-discipline. “The media are unforgiving of conservative errors, so we have to exercise strict discipline at all levels.”
  7. Toughness. “We cannot win by being Boy Scouts.”
  8. Grassroots politics. “Victories are earned one voter at a time.”
  9. Technology. “We must continue to be at the forefront in adapting new technologies to politics.”
  10. Persistence. “We have to correct our errors, learn from experience, and keep pushing ahead.”

Certainly, they have done better in electoral terms than many people expected. When I moved to Ottawa in 2007, many people expected the Harper minority government to come to an end reasonably quickly, probably after the Liberals rebuilt themselves. Not least because of the Green-NDP-Liberal split on the left, that has yet to happen.

First-past-the-post consequences

1968: Pierre Trudeau’s Liberal Party wins 154 seats in the House of Commons, on the basis of 45.37% of the vote. The Progressive Conservatives form the official opposition with 72 seats, based on 31.36% of the popular vote.

1976: René Lévesque’s Parti Québécois wins a majority of 71 seats in the Quebec legislature, on the basis of 41.37% of the vote. The opposition Liberals get 26 seats, based on 33.78% of the popular vote.

2011: Stephen Harper’s Conservatives win a majority government of 166 seats, based on 39.62% of the vote. The opposition New Democrats win 103 seats with 30.63% of the vote (partly because the Liberals collapsed from 77 seats to 34, on the basis of a 7.36% drop in their share of the popular vote).

Canadian democracy in 1921

But what was the state of Canadian democracy in 1921? Women (other than those with relations in the military) were only permitted to vote in federal elections that very year, and in Quebec would not get the vote for another generation. Aboriginal Canadians were only allowed to vote if they legally renounced their Aboriginal status; within a few years, Parliament would make it illegal for “Indians” to raise money or to hire lawyers to pursue legal cases against the Crown. Candidates and parties were free to raise and spend money in any amounts and in any ways they wished, with no public scrutiny and subject only to the legal prohibitions in the Criminal Code of Canada against bribery and corruption. Freedom of information legislation was unknown. The public and organized groups, save the well-heeled and well-connected, had few opportunities to put their views on policy issues before decision makers through mechanisms such as public hearings. The country did have far more newspapers than today and all were independently owned, but many if not most were closely tied to political parties and offered their readers highly partisan and parochial slants on the news. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was scarcely imaginable and no human rights codes existed: factories in Toronto and elsewhere could with impunity post signs saying “Men wanted. No Irish or Jews need apply.” Moreover… well, let us not belabour the point: by current standards, many aspects of Canadian democracy were deeply flawed, making for a huge democratic deficit. (p. 230)

White, Graham. “The ‘Centre’ of the Democratic Deficit: Power and Influence in Canadian Political Executives.” 2008. in Lenard, Patti Tamara and Richard Simeon eds. Imperfect Democracies: The Democratic Deficit in Canada and the United States. 2012.

Governing from the Centre: The Concentration of Power in Canadian Politics

Donald Savoie’s 1999 book is the single-best account I have read of the functioning of Canada’s federal government. It focuses on the growth of the strength of ‘the centre’ of government over the previous thirty years, meaning the prime minister, Prime Minister’s Office, Privy Council Office, Department of Finance, and Treasury Board Secretariat. It discusses every important actor in Canada’s federal government, with specific attention paid to the prime minister, cabinet, deputy ministers, the Clerk of the Privy Council, line departments, the Public Service Commission, and so on.

The overwhelming message is about the new dominance of the Prime Minister: over cabinet colleagues, the central agencies, and over parliament itself, which Savoie argues has a diminished capacity to hold the government to account. Savoie devotes considerable attention to the internal structures and machinery of the civil service, as well as the incentives experienced by individuals within it.

I strongly recommend the book for civil servants (especially those who deal with the central agencies or aspire to join them) and for anyone with a strong interest in how Canada’s government functions.

Environmental Defence on the oil sands

Environmental Defence has issued a new report, explaining why Canada’s oil sands expansion policies risk more than cancelling out efforts to control greenhouse gas emissions in other areas:

“Emissions from the tar sands are projected to double from 2010 levels by 2020, cancelling out all other efforts across the country to reduce emissions and sending Canada soaring past the 2020 climate change target that it shares with the United States.”

Barriers to mitigating the climate impacts of the tar sands (PDF)

Comp sources

These are some of the books I have out from the library at the moment, while preparing for my comprehensive exam on Thursday. The 249-item reading list (Word, PDF) is quite intimidating, as is the expectation that a large number of sources will be cited in author-year format.

A significant portion of my time between now and Thursday will be spend quizzing and re-quizzing myself on the dates when key books were published.

One perspective

[American political science] is attacked for its alleged eschewing of the normative, ahistorical nature, obsession with the quantifiable, and cult of methodology which results in a sterile, status quo oriented political science capable of accumulating mountains of trivia, and incapable of attacking problems of moment.

Cairns, Alan. “Political Science and the Americanization Issue.” Canadian Journal of Political Science. 1975.