Policy: From Ideas to Implementation, In Honour of Professor G. Bruce Doern 9780773585058

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policy

Professor G. Bruce Doern, Ottawa, 7 November 2008. Friend, colleague, and mentor to four generations of public policy scholars.

Policy From Ideas to Implementation In Honour of Professor G. Bruce Doern Edited by g l e n to n e r , l e s l i e a . pa l , and michael j. prince

Published for The Carleton School of Public Policy and Administration by McGill-Queen’s University Press Montreal & Kingston · London · Ithaca

© McGill-Queen’s University Press 2010 isbn 978-0-7735-3712-5 (cloth) isbn 978-0-7735-3715-6 (paper) Legal deposit first quarter 2010 Bibliothèque nationale du Québec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free (100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free. McGill-Queen’s University Press acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (bpidp) for our publishing activities. Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Policy: from ideas to implementation: in honour of Professor G. Bruce Doern / edited by Glen Toner, Leslie A. Pal and Michael J. Prince. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-0-7735-3712-5 (bnd) isbn 978-0-7735-3715-6 (pbk) 1. Political planning – Canada. 2. Science and state – Canada. 3. Technological innovations – Government policy – Canada. 4. Energy policy – Canada. 5. Doern, G. Bruce, 1942–. i. Doern, G. Bruce, 1942– ii. Toner, Glen, 1952– iii. Pal, Leslie A. (Leslie Alexander), 1954– iv. Prince, Michael John, 1952– v. Carleton University. School of Public Policy and Administration vi. Title. jl86.p64p63 2010       320.60971       c2009-905902-9 Typeset in Sabon 10.5/13 by Infoscan Collette, Quebec City

Contents



Foreword  vii susan phillips

  1 Policy from Ideas to Implementation: Essays in Honour of Professor G. Bruce Doern  3 leslie a. pal, michael j. prince, and glen toner   2 Bruce the Builder  20 john a. chenier   3 The Accidental Theorist? Key Themes in G. Bruce Doern’s Approach to the Policy Process  39 leslie a. pal   4 The Policy Roles of Central Agencies: Bruce Doern’s Original Ideas  59 peter aucoin   5 Self-Regulation, Exhortation, and Symbolic Politics: Gently Coercive Governing?  77 michael j. prince   6 New Directions and Old Dilemmas: Taxation as an Instrument of Public Policy  109 allan m. maslove   7 Science Advisory Mechanisms in Canada: An Institutional Analysis  119 jeffrey s. kinder

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Contents

  8 Policies of Culturing Science and Technology in Canada  142 markus sharaput   9 Digital State 2.0  177 sandford borins 10 Canada-United States Energy Relations: From Domestic to North American Energy Policies?  207 monica gattinger 11 Policy Making in the Indeterminate World of Energy Transitions: Carbon Capture and Storage as Technological Transition or Enhanced “Carbon Lock In”  232 james meadowcroft and matthew hellin 12 Growing the Children of Brundtland: The Creation and Evolution of the nrtee, iisd, cesd, and sdtc  257 serena boutros, lillian hayward, anique montambault, laura smallwood and glen toner

Contributors  287

Foreword

G. Bruce Doern is one of a handful of scholars who, beginning in the 1960s, pioneered the modern study of public policy in Canada. His abiding curiosity in unpacking the “black box” of policy processes within the state and understanding the interplay of ideas, interests and institutions in how policy is formed helped to lay the foundation for the serious study of public policy in Canada. It was also key to cementing the strong institutionalism that still characterizes Canadian approaches to the study of public policy and management. Professor Doern’s rich description and critical analyses of so many different and varied policy fields, including budgeting, trade, environment, energy, regulation, competition and intellectual property, and science policy, have significantly deepened our understanding of how policy is actually made in these fields and how specific institutions operate. Bruce Doern always seemed to be ahead of the curve in his research, anticipating – and sometimes creating – the next big thing in the study of public policy. He was studying science policy, indeed it was the topic of his dissertation and first book in 1972, before most in the field recognized what science policy meant. In the early 1970s he provided the first sophisticated assessment of the role of the central agencies of government, and illuminated how both the political and bureaucratic dimensions of their work are essential to good democratic governance. His model of the continuum of governing instruments, first published in 1974 (with Vince Wilson, and in 1983 with Richard Phidd), marked the beginning of the study of policy instrument choice in the Canadian context, and Bruce elaborated upon the model and specific instruments in many successive

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works over the next few decades. His 1985 book (with Glen Toner) on energy policy was two decades ahead of its time. As Peter Aucoin cogently notes in his chapter in this volume, “Bruce Doern made his work original. He was an original; he was there first, or at least among the very first to arrive, so to speak.” This volume grew out of a celebration of the career and ­scholarship of Bruce Doern to mark his official retirement from Carleton University’s School of Public Policy and Administration where he has been a faculty member and an academic leader for forty years. The conference, held in Ottawa on November 7, 2008, brought together many of Canada’s leading scholars of public policy and management, specialists in fields that have defined Bruce’s work over the years, researcher-practitioners, and emerging scholars. A good indicator of the breadth and collegiality of scholarship that has marked Bruce Doern’s long career is that all the contributors to the conference and to this volume have been his colleagues, co-authors and/or students. On behalf of the School of Public Policy and Administration, I would like to thank all those who participated in the conference as paper presenters, discussants and moderators: Barbara Allen, Peter Aucoin, Sanford Borins, Serena Boutros, John Chenier, Tom Conway, Burkard Eberlein, Monica Gattinger, Lillian Hayward, Jeff Kinder, Mark Macdonald, Allan Maslove, James Meadowcroft, Anique Montambault, Leslie Pal, Richard Phidd, Michael Prince, Richard Schultz, Markus Sharaput, Laura Smallwood, Glen Toner, and Allan Tupper. A special thank you is extended to Thomas d’Aquino, President and ceo, Canadian Council of Chief Executives and close personal friend of Bruce’s, who presented the luncheon address which explored the question of why public policy matters, and what we have learned about policy from Professor Doern. So often the volumes that are products of festschrifts are narrow in scope because most scholars toil their entire careers in relatively narrow furrows within their disciplines. Not so for Bruce Doern. This volume attempts to capture and reflect upon both the depth and breadth of his work. It also extends Bruce’s work by demonstrating how some of his core ideas and approaches are being carried in new directions by the next generation of scholars. Professor Doern is undoubtedly one of Canada’s most prolific scholars of public policy, having published more than 150 books and articles. As long-time colleague, Allan Maslove, observed in his remarks at the “roast and toast” dinner that followed the conference,



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“I have often said that Bruce wrote faster than the rest of us read. His research work ethic inspired and set an example for all his colleagues. Actually, when Bruce learned to write on a computer, he moved beyond inspiring to frightening.” But Bruce has been much more than a productive researcher. Equally important have been his contributions as an institution builder, supervisor, colleague, and mentor. From 1971 to 1981, Bruce served as director of Carleton’s School of Public Administration, during which time he built Canada’s first independent (until then Public Administration was seen as a sub-discipline of Political Science), multidisciplinary school of its kind in Canada. In the early 1990s, he extended his vision of graduate education to the doctoral level, and was instrumental in creating Canada’s first multidisciplinary phd in Public Policy. Contemporary graduate education in this field across Canada owes a significant debt to Bruce’s efforts to build a curriculum that would define the study of public policy and administration as one that builds upon political science, economics and other disciplines, but that is a distinctive, coherent and professional field in its own right. As his doctoral students attest, Professor Doern has always been an attentive, conscientious, and generous supervisor. He actively models good scholarship and regularly co-authors publications with his students to help launch them in their own careers. A number of those students, now established scholars, are contributors to this volume. The quality and originality of their work is, in part, a strong testament to their mentor. In answer to the question that governments are increasingly asking of academics – “what have you done for us lately?” – Bruce has a good answer. Plenty. Bruce is a rare breed of academic who takes to heart the importance of putting his research into use by actively engaging the policy and social/economic issues of our time and directly helping government departments apply research to problem solving. Over the years, Bruce took on many assignments for Canadian governments that made a difference, such as research coordinator for the [MacDonald] Royal Commission on the Economic Union and Development Prospects for Canada, scholar in residence for the C.D. Howe Institute and the Conference Board of Canada, and regular advisor to many federal departments and agencies. Some of this very practical experience is reflected in his work and in this volume.



Susan Phillips

One of the important ways in which Bruce helped make policy debates more transparent and more accessible to the general public, for which Carleton University is most grateful, was the establishment in 1980 of the annual review of federal government spending and policy, How Ottawa Spends. As editor for eight years (1980–83 and 2004–07) Bruce ensured that How Ottawa Spends became a truly national enterprise engaging authors from across the country and examining a broad range of departments and issues in a timely manner. Bruce was a very entrepreneurial editor and, in an attempt to ensure the first few editions of this new, unknown publication were read, Bruce and his ever resourceful and supportive wife, Joan, personally drove around in their old VW van to deliver copies to Members of Parliament and Ottawa bookstores. In 2005, Bruce launched a companion annual review, Innovation, Science and Environment, to address issues related to sustainable development. We are pleased that Bruce cannot stay away from engaging the issues of the day and will be returning as co-editor of How Ottawa Spends in 2010 to begin its next thirty years. In truth, the aspect of Bruce Doern that makes him most admired is none of the above. It is that he is a genuinely warm, caring, and humble person who loves family, sports (particularly his beloved Winnipeg Blue Bombers), theatre, and a good joke. At the festschrift dinner, Michael Prince, a long time friend and frequent co-author of Bruce’s, captured well both his contributions and character: “Throughout his career, Bruce has embraced the quintessential Canadian subject of ‘peace, order and good government.’ And he has done so in what might be called a Canadian manner: quietly, systematically, with humility and a view to enhancing the public good – which, as he would immediately remind us, is a concept filled with several ­dominant ideas which interplay.” I need to be careful that my message is understood in the present tense. This volume is a synthesis, reflection, and celebration of the contributions of G. Bruce Doern and it marks a change in his status from salaried to volunteer faculty. But, it does not mark the end of the career of Bruce Doern: he continues his relationship with Carleton as a Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus and with Exeter University in the UK, and remains a productive researcher and public intellectual. This volume is merely a chapter, not a conclusion. On behalf of all of my colleagues in Carleton’s School of Public Policy and Administration, our graduates and countless others, I



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extend our deep appreciation to Bruce Doern for his intellectual and academic leadership and for making such an impact on Canadian public policy. I would also like to thank Glen Toner for his leadership in organizing the conference and the contributions to this volume, and to Leslie Pal and Michael Prince for their work as co-editors. Susan Phillips Professor and Director School of Public Policy and Administration Carleton University

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1 Policy: From Ideas to Implementation Essays in Honour of Professor G. Bruce Doern leslie a. pal, michael j. prince, and glen toner

In his foreword to a book of essays by T.H. Marshall, the British sociologist, the American political scientist Seymour Martin Lipset said of Marshall that he “made important contributions” to his discipline’s conceptual framework, although “his theoretical innovations are perhaps not as widely acknowledged as they should be because he has not presented his analytic framework as part of a general theory. This reflects a deliberate choice.”1 This observation applies with equal force to Bruce Doern’s contributions to Canadian and international public policy scholarship. Doern developed numerous conceptual innovations, none more so than the continuum of governing instruments, a middle range theory of policy and decision making at the collective cabinet, always linking theoretical propositions to the empirical specifics of ideas, institutional structures, programs, budgets, and policy actors. His 2007 book on regulation is the most recent example of conceptual innovation built on solid empirical analysis. His scepticism about abstract rationalism and general social theories and his insistence on the inevitable association between ends and means in democratic politics give his approach to governance a compatibility with critical social theories of the state and thus an enduring contribution to Canadian and international public policy and administration. Doern’s approach to the systematic study of policy is reflected in Karl Mannheim’s belief that “The only thing we can demand of politics as a science is that it see reality with the eyes of acting human beings, and that it teach men [and women], in action, to understand even their opponents in the light of their actual motives and their position in the historical-social situation.”2 As regards the place of



Leslie A. Pal, Michael J. Prince, Glen Toner

ideologies in policy making, Doern challenges the tendency of many academics, journalists, and politicians to submerge most or all ideas under the cover of brokerage politics, bland pragmatism or boring platitudes. All policies, from Doern’s perspective, contain a cluster of dominant ideas, specific interests, and relations of power contained in structures and processes. Ideas for Doern – in the form of ideologies, paradigms, program objectives, political rhetoric, and spin – are of primary significance in understanding democratic politics, public policy, and the practicalities of governance. Whether the instrument of governing is persuasion, regulation, taxation, or expenditure, and whatever the policy field, Doern reminds us to continually seek out the interplay of ideas and issues at work, both those dominant and those dominated in Canadian political life. Moreover, Doern fittingly emphasized the significance of symbols and rhetoric in public policy. If a Conservative cabinet minister, for instance, dubs an environmental policy proposal by a Liberal leader “another nep” – referring to the National Energy Program introduced by the Pierre Trudeau government of the 1980s – Doern would appreciate the use of political language: a discursive manoeuvre linking diverse issues and time periods, attributing feared consequences of a past policy and administration to a current set of actors. Such political language is designed to alarm; activating latent coalitions of supporters and opponents; framing issues by highlighting certain interests and bending attention away from others in public policy. On Doern’s style of thinking and researching on politics and policy, we may refer to Mannheim again on the always open and unfinished realm of events, perspectives, and practices: “It is always in the process of becoming and is nevertheless bound to the stream from which it derives. It arises in the dynamic unfolding of conflicting forces.”3 With post-structural, feminist, and other critical social theories informing the social sciences today, Doern’s interplay approach to policy making is as relevant today, if not more so, as when he first articulated it in the early 1980s. The same applies to his longstanding views on coercion and our contemporary vexations with national security and a surveillance society. Over a scholarly career spanning five decades, Doern has helped to insert policy studies into political science and, equally important, insert political analysis into public policy. In our neo-liberal age, with widespread political apathy and with technological fixes as ever-present ­temptations, Doern offers crucial reminders that public bureaucracies are central features of



Policy: From Ideas to Implementation



human affairs, that political decisions have important rationalities rooted in democratic values, and that public services and management are not merely techniques but differ fundamentally from private firms and business management. Questions that have engaged Doern through his career are classic issues at the heart of democratic governance: issues concerning the accountability of public power and the scrutiny of private interest, the place of core beliefs in decision making and service provision, the necessity of gaining the support and compliance of the citizenry, the inevitability as well as the desirability of value pluralism in the human condition and public affairs. In his massive oeuvre, Doern offers countless insights and possibilities for study into the good and just life in political community. There is a rich abundance for students and scholars alike to explore, to discover, to revisit in his work. Stated simply, Bruce Doern has had, and continues to have, a major impact on the study of public policy in Canada. This book is both a celebration of and a reflection of this impact, an impact with two dimensions. First, there is his prodigious personal contribution to Canadian and international public policy scholarship. Second, he inspired many others to join him on his four-decade-long inquiry into policy fields and concepts and in the process helped build a community of public policy scholars in Canada. This volume is comprised of the work of those from the second dimension. When we invited these authors to contribute to a volume in celebration of Bruce’s life and work, they enthusiastically embraced the opportunity. The same can be said for the discussants at the November 7, 2008 Conference Policy: From Ideas to Implementation – A Conference in Honour of Professor G. Brue Doern. Some (Peter Aucoin, Richard Phidd, Allan Maslove, and Richard Schultz) have shared Bruce’s journey in public policy research from graduate school and his early years at Carleton. Others (Allan Tupper, Leslie Pal, John Chenier, Sandy Borins, Michael Prince, Tom Conway, Susan Phillips, and Glen Toner) were his early students, inspired by him in the classroom or in his writings. Still others (Jeff Kinder, Markus Sharaput, Burkard Eberlein, Monica Gattinger, James Meadowcroft, Matthew Hellin, Barbara Allen, Mark MacDonald, Serena Boutos, Lillian Hayward, Anique Montambault, and Laura Smallwood) were students, ­colleagues, or co-authors during the later years of his career. Consequently, the chapters of this volume represent the intellectual capital of three generations of Canadian policy analysts. Moreover,



Leslie A. Pal, Michael J. Prince, Glen Toner

over his career Bruce has been a co-author with most of the authors. So his contribution to this volume is immense, even though he has not penned a word. His scholarly contribution to Canadian and international public policy theory, concepts, and ideas is the focus of the Part One. In his chapter, Aucoin calls Doern the “foremost Canadian and international scholar of science and government.” Part Two focuses on design and implementation problems and issues in science-related policy fields – energy, environment, sustainable development, and science and technology. bruce doern’s contribution to understanding public policy

To truly appreciate Bruce Doern’s contributions to Canadian and international scholarship on public policy and administration, it is important to briefly review the state of those disciplines in the early 1970s. As with most things, Canadian scholarship in political science had been heavily influenced by American trends in the early postwar period. The study of interest groups, for example, exploded in the United States in the 1950s and soon was echoed by similar research in Canada. The use of a “political systems” approach was pioneered in the late 1950s and early 1960s by David Easton and was soon being put to use in Canadian textbooks. Interestingly, and for very good reasons, this dependence on American approaches was not reflected in the field of public administration, except perhaps at the theoretical level. The American political and governance system was simply too different in inspiration and architecture to be used as a model of analysis for Canadian public administration. Instead, Canadian analysts tended to draw on British scholarship to understand the ways in which an administrative system would operate in a Westminster style of government. Moreover, analyses tended to be of “the role of X” in the administrative system. It was largely atheoretical, discursive, and firmly grounded in the verities of Canadian constitutional practice. The field of the policy sciences was slightly different, since it was largely invented in the United States in the early 1950s, particularly with the work of Harold Lasswell. One would have expected some borrowings from the American literature, but academic policy debates in Canada were largely inoculated from this American influence through a preoccupation with Canada’s economic dependence on



Policy: From Ideas to Implementation



the United States. What came to be known as “Canadian political economy” was a dominant intellectual force and a primary lens through which academics (and many activists) viewed Canadian public policy issues – social policy, trade, investment, natural resources. A key issue, for example, was the impact of American investment on Canadian economic development, with the broad Canadian political economy conclusion being that it hindered development outside of the production of raw natural resources and that it encouraged an excessive dependence on American corporations. Beyond that, American economic dominance led to political dominance as well. The result was a relatively traditional approach to the study of public administration, matched by a truncated approach to the study of public policy. Bruce Doern and his early colleagues changed all this by introducing a sharper analysis of the new machinery of public management that was developing in the Trudeau years, and the application of leading analytical frameworks on public policy to the Canadian case, particularly (in Doern’s case) to science policy, a realm that had been largely ignored by Canadian academics to that point. While Pal, Aucoin, and Prince examine Doern’s intellectual ­foundations, john chenier reflects upon the remarkable institution building that also marked Bruce Doern’s career. Quite often, even the most accomplished academics confine their contributions to research and writing. They usually provide some administrative service to their institutions or their professions but the focus of their work is understandably one of scholarship. Doern, as Pal, Aucoin, Prince and the other authors demonstrate, made significant contri­ butions to Canadian and international public policy and administration, but Chenier’s chapter shows how much he contributed to the School of Public Policy and Administration, to Carleton University, and to the wider profession. For example, Doern joined Carleton’s School of Public Administration (as it was then) in 1968 and in 1971 became its Director. At the time the School was integrated with the Department of Political Science but, just as the discipline of public administration was evolving into a more distinct field, Doern believed that the School need to be independent as well. He succeeded in little over a year, hiring new faculty, redesigning curriculum, and building what would soon become the premier School in the country. As Chenier points out, Doern made special and distinctive ­contributions to building the network of scholars in public policy



Leslie A. Pal, Michael J. Prince, Glen Toner

and administration. In 1980 he launched an annual volume that still enjoys huge popularity and brings together scholars from around the country – How Ottawa Spends. He had already begun a prolific research and publication program, and Chenier calculates that about 70% of his published work was co-authored, linking him and colleagues across Canada (and eventually around the world) into a community of scholars. Doern was instrumental in establishing the Carleton Research Unit on Innovation, Science and the Environment (cruise) and launching its annual publication, Innovation, Science, and Environment. The School’s phd program also owes a lot to his inspiration and vision. The first person testimonials included in the chapter speak volumes to the rich vein of influence Bruce Doern exercised over his career. leslie a. pal’s chapter takes its departure from the observation that a review of Doern’s work does not seem to show the application of broad theoretical framework. While Doern certainly applied (and developed) models, approaches, and guides, there does not appear to be an overarching theory of the policy process. His work consists primarily of thick descriptions, guided by fairly light models and buttressed by analytical questions. Pal disagrees and argues that in fact there is an underlying if inchoate theoretical approach, one that Doern himself might have been largely unaware. While various themes mark Doern’s work – such as the importance of “puzzling through” as part of policy work – Pal seeks to uncover an underlying theory of the policy process. He does so by examining virtually all of Doern’s single-authored books and articles (in order to distil the “essential” Doern) and arrives at four dimensions to this underlying theory. The first is “brittle” pluralism, meaning that Doern appreciated the varied roles of many different interests in the policy process (i.e., it was not dominated only by business interests), and how they were linked to a constant jockeying for power within the state among different departments and agencies. However, his focus on the state led him to appreciate the “brittleness” of state institutions and the degree to which their competition was not completely fluid. The second dimension was policy field versus organizational structure. Policy fields are broad and can be thought of as paradigms or “spaces,” whereas organizations operate within those fields, overlap, and compete. Understanding the dynamics of policy requires seeing both elements, and their interplay. The third was what Pal calls “infusional power,”



Policy: From Ideas to Implementation



or Doern’s conviction that power in the political system flows from the political level into the bureaucracy, infusing different players with different quantities and qualities of power. Finally, Doern strongly appreciated the importance of organizational form and function – a sort of institutional dna – that determined organizational behaviour. For example, understanding science policy required understanding how science-based departments actually operate. peter aucoin’s chapter examines one important element of Doern’s emphasis on organizations – his work on central agencies. Doern opened the “black box” of government at a time when much of political science was stressing the primacy of “inputs” and “outputs” and largely ignored the “black box” as something that was largely impenetrable in any case, but unimportant since what really mattered was what emerged in policy terms from what had been injected. Doern’s research was both about organizations and the denizens of those organizations, and Aucoin argues that he was one of the very first to chronicle the rise of central agencies as “differentiated, bureaucratized, and active.” Aucoin for his own part argues that central agencies have continued to evolve and are now “­hierarchical, politicized and strategic.” The system that Doern was examining in the 1970s had evolved from the tradition of the “departmentalized cabinet” where central agencies consisted essentially of the Prime Ministers Office and the Privy Council Office, and where the Prime Minister and strong ministers dominated the policy agenda. Both departments and agencies deferred to ministers in classic Westminster style, and policy expertise was contained in line departments, not central agencies. The new Liberal governments of the mid- and late-1960s had a more ambitious policy mandate, as well as recognition that modern government needed to be better managed. Central agencies were strengthened, and government became more activist. Much like Pal, Aucoin understands Doern’s analysis of this shift of governance to encompass an appreciation of both the flux and fluidity of agencies and departments, and the increasing centralization of power in the person of the Prime Minister. michael j. prince reviews Doern’s model of a continuum of governing instruments arrayed by degrees of legitimate coercion. In particular, Prince examines the seemingly “gently coercive” instruments of self-regulation, exhortation, and symbolic policy outputs. He challenges the notion that the legitimate coercion of a political

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community is located totally within the state, and questions the classic liberal democratic belief that beyond the exercise of state authority, personal liberty and freedom of choice by social groups flourish. Notable features of Prince’s chapter are his review of the impact of Doern’s ideas on the Canadian public policy literature and his analysis of ideas by critical theorists in other branches of the social sciences, suggesting future lines of research for students of public policy and administration. These critical approaches reveal how so-called “soft” instruments of governing can both constrain and enable the agency of citizens. A general preoccupation with degrees and forms of state coercion has led to an under-emphasis on state-society interactions and the power structures within social settings. When the literature says a policy type or tool of government has little coercion, if any, it is usually from the vantage point of the policy makers, those relatively comfortable, reasonably well-off, and central actors in the mainstream of society. Far too infrequently, the perspective is taken from the life world of the poverty-stricken, the homeless, and the marginalized. The conduct of citizens is governed by an assemblage of state coercions and societal controls, shaped by historical and material conditions, visible and concealed, in numerous ideas, structures, and processes. Looking at social control as a dynamic complex of power relationships fits readily with Doern’s interplay approach to public policy development; in particular, his attention to the rhetorical as well as to the material, to the state and to social conditions, and, perhaps above all, to his focus on the multi-causality of policies, through time, in conditions of uncertainty. The chapter by allan maslove centres on taxation as an ­instrument of public policy. In particular, Maslove examines the interplay, over the past 30 years in Canada, between using the tax system as a generator of revenue and as a regulator of behaviour of economic agents. He identifies a cyclical pattern that plays out in annual income tax decisions, gradual shifts in the overall structures and, eventually, periodic episodes of major tax reform. Maslove suggests that these tax reform exercises feature a cleaning up of the tax structure, by modifying the accumulated batch of special provisions for regulating behaviour, thereby broadening the tax base for a more buoyant generation of revenue and even allowing for a reduction in tax rates. Although governments still insert special provisions into the income tax system, Maslove suggests that the tendency to do so



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has declined over time, due in large part to economic and financial globalization. Indeed, globalization has prompted governments to seek stable revenue from less mobile sources, resulting in a greater reliance on taxing consumption through retail taxes and user fees. His overall conclusion is that the income tax system, both for individuals and corporations, has become less potent as a policy instrument for influencing the behaviour of economic agents in work effort, investment activity or consumption levels and patterns. In many respects, taxation has returned to a classical role of obtaining secure and stable revenues for the state. Maslove’s analysis of the future direction of Canadian tax policy relates to Doern’s idea that governing politicians effectively trade in a market of policy instruments. So, for example, if the supply of the tax system declines for addressing certain issues, then governments will likely turn to other policy instruments such as direct expenditure, regulation, or exhortation. They will do so, as the Doernian perspective claims, because the option of doing absolutely nothing for long is not usually a viable political option. science and government: policy institutions, processes, and challenges

In addition to pushing the conceptual boundaries of Canadian public policy theory, Bruce Doern tirelessly explored the dynamics of numerous policy fields. These institutional assessments always highlighted how ideas were teased out and employed by policy entrepreneurs both within the formal institutions of the state and outside government. Always integrated into these analyses was an assessment of how the formal legislative, budgetary, and regulatory processes structured this struggle amongst ideas and interests in decision making. A major component of his body of research was in policy fields that, at their core, relied on the insights of science and the development of policy responses that employed technology and science. This exploration began in the 1960s with his doctoral work on science and government. The fields he explored over his career included policy for science and technology, as well as environment, energy, sustainable development, and competition and intellectual property policy. Doern carefully examined relationships between industry, the ­scientific community, university sector, and the state in Canada. He

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pioneered, and has sustained ever since, the study of science policy in the arenas of cabinet government, parliament, political parties, private interests, and public opinion. Regrettably, the field of policy studies has insufficiently taken up his early analysis of the Canadian scientific community as a political system in its own right. Issues today of climate change, stem cell research, genetically modified organisms, biotechnologies and cloning, mad cow disease, and mapping the human genome are all powerful indicators of the pressing need to examine the science and politics relationship, including what Doern calls “the broad problem of communication among scientific experts, generalist politicians, and the scientifically uneducated general public.”4 Perhaps the digital age in which we now live shifts somewhat the distribution of information and expands the potential for public awareness; although Doern would caution us that ­knowledge is but one form of power. jeff kinder reviews how the federal government has structured science policy advice over the last century. This historical overview of the experience of a number of institutional mechanisms reveals an uneasy intersection of science and government. Science advice can be understood as guidance derived from the natural, health, and social sciences, and engineering in the context of a policy question. A core conceptual distinction at the heart of science advice and public policy is the difference between science in policy and policy for science. This longstanding distinction has served to anchor most discussions of the relationship between science and government and was invoked by John Holdren, President Obama’s science advisor, during his 2009 Senate confirmation hearing. While exploring the functions of science advice, Kinder reveals the historical evolution of science advisory mechanisms in Canada: from the 1916 Honorary Advisory Council on Scientific and Industrial Research which became the National Research Council, to the 1966 creation of the Science Council of Canada and its demise in 1992, to the 1986 National Advisory Board on Science and Technology, which gave way to the 1996 Advisory Council on Science and Technology, which in turn gave way in 2007 to the Science, Technology and Innovation Council. As Kinder argues, one can roughly trace the evolving focus of Canadian s&t policy by observing the changing titles of these organizations; from an early focus industrial research, followed by the progression over the past 40 years from science policy, to science and technology policy, to now to innovation policy.



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The truly creative part of Kinder’s chapter is his construction of a two-part analytical framework: “Speaking Truth”… involves categorizing key characteristics of how sound science advice is secured, while “…to Power” relates to the integration of science advice into the policy process. Kinder argues that the Doern’s early work on science policy between 1969 and 1972 (which he compiles into a table) provided the embryonic insights for this framework. In essence, the key elements of securing advice based on sound science include: ensuring quality in the face of uncertainty though processes such as peer review; openness and inclusiveness to capture the full diversity of scientific opinion; ensuring integrity to avoid bias and conflict of interest. Secondly, the influence of science advice in decision making depends on a number of elements such as reporting relationships that acknowledge the differing contexts and values of science advisors and decision makers and in which trust and confidentiality play a large role; the access of science advisors to decision makers and to relevant information combined with the timeliness of advice and the provision of in-depth analysis supporting the advice; and science advice that is transparent to the public and in which the degree of scientific uncertainty and risk are clearly communicated and the science advice process and the decision making process are visible to the public. markus sharaput’s chapter also focuses on science and technology policy. Looking back, he argues that there are ongoing themes in the Canadian debate: should s&t activity occur inside or outside of government, and should s&t policy focus on stimulating scientific research for its own sake or should it stimulate research that contributes to the national interest. The first half of the chapter builds on literature by Doern and various colleagues to explore a vast number of elements that have shaped this debate. Different perspectives, values, objectives, interests, and actors have intertwined over the past 50 plus years to shape Canadian s&t – around these questions of basic versus applied research, and independent versus inhouse s&t activity – but without clear outcomes. Organizations, agencies, and programs such as the National Research Council, Industrial Research Assistance Program, Canadian Foundation for Innovation, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Networks of Centres of Excellence and the university granting councils, and federal departments are explored as both determinants and outcomes of various federal commitments to s&t.

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The second half of the chapter focuses on Industry Canada’s attempt following the arrival of the Chrétien Liberal government in 1993 and the 1996 release of report Science and Technology for the New Century – A Federal Strategy, to lead a National Innovation System (nis). A nis consists of the complex interplay of innovating institutions and their larger supporting context. In Sharaput’s judgement Industry Canada only partially succeeded in creating an innovation framework. While the department attempted to develop and lead networks both inside and outside of government, it was unable to overcome systemic intra-state barriers to enact broad-based institutional change across government. The consequence is that Canada remains a s&t laggard, spending on r&d expressed as a percentage of gdp remains low, and the country still is overly reliant on resource industries. Indeed, it would appear that in 2008–09 the diversification of the Canadian economy has taken steps backward. The cultivation of networks of innovation remains a work in progress in Canada. sanford borins explores how information technologies (it) are transforming the nature of politics and government in Canada, federally and provincially, as well as in the United Kingdom and the United States. Borins examines the use of it in political campaigning, especially on party websites, YouTube channels, and Facebook groups in the 2007 Ontario election, the 2008 Canadian general election, and the presidential primaries and the 2008 national election in the United States. Borins describes the remarkable “Obama phenomenon,” a mass mobilization campaign that, in dazzlingly effective fashion, utilized the full range of online technologies to raise funds, enlist volunteers, register voters, organize events, engage in policy development, and get out the vote. By contrast, Borins finds recent election campaigns conducted by political parties in Ontario and at the national level in Canada to be much tamer applications of online technology employed by the Obama campaign. Canadian parties still control the exposure of their leaders in staged events and carefully scripted websites, thus limiting their appeal to younger voters. Notable online activities in Canadian elections arise outside national headquarters of political parties, from YouTube videos and issue-oriented websites by activists and interest groups. In the digital state, government workplaces use the latest it: the ranks of clerical workers have declined, while knowledge-intensive staff numbers have grown. Work, especially at senior management and political levels, has a heightened sense of urgency and virtual



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accessibility, at least at these levels if not for the general public. Borins also examines the use of online technology within the public service, including online service delivery, suggesting that it has the potential to restructure government based on integrated service delivery at the front end, joined-up policy making in the middle, and integrated procurement and support service at the back end. He presents evidence of the politicization of the online presence of Canadian governments alongside the establishment of advocacy websites for government priorities. Borins is convinced that it is the future of governance and democratic politics and calls on scholars of the Net Generation to more fully examine this fascinating, fast moving and far reaching phenomenon. monica gattinger asks if it is inevitable that Canada-United States energy policies will be harmonized. She investigates both the drivers and constraints. Her assessment of energy markets, policy, and politics since the mid-80s shows that we have already gone some distance down that road as a result of a range of drivers … not only in the oil and gas but also the electricity sector. She develops a Spectrum of Bilateral Policy Relations that runs from Conflict on one end through Independence to Harmonization at the other. Between Independence and Harmonization there is a subset range of activities and processes that characterize degrees of coordination and collaboration. For a range of reasons, mostly domestic, both governments have pushed at times for harmonization and at other times for independence. Conflict has largely disappeared. Gattinger places the energy harmonization debate within the broader theoretical literature on policy and political harmonization, assessing a number of factors (emulation, parallel domestic factors, international constraints, and interdependence) which may propel convergence. This leads her to ask “Does energy policy harmonization between Canada and the United States mean the Americanization of Canadian energy policies?” Three of the four factors mentioned above would imply that the answer is yes. Parallel domestic factors would, however, have to include similar domestic politics – and here the evidence is not as clear – nor is the attraction for Canada. Canada-us energy relations tend to be highly integrated at the bureaucratic level. While such trans-governmental processes may be effective, decentralized, and flexible, their democratic legitimacy is increasingly called into question. When the political criteria of transparency, openness and representativeness, deliberative quality, and

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accountability are applied, as they in domestic politics on both sides of the border, energy relations come up rather short. Given the asymmetries in the bilateral relationship, which are made even more complex when Mexico is included on the continental trilateral scale, such political factors cannot help but increase in salience. In that regard, Gattinger concludes that it is imperative that the democratic legitimacy of energy relations, in the context of further harmonization, be enhanced by greater transparency, openness, representative of a broad range of interests, and be more deliberative and accountable. As the world’s governments move in the second decade of the 21st Century to put in place serious carbon emission reduction strategies, which virtually all have deemed necessary by mid-century, the role of energy technologies become transcendent. Carbon capture and storage (ccs) from industrial installations has been touted by private and public organizations around the world as a viable response. After describing and assessing the scientific technicalities of ccs, james meadowcroft and matthew hellin explore this proposition through the theoretical perspective of “transition ­management.” Transition management is a perspective on socio­technological transformation that takes its inspiration from historical studies of long term technological transitions, such as the shift of ocean transport systems from sail to steam. Transition management is a deliberate attempt to bring about structural change in a stepwise manner, based on a two-pronged strategy oriented both toward system improvement within the existing trajectory and system innovation triggering a new trajectory. Such societal transitions between dominant socio-technical paradigms unfold over 25–75 year periods and transition management is about achieving gradual change by exploiting the potentialities of the existing system. Meadowcroft and Hellin ask if ccs can be viewed as a “two world” technology of the kind favoured by transition management theorists: one that can simultaneously open up possibilities for system improvement and system innovation. Plans are already underway in Canada and elsewhere for ccs projects that represent an “end of pipe” approach to taking carbon out of the industrial waste stream and burying it underground in various geological formations. In that sense, Meadowcroft and Hellin acknowledge that it can be understood to “optimize the current energy system.” They are keeping an open mind as to whether this technology can transform the energy system into something different – for example, one based on



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r­ enewable forms of power generation. Their research question is whether transition management would be hostile to ccs. They are willing to consider the system innovation potential of ccs, given, for example, its potential to open up pathways to the low emission hydrogen economy. The final section of their chapter reflects on ccs in this context. They conclude that the uncertainties and ambiguities of ccs have triggered different political visions: both that of ccs as a gateway to a post-fossil energy economy and that of ccs as an enhancement of fossil energy lock in. Climate change and energy security are two macro level drivers that will help shape public debate, but whatever the outcome, the emergence of ccs technology will require the development of robust regulatory frameworks, transparent international procedures, and a clear divisions of ­responsibility among public and private actors. Ideas play a central role in Bruce Doern’s approach to public policy. Periodically, a big idea comes along that has profound ramifications for public policy. The idea of sustainable development was “invented” by scientists in the 1980 World Conservation Strategy but came to prominence when embraced by political leaders on the World Commission of Environment and Development (wced). Its 1987 report Our Common Future triggered a series of policy responses both internationally and domestically. As Doern noted in his theoretical work on policy instruments, one key policy response is to create new institutions. serena boutros, lillian hayward, anique montambault, laura smallwood, and glen toner analyse the creation and evolution of four non-executive agencies that can trace their roots to various federal governments’ responses to the injunction in Our Common Future to strengthen Canada’s sustainable development infrastructure. Though each has a different mandate, these institutions have been successful in broadening ­discussions and communicating the fundamental elements of sustainable development. Their success is in part as result of their independence; all four were created to be arm’s length from government. However, this independence has also circumscribed their ability to effect change as they have limited decision making power, particularly of the kind required for the paradigmatic social change ­envisioned by the wced. The chapter concludes by asking “so what does it mean?” While small organizations can play specialized roles in niche sectors, a truly transformative societal sustainable development change process will

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require the large institutions of government and business which have a wide scope of influence on investment and policy decisions to trigger concrete actions. The record of government and firms in Canada has been decidedly mixed. The loss of a number of leading firms to foreign takeovers means that there are fewer Canadian companies involved in various international sustainable development organizations and indexes. Unless other firms in the retail services, high technology, and manufacturing sectors step forward and join existing leaders in the energy, resource and financial sectors we risk a period of decline in leadership form the private sector. On the other hand, in the current financial crisis, governments in Canada and elsewhere are insisting that long term energy and material efficiency gains become a priority for firms and that sustainable development oriented “green jobs” become a central part of the corporate response. The performance of Canadian governments has been inconsistent, with episodic leadership and implementation efforts failing to meet rhetorical commitments. The 2008 Federal Sustainable Development Act may move the yardsticks forward within the practices of the federal government. But, in addition to it, strategic environmental assessment applied to the lens of cabinet decision making, a rigorous approach to environmental stewardship of its internal operations including green procurement of goods and services, strengthened and coherent regulations, a stronger environmental information base, and the serious utilization of financial incentives and disincentives will all be required if the federal government is to become the leader it needs to be for Canada to make real progress toward a sustainable development trajectory. The four institutional “children of Brundtland” have shown they are capable and ready to play their role. The chapters in Part Two focus on various aspects of science related policy, but directly complement the chapters in Part One: both sets of chapters are a testament to the influence of Bruce Doern on the study of public policy and administration. One measure of a colleague’s influence is whether it is possible to imagine the field of inquiry and research without him. Clearly there would be scholarly work on public policy in Canada whether Bruce Doern had existed or not, but it is equally clear that it would have a different character, a different tone, and a different focus. Most importantly it would be impoverished by the absence of his contributions. Most scholars and practitioners are enormously in his debt. A disciplinary builder, a generous mentor, and an academic pioneer, Doern laid much of



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the empirical and conceptual foundation for Canadian public policy and administrative studies today. Looking ahead, his body of work offers invaluable guidance for studying the political realities of our collective tomorrows.

notes

1� Seymour Martin Lipset, “Introduction,” in T.H. Marshall, Class, Citizenship, and Social Development: Essays by T.H. Marshall (Greenwood, 1963), xv. 2� Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia (Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc., 1936), 163–64. 3� Ibid., 171. 4� G. Bruce Doern, Science and Politics in Canada (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1972), 1.

2 Bruce the Builder john a. chenier

G. Bruce Doern’s research and writing in the field of Canadian public policy have informed his contemporaries and will continue to provide food for thought to young scholars for years to come. This impressive body of research, much of it pioneer work cutting across broad fields of Canadian public policy, can overshadow an equally important contribution Doern has made to the intellectual capital of this country: namely his role in building and shaping the institutions associated with the education of public administrators and the community of public policy scholars in Canada and elsewhere. The purpose of this short chapter, therefore, is to define the institutional legacy of G. Bruce Doern; a legacy that includes the more “concrete” entity of the School of Public Policy and Administration at Carleton University and the other, more ethereal, worldwide network of scholars he fostered over the years. formative influences

The career path of Doern the developing scholar was often dictated by chance, combined with an ability to make the most of any opportunities provided. His year as president of the University of Manitoba student body – a position which he sought, more or less on a whim and won by acclamation – may have been what brought him to the attention of the political class in that province. Whatever the reason, upon his graduation, he received an unsolicited and unexpected employment offer to come and work in the minister’s office of the Manitoba Attorney General. In his short stint with the Government of Manitoba, he learned two valuable lessons: first,



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that he had an innate interest in politics and public policy; and second, that he was eligible for educational leave. Within a year, he applied for leave and for admission to the ma program in the ­department of political science at Carleton University. Both these ­applications met with success. The federal government was undergoing major transformations when Doern arrived at Carleton to do his ma in public administration. New structures and processes were emerging as part of the ongoing expansion in the role of federal government. In his ma thesis, Doern quoted Lester B. Pearson on this expanding role, which was “far more concerned with and is far more important to the life of the citizen, the productivity of our economy and indeed the character of our society, than has ever been the case before.”1 The effects of these changes were magnified by the restructuring and modernizing of the public service that was underway in line with the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Government Organization, (Glassco Commission), That commission, established in 1960 and reporting in 1962, recommended major changes to the role of managers within departments (“Let the managers manage”) and that central agencies, in particular the Treasury Board, “should concentrate on the essential task of reviewing the programmes and objectives of departmental management in relation to overall government policy.”2 Doern noted the growing concentration of professionalism and expertise that was occurring in the public service as these changes were introduced: First, the government, though it is but one participant in the policy process, is coming more and more to monopolize the resources and expertise that might be marshalled to grapple with modern social and economic problems. The political parties, pressure groups and even the universities, in my view, cannot hope, in the long run, to compete with governmental resources in this process.3 On completion of his ma, he went on to Queen’s to pursue ­ octoral studies. There he formed friendships that in the years to d come, would take Canadian political science in a whole new direction. The discipline of political science was in transition from a focus on roles and responsibilities of organizations and offices – an “institutional” perspective – to a focus on the interactions and exchanges

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among these actors as well as the activities and outputs of public institutions – a “behaviourial” perspective. In addition, the sub­discipline of public administration was beginning to expand beyond the boundaries of political science to include more of the behaviourial sciences. Many of Doern’s fellow students at Queen’s such as Peter Aucoin, Michael Whittington, Richard Phidd, Richard Van Loon, and V. Seymour Wilson would, along with Doern, make major contributions to our understanding of Canadian politics, policy, and public administration. His arrival back at Carleton as a young assistant professor ­coincided with the election of the first Trudeau government in 1968. This administration brought even more change to the structures and processes of government to add to those that had occurred under Lester Pearson. Doern’s early research focused on some of the implications of these changes and resulted in two papers. One was a path-breaking analysis (see Aucoin in this volume) of the new philosophy of policy-making in the Trudeau government. In it, he explored both the process and the problems involved as Prime Minister Trudeau and his key advisors introduced structural, procedural and personnel changes designed to increase the role of rational analysis and planning in the policy process. The second paper focused on the apparent contradictions and tensions between rationality and politics or put another way, could a rational approach to policy where one presumably sought the one best way to approach a problem leave room for political preference? Doern’s answer was not only in the affirmative, but he presented strong arguments as to how it was both necessary and possible to have a rational, politically directed policy process.4 This early research would shape his views on the breadth of knowledge a school of public administration should impart to its students. It would also provide the basis for what would prove to be a central element in his future studies of government and public policy, that is, the interaction of structures and ideas and how a change of ideas eventually influences intra- and inter-organizational structures, or, as Leslie Pal describes it (see Pal in this volume), he “looked for disjunctions and disconnects among ideas, organizations and personalities.”5 The idea in this instance was the introduction of more rationality in policy-making under Trudeau. In his conclusion to the article on this new philosophy, he ­challenged his academic colleagues:



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It is safe to say that part of the reason why the officials within government, at both the political and bureaucratic levels are having difficulties in beginning to conceptualize the policymaking structures of the 1970s is because Canadian political scientists have offered very little to support this most difficult enterprise.6 With the help and participation of many of his colleagues from graduate school (Queen’s), some of whom have contributed to this volume, they set out to fill in gaps in the study of policy structure and processes and increase our knowledge of specific policy fields. chance & opportunity: school of public administration

In 1971, when R.O. MacFarlane, the Director of the School of Public Administration at Carleton University, passed away, Bruce Doern was asked to replace him. At the time the School was integrated with the department of political science. However, what had begun as a sub-discipline of political science was rapidly evolving into a special field in its own right, extending beyond the confines of political science to include studies in management, economics, policy analysis and evaluation, as well as in-depth knowledge of various policy areas. It was clear to Doern that not only was the curriculum in need of updating, but that a faculty able to deliver the necessary courses would have to come from several disciplines beyond political science. He began to press the case for an independent school of public administration that would provide courses in these areas and staffed with faculty having diverse teaching and research ­backgrounds with a focus on public policy and administration. In his early research, Doern had noted and commented on the multidisciplinary demands of the modern public service working in an array of complex structures, developing and implementing a web of interdependent policies. He recognized the benefits of knowledge in the areas of organizational behaviour and economics provided to him by his degree in commerce: As such we are more concerned with the analysis that draws on an examination of actual behaviour roles in the policy structures and processes rather than simply describing the formal or

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i­nstitutional relationships between the several components of the policy process. In this way we find the discipline of public administration and its recent deployment of “organizational theory” useful in terms of its awareness of the structure of the bureaucracy and its relationship to the political sector.7 Educating people to work in a modern public service, particularly those tasked with developing or assessing public policy, meant that the school of public administration had to adopt a broader, multidisciplinary approach. In both “Structures” and “Issues” he championed the notion that policy analysis and the discipline of public administration required a broader view than could be provided from solely a political science perspective. The plan to adopt an expanded curriculum for public administration (or what is now increasingly being called public management) under the aegis of a separate and distinct institution encountered some stiff opposition, especially from some in the department of political science. However, Doern had the good fortune to find a strong ally in the Dean of Graduate Studies at the time, Gilles Paquet, who strongly supported the notion of an independent school that offered a broad-based, multidisciplinary graduate program. Within a year, the foundations of a new, ­independent school of public administration were laid. A multidisciplinary graduate program demanded a multidisciplinary faculty. New faculty with backgrounds in economics and organizational behaviour were recruited. However, not all the holes in the curriculum could be plugged by hiring new faculty – deals had to be struck with other departments to fill the remaining teaching gaps. But institution building did not stop with the hiring of new faculty members. If the School was to become a centre of excellence in the sphere of public policy, it had to create a community of scholars with an element of common purpose. This was no easy task in a milieu where the reward structures were geared more to work conducted within the narrow confines of single disciplines, and where most academics measured progress through a metric focused on research and ­publishing in journals related to their particular discipline. During his nine-year tenure as director, he attempted to cement the diverse building blocks into place by engaging faculty in joint, multidisciplinary research projects, publications and conferences.8 By any measure, he succeeded.9 In 1980, Doern’s second last year as Director, he launched a project designed to boost the profile of



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the School in the broader policy community as well as to provide a means of strengthening the bonds among the growing number of the School’s faculty. The project, an annual publication on government spending and priorities which would eventually become known as How Ottawa Spends continues to involve public policy scholars across the country. building a community of policy scholars

In his conference presentation G. Bruce Doern’s Approach to Ideas, Richard Phidd made reference to Doern’s stated desire to enlist his fellow doctoral students from Queen’s in the grand task of writing a new chapter in the study of Canadian political science – with a focus on public policy. The first effort came with The Structures of Policy Making in Canada, a reader co-edited with former classmate Peter Aucoin. This was followed by another reader in public policy, Issues in Canadian Public Policy with co-editor and former classmate V. Seymour Wilson.10 The intent here is not to provide a historical account of Doernian scholarship. Rather it is to indicate the beginnings of a growing network of policy scholars and a way of working. His publications include nearly 150 books and articles, of which about 70 per cent were co-authored or co-edited. Over the course of his career, he worked with economists and political scientists, foreign policy specialists and legal experts, organizations, Europeans and Americans through conscious choice because he felt that he learned more from these experiences than if he worked alone. Many of those who attended the conference in his honour and all who gave papers at this event have collaborated on books, papers or major research projects. His publication history is also a testament to his role of mentoring young scholars, many of whom had opportunity to work with and learn from him. Overall, 50 of his publications are co-authored or co-edited, with 38 of these involving different co-authors or co-editors. Returning to How Ottawa Spends – his effort to provide common purpose within the school and build up the policy community in general – in his first four years as founding editor (1980–83), 24 different authors took part, most, but not all from Carleton or the national capital region. In his last four years as editor (2004–07) there were 58 different contributors from ­34 different institutions.

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Innovation, Science, Environment (ise) is a publication based on the How Ottawa Spends format designed with a similar purpose in mind, to build up the profile of the School’s Carleton Research Unit in Science and Environment (cruise). The ise publication built on the research work of cruise which had been established as a research unit in 1997 to complement the ise stream in the School’s ma teaching program. Professor Keith Newton, formerly with the Economic Council of Canada, was cruise’s first director and along with Glen Toner and Bruce Doern, and later also Stephan Schott and James Meadowcroft launched a number of research ­initiatives, many funded by sshrc but also federal science-based agencies. These included initiatives on: innovation policy, workplace innovation, the governance of biotechnology, intellectual property, sustainable development and environmental regulation, common property resource management, government laboratories, the National Research Council of Canada, federal government-university relations in research and innovation policy, sustainable production, and science and technology policy. Numerous School doctoral and ma students became involved in this research and became authors in the annual ise volume and now work in federal and provincial science-based agencies. As was the case with How Ottawa Spends, Doern used the ise publication to involve students and faculty in building a national community of scholars in this area. In his first two years as founding editor of ise, he involved/recruited 30 different authors from ­12 different institutions. leadership

His accomplishments provide ample evidence of his outstanding leadership abilities. However, as a leader, he did not have to rely on positional authority, even when in a nominal position of power as director of the school. Instead, his power to lead was derived from the force of his personality, buttressed by his boundless energy to lead by doing. In Weber’s discussion of charismatic authority, he posited that if the authority wielded by charismatic leaders by virtue of the power of their personality was to survive, this authority had to be transitioned into one of the other forms of authority, traditional or ­rational-legal.11 In order to circumvent the many problems associated



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with defining and measuring the presence of various facets of ­charismatic leadership qualities, organizational theorists have instead focused on the notion of transformative leadership that leaves its mark through the routinization of ideas. The focus is on the success of creating processes or structures that enable transformative ideas to become incorporated as common practice and institutions, which then in turn structure the lives of the people within them.12 This is precisely what has transpired with Doern’s leadership: ü The School of Public Policy and Administration as a distinct institution ü The annual series “How Ottawa Spends” ü The development of the phd program in Public Policy ü The establishment of cruise and a stream in the School’s graduate program of Innovation, Science, Environment (ise) With respect to the phd program and cruise, Doern says he was not acting alone, nor was he in the lead role for these, but no one doubts that his participation and support were instrumental to the success of these initiatives. His transformative ideas became incorporated into common practices; his charismatic leadership created processes and structures ready to be passed on to future generations of scholars. The institutions he cemented in place, the processes of collaborative scholarship he taught through example, the legacy of scholarship and scholars he created – all have brought about transformative changes that will continue to enhance our understanding of public policy for years to come. His legacy is articulated in a ­fulsome manner in the testimonials that follow. testimonials in honour of professor g. bruce doern

Bruce has been a Carleton man for 40 years. That is a very good thing for us and for Canada. As Director of the School of Public Administration, as it then was, Bruce took the study of Public Administration at Carleton and in Canada to new heights. He was our key leader and boldest entrepreneur with innovations such as How Ottawa Spends. He led the expansion of the School and by his presence on the Ottawa scene he made us a powerhouse in influencing the federal government and, even more important, in educating

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so many of Canada’s top public officials. His influence through his writing as well as his teaching extends around the country and the world and his presence has ensured Carleton University’s national and international reputation. Richard Van Loon, Former President, Carleton University Bruce Doern literally changed the orientation of my graduate work and subsequent academic career. As an undergraduate I was focusing on political theory, and intended to do that for my ma. In my senior year I ran across a newly edited book by Bruce Doern and Vince Wilson entitled Issues in Canadian Public Policy. It was possibly the first book on Canadian public policy published for a university audience. I began to read more of Bruce’s work – which luckily he produced at a prodigious rate – while I completed my ma in political theory. By the time I started my phd, I was hooked on public policy and policy analysis, almost entirely due to the intellectual ­gravitational pull of someone I had never even met. Leslie A. Pal, Professor, Carleton University Most of the tributes to Bruce will celebrate his prodigious number of publications, his extraordinary phd supervision list and his unparalleled work ethic. As Bruce’s first phd student and co-author of a book and several articles with him, I had a close up view of the magic. He was, and still is, an inspiration as a friend and as a professor. He is also one of the most well rounded individuals one could meet and his love of musical theatre and sports always infiltrated any serious research or pedagogical discussion. Glen Toner, Professor, Carleton University I first “met” Bruce virtually through his work with Richard Phidd, who was my ma thesis advisor. I was impressed then at the coverage of his work – from environmental to industrial policy, from regional economic development to trade policy, to his work on ideas, structures and process – there was little Bruce didn’t seem to have an article or book written on! I was thus a little anxious when I first met him in person, as he helped welcome the “Class of ’94” to the phd program. Of course what I found was that while Bruce is one of the leading figures in Canadian public policy and administration, he is most impressive as a person. He made me feel immediately comfortable at Carleton, he encouraged me to pursue intellectual



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creativity, and he helped me to make a mark in our work together on “Free Trade Federalism”. Mark MacDonald, Director, Public Sector Advisory. kpmg llp Bruce Doern’s incredible productivity has often made me think it was a good thing we did not have a drug-testing policy for ­academics. No one in his generation of Canadian academics has matched his output. But it is not simply the sheer number of publications but the willingness over his career to collaborate with the widest range of colleagues in a variety of disciplines, to provide, almost instantaneously, comments and sound advice on drafts, to mentor and promote his students and especially to further, through his research, our understanding of vital issues of public concern that have made him the highly respected scholar that he is. I will always treasure my many collaborations with him: he has been the model of a professional colleague – generous with his time and advice, demanding in his expectations and a leader whom one seeks to emulate. Richard J. Schultz, James McGill Professor and Chair Department of Political Science, McGill University Bruce lives what he preaches. He engaged the public policy / administration process on many of the big issues over the past several decades. He knows the players. And by being a player himself everyone learned, adjusted and moved on with greater confidence. Thanks Bruce for your leadership. Alan Nymark, Former Deputy Minister, Environment Canada I want to contribute a note on the exceptional leadership Bruce has provided to the School of Public Policy and Administration over the years as Director and as a colleague. By example, Bruce conveyed to his colleagues the sense of responsibility and integrity we should assume towards our students and our research. At the same time, he set a tone that the School is a fun place to be, a relaxed and welcoming place for faculty, staff and students to work and engage one another. He struck just the right balances between commitment and informality, and between intellectual debates and personal friendships that have served the School so well and have made it such a great place to be. Allan M. Maslove, Professor, Carleton University

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Throughout my academic training and experience as a senior public servant and business association leader, I can trace a number of times when my development was directly influenced by Bruce Doern. Bruce was the second reader of my thesis on the organizational challenges of the Ministry of Urban Affairs. As a federal public servant for about 25 years, I took some courses at the School of Public Administration and was a keen reader of the many books that Bruce produced and How Ottawa Spends. This created a deep passion for me to understand better the public policy process and how to manage in government. After I took my mpa at Harvard in 1981, Bruce agreed to publish in a policy paper series a paper I wrote at Harvard on Indian Affairs and then invited me to teach a course on the Politics of Management. I love teaching and I am hugely grateful for the opportunity Bruce gave me at that time to share my enthusiasm for the field of public management with public administration students. Bruce in many ways inspired me to learn, to teach and to practice public administration and this combination has been the centerpiece of my career and still is. Richard Paton, President, Canadian Chemical Producers Association Professor Doern, in his quiet but confident way, never flinched in his reassurance to me that I could complete a phd thesis on an area that had not been done before. His courses provided me with tools for both teaching and research that I use almost every day. In fact, Carleton and Bruce’s work were constantly on my mind last year as I helped a promising undergraduate complete his dissertation using “Ideas, Interests, and Institutions” as his conceptual framework – the student went on to win all the program and dissertation awards at the School of Public Policy in Birmingham and a soughtafter place in the Masters of Politics program at Manchester University. Indeed Bruce’s influence has penetrated public policy programs everywhere. Barbara Ann Allen, Research Fellow, University of Birmingham Like most students interested in Canadian public policy, I knew of Bruce Doern and his work long before we had ever met. Perhaps most importantly, Bruce is an academic who lets his researchers be guided by empirical evidence and what they found in the world of governments, institutions and, of course, politics. He was not tied to any one normative or theoretical framework, or his own scholastic



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findings and research interests, when evaluating the validity of his researchers’ conclusions. So long as you made a reasonable case and drew upon solid evidence to support it, Bruce would not only accept it, but would be genuinely interested by your discoveries. In my own academic career, I hope to emulate Bruce’s hard work, dedication to publishing and, most importantly, his curiosity in understanding how Canadians have chosen to govern themselves. Malcolm G. Bird, phd Graduate, Carleton University, 2008 Whenever I think of my relationship with Bruce Doern I reflect on Herbert Kaufman’s Time Chance and Organizations. I met Bruce in the ma Programme at Carleton and we both went to Queen’s for our phds. Doern was from Manitoba and I was from Morant Bay, Jamaica. The only connection I can make now relates to Riel and Bogle, the latter led the Morant Bay Rebellion in 1865 and both were significant national and international developments. Doern displayed leadership in inviting me to contribute a chapter on the Economic Council of Canada in The Structures of Policy-making in Canada and on regional development policy in Issues in Canadian Public Policy. By the late 1970s we collaborated on the Politics and Management of Canadian Economic Policy. In the 1980s we integrated our emerging interests in public policy in what was then a novel effort in Canadian public policy: Ideas, Structure, and Process. Our working relationship has continued into the 21st century. Bruce’s accomplishments are indicative of his leadership, collegial teaching, and collaborative skills. Richard W Phidd, Professor Emeritus, University of Guelph Bruce Doern is one of those unique individuals who can graciously help others to explore and develop their views. He does this by sharing, in a constructive manner, his broad picture of the world yet detailed understanding of how government organizations operate. Bruce is also a tireless worker who, through his example, encourages others to contribute to the advancement of societies’ understanding of how we might improve our governance processes. I have been fortunate to be guided by such a thoughtful and patient scholar. David Stuewe, Dalhousie University In the study and practice of Canadian public policy there is nothing as certain, as ever present, as Doern and taxes. Fortunately, paying

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my dues to Bruce is an entirely pleasant and personally enriching experience. Well before Bruce became one of the grand figures and senior scholars of Canadian public administration and policy studies, he was, for some of us, an amazing, inspiring young scholar. This began from his books with Aucoin, Wilson, and Phidd, and the numerous volumes of his own on science and politics, and regulation. Bruce not only contributed to Canadian public administration and policy studies; he shaped the field itself as an important intellectual area of inquiry. For more than thirty years, I have had the opportunity and honour, to have been a student, a colleague, a collaborator, and a close personal friend of Bruce and his family. And, without doubt, I am immeasurably the richer for it all. Michael J. Prince, Lansdowne Professor of Social Policy, University Victoria. At Queen’s, Bruce’s enthusiasm for scholarship was infectious. He led by example. But what counted most was his willingness to engage in collegial undertakings. That commitment, coupled with Joan’s and his hospitality, meant colleagues became friends for life. Not surprisingly, Bruce has a multitude of colleague-friends. And, in addition, he became a nationally and internationally renowned scholar – a reputation for first-rate work that is fully deserved. Peter Aucoin, Professor, Dalhousie University I had known Bruce Doern by name since my times as a graduate student with a keen interest in comparative public policy. When I taught a course on Canadian Politics and Policy-making at my home university in Germany, Bruce’s Canadian Public Policy was naturally a key reference. But it is only recently, when I had the privilege to work with Bruce as co-author and co-editor of a German-Canadian study of energy policy that I began to fully appreciate Bruce’s extraordinary qualities as a scholar, colleague, and mentor. To begin with, I was deeply impressed by his modesty and generosity – here was a very senior, accomplished scholar who accepted the invitation of a rather junior academic new to the Canadian landscape to work together as equal partners, even offering the credit of lead editorship to the newcomer. I soon realized that I could not have been more fortunate: Bruce never stopped amazing me – his professionalism and his dazzling speed of writing at the highest level, his ­organization



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skills, and, an astute, creative sense of how to advance the scholarly debate on the basis of complex empirical material. Burkard Eberlein, Assistant Professor, Schulich School of Business, York University I first met Bruce over twenty years ago when I came to Canada to study for my ma at Carleton. As a Brit coming new to Canadian politics and policy, Bruce’s course was a great journey of discovery for me – and I’ve always appreciated that he acted, not as a lofty professor, but as a fellow-voyager in learning. Now, as a professor alongside Bruce in the School of Public Policy and Administration, I have got to know him as a generous and supportive colleague. His personality breeds enthusiasm, his prodigious output is legendary and his comments and advice are always constructive and insightful. Christopher Stoney, Associate Professor, Carleton University As one of the first students in the new program, I had a front row seat to observe Bruce as he went about building the multi­disciplinary school from the ground up – negotiating for more resources, recruiting new faculty, counselling students, fine-tuning the curriculum, putting salve on old wounds while forging new working relationships with other departments. Bruce’s boundless energy and drive provided the fuel for the whole process. His prolific output can be put down to four things: his skill at managing his time (you have to see it to believe it); his ability to focus on the task at hand; his uncanny ability to collaborate well with others; and, last, but certainly not least, the unparalleled support of super-Joan whose personality and organizational skill made everything in Bruce’s milieu function like clockwork. Equally important, though he always had several projects on the go, his busy schedule never precluded finding time to read and comment on the work of others (including two doctoral theses in my family). Given the task of establishing a multidisciplinary approach to the study and teaching of public administration, Carleton and Canada could not have had a better and more suitable leader, champion, builder or professor (in the literal sense of that word) than Bruce Doern. John Chenier, Student (1972–74), Sessional lecturer (1974–76, 1979–86) at the School of Public Administration. President, Isis Research

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While I was a graduate student based at Treasury Board Secretariat and working on my dissertation, Bruce Doern recruited me to the School of Public Administration. I wasn’t sure then whether I wanted to be an academic or practitioner, but Bruce convinced me to give academic life a try. Bruce, by his example, made a strong case for the virtues of an academic career. He impressed me by the way he moved the school forward, presenting a casual demeanor while bubbling with ideas for his own research and for projects that could engage the entire faculty. He set a powerful example for me of someone who was a productive researcher, inspiring teacher, and builder of an academic institution. Watching him gave me a sense, by intellectual osmosis, of what an academic can be and do. Sandford Borins, Professor, University of Toronto I first met Bruce when I started to work at the School of Public Administration in 2001/2002. When he heard that I worked on the regulation of polluters in noncompetitive markets with applications to Ontario’s electricity sector he got me involved in a book on Canadian Energy Policy. Bruce had this idea at a time when energy was not really a burning issue. We had just experienced a long era of low fossil fuel prices and excess energy capacity in many provinces in Canada. Bruce gathered some of the leading experts on energy and I am grateful he gave me an opportunity to contribute to this book and to get me into this extremely important field. By the time the book was published and came on the market, energy was on the agenda everywhere and a very hot topic indeed. This is just one personal experience that exemplifies the unique intuition Bruce has for conducting highly relevant and top notch quality research which has major impacts on policy debates of the day. Stephan Schott, Assistant Professor, Carleton University I cannot overstate the impact Bruce has had on my life. In many ways, I owe my graduate career to him. He was my Master’s supervisor, gave me my first (and second!) opportunity for publication, inspired my interest in public policy, acted as an advocate and mentor, and remains a critical influence on my own research. In addition to his remarkable impact on the study of public policy, Bruce is notable for the genuine interest he takes in the development and welfare of his students. It is Bruce’s generosity, both as a senior colleague and as a scholar, that distinguishes him from his peers. He



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has a remarkable capacity to encourage the development of divergent views, while making a place for them in the larger scheme of policy scholarship he has helped to shape. Markus Sharaput, phd , York University For many years, Bruce Doern has epitomised the best of scholarship and academic mentorship in political science and public policy. Bruce has set the standard for the systematic study of public policy issues in Canada for much of the last thirty years. Fair-minded and empirically rigorous, his scholarly output on one subject after another has made significant contributions to public understanding of important policy issues in Canada and abroad. Bruce has been an outstanding mentor to successive generations of graduate students and young academics – whose ongoing contributions to teaching and scholarship are a vital part of his continuing legacy of learning. Aside from his professional endeavours, he is also a thoughtful and generous human being whose example has enriched my life and that of many others. Geoffrey Hale, Associate Professor, University of Lethbridge I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Bruce Doern for his long-standing support and mentorship in my academic development, beginning with my master’s studies and continuing on to my doctoral research and beyond. Not only was Bruce a consummate thesis committee member, he also generously extended to me valuable opportunities to publish and participate in stimulating research projects during and subsequent to my doctoral studies. Indeed, my research programme in the energy sector would not have emerged had it not been for early work with Bruce as both research assistant and co-author on Canadian and Canada-US energy matters. Monica Gattinger, Associate Professor, University of Ottawa I have had the good fortune to benefit from Bruce Doern’s ­pioneering work in the field of Canadian public policy throughout my academic career. His early work on Science and Politics in Canada and The Politics and Management of Canadian Economic Policy were hugely influential in the development of my own thinking at different stages of my career, but more importantly provided instant legitimacy for a younger generation of political scientists who thought it important and relevant to engage in the study of economic and science policy.

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I had the even better fortune of working with Bruce on a ­background study for the Macdonald Royal Commission where I benefited immeasurably from his well organized and insightful approach to a huge research undertaking. Working closely with Bruce on this study at such an early stage of my career was enormously beneficial for many of the future research and policy related initiatives I was involved with. His intellectual leadership remains through the four decades of scholarship he has provided to the field and the countless number of students and scholars who have benefited from his work. David A. Wolfe, Professor, University of Toronto My association with Bruce has been long and rewarding for me. Unknown to Bruce, he taught me my first course in public administration as an (undistinguished!) undergraduate at Carleton, how shall I say it, a few years ago. I hope this reference does not inspire him to search his course grades! Equally unknown to Bruce, was my decision, on the basis of his course, to change directions, to drop history and English and to study political science especially public administration. Bruce’s ideas about policy making and about the need to understand complex organization were entirely new to me. They opened new vistas and remained with me over the years. In future years, I collaborated with Bruce on two books on crown corporations and other projects on provincial government budgeting and university governance more recently. Bruce, on reflection, contributed enormously, through his long career at Carleton, to the development of Canada’s intellectual capacity in public management. Allan Tupper, Professor, University of British Columbia So many of the tributes here speak eloquently of the intellectual and academic achievements of this man, but they also comment on his passionate commitment to his career and his colleagues, his friends and his family, and on his singular ability to support and enable those around him to strive for, and achieve their very best in whatever they do. While I am not in the field of political science or public administration, my own academic career is a direct result of this. I was provided with plenty of opportunities over the years to learn by example. The example of his own career of course, and also the example of seeing so many young scholars successfully negotiate the pitfalls of doing a phd under his careful guidance. When I started



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to think about an academic career myself, I confessed to one of his colleagues that I felt slightly daunted by the prospect of following in such eminent footsteps (a phd done in less than two years by the time he was 26, a list of publications a mile long, etc. etc.) and was told not to worry because ‘no other normal academic manages those thing, just Bruce’! But I was also given the opportunity to learn first hand that an incredibly hard-working, career-driven man could absolutely get that work/life balance thing right, always putting his family first, taking great delight in, and engaging with everything they have done over the years. And while there was – and still is – constant practical and ­emotional support, perhaps one of the things at the School of Public Policy and Administration that has most influenced my own academic career has been the truly liberating and enabling example of his quiet, understated but deeply-felt commitment to feminism. In case you haven’t guessed yet, Bruce Doern is my father. Shannon and I always knew that we really could grow up to be and do anything we liked out there in the world, as long as it wasn’t dropping out of high school to be in a band in the Yukon. Well, I didn’t go to the Yukon, and it took me a bit longer than two years to become Dr. Doern junior, but with heartfelt thanks to the original Dr. Doern, and to the formidable parenting team that are Joan and Bruce, I am a cherished daughter, a proud mother to three of their five grandchildren, and – last but not least, a feminist historian. Dr. Kristin G. Doern, Lecturer in Modern British History, Bath Spa University (uk)

notes

1� G. Bruce Doern, “The Role of Interdepartmental Committees in the Policy Process,” ma thesis (Carleton University, 1966), 15. 2� Canada, Royal Commission on Government Organization (Glassco Commission) Volume I (1962), 55–56. 3� Doern, “The Role of Interdepartmental Committees,” 15. 4� G. Bruce Doern, “Mr. Trudeau, the Science Council, and P.P.B.: Recent Changes in the Philosophy of Policy Making in Canada,” a paper presented to the cpsa 42nd Annual meeting, Winnipeg, June 3, 1970; and “Political Policy-Making: A Commentary on the Economic Council’s

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Eighth Annual Review and the Ritchie Report,” The Private Planning Association of Canada, Montreal, 1972. 5� Leslie A. Pal, “The Accidental Theorist” (see chapter 2 of this volume). 6� Doern, “Mr. Trudeau, the Science Council, and P.P.B.,” 47. 7� G. Bruce Doern and Peter Aucoin, “Introduction,” in G. Bruce Doern and Peter Aucoin, eds. The Structures of Policy-Making in Canada (Macmillan, 1971), 6. 8� For example, see G. Bruce Doern, Ian A. Hunter, Donald Swartz, and V. Seymour Wilson, “The Structure and Behaviour of Canadian Regulatory Boards and Commissions: Multidisciplinary Perspectives,” Canadian Public Administration 18.2 (1975), 189–215. This paper was originally submitted to the Law Reform Commission in 1974 as a proposal to undertake a multi-disciplinary review of agencies on its behalf. Major conferences hosted by the School were “The Public Evaluation of Government Spending” with the Institute for Research on Public Policy in 1978, and “Canadian Nuclear Policies” with the Science Council in 1978. 9� The first four faculty hired were Donald Swartz, Ian MacDonald, Eugene Swimmer, and Allan Maslove. 10� Doern and Aucoin, Structures (1971) which was followed by a 2nd edition in 1979, and G. Bruce Doern and V. Seymour Wilson, eds. Issues in Canadian Public Policy (Macmillan, 1974). 11� Max Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, trans. by A. M. Henderson and Talcott Parsons, and intro. by Talcott Parsons (The Free Press, 1947). 12� For examples of this see Janice M. Beyer and Larry D. Browning, “Transforming an Industry in Crisis: Charisma, Routinization, ­and Supportive Cultural Leadership,” The Leadership Quarterly, 10:3, (Autumn 1999), 483–520 and John Norman Davis, “How Is Charisma Routinized? A New Look at an Old Question.” Doctoral ­dissertation, Texas Tech University. Available electronically from http://hdl.handle.net/2346/1011

3 The Accidental Theorist? Key Themes in G. Bruce Doern’s Approach to the Policy Process1 leslie a. pal

“The study of policy-making cannot be said to have occupied a central place in Canadian political science in a direct sense. Aspects of the philosophy and structures of policy-making are of course related to our historic preoccupation with such issues as brokerage and consensus politics, but, generally speaking, we have not zeroed in on the more explicit structures and philosophy which have been associated with the immediate environment of the executive-bureaucratic levels.”2 It is tempting, but in the final analysis grossly misleading, to speak of the public policy and decision process. … [N]umerous policy and decision processes operate concurrently on a political and economic agenda that contains and is influenced by a variety of ideas and ideologies, personalities, and interests and organizations of unequal power.3

G. Bruce Doern is a prolific author and researcher, having penned well over one hundred books and articles on virtually every aspect of Canadian and international science and industrial policy. He has written on agencies, ministries, departments, policies, prime ministers, international organizations, federalism, research labs, and much more. However, in reviewing this corpus of work, one would be hard pressed to extract a “theory,” or a theoretical framework that marks the entire body of his work. There are many models, frameworks, guides, but no apparent theory per se. Some of these frameworks, such as the “scale of coercion” model on policy instruments, do

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amount to strong theoretical contributions to specific sub-fields of public policy research, but Doern has, to date, not appeared to leave the legacy of a strong theoretical orientation – a sort of “Doernian theory of the policy process.” In large part this is both deliberate and reflective of a habit of mind. Doern is very much an incrementalist, a pragmatist, a small “l” liberal in his intellectual orientations. He remarked once that he thought that he was not so much a political “scientist” as he was a historian, reveling in the narrative, or in deep description that highlights key factors, in factors that may change from situation to situation, case by case. My argument in this chapter is that despite these inclinations, Doern did indeed have an inchoate theoretical framework that underpinned his research and writing. However – and in this sense this chapter is as much a work of intellectual psychoanalysis as it is of intellectual biography – that framework bubbled up almost accidentally and unnoticed in work that spanned decades. I would not say that it amounted to a consistent, elaborate, or even conscious framework. It was more like magma beneath the surface of his numerous research preoccupations, and would seep out thematically but unobtrusively. Rather than a consciously constructed framework, these themes hang together more as an elastic prism of ideas that helped Doern filter complex policy issues into coherent analysis. In order to trace these themes in his work, I decided on a research strategy of reviewing only single authored works, not edited works or co-edited works, and only single-authored refereed journal articles. Doern’s collegiality and collaboration is remarkable, and a large part of his publications are co-authored. Nonetheless, this strategy still yielded a subset of fifteen books and monographs and nineteen journal articles, spanning 30 years of writing and research. The intent was to review work that could be clearly designated as Doern’s alone, unfiltered and unaffected by direct collaboration. This should yield the “essential” Doern. Unsurprisingly, a subset of work this large, spanning so many years, is a treasure trove of themes and issues. I have been able to distill four master themes that appear in one form or another in almost all of these publications. Before turning to these themes, however, I would like to make some general observations about other important threads that run throughout his work. Perhaps the most obvious is the fact that Doern literally pioneered the academic study of public policy and the policy process in this country. Along with



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a handful of colleagues and collaborators (e.g., Richard Phidd, Peter Aucoin) he helped lay the foundations for the serious study of public administration, state organizations, and the policy process and policy analysis. To that point, Canadian political science, as the opening quote to this paper suggests, had been preoccupied with elections, federalism, and formal political processes. We knew virtually nothing about the development and implementation of public policy inside the state, or indeed about the articulation of policies nationally and federally. The full corpus of Doern’s work stands as a monument to the development of a new sub-field within Canadian social science. Several other themes are consistently reflected in his work. One is the importance of search and uncertainty in policy development. While Doern recognized the obvious role of political ideology, policy paradigms, institutional factors and structural forces on policy choice, he never accepted them as total explanations. Indeed, in much of his work he explores the “puzzling through” that characterizes a good deal of public policy making. This may be because of his abiding interest in science policy and the science/research related dimensions of economic and industrial policy. As new issues arise in these fields, or as new research findings come to the fore, there is a natural element of uncertainty and search. For Doern, the policy process is not overdetermined by politics or sheer power. This fits well with another theme, that of multi-causality. Doern was an early exponent of the “ideas, interests, and institutions” approach to understanding policy. These are three of the broadest dimensions of any policy system, and Doern refused to grant primacy to one or another. They were always balanced and, given that so much of his work consists of concrete case studies, the specific mix of factors would always vary. Finally, to the extent that Doern slid from analysis to prescription, he almost always highlighted the importance of an inclusive policy process. Again, this probably reflected his incrementalist and pragmatist instincts, but also signaled an assumption that better policy (not necessarily the “best,” even if one knew what that was) would flow from a process that included all relevant stakeholders interacting on a level playing field. While these mentioned themes are clearly important, my interest in this chapter is to probe for the scaffolding of what might be described as an inchoate theory of the policy process that lies embedded, though not entirely hidden, in Doern’s work. This theory is distinct from the numerous “models” or “frameworks” that would

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outline key factors he thought were important in a particular case study (for example, his eight-point framework to evaluate a competition policy institution4). The variability of these frameworks suggests that they were simply assembled as necessary to undertake the task at hand. My interest, rather, is in more enduring themes that mutually reinforce and articulate a consistent, if loosely coupled, lens on the policy process. Those four themes are (a) brittle pluralism, (b) policy field vs. organizational structure, (c) infusional power, and (d) organizational form and function. brittle pluralism

Doern was clearly a pluralist in the sense that he did not see deeply embedded and enduring fault lines of power such as class, gender, ethnicity, or race. He did not see public policy as the preserve of business and government elites, though he gave full measure to the role of business interests in the political process, and he also recognized (more in his earlier work) the political/economic influence of the United States in terms of foreign ownership in specific industrial sectors. In classic pluralist terms, he saw configurations of interests – political, economic, social, organizational (and in later work, international) – shifting kaleidoscopically depending on the issue. But unlike the classic pluralists, who were examining the dynamics of entire political systems and hence focusing primarily on the influence of networks of interests outside the state, Doern was a student of public policy and administration. His focus was on the state itself, and while of course he could not ignore the role of external interests, as a student of the policy process and of public administration, he was interested in what went on inside the state. His understanding of these internal dynamics was thoroughly ­consistent throughout his career and amounts to a theory of what I will characterize as “brittle” pluralism. This approach has several key features. First, it is focused on the internal dynamics of state organizations and actors, of which there are many, all jockeying for position and power. He refers in one paper, for example, to the “Ottawa ­labyrinth.”5 This labyrinth was marked by constant conflict: To say that the visibility of conflict is increasing is not to place a normative label to it. … At both the political and bureaucratic levels the problems and strategies of conflict management will become more and more important.6



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The system it observes was basically that of a self-regulating mode of operation in which jurisdictional conflict between the labour, social affairs, natural resources, environment protection services, and worker compensation departments and agencies of the Quebec government enabled industry to virtually regulate itself.7 First, the realization of policy objectives in the field of hazardous products and occupational health may in some cases by frustrated by the fact that regulatory functions may be housed in one government organization and expenditure ­functions in another, and the two may be working at cross-purposes.8 The analysis suggests that by far the heaviest causal weight in explaining regulatory inadequacies should be placed on the raw economics of regulating occupational health and on how this has been aided and abetted, by design or by neglect, by ­interdepartmental jurisdictional conflict.9 … the competitive and co-operative institutional relations between the epo and national patent offices (and their parent governments) …10 All these agencies are political bureaucracies in their own right but they and their committees and discussion fora are composed of officials from individual member nation-states. The member states’ positions and tactics are in turn the product of increasingly complex negotiations among agencies with the nation’s home bureaucracy. In traditional foreign policy, a nation’s position is usually forged by the foreign affairs ministry, the president’s or prime minister’s office, and, where appropriate, defense departments. But where foreign policy begins to involve, as it increasingly does, heretofore largely domestic policy fields, then a more intense and complex array of bureaucratic players joins the fray both to advance ideas and interests but also to protect organizational turf.11 Second, many of these departments and agencies are linked to external (usually business) interests, which supercharges the conflict beyond simple bureaucratic politics to a much broader political game of attempting to dominate the policy process through proxies

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within the state. In his study of Canadian competition policy in a global environment, for example, Doern noted: “Political pressures can be brought to bear through the actions and arguments of ministers and other department officials who are not directly responsible for competition policy. They may be representing the interests of their own department, the department’s industrial interest groups, or key firms.”12 Third, his pluralist approach accepted that different departments played different roles and have different mandates, and, as a consequence, naturally take different positions on key policy issues (more on this below). For example, he argued that there was a pecking order within the Ottawa bureaucracy based on different functions: But the full notion of bureaucracy within cabinet-parliamentary government must also include the presence of “hierarchies within hierarchies.” Departments and other arm’s-length entities thus deliver accountable services to a democratic system of representative government. But departments must also serve other parts of the government, either to preserve system-wide service norms and submit to the watchful eye of value auditors, or to provide related policy advice on issues that cut across the structure and concerns of the ministry in power.13 This functional distinction is complicated by differences in mandate, either between different departments or within them: In recent years especially, higher status has been accorded the high-policy and policy-advisory roles in government. The ‘nuts and bolts’ line operators and field inspection personnel tend to have been downgraded both relatively and absolutely.14 From the beginning of Canada’s Department of the Environment in 1971, two things were clear. First, its Environmental Protection Service, initially through the latter’s water and air pollution control directorates and later through its industrial programmes branch, would be the chief regulatory arm of the department. This was especially the case with water. Unlike all other components of doe which saw themselves more as services, the protection arm, while called a service, presented itself as a the hard regulatory muscle of the new



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department. But by other players involved – the industries concerned, other doe services, and environmentalists – the directorates were viewed with great suspicion.15 The quasi-judicial functions of the crtc are, however, clearly influenced by the dual or divided assignment of telecom­ munications policy between Industry Canada and Canadian Heritage… . Thus, there is a further and quite deliberate ­institutionalized tension built into the crtc’s environment for policy and quasi-political activities.16 Together, these elements would presumably create a portrait of constant flux and conflict, a fluid intra-organizational pluralism. The “brittleness” in Doern’s pluralism comes from an appreciation of the embeddedness of mandates, and the element of time in the policy process. Whereas classical pluralism focused on interest groups, and hence the ease by which they combine and recombine, morphing as necessary to the issue at hand, Doern was migrating this pluralist sensibility to state institutions, which, as institutions and not interest groups, had a stronger drag coefficient. Several quotes illustrate this sensibility: [B]ut the first volume of the [Senate] report leaves me with the impression that the Committee merely hopes that these organizational pathologies will go away or that they will at least be reduced by a little corrective surgery. My premise is that they will not …17 Existing government departments have acquired their mandates over a long period of time in response to evolving views about political and legislative priorities, each one of which, on its own, is usually seen to be beneficial. Although inter-agency conflict is often caused by bureaucratic empire building, it is also just as often caused by the simple fact that most departments have been given many purposes through past and present political processes.18 Early formative choices have a pervasive influence over later decisions. Regulatory bodies such as an ip [intellectual property] agency can and do change but not without overcoming these

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internal features which may be seen as valued features by some interests and inertia by others.19 Whenever Doern writes in general terms about state institutions, he almost always emphasizes fragmentation, conflict, and organizational mandates, but couples this with a view that the conflict is somewhat plodding and determined by certain institutional configurations and channels, like an arena full of somnolent sumo wrestlers. It is brittle pluralism: neither completely fluid, nor ­completely structured. policy field vs. organizational structure

The second theme that marks a good deal of Doern’s work is the distinction between policy field and the organizational structures that operate within and across those fields. He never provides a clear definition of what he means by a policy field, and uses the term “policy paradigm” to describe a more purely ideational construct that guides policy thinking and practice. Policy field would seem to be primarily an arena of practice, broadly defined, that expresses a range of government actions to tackle a set of problems that is conceptually conceived to be connected. For example, “sustainable development” is a policy paradigm because it is primarily an idea, whereas “environment” is a policy field in Doern’s terms, since it encapsulates both practice and a conceptual framework upon which that practice is based. He sometimes also used the term “policy sector” for policy field, as below (note that this also echoes the organizational pluralism theme discussed above): A policy sector is a matrix or cluster of government ­organizations where bureaucrats regularly interact and compete in an effort to defend or promote their respective policy ­interests, gaining access to the policy sector on the basis of their control over internal resources critical to policy sector activities. … Organizations that are active within a policy sector always depend to one degree of another upon other organizations within the sector. This is because no one organization can ever control all the resources necessary to achieve a policy objective.20 The crucial point is that while a policy field might be a coherent field of policy activity, the organizational actors on that field will



The Accidental Theorist? 47

not necessarily align perfectly with it. This is due to several reasons. First, government organizations have multiple purposes, and only one part of the organization may be drawn into a particular policy field. Second, as new policy fields arise (for example, a redefined notion of competition policy based on innovation and knowledge production), organizations have to adapt and will move into that space even if they have to wedge themselves into it. Third, organizations have less plasticity than do policy fields. A policy field is an amalgam of organizations and a governing idea, but organizations are actually congealed sets of people, practices, ideas, traditions, and history. Doern had a taste for analyzing the policy fields that were emergent and new – good examples are his extended work on science policy, health and hazardous substances, and international regimes for competition policy. His theoretical approach (or instinct) was to watch the organizational players jostle and compete on these new policy fields. This allowed him to identify both the dynamics as well as contradictions and tensions. He was constantly sensitive to “overlaps” and the way in which policy fields oozed out beyond organizational boundaries, and the way in which organizations tried to nonetheless turn back the tides and claim dominance. For example, as the new cabinet committee system was evolving in the 1970s, he noted that the “mere listing of the cabinet committees illustrates all too clearly the difficulty of putting policy into watertight compartments. Overlaps abound in the committee process.”21 But this was more than a passing phase; it was embedded in the organizational and policy realities of government itself. Some years earlier, he made the point more generally: The cabinet system of ministerial and collective responsibility imposes limitations on how many units (departments and boards) can be created, coordinated, grouped and regrouped to achieve new or emerging policy objectives. … Existing ­government departments have acquired their mandates over a long period of time in response to evolving views about political and legislative priorities, each one of which on its own is usually viewed to be beneficial. While interagency conflict is often caused by bureaucratic empire-building, it is also just as often cause by the simple fact that most departments have been given many purposes through past and present ­political processes.22

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A decade later, in writing about the merger of the Department of Regional Industrial Expansion (dree) and the Department of Industry, Trade, and Commerce (itc), he made the same point more emphatically: Since most major reorganizations are accompanied by real or perceived changes in policy, the links between policy (and the program changes they imply) and organizations are close. But rarely are the two wholly synonymous. At one level it simply reflects the fact that any large organization places a high premium on stability. Large hierarchical bureaucracies exist primarily to deliver reliable, predictable goods and services to clients who also crave certainty. Public policies, on the other hand – and all the more so when policy is changing – are rarely capable of being implemented by one organization. Moreover, the goals may or may not be clear. Vast policy terrain such as that covered by “industrial and regional” policy is especially characterized by these realities since, in effect, many departments are involved in the concurrent achievement of industrial sectoral goals and regional goals is difficult, to say the least. Public policy is purposeful and seeks to produce desired outcomes but the chain of “behaviour” and causality which runs through numerous public and private “implementors” and organizations is a long and uncertain one.23 Policy fields also trench on policy processes, and once again Doern’s theoretical instinct was to draw a distinction between form and function or process, in the same way that he drew a distinction between field and organization. In what might be described as a three-level game, Doern saw the political chessboard consisting of loosely connected levels of policy fields, organizations, and – slicing through those two levels – policy processes. No single process dominates any given field, and no organization does either. Indeed, he once referred to the “illusiveness of organizational form.”24 There are interesting parallels and contrasts in this theme with the notion of brittle pluralism. His pluralism stressed fragmentation and conflict but, as argued, a conflict that is less than fluid due to the drag of organizational mandates and institutional structures. In the field vs. organization theme, we once again see this tension between fluidity and structure, flows and anchors. Policy fields are partly



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defined by ideas, partly by the organizations that occupy them. But the fields can morph and change quite rapidly, and organizations overlay them imperfectly. This spatial positioning and re-positioning generates friction as well as potential conflict. infusional power

Power is the master concept of political science in that politics ­invariably is about achieving outcomes that affect some collectivity. Those outcomes can sometimes be achieved cooperatively but usually require some modicum of pressure, force, or coercion. The less routinized or structured a political situation is, the more likely it is that power dynamics will characterize collective decision-making. That is why the concept of power is less visible or central to public administration and public management research than it is, for example, in international relations. The state in liberal democratic regimes is normally highly routinzed and structured through rules and standard operating procedures – the hallmark of bureaucracy. Nonetheless, power dynamics remain important within the ­administrative apparatus for several reasons. Bureaus have to compete for resources, and those in charge of different bureaus often tie their personal career success to the success of the organizations they happen to be managing. As well, bureaus that have a natural authority over resource allocation (departments of finance, for example) tend to wield more power within the state apparatus. Finally, policy is decided by elected officials, not appointed ones, and there are natural political dynamics within the executive and the legislature that affect the decision-making process within the administrative apparatus. These are all fairly common assumptions about how the ­administrative side of the state operates, and Doern relied on them throughout his career. But he gave these assumptions a particular twist. First, as noted above, his guiding assumption was that the institutional terrain within the federal government was marked by numerous, competing and sometimes conflicting organizations. We cited evidence for this above, but he constantly made reference to raging internal debates within government over policy issues.25 Some of this conflict was hardwired into the bureaucracy as a result of different types of organizations facing each other: in discussing the merger between dree and itc, he noted: “In the early stages of

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reorganization, these clashes are likely to be reflected both among the central agencies of government and between the central agencies and line departments.”26 Second, while he assumed that there would be intra-state bureaucratic conflict and power games, he saw the essential power dynamic flowing from the political level into the bureaucratic one. The source of power is always political for Doern, and it “infuses” the ­administrative apparatus. Organizations are quite naturally associated with their leader’s priorities and styles, and strengths and weaknesses… .27 The importance of prime ministerial power and its sustainability is evident. In the broadest context reorganizations of this ­magnitude turn on the decisions made or not made at the top. While there was a decided burst of political power brought to bear by the Prime Minister that yielded the policy change and the ­reorganization, the high level of sustained power was not maintained.28 The decision to reorganize is made by the Prime Minister. Accordingly, it cannot be separated from his agenda, from his sense of timing and strategy, and from the pressures put upon the government to change its agenda … If the decision to reorganize involves a mobilization of power by the Prime Minister, it follows logically that the efficacy of the actual reorganization process will also be partially dependent on the sustainability of that power in the time periods when the reorganization is being implemented.29 Third, while power flows from the political level, it is also fluid and contingent, usually on circumstance and personality. Power ebbs and flows, accumulates and dissipates, and needs to be built and sustained if it is to remain a credible force in decision-making. In looking at the evolution of the Department of the Environment in the 1990s, for example, he highlighted the role of the then new minister, Lucien Bouchard, whose “no-nonsense” approach to new regulations in 1989 was the key to their adoption.30 His conclusion to that analysis was that the successful changes in 1990–92 to the environmental portfolio were due to a “new, albeit brief, burst of



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ministerial leadership.”31 Interestingly, his most definitive and explicit statement of this theory of power came very early in his career: By “power” I refer to the ability at the Ministerial level, to gain access to information, to influence Cabinet colleagues of those departments that actually allocate scientific resources, and to affect the allocation of those resources. With respect to this prerequisite I think the Minister will suffer serious liabilities. Because the Minister of Science Policy portfolio involves neither an inherently prestigious policy function with a politically important constituency nor responsibility to directly allocate a large sum of resources, the portfolio is bound to involve a Minister who will be politically weak in the pecking order of the federal Cabinet. Because of purely personal skills and qualities a Minister may be able to acquire greater power, but I rather doubt it. It is not enough that the new Minister have “authority”… . In my view he must find ways to acquire, or at least to maximize, all three of the prerequisites of perspective, legitimate access and power. The dictates of intrabureaucratic and intra-Cabinet behavior make this essential… .32 Finally, Doern’s notion (though he never used the term) of “­infusional power” carried with it the implication that if power infuses, its latency becomes actualized in concrete organizational forms or operations. There is no “essence” to power in Doern’s view – it must be mobilized to be effective. This is the reason why power can dissipate and migrate, since it depends on form and function for its sustainability. A prime minister or a department of finance can be presumed to have power, simply because of the way in which governmental institutions and processes are structured. But this is a presumption only. Prime ministers can misuse or lose their power, shift their attention, or fail to structure their priorities and agendas. If power is not institutionalized (if it fails to infuse, in other words) it fails to “jell”: These are what the successful institutionalization of green ­decision-making will require: the movement from sectoral to macro governance regimes through the transformation of latent policy paradigms and ideas into operational ones; the organizational and concrete resource bases for becoming and staying a

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macro or central agency in executive governance; and the importance of viable policy communities to sustain new ­paradigms and make them workable in a day-to-day sense.33 organizational form and function

As mentioned above, Doern appreciated the structural differences among departments and agencies – they had different mandates and roles to play in the policy process. But this appreciation went deeper than merely noting that departments and agencies differed. Throughout his work he constantly emphasized the importance of organizational form and function, almost as an institutional dna that helped explain both organizational behaviour and some key aspects of policy outcomes. One of his earliest essays was on the National Research Council (nrc), and the heart of the analysis centered on organizational form and function. At the time, the nrc was being divested of its role as general science policy advisor to the federal government, and was coming under a great deal of criticism. Doern’s essay provided an analysis of the evolution of the nrc and the nature of the “goal displacement” that was occurring to the agency. But in order to do that, one first had to understand the nrc’s organizational form and function, imprinted on it from its earliest days: The nrc is an organization whose structure became more and more complex in the period under discussion. What made it different was that it was an organization composed of scientists who were inserted into an overall governmental and organizational structure that was composed overwhelmingly of nonscientists. The activities of the nrc, both in this period and in its subsequent history, can only be understood if it itself is treated and examined as an organism or as a social system. … Because its goals were concerned primarily with science, and because it was composed of scientists, it is to be anticipated that certain of the norms and values of science would be prevalent in nrc’s organizational life. The behavioural tendency most clearly established in the literature on the behaviour of scientists in organizations is their tendency to covet organizational freedom. They are clearly embued (sic) with an anti-bureaucratic ethos.34 An important element in his understanding of organizational form was the influence of specific professions on that form and the ethos



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and behaviour of the agency. Naturally, since so much of Doern’s work was focused on science policy or policies like sustainable development that have a high scientific component, he was preoccupied with the influence of science-based professions on governmental organizations, as well as conflict within the public policy process. His analysis of the nrc, for example, hinged on the clash between science professions and their desire for autonomy, and the rest of the public service that espoused more of a control mentality (especially the Treasury Board): To summarize the nrc’s relationships with the bureaucracy, two points are established. Its anti-bureaucratic ideology was directed primarily against the Civil Service Commission. The nrc’s presence, however, tended to punctuate the difference in status between the departmental scientists and the nrc. Its intended role of being a coordinator and central policy advisor was muted by the realities of the bureaucratic political system.35 Thirty years later, in an analysis of the nrc’s place in Canada’s emerging “innovation system,” Doern continued to emphasize the organizational character of the nrc as a science-based organization: The nrc is still a departmental corporation of the Government of Canada, and thus its internal processes of change could not help but involve all of its organizational characteristics, namely, as an organization of scientists, as a politically controlled agency, as a national institution, and as a regionally dispersed institution of numerous and varied institutes.36 Organizational form was influenced by the professional orientation of the people within it, but was also influenced by function and position within the overall bureaucracy. Most importantly, form and function influenced both how the policy process unfolded (because it affects the character of the organizations within it) and its outcomes: “Every organization develops its own standard operating habits. It needs such habits largely to help it pursue goals and also to reduce the areas of uncertainty as presented both by its statutory and policy mandate and by its organizational environment.”37 In his early work on regulation, he noted that different organizational forms (a regulatory agency versus regulation through government departments) implied “different degrees of freedom and perhaps

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seriousness of purpose.”38 In one of his earliest essays, on the role of royal commissions in the policy process, he emphasized the importance of organizational form: “The royal commission “technique” of developing policy has essentially three qualities: it is public, ad hoc, and investigatory in its operation. By “public” is meant its usefulness in sweeping into the policy process outside or non­governmental, or non-civil service, participants.”39 In later years he refined this approach to organizational form by referring to “portfolio settings”: The third realm, that of ministerial portfolio settings, deals with the fact that the particular organizational settings for handling the full policy and implementation aspects of research and development tax incentives could vary considerably. For example, the tax incentive program could involve an organizational mode which is within a department headed directly by a Cabinet minister. Or, it could be lodged in a portfolio setting in which it is structured as a quasi-independent multi-member board of commission which reports to the minister or to Parliament. In terms of recent Canadian organizational terminology, it could be structured as a special operating agency (soa) that functions on an arms-length quasi-contractual basis with the parent department. Under such agreed contractual arrangements, there could be areas of relative independence in operational service delivery functions. … In keeping with the conceptual map set out above, the overall sr&ed policy and decision process can involved relations among several institutions each of whose roles and dynamics must be profiled and kept fully in mind.40 conclusions

The four key themes described above re-occur regularly in Bruce Doern’s work over the past thirty years. Do they amount to a theory of the policy process, and, if so, what kind of theory? I will address the second question first. Clearly, this is not a predictive theory, quite the opposite. Doern was constantly alive to the shifting ideational, organizational, and personal terrain of policy and decision-making. No set of factors would dominate in each and every case, and so each case had a different story to tell, a different narrative. He was



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fond of the term “interplay” and it captures his unique sensibility to how a wide variety of factors come together in unpredictable ways, sometimes reinforcing, sometimes conflicting or contradicting, but together providing the drivers that propel a policy story. While contingency is important, Doern was doing much more than simply telling isolated stories. In my view, the four themes that mark his work do coalesce into a theory of the policy process, but one that is more heuristic than predictive. But it nonetheless trains attention on consistent aspects of the policy process, and generates a powerful if flexible lens on what to look for in how decisions are made in government. The steps or elements are as follows: 1 There is a political economy to power – business interests are generally privileged and better resourced in the policy process, simply because we live in a capitalist system. But business is not paramount and it will not always win, since the internal process of decision-making depends on intra-state or intra-organizational factors over which business does not have complete control. Lens: Locate the material interests behind a policy issue, and see how they are aligned against each other, and with different elements of the bureaucracy. 2 The state is a highly organized matrix of organizations and rules that allocates putative power and responsibilities. Lens: Analyze which departments and agencies are players in a given policy area, but more importantly, what types of organizations they are (e.g., central agencies, departments, arms-length regulators) and how will organizational type influence organizational behaviour? 3 At its core, the policy process is driven by power from above, from the political level, in that this is the level (and the players) that sets agendas, priorities, and broad allocations of resources. There may be shadowy corners of government, where cobwebs of political inattention let other power dynamics (e.g., battles among officials) flourish, but the big issues get driven politically. Lens: What do the Cabinet, the Prime Minister, and key ministers think about an issue or a policy field, and how are they interacting among themselves but also with the bureaucracy? Follow the power, and follow the attention that is being paid to the issue at these highest levels. 4 Shift happens. Policy paradigms and ideas change and evolve, and to the degree that policy paradigms are the underpinnings of

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g­ overnment organizations at any given point in time, there will always be a misalignment between organizations and policy fields. Lens: Diagnose the ideas that form the foundation of a policy field (e.g., sustainable development) and then map the mandates of existing and emergent organizations against those ideas. Look for fault lines and contradictions. 5 The policy process operates at variable speeds. Ideas are the jet stream, flowing endlessly and fluidly around institutions and stakeholders. Government organizations, themselves the creatures of previous ideas and mandates, are fragmented and competitive, but cannot move and morph as rapidly as ideas can. And then there are the people in power – it is interesting how much of Doern’s research was based on interviews with flesh-and-blood decision-makers – who may or may not mobilize the organizational levers at their disposal. Lens: Look for the disjunctions and disconnects among ideas, organizations, and personalities in a policy field. Bruce Doern is an avid theatregoer. This fits perfectly with his theoretical approach to studying public policy. He sees the policy process as a stage, with many players of different types and character, motivated by impulse and principle, confused, in conflict, uncertain, improvising lines where a mad playwright has left gaps or ambiguities. Neither this sensibility nor the theoretical approach to which it gave birth are accidental. He was, and is, a deliberate theorist of Canadian and international public policy.

notes

1� I would like to thank Yasmine Ahmad for her excellent research assistance. 2� G. B. Doern, “Recent Changes in the Philosophy of Policy-Making in Canada,” Canadian Journal of Political Science 4.2 (1971), 243. 3� G. B. Doern, The Peripheral Nature of Scientific and Technological Controversy in Federal Policy Formation (Ottawa: Science Council of Canada, 1981), 14. 4� G. B. Doern, Fairer Play: Canadian Competition Policy Institutions in a Global Market (Toronto: C.D. Howe Institute, 1995), 133–34.



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5� G. B. Doern, “The Mega-Project Episode and the Formulation of Canadian Economic Development Policy,” Canadian Public Administration 26.2 (1983), 223. 6� Doern, “Recent Changes in the Philosophy of Policy-Making in Canada,” 243–64. 7� G. B. Doern, “The Political Economy of Regulating Occupational Health: The Ham and Beaudry Reports,” Canadian Public Administration 20.1 (1977), 7. 8� G. B. Doern, Regulatory Processes and Jurisdictional Issues in the Regulation of Hazardous Products in Canada (Ottawa: Supply and Services Canada, 1977), 24. 9� Doern, “The Political Economy of Regulating Occupational Health,” 1. 10� G. B. Doern, “The European Patent Office and the Political Economy of European Intellectual Property Policy,” Journal of European Public Policy 4.3 (1977), 389. 11� G. B. Doern, “Towards an International Antitrust Authority? Key factors in the Internationalization of Competition Policy,” Governance 9.3 (1996), 275. 12� Doern, Fairer Play, 143. 13� G. B. Doern, The Road to Better Public Services: Progress & Constraints in Five Canadian Federal Agencies (Montreal: Institute for Research on Public Policy, 1994), 20. 14� Doern, “The Political Economy of Regulating Occupational Health,” 28. 15� G. B. Doern, “Sectoral Green Politics: Environmental Regulation and the Canadian Pulp and Paper Industry,” Environmental Politics 4 (1995), 225. 16� G. B. Doern, “Regulating on the Run: The Transformation of the crtc as a Regulatory Institution,” Canadian Public Administration 40.3 (1997), 528. 17� G. B. Doern, “The Senate Report on Science Policy: A Political Assessment,” Journal of Canadian Studies 6 (1971), 43. 18� Doern, Regulatory Processes and Jurisdictional Issues in the Regulation of Hazardous Products in Canada, 23. 19� G. B. Doern, Global Change and Intellectual Property Agencies: An Institutional Perspective (London: Pinter, 1999), 9. 20� Doern, The Road to Better Public Services, 21. 21� Doern, The Peripheral Nature of Scientific and Technological Controversy in Federal Policy Formation, 19. 22� Doern, “The Political Economy of Regulating Occupational Health,” 27.

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23� G. B. Doern, “The Political Administration of Government Reorganization: The Merger of dree and itc,” Canadian Public Administration 30.1(1987), 38. 24� Doern, “The Political Economy of Regulating Occupational Health,” 26. 25� Doern, “The Political Administration of Government Reorganization,” 42. 26� Ibid., 38. 27� G. B. Doern, “The National Research Council of Canada: Institutional Change for an Era of Innovation Policy,” Canadian Public Administration 43.3 (2000), 277. 28� Doern, “The Political Administration of Government Reorganization,” 54. 29� Ibid., 37–38. 30� Doern, “Sectoral Green Politics,” 237. 31� Ibid., 241. 32� Doern, “The Senate Report on Science Policy,” 49–50. 33� G. B. Doern, “From Sectoral to Macro Green Governance: The Canadian Department of the Environment as an Aspiring Central Agency,” Governance 6.2 (1993), 173. 34� G. B. Doern, “The Political Realities of Science Policy Making in the Federal Government,” Science Forum 3.15 (1970), 151. 35� Doern, “The National Research Council of Canada,” 164. 36� Ibid., 272. 37� G. B. Doern, “Science and Technology in the Nuclear Regulatory Process: The Case of Canadian Uranium Miners,” Canadian Public Administration 21.1 (1978), 71. 38� Doern, Regulatory Processes and Jurisdictional Issues in the Regulation of Hazardous Products in Canada, 23. 39� G. B. Doern, “The Role of Royal Commissions in the General Policy Process and in Federal-Provincial Relations,” Canadian Public Administration 10.4 (1967), 417. 40� G. B. Doern, Institutional Aspects of r & d tax Incentives: The sr & ed Tax Credit (Ottawa: Industry Canada, 1995), 6–7.

4 The Policy Roles of Central Agencies Bruce Doern’s Original Ideas peter aucoin

Although Bruce Doern’s doctoral dissertation and first book ­examined Canadian science policy through the lens of the National Research Council, and his continued stature as a foremost Canadian and international scholar of science and government,1 his first significant set of original ideas focused on the policy roles of central agencies. His work focused primarily on Canada, but the Canadian experience at the time was not unique. His ideas thus had international relevance. Bruce Doern ventured into the so-called “black box” of internal government decision-making, thus departing from the academic fashion of the times that focused almost exclusively on what David Easton, then the preeminent political science guru, had labeled the “input” side of the “political system.”2 The Eastonian framework of “systems analysis” paid great attention to the input side of the political process, in large part because this was the transparent dimension of politics and this was where one could examine political “behaviour,” even using quantitative methods, in contrast to traditional studies that focused on institutions. Here were to be found political parties, interest groups, public opinion, and elections (constituting both “demand” and “support” dimensions of inputs). The “output” side of the political systems – the public policies and programs of government – was, of course, also transparent, but it was rarely the concern of political scientists, except in the sense of public policy constituting the outputs of political behaviour on the input side of the equation. Easton situated governmental institutions and processes between inputs and outputs. These institutions and processes were characterized as the “black box” of the decision-making

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system, a black box because it was hidden from public view; inputs were converted into outputs behind closed doors. By going behind these closed doors, and discovering what was happening there, Bruce Doern made his work original. He was an original: he was there first, or at least among the very first to arrive, so to speak. Furthermore, he also concluded that what went on inside the black box mattered; mattered, that is, in the sense that it had an effect on what was produced by way of outputs. And, he argued, who was there – the shadowy occupants of the box – also counted. By venturing into the corridors of power, he discovered the ­transformation in the roles of central agencies in government and in the broader policy process that was occurring in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He was the first scholar to describe the ways by which the central agency apparatus was being transformed from a “fused, personalized and passive” set of institutions to a more “differentiated, bureaucratized and active” structure.3 In contrast to the then-­dominant conventional view, as expressed by most commentators and many practitioners, however, he did not view the transformation as bringing about an entirely new or novel pattern. Rather, he saw it a “relative change.”4 But it was significant change nevertheless, and he documented and analyzed what was most significant, rather than what was merely superficial about it (as was especially the case with ­portrayals of the political executive as becoming “presidentialized”). Bruce Doern’s original ideas on the roles of central agencies have had a lasting legacy, because, among other reasons, he cast the transformations that brought central agencies to the fore as relative but nonetheless significant. His work on several other aspects of the policy process – from science, to energy, to regulation – was informed by this fundamental hypothesis. Policy processes are worth examining in detail, in his view, precisely because power is always dispersed to some degree, relationships are invariably complex and uncertain, and new patterns are constantly emerging while others are fading. In this chapter, I examine Bruce Doern’s analysis of the policy roles of central agencies in order to demonstrate how his original set of ideas remains relevant, both as a lens through which to view what has transpired since he first developed his analysis and as an approach to the analysis of the policy process. I argue that the once fused, personalized, and passive central agency apparatus that, in the 1960s and 1970s, became differentiated, bureaucratized, and active, has now become hierarchical, politicized, and strategic. Again, the change



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is relative but significant. And, it is not merely a Canadian ­phenomenon, even if it has become most pronounced in Canada. the first transformation

When Bruce Doern’s first piece on the central agencies was published in 1970,5 his list of references that dealt explicitly with central agencies was scant to say the least (and this was not because he ignored or was ignorant of what had been written on the subject). No one had examined these agencies as a set of institutions at the centre of government with responsibilities for assisting the prime minister and those other ministers with corporate responsibilities, in particular the Minister of Finance and the President of the Treasury Board. In some large part this was due to the fact that these agencies had not been viewed as central agents in the policy process, even if the major ones (Prime Minister’s Office, Privy Council Office, Department of Finance, and Treasury Board Secretariat) served ministers who were responsible for various corporate dimensions of public policy: ­political, governmental, fiscal, and general management. The structure of government and management that emerged in the decade before the Second World War, and which extended through the Diefenbaker government into the early 1960s, was one that Stefan Dupre described as the “departmentalized cabinet.” Individual ministers, several of whom were politically powerful in their own right, were backed by strong “line” departments, headed by equally powerful mandarins at the deputy-minister positions. Prime Ministers were important, of course.6 They exerted considerable control over government decision-making by their control of the cabinet agenda, in part by keeping the government’s agenda close to their vest. In this regime, the central agencies of government were essentially twofold: pmo with pco serving the prime minister and, to some extent, cabinet; and, Finance, which had sufficient control over the fiscal and expenditure budgets, and whose minister then chaired the Treasury Board (with the secretariat being part of the Finance department). The structure was, as Bruce Doern put it, fused, personal and passive.7 First, the structure was fused in that the several roles and ­responsibilities assigned to the central agencies were not highly differentiated between these agencies or even within them. A very small number of officials were involved and they essentially multi-tasked

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across a range of many matters – government, political, and hybrids, more often than not in an ad hoc manner. The system was not simple but the scale was such that government business, in one sense, was managed seamlessly by those at the centre. And its practitioners were generalists in every sense. Second, the structure was personal in that the key officials during this regime constituted a compact cadre of mandarins, with few outsiders in the form of political advisors in the pmo and personal/ political offices of individual ministers. Other things being equal, size matters, and in this context it meant that individual personalities not only loomed rather large in official Ottawa, their personal policy dispositions had an impact beyond what would otherwise be the case if institutional interests and organizational cultures dictated policy preferences. The informality of the system meant that interorganizational dynamics were often replaced by inter-personal dynamics. As Doern was quick to note, the first characteristic, the fusion of roles, contributed to the significance of the second. Third, the structure was passive in that the central agencies regarded themselves not only as fully subordinate to ministers, in the classic Westminster civil-service mode, but also as deferential to the public-policy expertise of the civil service that was deemed to reside primarily, even exclusively, in the line departments of governments. To the degree that officials were accepted as activists in the policy process they were to be so in their departments, where their policy advice was directed to their responsible portfolio minister. These ministers, in turn, brought policy proposals to the centre – to the cabinet. At most, the central agencies were expected to react to these proposals, a main role for Finance, or merely to process them through the cabinet as the government’s collective decision-making body, the main role for the pco. The central agencies were not then viewed by their political masters, including prime ministers of this era, as sources of public policy innovation, as officials who were meant to develop new ideas about what the government might do to their political masters. Even when the mandarins played an important role in developing the 1957 Liberal Party/Government election platform,8 the expertise was found largely in the line departments. When new ideas were sought, there was the ad hoc vehicle of royal commissions, a vehicle favoured by the Progressive Conservative government of John Diefenbaker that had ousted the long reigning Liberal regimes of McKenzie King and Louis St Laurent to bring



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forward new ideas for public policy action, or the Liberal Party approach, following its return to power in 1963, when it drew heavily on the policy proposals developed by the party itself when it was out of power from 1957 to 1963.9 The transformation of the central agency structure came about primarily with the election of the Pearson Liberal government in 1963. The new Liberal government recognized the need to better plan public policy and to better manage government than had been the norm; it had a policy agenda that required central attention to its development as policy that could be implemented as programs; and, it had host of new players, including Prime Minister Lester Pearson, who previously had been a leading deputy-minister mandarin, and Tom Kent, a political advisor who personified the publicpolicy activist of the new era of progressive government in the Western democracies in that he combined substantive expertise in public policy with a strong sense of partisan-political strategy. Gradually the new regime replaced the old. The central agency system became differentiated, bureaucratic, and active. It did so in part in response to the pressures of a new age. The 1960s were a time when, among other things, the post-war interventionist welfare state had reached its zenith in terms of ideological enthusiasm, even if the seeds of its downfall were also becoming evident in the mix of increasing radicalism on the left (for which the 60s is mostly remembered) and the first signs of conservative reaction on the right (albeit not yet neo-conservatism). This enthusiasm for government activism, regarded as non-ideological by its proponents, had to cope with two major developments: first, the political and administrative management of what had become the greatly expanded array of public services that were integral to large-scale state intervention in the socio-economic order; and, second, the proliferating demands for even further intervention that posed serious challenges not only, and most obviously, to the government’s fiscal capacity but also to the government’s policy capacity. For most of the 60s there was sufficient hubris among Ottawa’s political and administrative classes to cope with these realities and challenges; indeed, following the selection of Pierre Trudeau as Liberal Party leader and thus prime minister in 1968, this hubris reached its peak – the state now became subject to governance by cybernetics theory! The central agency architecture to support this new style of ­governance and public administration had what Colin Campbell

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later described as a “fascination with coordination,”10 and central coordination at that. Coordination, not surprisingly, was critical to the major tenets of cybernetics – viewing structures and processes as “systems” that had to be subject to “control,” however complex the mechanisms to be deployed to this end. For a brief period, all of this theory was taken seriously both at the centre of government and throughout the government, wherever its adherents or acolytes were located. Some of this was known to the public, but it is important to recall that this period was prior to the adoption of “freedom of information,” that is, the public’s right of access to government information, There was not yet the transparency of audit and the much-heralded critical reviews of public management, which were to come after the 1977 changes to the Auditor General’s act. It preceded the demise of public-service anonymity, as a form of public-service invisibility, that came with reforms to the parliamentary committee system that had only just begun to take effect; and, for that matter, the continuous and intrusive scrutiny and exposure of the inner workings of government that was to come with the transformation of the modern mass media, a transformation that had only begun with the universal access to television in the previous decade. There was much excitement about the new style of governance, and the excitement was extended as the workings of the changed machinery of government became less secretive. The new breed of “super-bureaucrats”11 in the expanding central agency apparatus were also willing to go public, even to write in learned journals.12 Doern’s analysis stands out here in some large part because he was not overwhelmed by the assumed revolution at the centre of government. In particular, he did not accept the “presidentialization” thesis then popular in media and some academic circles. Doern was quick to emphasize the general contours of the Canadian constitutional system that gave primacy of leadership to the prime minister, even as it structured the cabinet and parliamentary arenas of power as constraints on that leadership. He also pointed to the political dynamics of partisan-politics that gave primacy to political parties in the constitutional system of responsible government, and thus positioned the collective leadership of the governing party, even the extra-parliamentary leadership (formal and informal), to have some influence as an institution beyond the personal status of the party leader/prime minister. As a student of political power in government, he further stressed the critical influence of those ministers



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whose party status, including regional party status, combined with the power inherent in their major portfolios, gave them a political capacity that did not derive entirely from their relationship with the prime minister, let alone from the portfolio position bestowed on them at the pleasure of the prime minister. The power of at least some ministers was not derived totally from the prime minister; a portion was independent of the prime minister. Finally, he was an astute observer of the broad social and political trends of the times. That meant that he accurately perceived the continuity from previous eras, especially in terms of relations between prime minister and cabinet, cabinet and parliament, and ministers and the public service. At the same time, Doern was aware of the degree to which some dimensions of governance and public administration were changing and would not likely be entirely reversed with a later swing of the pendulum of institutional and organizational power. He saw that the secretive world of the mandarin era had come to an end, helped along ironically by the political ascendancy of several of its own, personified best by the hybrid career of Lester Pearson – professional bureaucrat turned partisan-politician. Prime ministers and governments of the future would separate the functions of partisan-political and public service advice and support in ways to ensure that the professional public service could not exercise the degree of power it once did. In this way, as Doern noted – in contrast to others who saw the role of political parties declining in governmental significance13 – the partisan dimension of governance was strengthened at the centre of government by the central agency that was the pmo (and assisted by its subsidiaries in the form of individual Minister’s Offices). Doern also saw the increased power that could be exercised by prime ministers in the modern era by virtue of their access to television. Television personalized political leadership and in a Westminster system this created new opportunities for prime ministers to further enhance their position of power vis-à-vis their cabinet colleagues on the one hand and their political party on the other. But television is a two-edged sword: personalization also magnifies leadership deficiencies and mistakes in ways that newspapers and radio cannot. Doern’s analysis constantly returned to the issue of constraints on power. He never succumbed to the temptation to see only one side of a shift in power. In some critical respects, this is why he gave such importance to what he called the prime minister’s “policy philosophy,” by which he meant the prime minister’s ideas about policy-

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making, political and governmental leadership, or what is now labeled “governance.” Doern saw these ideas as an independent factor in shaping the structures of power and in determining a prime minister’s deployment of his power, but also as “assets” to be “wielded with great care” given that these were not unlimited.14 He was at pains to stress the degree to which the more prominent role assumed by the prime minister in designing the central decisionmaking structures to serve him as first minister was accompanied by the emergence of constraints imbedded in these very central agency structures. Their differentiation served to disperse power as authority and responsibilities for different and designated policy matters, and thus limit the extent to which the prime minister could retain personal and direct control over a complex agenda. Their bureaucratization created formal and required processes and procedures for ministers and public servants alike as the rules of the cabinet decision-making system. The prime minister could override these rules, but not without being seen to be doing so. And their pro-active roles meant that central agencies assumed a position of assisting the prime minister to steer the ship of state but within the organizational context of a highly formalized and, for many years, an increasingly complex cabinet committee system, only one part of which, albeit the most important part – the Priorities and Planning Committee – was normally chaired by the prime minister. In short, what most commentators regarded as assets that wholly enhanced the power of the prime minister were characterized by Doern as structures that also imposed constraints on the prime minister. Doern’s analysis of these developments assumed that power tends to be dispersed in some important respects, that organizational and interpersonal relationships tend to be complex and uncertain, and that new patterns of power and relationships are constantly emerging while others are fading. These assumptions are well borne out in the various fields and types of government policy that have been the subjects of his scholarship. The breadth of his scholarship, coupled with his willingness to study these matters over time and different jurisdictions, provided him with ample evidence to support his assumptions about the multiplicity of policy processes occurring simultaneously at any point in time. In some respects, of course, this meant that Doern was able to chronicle not only the rise but also the fall of the overly ambitious efforts of the 1960s and 1970s to install and implement a cybernetic



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system of government, where everything is related to everything else and thus everything is controlled and coordinated by and from the centre of government. The edifice began to crumble when John Turner became Liberal prime minister in 1984, two decades after the Pearson government initiated the first set of major changes to the cabinet system and the central agencies that serve the cabinet system, and started dismantling the structures that he described as “too elaborate, too complex, too slow and too expensive.”15 By dismantling this system Turner was able, finally with Trudeau gone, to express his philosophy of policy which clearly ran counter to any philosophy that, as Trudeau’s did, gave primacy to checks and balances, to counterweights, to constraints on political executives. Turner had long chaffed at the complex system, with its checks and balances, within which he had to work during his seven years as minister in the Trudeau government. Doern quotes Trudeau in more than one place on the subject: The theory of checks and balances … has always had my full support. It translates into practical terms the concept of equilibrium that is inseparable from freedom in the realm of ideas. It incorporates a corrective for abuses and excesses into the very functioning of political institutions. My political action, or my theory … can be expressed very simply: create counterweights.16 This theory of checks and balances is a normative prescription for the design of the machinery of government. Doern nowhere adopts the theory for the purposes of normative analysis; indeed, he nowhere provides a normative analysis at all. Nonetheless, his scholarship is replete with references to the realities of check and balances in the Canadian system, especially as established in the 60s and 70s. In fact, he is much less impressed with the presumed “rationality” associated with the Trudeau designs for the machinery of government, as they evolved over time, than he is with the counterweights that Trudeau was willing to design into the system. This is perhaps due to an admiration for the logic, if not the virtue, of robust checks and balances in the structures of power. It is clear that Doern never characterizes as dysfunctional, let alone perverse, the multitude of circumstances, policy fields, and arenas where competition, even conflict, is evident between organizations, each of which is a specialized part of the government machine with

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­ ifferent functions to perform, several of which invariably invite d tensions between organizations. In short, while he was not a normative advocate of the theory of checks and balances, Doern explicitly and implicitly provided justification, time and again, for the complexity and uncertainty that pervades the decision-making system. He evinces scant regard for those who think that political will married to the mandate to coordinate will be sufficient to overcome fragmentation, conflict, and uncertainty. The second transformation in the policy roles of central agencies, nevertheless, exhibited less support for the use of checks and balances in the system. the second transformation

As noted, the policy roles of central agencies are to serve the prime minister and those ministers with corporate policy responsibilities (Finance, Treasury Board, and, for some purposes, Justice and Foreign Affairs) in managing the government’s decision-making processes, in providing advice on strategy and priorities, and in challenging advice from departments and others. The three major central agencies – pmo, pco, and Finance – provide different kinds of advice, in theory, with the former focused on the partisan-political dimensions of public policy, the latter two on the non-partisan governmental dimensions of public policy. In the first era of the modern central agency system, the idea of counterweights, especially as Trudeau designed the system, was meant to promote three things: first, a partisan-political perspective to counter the governmental perspective emanating from the public service; second, a corporate-government perspective to counter the specialized perspective emanating from line departments; and, third, a strategic policy perspective to counter the parochial policy demands of constituency focused ministers. Doern was fully alert to the changes taking place, even as it appeared that the Trudeau model, rather than being transformed, was reaching its fullest expression. Paradoxically, this occurred with the assistance of the short-lived Progressive Conservative government of Joe Clark. Although he had views about government quite different from Trudeau’s, he was willing to put in place a cabinet structure that made the decision-making system, with its inner and out cabinets, more hierarchical than had ever been the case in Canada. Clark wanted to impose greater ministerial control over the government



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machine and especially government spending. Clark’s form of rationality, as Doern put it, was “expressed more in terms of the need for efficiency in government.” The policy-expenditure system that Clark adopted was meant to impose “control” rather than “policy management,” the use to which the Trudeau government that took office in 1980 for the next four years put it.17 Clark’s contribution to this full-flowering of Trudeau’s model in the first years of the 1980s – the much heralded Policy and Expenditure Management System (pems) – left a legacy that subtly signaled the transition, first from a cabinet that prided itself, in theory at least, on its collegial character to a more hierarchical character. The ­formalized Inner Cabinet of Clark was discontinued but the re­establishment of the Priorities and Planning Committee, chaired by the prime minister, took on the decisional authority of Clark’s Inner Cabinet. This more hierarchical structure was essential to pems insofar as it was predicated on a decentralization of policy and expenditure management by the streamlined cabinet system of a few major policy committees, the two most important of which (economic and regional development, and social development) were aided by newly created super-ministers of state as the chairs of these policy committees, supported by newly created super-ministries of state (essentially mini-central agencies with combined pco-tbs functions) and “mirror” committees of deputy ministers (the deputies of the ministers on the cabinet committees). The structure of the ems system is what Turner abolished in 1984 when he assumed office. By then it was deemed a failure as an integrated policy and expenditure management system. In part it failed because the formal hierarchical element proved insufficient to assert central political control over expenditures. On the whole, moreover, the Trudeau system never worked entirely as intended. The supposedly “rational management” approach of the Trudeau government often suffered from an overload of analysis that could not in itself produce definitive answers to complex or ambiguous policy questions, from an excess of process (exacerbated by continuous changes to the central processes), and from a constant series of attempts by the more politically capable ministers to endrun these processes. Ministers also found themselves having to compete for influence with not only a new breed of central agency bureaucrats but also with a new breed of political staff. These bureaucrats and staff were found in increasing numbers beginning

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in the 1960s. They were also increasingly perceived to be in the exclusive service of the prime minister, as opposed to the cabinet and governing party. The “secretary to the cabinet” had become the “deputy minister to the prime minister”; the party secretariat at the centre of government did not have to alter its name – the “prime minister’s office.” The prime minister was the leader of the government, the first minister, and the leader of the party, but the leadership position was assuming a new meaning, however relative the change. The hierarchical element was never absent in the reality of the Trudeau regime, of course, despite the collegial character of his cabinet decision-making system model. And, it became more formally hierarchical with pems, within which the Priorities and Planning Committee became more like Clark’s Inner Cabinet. At the same time, a counterweight remained in the form of the significant decentralization of decision-making authority to the pems principal policy committees. We cannot know what Turner might have done once he had dismantled pems in 1984, but it is clear that there was no major alternative on the drawing board. When Mulroney assumed office in the same year, the stage was set for the second element in the transformation. Mulroney’s first cabinet was a large one, an inevitable result of the size of his parliamentary caucus. But it was also evident from the start that his “brokerage-politics” decision-making style could easily accommodate a large cabinet. His style meant that there was a hierarchical structure to cabinet so that he had the discretion to decide the issues where he would take the initiative, regardless of the ministerial allocation of portfolio responsibilities. Collegial decision-making was not to be a defining feature of his cabinet, however much he wanted his cabinet colleagues and caucus on side. What was a defining feature was the dominance of the pmo, and political staff generally, over the pco, Finance, and the public service writ large. This politicization of the decision-making process merged easily with the more hierarchical structure; indeed, the politicized dimensions required hierarchy in order to give the pmo the degree of primacy it exercised over the pco. The greater hierarchical and politicized dimensions of the evolving central agency system were never quite sufficient for the Mulroney regime, however.18 The pmo, in particular, had great difficulty getting its act together, and although the government did have its policy successes, the central agency system had to await the government’s electoral success in the 1988



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election before an effective structure was put in place, in this case with a central agency structure led not by the prime minister but by the deputy prime minister, Donald Mazankowski. Mazankowski became, in effect, the general manager of the government. Under his leadership the government was better managed, with a better balance between the political and public service central agencies. Although the Conservative government was active on several policy fronts, it struggled to be strategic. The transformation of the central agency system was completed under Jean Chrétien. Not counting John Turner, Chrétien was unique in that he came to office as prime minister with extensive ministerial experience. His strength, nonetheless, lay first and foremost in political management; his pmo, also exhibiting experience in government, was thus central to his leadership as prime minister.19 Partly because of his political approach to leadership and partly due to the initial challenges to his government – the need to tackle the deficit and debt – Chrétien’s could also not be other than hierarchical. The hierarchy was best expressed in the expenditure decision-making system that preceded, encompassed, and then succeeded what was known as “Program Review,” the major exercise in cutting the expenditure budget that occurred primarily in the 1994–95 period and which ultimately led to the defining success of the government: the production of successive surpluses for the next decade and a significant reduction in the debt. Throughout this time, the critical decisions on expenditure budget matters were made exclusively by the prime minister and minister of finance, with the former obviously as prime decision-maker. During the Chrétien regime, nevertheless, both pco and Finance began to strengthen their relative positions vis-à-vis the pmo by being more strategic. pco saw the need to strengthen the policy capacity of the public service writ large, in part to enhance its own influence in the increasingly politicized policy process (dependent as it always is on the critical mass of policy capacity in the departmental public service) and in part to cope with the effects of Program Review whose cuts had led to a diminution of the policy capacity in the departmental public service. The pco further recognized the emerging need to strengthen its capacity to lead horizontal and whole-ofgovernment policy initiatives. On each of these fronts, pco had to become more strategic in its focus; simply managing the decisionmaking process was not sufficient if it wanted to exercise policy

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influence. For its part, Finance also had to be more strategic; it ­represented the public service side of the dominant pmo-Finance partnership that, especially following Program Review, had expanded Finance’s de facto mandate for the expenditure budget to encompass not only the right to formulate new policy across the full sweep of portfolios, but also to set expenditure priorities for the government. To the degree that decisions were to be strategic, as opposed to politically tactical, the basic responsibility fell to Finance. Becoming more strategic meant that the policy process, at least for certain purposes, had to be even more centralized or hierarchical. Strategic governance demands policies that exhibit a high degree of corporate coherence, which, in turn, requires a corporate capacity for horizontal coordination as well as whole-of-government performance management for desired outcomes or results. Just as a greater emphasis on the political dimensions of governance had produced further centralization, so too did this greater emphasis on the strategic policy dimensions of governance, however awkwardly the two met and jostled at the centre of executive government. This concentration of power has been well documented by Donald Savoie.20 It is now widely acknowledged that the “court government” style described by Savoie captured the increasing concentration of power under the prime minister, assisted by his senior staff in his personal office (the pmo) as well as by a handful of other “courtiers” – a small coterie of trusted ministers and public servants (usually, but not necessarily, the clerk and the deputy minister of Finance). The central agency structure here is clearly hierarchical and political. Cabinet, as a central institution of collective executive government as well as the collective leadership of the governing party, becomes much less important on the major issues, even if the formal processes of cabinet governance prevail for the vast majority of decisions brought by ministers to the centre for approval. Since the late 1980s under Mulroney, pco and Finance, sometimes in unison and sometimes at odds, have sought to ensure that a wholeof-government perspective is found at the centre. This is the classic policy contribution made by the non-partisan central agencies in a professional public service, a contribution that Doern noted was more clearly seen as the roles of these central agencies became more clearly differentiated in the first transformation and thus less fused. In the second transformation, however, the dimension of the structure that Doern describes as “active” has become more strategic, as the



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fiscal and economic policy responsibilities of Finance are integrated into government policy at its core as the first element of government strategy. This was clearly seen in Program Review and was the major reason for the pco to ensure that it was in a policy leadership role with Finance in this process and not merely a process manager. A paradox of the second transformation, accordingly, is that as the centre becomes more politicized it is also more strategic in its policy process. The second transformation fitted easily with the policy philosophy of Prime Minister Stephen Harper in at least two crucial respects. He clearly had to make no changes to effect his philosophy in respect to the hierarchical and political dimensions of the central agency structure. At the same time, the political volatility of his minority government, exacerbated by his disposition to continually provoke unnecessary partisan battles, has made it less clear how he might have otherwise addressed the strategic side of governance. His party’s 2006 campaign platform and then his government’s first priorities were addressed primarily to the political issues emanating from the sponsorship scandal that brought the Conservatives to power in 2006. And subsequent policy initiatives departed significantly from Harper’s policy preferences for reduced government spending, taxing and intervention generally, but can be accounted for by reference to the exigencies of a minority government doing whatever it takes to be a majority government. Political tactics, accordingly, won out over strategic policy, in acknowledgement of the political fact that the prime minister’s personal policy preferences were not in line with mainstream Canadian policy preferences. And then, following the 2008 election in which he again failed to achieve a majority, he had to change his initial policy response to the financial crisis for the sake of political survival. Once again, political tactics trumped policy strategy, although, in this instance, only time will tell whether he unintentionally ends up with a better policy strategy. Harper seems to fit Doern’s description of Diefenbaker as very much a “political loner … with a small circle of loyal ‘political’ advisers as opposed to expert bureaucratic advisers … [with the exception of] R.B. Bryce [the clerk at the time].”21 Harper’s Bryce is his pco clerk, Kevin Lynch. With Harper bringing his own political perspective to bear on all matters (presumably at times to the chagrin of his own pmo advisers), and with Lynch being his chief policy adviser, the prime minister runs the risk of returning to the

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“personalized fusion” of central agency structures that, as Doern notes, was “no longer adequate even in the early 1960s.” 22 It may well be that the second transformation has reached its zenith during the Harper regime in that the combined effect of a central agency structure that is characterized by a high degree of hierarchy, political and strategic, is that it will eventually become personal to the prime minister, fuse the political and bureaucratic, and make the professional public service passive agents of their political masters. conclusion

Doern’s original ideas have stood the test of time primarily because he had a finely tuned appreciation for importance of both the political and the bureaucratic dimensions of the central agencies of government for good democratic governance. While always recognizing the democratic legitimacy of the supremacy of the political over the bureaucratic, as expressed in prime ministerial leadership, in cabinet government, and in the supportive role of the pmo, Doern nonetheless insisted that effective public policy and administration would not be forthcoming with a central agency structure that allowed for, even required, competing ideas about policy, multiple and overlapping centres of power and influence, and thus a system of checks and balances at the centre of government. As Doern saw it, the pmo was to help ministers challenge the bureaucracy so that the policies of government were the choices of ministers, even as they received expert advice from the bureaucracy, and that the implementation of policy was not excluded from ministerial purview, even as ministers delegated matters of administration and delivery to their officials. The pco, Finance, and Treasury Board Secretariat were to help ministers challenge the several departmental bureaucracies so that ministers would not be captured by their departmental bureaucracies, so that policies would be coherent, and so that policy initiatives were coordinated as necessary. There is, in retrospect, a certain Trudeau penchant for counterweights in this formulation, but the idea of checks and balances has a long history in democratic theory. Contrary to those who view the concentration of power’s subservience of the public service to the prime ministers and his political staff as justified by “democracy,” Doern’s concern for checks and balances is evidence of a sophisticated understanding of what is required by way of structure for



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democratic government to be other than, in the words of Jeffrey Simpson, a “friendly dictatorship.”23 If the centralization and concentration of power at the centre is “a rational response to the modern complexities of governing,” as Mel Cappe, a former clerk, argues,24 then the challenge is to find new ways to ensure that the central agency structure contains the necessary capacity for challenging policy ideas from both political and bureaucratic quarters in ways that are intellectually robust, based on evidence, and from more than one source. As Doern, ever the political scientist who specialized in public administration, would express it, democracy requires good government and good government requires central agency structures that simultaneously enhance and limit the exercise of executive power.

notes

1� G. Bruce Doern, Science and Politics in Canada (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1971). 2� David Easton, A Systems Analysis of Political Life (John Wiley and Sons, 1965). 3� G. Bruce Doern and Richard W. Phidd, Canadian Public Policy: Ideas, Structures and Processes (Methuen, 1983), 180. 4� Ibid. 5� G. Bruce Doern, “Recent Changes in the Philosophy of Policy Making in Canada,” Canadian Journal of Political Science 4.2 (1971). 6� J. Stefan Dupre, “Reflections on the Workability of Executive Federalism,” in R.D. Olling and M.W. Westmacott, eds. Perspectives on Canadian Federalism (Prentice-Hall Canada, 1988). 7� G. Bruce Doern, “The Development of Policy Organizations in the Executive Arena,” in G. Bruce Doern and Peter Aucoin, eds. The Structures of Policy-Making in Canada (Macmillan, 1971), 39–78. 8� John Meisel, The Canadian General Election of 1957 (University of Toronto Press, 1962). 9� Tom Kent, A Public Purpose (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1988). 10� Colin Campbell, Governments under Stress (University of Toronto Press, 1983). 11� Colin Campbell and George J. Szablowski, The Super-Bureaucrats: Structure and Behaviour in Central Agencies (Macmillan of Canada, 1979).

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12� Gordon Robertson, “The Changing Role of the Privy Council Office,” Canadian Public Administration 14 (1971), 487–508; Marc Lalonde, “The Changing Role of the Prime Minister’s Office,” Canadian Public Administration 14 (1971), 509–37. 13� G. Bruce Doern and Peter Aucoin, “Conclusions and Observations,” in G. Bruce Doern and Peter Aucoin, The Structures of Policy-Making in Canada (Macmillan, 1971), 275–76. 14� Doern, “Recent Changes,” 40. 15� Canada, Office of the Prime Minister, “Release,” 17 September 1984. 16� Doern, “Recent Changes,” 67; Doern and Phidd, Canadian Public Policy, 193. 17� Doern and Phidd, Canadian Public Policy, 195. 18� Peter Aucoin, “Organizational Change in the Canadian Machinery of Government: From Rational Management to Brokerage Politics,” Canadian Journal of Political Science 19.1 (1986), 3–27. 19� Eddie Goldenberg, The Way It Works: Inside Ottawa (McClelland & Stewart, 2006). 20� Donald J. Savoie, Governing from the Centre: The Concentration of Power in Canadian Politics (University of Toronto Press, 1999). 21� Doern, “Recent Changes,” 44–45. 22� Ibid., 45. 23� Jeffrey Simpson, The Friendly Dictator (McClelland & Stewart, 2001). 24� Mel Cappe, “At the Court of Her Majesty’s Government in Canada and the uk,” Policy Options 30.1 (December 2008-January 2009), 98.

5 Self-Regulation, Exhortation, and Symbolic Politics Gently Coercive Governing? michael j. prince

This chapter examines the power dynamics of seemingly gentle instruments of governing by the state. I do so by reviewing Bruce Doern’s continuum of governing instruments arrayed by degrees of legitimate coercion, in particular his conceptualization of the least coercive instruments of self-regulation, exhortation, and symbolic policy outputs. My objectives are threefold. One is to revive interest in these aspects of Doern’s model, which have received relatively little theoretical or empirical attention in contemporary Canadian policy studies. The second is to broaden our understanding of these three instruments beyond conventional interpretations in the field of policy studies. The third objective is to consider potential linkages between Doern’s conception of these instruments and the ideas of analysts in other branches of the social sciences, with a view to suggesting future lines of theorizing and research by students of public policy and administration. Theoretically, the topic’s significance relates to thinking beyond governments to a focus by scholars on governance and governmentality; to the growing research on non-governmental politics and civil society organizations; and to the activism, experiences, and knowledge of social groups which, until recently, political science and policy studies have tended to neglect. I challenge the notion that the legitimate coercion of a political community is located totally within the state, and I question the classic liberal democratic belief that beyond the exercise of state authority, beyond the continuum of governing instruments, personal liberty and freedom of choice by

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groups flourish. Paradoxically, exploring these three little policy instruments invites consideration of large issues of politics, sociology, and philosophy of the state and political order, the nature of ideas and symbols in social structures and everyday practices, the ­formation of personhood and the interrelation of self and society. How is coercion understood as a phenomenon in the literature on instruments of governing? What is the political significance and consequence of these gently coercive instruments? Is it accurate and useful to characterize self-regulation, as portrayed in Doern’s continuum model, as governmental non-intervention and thus private behaviour? What do these ostensibly gentle policy instruments mean for real-life individuals and social collectivities? How do other social theorists understand exhortation and symbolic policy activities by the state, and how might their insights enrich conventional interpretations found in public policy studies? My central argument is this: coercive effects on the possible choices and actual activities by citizens and groups are found not only in state interventions through the deployment of policy instruments but also in the dynamics of identity formation, social structures, and relations of power and in their contact and interplay with state actions and intentions. The study of public policy making, especially from the perspective of instrument choice and legitimate coercion, focuses too much on the state and intentions of official state actors; too little on the effect of societal institutions and the interpretations of citizens. Canadian political science and public administration still tend to underestimate the influence of social structures and personal biographies on what governing means to people and how policy actually gets implemented. The phrase “gently coercive” is a deliberate juxtaposition of two contrasting words not usually connected. Not just a rhetorical flourish, my intention in combining these concepts of coercion and gentleness is to serve as a research strategy. Following on the old maxim in social science that reality is not always what it seems or what theory suggests it to be, my approach is one that seeks to disturb conventional ideas about governing instruments and that encourages alternative perspectives on notions of state-society relations. There is more to these instruments than conventional policy theory ­suggests. Four basic propositions guide the following discussion: 1 A considerable literature exists by Doern and other scholars of public policy, in various disciplines, on regulation, spending,



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t­ axation, tax expenditures, and public corporations. However, the study of what Doern calls self-regulation, exhortation, and symbolic policy outputs remains undeveloped. Some literature exists, more so in the United States than in Canada, on symbolic politics, for example, but these three governing instruments are not well understood either theoretically or empirically. All the same, what Doern did write on these three instruments contains ideas and observations that deserve greater attention than given to date by students of Canadian public policy. 2 We cannot fully understand the nature and effects of these three seemingly modest governing instruments within the compass of the state arena alone. Of course, a focus on the legitimate coercion of policy is appropriate and understandable given it is an elemental feature of constitutionalism, democratic government, and public authorities. Yet a singular focus on state coercion as the defining quality of policy instruments and for theorizing how they relate to one another and how they might be chosen alone or in various combinations over time has consequences. One consequence is to ignore or mask significant aspects of power in other areas of public affairs and social life; a point that political economists have long made and recognized by Doern. Another consequence, I think, is to take for granted claims that, as choices of governing, selfregulation, exhortation, and symbolic responses contain trivial if any state coercion. A related consequence, therefore, is to assume these instruments have little significance for structuring the fields of thought and action of citizens. Designating these instruments as having little if no coercion, a view near universally accepted in the public policy literature, expresses a formal view of power centred on the state and as a fixed entity expressed through authoritative decisions, in contrast to a relational processes of power located throughout state and societal agencies and relationships. 3 Gentle instruments do have consequential effects on the structure of constraints and choices by citizens and communities, in several senses. The absence of more robust public action, substituted for by symbolic gestures, is routinely seen as a way in which little or no state intervention may result in people being dominated, marginalized, repressed, or harmed. The degree of constraints and opportunity structures for people depends on subjective and societal factors as well as on the legitimate coercion content of a policy instrument. There is no necessary equivalence between the ­perception of public officials on the low (or, for that matter, high) coercion

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of a policy action and the perception of individual citizens or social groups toward that action. This entails far more than simply saying that coercion is in the eye of the beholder; it is in their very identity, their history, their present milieu, and their sense of future prospects. Coercion is constituted by the nature of the policy instrument selected, whether alone or in concert with other instruments and by the experiences of the public directly involved in the ­governing process, whether intended or unintended clients. 4 Adding to the usual approach to governing instruments, critical social theory offers promising lines of inquiry, both theoretically and empirically, for better understanding Canadian policy making and politics. In a later section of this chapter, I review a range of perspectives that draw attention to significant elements operating in contemporary political communities: with respect to self-regulation, concepts of governmentality, and technologies of citizenship, governing the soul, and responsibilization; with respect to exhortation, concepts of symbolic violence, excitable speech, and injurious language; and with respect to symbolic outputs, the allocation of symbolic resources, cultural imperialism, the politics of misrecognition/recognition, and reparation. These critical approaches reveal how so-called “soft” instruments of governing, because they contain and operate within relations of power, can both constrain and enable the agency of citizens. Looking at social control as a dynamic complex of power relationships fits readily with Doern’s interplay approach to public policy development; in particular, his attention to the rhetorical or normative as well as to the material, to the state and to social conditions, and, perhaps above all, to his focus on the multi-causality of policies through time in ­conditions of uncertainty. The rest of this chapter is organized in five parts. The first outlines Doern’s approach to governing instruments, noting the theoretical influences on his approach and giving special attention to his discussion of self-regulation, exhortation, and symbolic outputs as policy tools involving minimal state coercion while seeking to secure public compliance. The second part reviews the modest literature in Canadian policy studies that has engaged with Doern’s identification of these three instruments and their hypothesized characteristics. In the third part, I offer my own analysis of Doern’s approach to selfregulation, exhortation, and symbolic outputs, noting additional



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historical literature relevant to the approach, conceptually unpacking the nature of each of these instruments, and suggesting some paradoxical features of them. In selective fashion, the fourth part surveys contemporary theoretical accounts of power, symbols, and identity in order to explore how they conceptualize and understand these governing processes that Doern calls self-regulation, exhortation, and symbolic politics. Lastly, the fifth part summarizes the main themes and offers concluding observations on the lasting ­contribution of Doern’s approach to governing instruments. state coercion and governing instruments

The major theoretical contribution by Doern for which he is ­arguably best known is his model of the continuum of governing instruments, first published in the 1970s and elaborated upon in successive works over the next few decades. This conception represents a middle-range theory. Doern is not propounding here a general theory of the state, the political system, or even of cabinet government in Canada; nor is he seeking to explain only specific micro-level issues or processes. Instead, he is interested in a particular class of political behaviour, structure and power, centred on the executive bureaucratic arena of parliamentary government. In effect, he develops a middle-range theory on policy making and applies it to the upper levels of power within the Canadian state. The central idea in Doern’s middle-range theory is that the state represents, contains, and exercises legitimate coercion. Doern takes this basic Weberian notion of the state, as holder of a monopoly of the legitimate coercion of society, and relates it to issues of the goals, priorities, implementation, compliance, and public support of governing. Furthermore he identifies and describes a range of types and degrees of coercion. Following on Max Weber, Doern employed insights from Theodore Lowi to cast a nuanced look into the inner state building upon the traditional focus of Canadian political science on institutions, adding his concern with the place of dominant ideas and the power dynamics in and around cabinets and central agencies. Seeking to develop a policy typology that was politically relevant, Doern explicitly accepted Lowi’s claim that “the most significant political fact about government is that government coerces” and that “perhaps the most effective, as well as the most useful way to begin … [is] that of looking through the eyes of the top-most officials at the political system

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and how and to what extent the system shifts … as their view of it shifts from one policy prism to another.”1 For Lowi, an American political scientist, this meant a close look at the president, congress, congressional committees, organized interest groups, and political parties, including the art of party logrolling. For Doern, in the Canadian context, this meant a close look at means-ends struggles inside the political-bureaucratic executive. Doern’s continuum model identifies five or six basic instruments for governing and making public policy. These differ in terms of the degree of legitimate coercion and intervention by the state they embody, from little if any application of coercion on the public to a high degree of direct and general application of coercion by government. The basic instruments include self-regulation of private behaviour, exhortation and symbolic outputs, spending, taxation, regulation and public enterprise. The governing politician’s stockin-trade involves the choice and application of these various forms and degrees of legitimate coercion. Given fundamental differences in governing powers, each type of instrument is hypothesized to have its own distinct features, including policy structures and process, plus associated dynamics inside the executive and bureaucracy and outside in the political community. Doern’s own research on policy instruments concentrates on the main types of spending, taxation, and regulation, with some attention as well to public corporations. In fact, what I have identified as three little instruments, Doern wrote mostly about as one category, exhortation, described as the “effort to ensure support and compliance through persuasion, discussion, and voluntary approaches.”2 In contrast to other governing instruments, Doern suggests exhortation is not highly visible within government, lacks a regularized policy process based on this instrument, and is usually not subject to charged political debates in Canada as is the case with spending, taxation, regulation, and the use of public enterprise. The democratic significance of exhortation is its use in expressing symbolic concern, exhibiting a form of leadership, responding to demands or placating public anxieties. With barely any coercion involved, exhortation is a pleasant form of governing. Its political significance is that it can also allow for policies “for show” that may serve the interest of a government when public resources are strictly limited, the issue is highly contentious or the cabinet is divided internally on what else to do.



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Table 1 Exhortation and symbolic policy devices ü ü ü ü ü ü ü ü ü

Ministerial and senior administrative speeches Conferences, workshops and seminars Information agencies Advocacy advertising and information campaigns Advisory, benchmarking, monitoring and consultative activities or bodies Royal commissions, task forces and other public inquiries Creating new agencies Reorganizing agencies, departments, ministries Appeals to national symbols

Governmental use of exhortation devices have grown in recent decades, suggests Doern, in part because of their minimal coercive content and effects on the public, in part due to restraints and retrenchment on the other main governing instruments, and in part because federalism and constitutional law questions are not a formal constraint on the use of exhortation as with instruments of spending and regulation. Recently, Doern has turned his attention to the exhortation instrument in an analysis of federal research and innovation policies and their relation to Canadian universities. He suggests that the role of the federal government as a persuader and facilitator is growing through the expression of aspirations on research and innovation activities, in the form of performance benchmarks, and then their monitoring of results.3 As with the other governing instruments, Doern enumerates a ­category of the finer, specific choices of the exhortation policy type. These are shown in Table 1, giving some indication of the assortment of ways that governments express symbolic concern, engage in voluntary acts of persuasion, and facilitate networks and partnerships. When Doern initially formulated this perspective on exhortative actions, the popular view held that Royal commissions and changes to the machinery of government were window dressing: political displays and deceptions. Doern offered another reading of governments’ resorting to these measures. Rather than a waste of time, such measures had the merit of offering opportunities for social learning and building a consensus on a given issue, as well as forestalling long term budgetary commitments and rigidities and perhaps avoiding regulatory sanctions on citizens or business firms. Governmental studies and organizational changes “are not simply the means by which or through which one administers policy. It is frequently

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the case that a new structure or reorganization is the policy, or is at least one of the most politically convenient policy outputs that can be produced in the short-run in response to policy demands.”4 In fact, such new structures or processes are often called for by social movements and clientele groups. More than one power structure operates in government and ­governing. Doern is receptive to the argument that multiple arenas of power exist in association with different functions of the state, manifest in different policy fields and instrument types. Associated with exhortation and symbolic policy are multiple forms of politics, encompassing political parties, conventions and elections; interest group and social movement mobilization; televised and other media in this digital age; and politics of leadership, celebrities and public intellectuals. Doern assesses the dynamics of exhortation in relation to their possible effects politically, offering positive and critical verdicts on this instrument. First, exhortation can be seen as integral to democratic leadership and responsive, consensus-based government. “People probably prefer to be consulted and persuaded rather than coerced, legitimately or otherwise.”5 In this context, exhortation is “democratic government in its highest and most ideal form,” equating it with public consent, “government without coercion,” and “governing based on an appeal to common values.”6 Exhortative actions then, are essential to the operation of a healthy liberal democratic polity. Second, Doern cautions that exhortation is not wholly satisfactory from a democratic viewpoint, nor fully reliable from an implementation viewpoint, as a policy response to community needs and demands or as a way to achieve public goals in the long term. A too-frequent use and reliance on symbols for governing will sooner or later prompt dissatisfaction from some groups and possibly breed widespread frustration with what are seen as token responses to valid social concerns. The result can be a symbolic-induced distrust among the public about a government’s willingness to tackle actual problems. An image of the state that emerges here is of an excessively incremental regime. Third, linking the use of exhortation to critiques of the state, especially from the ideological right, Doern notes that “conservatives see the symbolic malaise as simply further evidence of the inherent limits of state activity and of the need to appreciate that government cannot and should not do everything since it creates a virtually



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immoral dependence on the state rather than on individual responsibility or community initiatives.”7 Exhortation here is part of the contemporary politicization of society; the neo-liberal charges of governments unduly raising expectations, preaching like a “nanny state” or acting like Big Brother in Huxley’s brave new world, thereby undermining personal liberty and accountability. Generally Doern characterizes exhortation as a residual category in the model of instruments; a subsidiary policy process peripheral to the overall resource allocation systems of government. Writing in the early 1990s, Doern noted that exhortation is the least studied instrument of all. This is not too surprising, given the tag on exhortation as a minor way in which public policy receives concrete expression, and that, as a voluntary method, it is a less reliable instrument than others for securing intended results. doern and the canadian public policy literature

Textbooks on Canadian politics, public policy, and public administration customarily take note of policy instruments and Doern’s approach to a continuum of state interventions.8 With a few exceptions, however, exhortation has received relatively little analytic attention as a governing instrument in Canadian contexts. Table 2 outlines a selection of Canadian studies on exhortation, in varying mixes of empirical and conceptual applications. Early studies of exhortation and symbolic outputs applied and tested Lowi’s or Doern’s conception of this type of governing instrument in examining certain federal government policy fields. Later works tend to examine and deconstruct this instrument type into different meanings and further categories, extending consideration of noncoercive policy making into other forms of collective action found in society. Underlying these studies is general acceptance of the idea of a continuum of governing instruments from low to high coercive, and that exhortation and its variants are the least intrusive ­instruments of the state. In an assessment of federal policies for youth introduced in the mid 1960s through the early 1970s, Robert Best focuses on the Company of Young Canadians and the Opportunities for Youth Program. Best observes a discrepancy in perception of the cyc between participants, seeing this new agency as a vehicle for ­distributing resources to local

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Table 2 Canadian studies on exhortation as a governing instrument Author

Approach

Best (1974) Stanbury and Fulton (1984) Prince (1984) Baxter-Moore (1987) Howlett and Ramesh (2003) Howlett (2000, 2005) Pal (2006)

Youth programming as symbolic constituent policy Moral suasion as a federal government instrument Exhortation as social policy without dollars Privatization of conflict, symbolic responses, exhortation Voluntary instruments Procedural policy instruments Information-based instrument

youth groups, and federal politicians who saw the cyc as symbolic output and gesture to the youth constituency in Canadian society. Best explains: The government was most concerned with the symbolic impact that the programme would have 1) in letting students know that the government was “doing something” about unemployment, or even better, that the government was “helping them to help themselves and society”; 2) in relieving the fears of many older people that unemployment would lead to unrest among students; and 3) in easing the fears of those unemployed members of the permanent labour force who were concerned that they would have to compete with thousands of students for the already scarce number of regular jobs available.9 This analysis clearly shows the political function of symbolic actions as public reassurance. It points also to the importance of the prevailing social and economic context in shaping the intentions of policy measures and their public interpretations. However, because of very modest annual budgets, Best concludes this program did not have the symbolic impact on youth that the original political supporters had wished. In looking at the use of moral suasion as governing instrument, William Stanbury and Jane Fulton adopt a market perspective, focusing on how this instrument affects the economic behaviour of firms and individuals. Stanbury and Fulton accept that usually moral suasion is the least coercive instrument and that from the viewpoint of governing politicians, “suasion offers enormous opportunities for deception, reversibility, redirection and the selective use of



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i­nformation.”10 In line with Doern’s continuum model, Stanbury and Fulton suggest that suasion permits a graduated use of state coercion in obtaining compliance with government policy. They distinguish six types of suasion: pure political leadership, suasion with positive or negative sanctions, mass suasion, monitoring and information disclosure, consulting leading to co-optation, and the planned leaking of confidential information. Each type has both apparent and ultimate targets that they examine in several mini-case studies, targets which include voters (at large or in marginal constituencies), the media, other governments, firms and industries, or interest groups. Stanbury and Fulton suggest that the substitutability with other instruments is “rather limited” but that moral suasion “is used quite extensively either in conjunction with or prior to the use of other governing instruments.”11 In a study of Canadian social policy during the last Trudeau Liberal government, I dubbed the use of exhortation as a low-cost policy instrument, “social policy without dollars.”12 The challenge then, and again perhaps at the time of writing this, is to govern and manage social development under a period of fiscal restraint and economic recession. Social policy making through exhortation entailed such measures as ministerial speeches expressing concern and appealing to basic values such as sharing, studying problems such as unemployment, holding conferences on such things as pension reform, establishing agencies for consultation and co-ordination within, beside, or outside government departments, parliamentary hearings on disability issues, and cabinet ministers floating trail balloons – that is, speaking their minds and testing the political feasibility of certain policy ideas. While some trial balloons quickly burst and others are judged to be only full of hot air, still others float on. But whatever their immediate or eventual fate, trial balloons are a technique employed by governing politicians seeking flexibility under conditions of social distress and fiscal rigidities. I concluded that whether the exhortation process heightens or dampens the expectations and satisfactions of groups, it is clear that at minimum it postpones the cost of potential reforms. Nicolas Baxter-Moore offers a revised approach to the study of policy instruments, one certainly influenced by Doern’s model.13 Of interest here is Baxter-Moore’s differentiation of Doern’s category of exhortation into three categories of instruments chosen by governments, distinguished by degree of intervention or intrusiveness. The

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three categories are the privatization of conflict, symbolic responses, and exhortation, and each contains sub-variations as well. Privatization of conflict is the least coercive instrument in the Weberian sense of a direct exercise of power by the state. One form of this instrument is public inaction, what is some times called “nondecision-making” in critical policy studies. Another form is where government may “explicitly decide to refer the question to some private-sector authority,” for example, the granting by a provincial government of certain self-regulatory authorities to a professional body.14 On symbolic responses as a governing instrument, the BaxterMoore approach reflects the Doern enumeration (Table 1), with symbolic outputs taking “the form of a statement of government concern, consultation with those raising the problem, passive dissemination of information, appointment of a task force or Royal Commission, or setting up of a new government department.”15 Relatively more coercive, according to this approach, is exhortation. “This instrument goes one step further than the symbolic response because in this case the government urges the public to change its behaviour in some way. Exhortation uses persuasion in an attempt to secure voluntary compliance with government objectives without resources to threats or rewards.”16 The distinctions here are between inactions and actions by governments, and between passive dissemination and active persuasion. Michael Howlett and M. Ramesh also adopt a continuum of coercion approach to governing instruments.17 At the low end of the continuum on state intervention, they examine exhortation, suasion, information, and symbolism. In addition, Howlett and Ramesh outline a group of “voluntary policy instruments” that lie outside the state itself. They discuss four kinds of voluntary instruments, namely, private markets, voluntary organizations, the family, and other community-based activities. What makes these all voluntary is that either there is no state involvement or there is no compulsory provision of goods and services. On what he calls procedural policy instruments, Howlett elaborates on reasons for government’s choosing such voluntary instruments of policy making. He suggests that “when state capacity [to affect societal actors] is low and the policy environment is not very complex [relatively few number and types of actors are involved], reliance on voluntary instruments can be effective.”18 According to Howlett, procedural instruments alter policy processes, rather than



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substance, from the management of relationships among actors and organizations within a policy network. Thus, these kinds of instruments – which include information, advisory groups, exhortation, research findings, and conferences – can both promote or restrict social network formation, interest group participation, and knowledge exchange. When a state has limited authority, money, or administrative capacity, it tends to use instruments like “incentives or propaganda or to rely on existing voluntary, community, or familybased instruments.” Reliance on these measures represents a style of “institutionalized voluntarism.”19 Likewise, Leslie Pal acknowledges the Doern model of governing instruments on his thinking about the tools of government. Pal offers concise definitions of several concepts related to the low-coercion instruments available to governments, worth noting: ü Exhortation: “the use of information resources to make direct appeals;” ü Moral suasion: “the ability to persuade others based on one’s institutional prominence or authority;” ü Self-regulation: “the delegation of the state regulatory power to a non-governmental organization or private association” and or the use of voluntary codes, guidelines and frameworks for shaping the conduct of a given industry, firm or sector; and, ü Shaming: “publication of unwelcome information in order to force targets to change their behaviour in order to protect their reputations.”20 Collectively, these techniques are examples of the information-based policy instrument; the stuff of argumentation, information and persuasion. The irony of this instrument type is that “as benign as they might appear, the most powerful way to change behaviour is to change the knowledge, beliefs, and values upon which it is based.”21 Pal adds that “information is typically considered to be a weak and relatively unobtrusive instrument in the government toolkit. … however, somewhat less benign uses of information [can and do occur] through “regulation by shaming” and the robust use of advertising, exhortation, and public awareness a campaigns.”22 Pal thus conceives of the information instrument in terms of two uses by the state: an affirmative, promotional function to encourage certain attitudes and

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­ ehaviours, and a negative, restrictive function to discourage b ­particular attitudes and behaviours. To summarize this review, a Canadian literature has emerged from Doern’s continuum of governing instruments. This literature largely accepts the depiction of exhortation as a relatively weak, unobtrusive type of policy instrument, providing for generous latitude for individual choice by citizens. Some works differentiate Doern’s category of exhortation into two or three types, while other writers locate exhortation in a broader conception of information or procedural policy instruments. Most significantly, some works hint at more significant power implications, suggestive of another reading of exhortative and symbolic actions. at the low-end of the continuum of governing instruments

In this part, I offer further analysis of Doern’s continuum of ­governing instruments, in particular his methodology and his notions of power, state intervention, and personal liberty. I sub-divide exhortation into two additional types of instruments, symbolic outputs and self­regulation, and offer preliminary observations on the nature of each of these three little instruments. In brief, exhortation refers to linguistic structures and cognition, symbolic outputs to administrative structure and constituencies, and self-regulation relates to social structures and self conduct. The policy studies literature continues to pay insufficient attention to the societal context of instrument choice, especially social relations of power, treating these as variables external to policy processes. Our frame of analysis should widen beyond government structures and state coercion to examine social structures and private conflict, recognizing that all these concepts are themselves contested. A broader framework reveals power effects of these seemingly gentle instruments of governing that too often remain unacknowledged in public policy studies. Doern’s Philosophical Assumptions Without doubt, in Doern’s model of governing, coercion is the central analytical concept and core philosophical values are the liberal democratic notions of liberty as freedom from interference and public



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consent to state measures. In this framework, policy instruments are interventions. The virtue, then, of exhortation, symbolic actions, and self-regulation is that they contain little in the way of state-backed rules and sanction on private behaviours; instead, these soft ­instruments promote personal privacy and individual choice. Doern’s model employs a political reasoning of instruments rather than an instrumental reasoning that stresses bureaucratic rationality, the maximization of market efficiency, or the impersonality of technological devices (Taylor 1991). For Doern, the citizen is an engaged subject in governing, individually and collectively through myriad groups, embodying diverse bundles of values and interests, and playing various roles in the implementation of public policies. From the vantage of the instrument model, a major challenge is to secure the public’s acceptance, compliance, and/or support for the policy goals, priorities, and programs of the governing politicians. Influenced by the work of Sir Geoffrey Vickers, Doern sees policy making in a liberal democracy as a dynamic process of transactions between governors and the governed.23 Inductive and deductive analyses run through Doern’s work on governing instruments and instrument choices. Inductively, from case studies and observations of actual policy histories, structures, and processes and deductively from theorizing on types of policy, power and politics in the context of Canadian parliamentary cabinet ­government, federalism, and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Ontologically, Doern characterizes policy making in structural terms as an objective institutionalized reality. This leads him to identify a series of governing instruments by key features; arrange these instruments along a continuum of legitimate coercion exercised in different forms and degrees by the state, and propose a hypothesis of the selection of instruments on a given issue or field, over time, by governing politicians. Doern adopts, as mentioned earlier, the standpoint of executive politicians and central processes of cabinets, the effective governors at the apex of power in Canada’s parliamentary system. This is a world of legal mandates, organizational roles, individual and collective cabinet behaviours, personalities and egos, ministerial and deputy minister relations, vertical and horizontal portfolios, and central agencies. What Doern adds is his abiding emphasis on the importance of values, rhetorical language, and governing instruments (his key axiological assumption); on the

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t­ endency of structures and processes to be ends and not just means; his own engagement as a consultant and researcher to governments (part of his epistemological stance); and on the necessity, in order to understand public policy making, to study several fields and processes concurrently, on a cluttered and competitive policy agenda, and over an extended time period (his basic methodological assumption). What exactly is coercion and whose perception of coercion? Doern acknowledges it is “not easy to deal with the question of whose perception of coercion is involved the governments or that of the persons, voters, or groups who are the object of policy.”24 This is complicated further by adding perceptions of a policy by various media organizations, pundits, blogs, political parties, rights groups, and the courts. Doern has written, almost parenthetically, that such symbolic actions might be the most fundamental of all governing instruments, yet does not elaborate upon this intriguing aside. This remark likely reflects his deep belief in the fundamental importance in the normative content of public policies; as well as his keen interest in the institutional patterns of political and administrative affairs. On the whole, Doern’s own answer, as a policy scholar, to the question of whose perception of coercion is involved tends to be that of the governing politicians and senior bureaucrats. And, exhortative and symbolic outputs, as viewed by state elites, are relatively unobtrusive, non-coercive governing response, especially compared to selecting major expenditure commitments, taxation measures, or regulatory interventions. If we shift our vantage point and consider coercion from the ­orientation of actors and structures in Canadian society, what do we see? Exhortative and symbolic gestures might have altogether dissimilar interpreted meanings and experienced effects. The same act of exhortation may be regarded quite differently between state elites and mass publics, and among different social actors, as merely ritualistic or politically silly or as intensely offensive or affirmative. What comes into sharper focus for policy studies are cultural patterns and social groups in a variegated politics of identities by age, class, gender, ethnicity, disability, language, sexuality, religion, economic class, region, and indigenous ancestry.25 Authority relations in these spheres of society are legitimated in terms of common law, perhaps legislation, or assumed constitutional rights; traditions, faith, and charisma; and, ruling ideas of society about nationality, property,



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wealth, poverty, or charity. “The field of power that is codified as the state is intelligible only when located within this matrix of projects, programs, and strategies for the conduct of conduct, elaborated and enacted by a whole diversity of authorities shaping and ­contesting the very boundaries of the political.”26 Family duties, community capacities, market forces, and ethnic customs are not the opposites of state authority. They are not necessarily spaces where governments are absent; far from it, these spheres interconnect through public and private forms of governing instruments. A strong emphasis on legitimate coercion privileges the state at the centre of analysis, which is an intentional feature of the continuum model. However, this emphasis also portrays public power in a negative light, which may be an unintentional consequence of the model. As the exercise of sovereign powers, state coercion is the application of force, threats, rules, taxes, penalties, duties, and other restraints over the lives of a population in a recognized territory. Aligned with this idea of state coercion is the continuum of governing instruments, with its logic of instruments positioned from those with little or no state coercion through those with moderate amounts to those with high levels of coercion applied to public groups. The continuum is a range of interventions, compulsions, and obtrusive actions into family life, civil society, and the market economy. The implied obverse of the continuum is different levels of liberty and personal choice, with the highest levels at the low end of the continuum of governing instruments. This perspective has an affinity with Isaiah Berlin’s concept of negative liberty: that freedom involves freedom from external constraints, from coercion that involves the deliberate interference of other people on the areas in which an individual or group could otherwise act.27 Equating the fundamental characteristic of governing to coercion therefore links the notion of policy instrument with constraints on people’s freedoms in this classic sense of liberal democratic thought. Since the logic of the continuum model suggests exhortation has low state coercion it follows that this governing instrument must have a high personal liberty effect. In many circumstances, this may not be the case or power effect. There are reasons to believe that low state coercion (i) leaves largely unaltered distributions of needs, resources, and capacities; (ii) enables some groups in the market economy or civil society to do things for themselves and to others, more so than other groups; thereby (iii) reproduces prevailing structural ­inequalities

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and personal deprivations. Thus, the caution is to not conflate low state coercion with high self liberty. One Instrument or Three? Although the governing instrument least studied by students of public policy, recent works differentiate exhortation into three instruments. Accordingly, I will clarify the nature of the three types – exhortation, symbolic outputs, and self-regulation – and suggest how they have more coercive aspects than is typically recognized in the policy instruments literature. Table 3 summarizes the analysis and distinctions that follow. Exhortative governing involves such linguistic devices as ­metaphors, labels, and other figurative frames for constructing facts, generating assumptions, and generally influencing the opinions of a public. From a continuum perspective, I propose that four degrees of exhortation are identifiable: first, appeals, encouragements and commendable incitements; second, advisories, cautions, opinions, and warnings; third, admonitions, reproofs, and rebukes; and, fourth, damaging remarks, threats, and shaming. What is called moral suasion may contain one or more of these elements, as an effort of persuasion by some agency or individual in a position of authority. Depending on the main values of an audience, their social status and life chances, the language in a given policy message may appeal to or repel them; it may cohere or polarize a community. Interpretations and responses can be multiple and divergent, complicating processes of securing public support for any given policy initiative. Like exhortation, symbolic outputs largely concern the ­authoritative communication of political messages and an intended production of public meanings. Both instruments involve the deployment of words, phrases, and spokespersons. Aimed at various target audiences, both also gain their social significance from processes of interaction and interpretation. But, whereas exhortation involves rhetoric, suasion, and speeches, symbolic outputs involve research, studies, and structures. Royal commissions, task forces, parliamentary committees, or other advisory bodies are sites in which different forms of political language converge and collide. In these symbolic structures is a language of inquiry of learning, gathering evidence, and drawing comparisons with other jurisdictions, and, a language of authority expressed in mandate and ceremony of the proceedings. Also, there



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Table 3 Re-conceptualizing the low-end of the continuum of governing instruments Instruments

Variants

Ways and Means

Coercive Effects

Exhortation

Encouraging appeals Cautious advisories Rebukes Threats

Rhetoric, labels, moral suasion, speeches, and linguistic frames

Constructing ­narratives of facts and values, generating assumptions, valorizing some and demeaning others

Symbolic policy

Recognition Remembrance Compensation

Research, studies, organizational structures, commemorative events

Authoritative ­participation and resistance, inclusion of some groups and exclusion of many others, monitoring and surveillance

Self-regulation

Private behaviour Professional bodies Soft rules

Non-intervention by the state, delegation of public powers to private bodies, voluntary codes of conduct

Determining locus of expertise, scope and standards of human services and practice Mediating statemarket and statecitizen relations

may be a language of participation inviting public engagement in the inquiries, often joined by a language of resistance expressing criticisms and alternative perspectives on an issue. Symbolic outputs relate to constituent policies, a governing response that entails “a very indirect or remote application of coercion at fairly large groups.”28 In practice, this is not always the form taken by a constituent-based symbolic policy. Creation of a new public organization or reorganization of an existing one may target a specific group, of varying size, public image, and perceived influence. Furthermore, setting up of a new agency for a particular group may prompt reactions from other groups who feel they should have been included or not, and, in the later case, express demands for the formation of their own separate agency. When changes in government occur, certain portfolios or agencies may be reorganized and renamed, while others are merged, downsized, or altogether eliminated. This reminds us that public organizations create representational spaces in the polity, organizing certain values, issues, and voices into politics,

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and putting others down or out. In our current times, organizational outputs display and reproduce a politics of recognition, ­remembrance, and reparations.29 The flurry of parliamentary watchdog agencies in Canada established by the Harper government illustrates the symbolism of ­establishing permanent offices. New watchdogs on ethics, lobbying, procurement and budget information give symbolic reassurances to publics, that structures exist to certify accountability by officials; as well as to protect citizen’s rights in dealings with public ­bureaucracies. In addition, moral suasion is a key tool of these kinds of agencies, granted autonomy from the political executive of government, with mandates to monitor, investigate issues, make ­recommendations, and release public reports. Self-regulation as a governing instrument is the least developed and understood aspect of Doern’s continuum model. At times, selfregulation is presented as private behaviour that occurs off to the side of the low-coercion end of the continuum. Other times, selfregulation is the delegation of state powers to occupational groups and professions, private entities outside the official body of the state that operate as producer interest groups in policy communities. Selfregulating professions have at times been called private governments, for the reason that they exercise a substantial set of delegated public powers within an even larger framework of state rules, policy goals and government resources. In discussing the relative influence of groups in Canadian public policy fields, Doern and Phidd write: Perhaps the most dominant producer group interests in their respective policy fields are the professions of medicine and law, in the health care and justice policy fields, respectively. They are overtly conferred a state monopoly over many aspects of decision-making. As with other groups, the professions seek to cultivate a certain mystique and set of ideas. … intended to foster a sense of indispensability as to the social need of the profession in question.30 These group interests often compete with each other, as between “established professions and professions that would like to be ­established,” or between “those who have expertise and those who do not.”31



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These remarks touch on the power dynamics that play out at the individual level of who is and is not accredited to practise and by what standards and procedures; plus, at the organizational level, issues on the scope of practice between or among different professions. There are, moreover, the power dynamics of practices and controls on how a “good professional” thinks and behaves as a caring nurse, an effective teacher, or skilled engineer. This is some distance from understanding self-regulation as the absence of ­governing and non-exercise of state coercion. A related, more helpful portrait of self-regulation as a governing instrument is the concept of “soft rules” that signifies non-state rulemaking which is not legally binding. Soft rules are at times called voluntary codes of conduct, co-regulation, quasi-regulation, or selfmanagement. In general, soft rules are rules drafted by private individuals, firms, professions, voluntary sectors, or industry associations, more or less on their own initiative. Examples are found in the fields of consumer affairs, food safety, and public health, among others. This is a useful addendum to the concept of self-regulation, yet still risks implying too sharp a distinction between the state and the economy, as well as concentrating on market-related activities and private sector organizations to the neglect of other social institutions such as families, neighbourhoods, non-profit agencies, and self-help and recovery movements. To illustrate these three instruments, consider the field of Canadian health care. A communiqué issued by first ministers on tackling wait list times, a statement given substantial media attention and political commentary, though actually a non-binding political agreement is an instance of exhortation. Formation of the Canadian Health Council to monitor the implementation of specific intergovernmental commitments and transfer of dollars, though one in which Alberta and Quebec decline to join, is clearly a symbolic policy output. Responses by Canadians to undertake a healthier lifestyle or to wait for a needed medical procedure, or to make arrangements for the treatment in another jurisdiction in Canada or travel to another country for relief, and/or explore alternative therapies to Western medicine are countless instances of self-regulation. From the liberal democratic outlook of Doern’s approach, public support for a policy or agency is contextual; often shifting, at times fickle, and always partial. While important observations, these remarks only begin the

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analysis necessary to understand adequately how compliance works; the ways and means, in other terms, of the conduct and consent of a polity. what critical social theory offers

Turning to accounts of power, symbols, and identity from critical social theory let us explore how they conceptualize these processes of exhortation, symbolic politics, and self-regulation. Some are classical, others more contemporary, yet all interested in understanding how power inheres in social structures and in individuals. Few of these theorists have been taken up by students of Canadian public policy and administration.32 From a multidisciplinary social science perspective, a number of theoretical approaches are relevant to examining the power dynamics of these seemingly gentle instruments of the state. In a sense, these are high-level concepts for the low-end of the continuum. Table 4 offers an overview of selective theorists and their conceptual contributions of apparent significance to the instruments of exhortation, symbolic politics, and self-regulation. On exhortation, classic writings in political thought include Machiavelli, Locke, and Mill, with modern discussions by Mannheim and Laswell, and recent post-positivist approaches in policy analysis by Majone, de Leon, Fischer, and Forester. In contemporary political science, the work of Murray Edelman remains, in my estimation, the leading analysis of political language and how government officials use linguistic devices to evoke realities, shape the meaning of events and identities of individuals and groups, influence public beliefs, and regulate political demands.33 Edelman offers numerous concepts and arguments of the significance of “official language” – the language of public officials and conventional professional – in shaping the cognitive structures of citizens. Cognitive structures are the assumptions, beliefs, and attitudes of people toward the nature and causation of public problems, governments, other state organs and social institutions, and particular groups. For example, prevailing “categories of speech and thought define the economically powerful as meritorious, and the unsuccessful and politically deviant as mentally or morally inadequate.”34 The concept of “symbolic violence” developed by Pierre Bourdieu similarly draws attention to the role of education, information, and



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Table 4 Social theorists relevant to exhortation, symbolic policy, and self-regulation Instrument

Theorist

Concepts

Exhortation

Pierre Bourdieu Judith Butler Murray Edelman Jill Vickers

Symbolic violence Excitable speech, injurious language Political language, rhetorical evocations Cultural contestation

Symbolic policy

Raymond Breton Nancy Fraser Matt James Iris Marion Young

Allocation of symbolic resources Politics of recognition/misrecognition Reparation politics and the symbolism of redress Cultural imperialism

Barbara Cruikshank Michel Foucault Erving Goffman Nikolas Rose Charles Taylor

Technologies of citizenship Governmentality, self-discipline Impression management Governing the soul, government of oneself Subjectivation

Self-regulation

communication in concealing power relations, presenting particular ideas as general or normal, legitimating certain status identities and not others. Symbolic violence thus refers to “processes, whereby, in all societies, order and social restraint are produced by indirect, cultural mechanisms rather than by direct, coercive social control.”35 In a study on home support policy for people with disabilities in Ontario, Kari Krogh and Jon Johnson show how policies and administration maintain the interests of dominant groups through the use of symbolic violence. This is accomplished, they argue, by narrowing the definitions of disability and home support, “reinforced through the rhetoric of medical certification, economic efficiency, charity, and employability.”36 The outcome is that disabled people’s expectations for care are lowered, and their opportunities to participate in community activities or in policy making are limited further. The symbolic violence in this case involves impressing notions of disablement on clients for home support services. Consequently, “people with disabilities discipline themselves into thinking that it is the impairment that is the problem, rather than the social construction of impairment.”37 They conclude that: “Telling people that their expectations of engaging in society and envisioning a full life in a manner that incorporates home support are not only unrealistic but an unreasonable burden on society can be considered a form of symbolic

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violence, since it is a method of coercing people with disabilities to accept the symbolic system of the dominant group.”38 Many critical theorists underscore the coerciveness of discourse and culture. Outstanding in this respect is Judith Butler, who examines the power of language to injure individuals and groups of persons. Deployments of linguistic power Butler addresses include hate speech, shouting down and silencing others, labelling and outing. She observes that: “The word that wounds becomes an instrument of resistance.”39 In this way, injurious language not only may subordinate people but also stimulate them, provoking human agency and activism. Comparable in treatment is the work of Iris Marion Young on cultural imperialism. A feature of oppression, cultural imperialism involves the dominant group in a society marking other groups as exhibiting a deficiency due to their difference, that is, “othering.” It also involves universalizing the dominant group’s history, values, social practices, and status as the norm.40 Similar treatments of this topic are the discussion of “culture violence” and “cultural contestation” by Jill Vickers,41 and work by Patrizia Romito on hidden violence against women and children, maintained through linguistic and cultural practices of denying male violence, discrediting the victims and those who support them, psychologizing the issue, and blaming the victims.42 In thinking of symbolic policy outputs as organizational structures, of course there is the classic work of E.E. Schattschneider on organizing as the mobilization of bias.43 This is the idea that any structure organizes certain interests and values into official politics and simultaneously organizes others out. Writers in policy studies explore this mobilization of bias through the idea of constituent policy. Kjellberg, for example, describes constituent policy as a category that involves changes in governmental structures, including the “restructuring of intergovernmental relations.”44 This comment brings to mind work by Canadian political scientists on interpretations of constitutional symbols and structural reforms.45 Federalism and intergovernmental relations, including Aboriginal-Canada state relations, offers a huge area for future research in regards to the continuum model and governing instruments. Alongside this, Matt James is developing a fascinating line of inquiry into “redress politics” in contemporary Canadian policy making, with various ethnic communities seeking recognition and reparations for historic injustices.46 Responses by the state often involve symbolic



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policy outputs. A related example is the Commission of inquiry, held in 2006–07, into the investigation of the bombing of Air India flight 182, an act of terrorism in June 1985, which took the lives of all 329 people on the plane. Commissioner of the inquiry, retired Supreme Court Justice John Major, in a remarkable statement describing his inquiry, reveals a number of elements of symbolic policy: The families were invited by this Commission, mandated by the Government of Canada, to express their feelings in a formal public hearing before a government-appointed Commissioner. It is hoped the process of relating such personal grief will bring some healing to them. By speaking before the Commission, family witnesses have become the pubic conscience. By listening, the audience validates their experiences. Transcription in an official record makes their tragedy a part of our history. In this, the further passage of time cannot erode the public memory of the enormity of what happened.47 Further to preserving and honouring the memories of lost loved ones, public monuments have been erected, a memorial book produced, and June 23 established as a national day of remembrance for victims of terrorism. A statement by Doern and Phidd on policy implementation and private behaviour shows the way into thinking about self-regulation more expansively and critically than is usual in the public administration field. They write: Many public policies can only be implemented when a governing instrument or combination of instruments produces or induces the appropriate private behaviour. Thus, police services are very dependent on people “calling the cops.” The willingness of private decision-makers to play their implementation role is, however, a function of several normative concerns, including their view of the legitimacy and acceptability of the policy, of the instrument, and of the decision-making power it implies.48 A diverse corpus of work in feminist studies, critical policy studies, and in long-established sociology as well as in recent post-structural sociology is highly germane to this issue of inducing “appropriate ­private behaviour” so that citizens “play their implementation role.”

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On the interplay between the state and the self are three sides to power: forces of power exerted on the person, relations of power embraced by the person, and power/resistance enacted by the person. All three pertain to transactions between governors and the governed/self-governed. Conventional policy studies generally emphasize the first power relation, occasionally touch on the second, yet rarely examine the third relation. It is here that critical perspectives on self-regulation are useful, as are critical approaches to exhortation, some of which were reviewed above, that offer insights into how citizen formulate their beliefs on the acceptability of a policy and the decision-making power it implies. Of interest to understanding the power dynamics of program implementation is Erving Goffman’s concept of impression management, a process “basic in social life, through which the individual exerts strategic control over the image of himself and his products that others glean from him.”49 Goffman examines ways in which individual’s manage the presentation of information to others that is to their own interest “to control the conduct of others,” especially their responsive treatment, achieved by influencing the definition of a situation “in such a way as to give them the kind of impression that will lead them to act voluntarily in accordance with his own plan.” Here is an image of self-regulation loaded with tactical considerations, far from the idea of private behaviour being free of, and largely reactive to, legitimate coercion. Sociologies of subjectivity and the self include work by Ulrich Beck, Anthony Giddens, Ian Hacking, Michel Foucault, and Nikolas Rose. Again, a theme that emerges is how so-called private behaviour – the governing instrument of self-regulation – is filled with power relations acting upon our selves and becoming governable citizens; what Doern might call being compliant private decision makers. For instance, Rose skilfully employs Foucault’s concept of “governmentality” to study “the emergence of political rationalities, or mentalities of rule, where rule becomes a matter of the calculated management of the affairs of each and of all in order to achieve certain desirable objectives.”50 In this milieu, “citizens are thus not incessantly dominate, repressed, or colonized by power (although, of course, domination and repression play their part in particular practices and sectors) but subjectified, educated, and solicited into a loose and flexible alliance between personal interpretations and ambitions and institutionally or socially valued ways of living.”51



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Self-regulation links with, and relies upon ideas and practices around personal growth and self-improvement, healthy choices and active living, blood and organ donations, peer expectations and assumed obligations, programs on self-esteem and personal empowerment, charitable giving, recovery groups, and self-help. Our contemporary regime of “self” is inextricably and profoundly implicated with the state, along with our felt sense of liberty, identity and citizenship. conclusion

A close interplay between actors in state and societal institutions animates the construction and implementation of governing instruments for public policy. In this chapter, I examined the three little instruments of exhortation, symbolic outputs, and self-regulation; little in the sense of there being limited research on these instruments in comparison to spending, regulation, and taxation; and little, too, in that according to prevailing theory these instruments are noncoercive or minimally intrusive. The argument advanced here is that the low end of the continuum model of governing exhibits three instruments not just one and these are much more than a residual category of governing. Furthermore, the relation between coercion and these gentle instruments is not so straightforward or evident. These instruments ought to have greater theoretical and empirical attention by students of policy studies. Indeed, exploring these little instruments invites us to delve into some fundamental issues of ­statesociety relations. While suggesting that these instruments are more than gently ­coercive, I am not dismissing the difference between these instruments on the one hand, and those of taxation, regulation or public ownership on the other. I would suggest, however, that more symbolism operates in and around these bigger instruments than often discussed in policy and administrative studies, and more power effects in and around the smaller instruments of the governing continuum. A general preoccupation with degrees and forms of state coercion has led to an under emphasis on state-society interactions and the power structures within social settings. When the literature says a policy type or tool of government has little coercion, if any, it is usually from the vantage point of the policy makers, those relatively comfortable, reasonably well-off, and central actors in the mainstream of society.

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Far too infrequently, the perspective is taken from the life world of the poverty-stricken, the homeless, and the marginalized. The conduct of citizens is governed by an assemblage of state coercions and societal controls, shaped by historical and material conditions, visible and concealed, in numerous ideas, structures, and processes.

notes

1� Theodore J. Lowi, “Four Systems of Policy, Politics, and Choice,” Public Administration Review 30 (1972), 299–300. 2� G. Bruce Doern and Richard W. Phidd, Ideas, Structure, and Process, second edition (Methuen, 1992), 97. 3� G. Bruce Doern and Christopher Stoney, “Federal Research and Innovation Policies and Canadian Universities: A Framework for Analysis,” in G. Bruce Doern and Christopher Stoney, eds. Research and Innovation Policy: Changing Canadian Federal Government-University Relations (University of Toronto Press, 2009). 4� G. Bruce Doern and V. Seymour Wilson, “Conclusions and Observations,” in G. Bruce Doern and V. Seymour Wilson, eds. Issues in Canadian Public Policy (Macmillan, 1974), 342. 5� G. Bruce Doern and Richard Phidd, Canadian Public Policy: Ideas, Structure, Process (Nelson Canada, 1992), 209. 6� Ibid., 208. 7� Ibid., 209. 8� Examples include Stephen Brook and Lydia Miljan, Public Policy in Canada: An Introduction, fourth edition (Oxford University Press, 2003); Douglas Hartle, Public Policy, Decision Making and Regulation (Butterworth, 1979); Gregory J. Inwood, Understanding Canadian Public Administration: An Introduction to Theory and Practice, third edition (Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2009); Robert Jackson and Doreen Jackson, Politics in Canada: Culture, Institutions, Behaviour and Public Policy, sixth edition (Pearson Education, 2006); Kenneth Kernaghan and David Siegel, Public Administration in Canada: A Text, fourth edition (itp Nelson, 1999); Michael J. Trebilcock, D.G. Hartle, J.R.S. Prichard, and D.N. Dewees, The Choice of Governing Instrument (Minister of Supply and Services, 1982). 9� Robert S. Best, “Youth Policy,” in G. Bruce Doern and V. Seymour Wilson, eds. Issues in Canadian Public Policy (Macmillan, 1974), 161.



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10� William Stanbury and Jane Fulton, “Moral Suasion,” in Allan Maslove, ed. How Ottawa Spends, 1984–85 (Methuen, 1984), 283. 11� Ibid., 298 and 307. For a fascinating study, rooted in social ­anthropology, that employs a symbolic perspective to public policy, see Raymond Breton, “The Production and Allocation of Symbolic Resources: An Analysis of the Linguistic and Ethnocultural Fields in Canada,” Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology 21, no. 2 (1984), 123–44. 12� Michael J. Prince, “Whatever Happened to Compassion? Liberal Social Policy, 1980–84,” in Allan Maslove, ed. How Ottawa Spends, 1984–85 (Methuen, 1984), 97. 13� Nicholas Baxter-Moore, “Policy Implementation and the Role of the State: A Revised Approach to the Study of Policy Instruments,” in Robert Jackson et al., eds. Contemporary Canadian Politics: Readings and Notes (Prentice-Hall, 1987). 14� Rand Dyck, Canadian Politics: Critical Approaches, third edition (Nelson Thomson, 2000), 467. 15� Ibid. 16� Ibid. 17� Michael Howlett and M. Ramesh, Studying Public Policy: Policy Cycles and Policy Subsystems, second edition (Oxford University Press, 2003). 18� Michael Howlett, “What Is a Policy Tool? Policy Instruments and Implementation Styles,” in Pearl Eliadis, Margaret Hill, and Michael Howlett, eds. Designing Government: From Instruments to Governance (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2005), 43. 19� Ibid., 46–7; See also by Michael Howlett, “Managing the ‘Hollow’ State: Procedural Policy Instruments and Modern Governance,” Canadian Public Administration 43, no. 4 (2000), 412–31. 20� Leslie A. Pal, Beyond Policy Analysis: Public Issue Management in Turbulent Times, third edition (Thomson Nelson, 2006), 182–83. 21� Ibid., 150. 22� Ibid., 173. 23� Geoffrey Vickers, Freedom in a Rocking Boat: Changing Values in an Unstable Society (Penguin Books, 1972). 24� Doern and Phidd, Canadian Public Policy, 109. 25� Michael Orsini and Miriam Smith, eds. Critical Policy Studies (University of British Columbia Press, 2007). 26� Nikolas Rose, Inventing Our Selves: Psychology, Power, and Personhood (Cambridge University Press, 1998), 46. Also see, Nikolas Rose,

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Governing the Soul: The Shaping of the Private Self, second edition (Routledge, 1999). 27� Isaiah Berlin, Four Essays on Liberty (Oxford University Press, 1969). For an alternative view of freedom and power, see Michael Foucault, The Foucault Reader, Paul Rabinow, ed. (Vintage, 1984). 28� G. Bruce Doern, “The Concept of Regulation and Regulatory Reform,” in G. Bruce Doern and V. Seymour Wilson, eds. Issues in Canadian Public Policy (Macmillan, 1974), 13. 29� Michael J. Prince, Absent Citizens: Disability Politics and Policy in Canada (University of Toronto Press, 2009). 30� Doern and Phidd, Canadian Public Policy, 69. 31� Ibid., 79–80. 32� Andrew Woolford, “Negotiating Affirmative Repair: Symbolic Violence in the British Columbia Treaty Process,” Canadian Journal of Political Science 29, no. 1 (2004), 111- 44; Karen Bridget Murray, “Governmentality and the Shifting Winds of Policy Studies,” in Michael Orsini and Miriam Smith, eds. Critical Policy Studies (University of British Columbia Press, 2007); Michael Orsini, “Discourses in Distress: From ‘Health Promotion’ to ‘Population Health’ to ‘You Are Responsible for You Own Health,’” in Michael Orsini and Miriam Smith, eds. Critical Policy Studies (University of British Columbia Press, 2007). 33� Murray Edelman, The Symbolic Uses of Politics (University of Illinois Press, 1964); Murray Edelman, Politics as Symbolic Action: Mass Arousal and Quiescence (Markham Publishing, 1971); Murray Edelman, Political Language: Words that Succeed and Policies that Fail (Academic Press, 1977); Murray Edelman, Constructing the Political Spectacle (University of Chicago Press, 1988). 34� Edelman Political Language, 39. 35� Richard Jenkins, Pierre Bourdieu, revised edition (Routledge, 2002), 104. See also Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge University Press, 1977), and Pierre Bourdieu, The Logic of Practice (Polity Press, 1990). 36� Kari Krogh and Jon Johnson, “A Life Without Living: Challenging Medical and Economic Reductionism in Home Support Policy for People with Disabilities,” in Diane Pothier and Richard Devlin, eds. Critical Disability Theory: Essays in Philosophy, Politics, Policy, and Law (University of British Columbia Press, 2006), 152. 37� Ibid., 165. 38� Ibid., 169–70.



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39� Judith Butler, Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative (Routledge, 1997), 163. See also, Judith Butler, The Psychic Life of Power: Theories in Subjection (Stanford University Press, 1997). 40� Iris Marion Young, (1990) Justice and the Politics of Difference (Yale University Press, 1990), 59. See also Barbara Cruikshank, The Will to Empower: Democratic Citizens and Other Subjects (Cornell University Press, 1999); Nancy Fraser, Unruly Practices: Power, Discourse and Gender in Contemporary Social Theory (University of Minnesota Press, 1989). 41� Jill Vickers, Reinventing Political Science: A Feminist Approach (Fernwood Press, 1997). 42� Patrizia Romito, A Deafening Silence: Hidden Violence against Women and Children (Polity Press, 2008). Romito describes this as a process of interpreting problems in individualistic and psychological terms instead of political, financial, economic or social terms, and thus responding within that particular frame of analysis. She regards this as a tactic for depoliticizing the issue of violence against women and children, and for supporting the status quo and dominant power relations in society. 43� E.E. Schattschneider, The Semisovereign People: A Realist’s View of Democracy in America (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1960). 44� Francesco Kjellberg, “Do Policies (Really) Determine Politics? And Eventually How?” Policy Studies Journal 5 (1977), 558. 45� Peter H. Russell, “Constitutional Reform of the Judicial Branch, Symbolic versus Operational Considerations,” Canadian Journal of Political Science 17, no. 2 (1984), 227–52; Donald Smiley, The Federal Condition in Canada (McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1987). 46� Matt James, “Redress Politics and Canadian Citizenship,” in Harvey Lazar and Tom McIntosh, eds. The State of the Federation 1998/99: How Canadians Connect (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1999); Matt James, Misrecognized Materialists: Social Movements in Canadian Constitutional Politics (University of British Columbia Press, 2006); Matt James, “The Permanent-Emergency Compensation State: A ‘Postsocialist’ Tale of Political Dystopia,” in Michael Orsini and Miriam Smith, eds. Critical Policy Studies (University of British Columbia Press, 2007). 47� John C. Major, The Families Remember: Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Investigation of the Bombing of Air India Flight 182 (Minister of Public Works and Government Services, 2007), 4. 48� Doern and Phidd, Canadian Public Policy, 111.

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49� Erving Goffman, Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity (Penguin, 1963), 13. 50� Rose, Inventing Our Selves, 29. 51� Ibid., 79. On the politics of selfhood and subjectivity, see also Charles Taylor, The Malaise of Modernity (Anansi Press, 1991); Deborah Stone, Policy Paradox: The Art of Political Decision Making (Norton, 1997), 162, who writes, “if symbols are the invisible hand of politics, it is not because there is any overall force coordinating individual decisions, but because they enable us as individuals to ‘read ourselves into’ social programs and collective actions.”

6 New Directions and Old Dilemmas Taxation as an Instrument of Public Policy allan m. maslove

Bruce Doern’s career is outstanding, not only because of his own rich and prolific research and writing but also because of the ideas he generously shared and the gentle nudges with which he encouraged his colleagues (and students). In my case, it was following up on an idea from Bruce that first led me (in the late 1970s) to look into the use of taxation as an instrument of public policy, and specifically into the examination of tax expenditures. At that time there were relatively few economists doing policy analysis of this type; it was in large part due to Bruce Doern’s influence that I became one of them. Meanwhile, two of the areas in which Bruce was developing his own work were the concept of a “market” for policy instruments and the broad field of regulation. This chapter draws from all of these strands. It is, in abstract terms, a rumination on the interplay between revenue generation and regulation in taxation. It argues that this relationship has changed with external circumstances. Honouring an esteemed colleague’s career seems to call for taking a long view of one’s topic. In that spirit, in this paper I look at the changing trends in the interplay between revenue and regulatory objectives over the last few decades. The interplay between revenue objectives and regulatory objectives is a continuous one in tax policy. For purposes of this discussion, I define regulation as measures that influence the behavior of economic agents, whether work effort, investment activity, or consumption levels and patterns. These influences may be positive (inducements to change behaviour) or negative (penalties to discourage unwanted behaviour). In the economics literature, these influences tend to be

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discussed in terms of incentive effects; that is, tax structures have associated with them changes in relative prices (incentives) that ­influence the behavior of economic agents. Traditionally, in the field of general taxation, the objective of policy has been to generate target (budgeted) levels of revenue while achieving desired design criteria. The most notable of these are minimizing behavioural impacts on taxpayers (i.e., no or minimal regulatory impacts, as defined here) which in the tax literature is characterized as efficiency or allocational neutrality, and distributional fairness (vertical and horizontal equity).The neutrality criterion might be more completely described as wanting to minimize behavioural impacts except when we don’t; many examples of modifying general taxes for regulatory purposes exist. For example, the personal income tax normally contains measures to encourage taxpayers to save and to donate to charities. In the cases of narrowly based taxes, there has more often been an overt attempt to balance revenue and behavioural (regulatory) objectives. Examples here might include excise taxes on tobacco or retail sales taxes that exempt certain goods such as foodstuff and children’s clothing. In earlier work,1 I argued that one could discern a cyclical pattern in income tax structures. The argument is that tax structures are established by the Minister and Department of Finance to be efficient revenue generators while minimizing behavioural (regulatory) impacts in terms of changes in taxpayers’ (individuals and firms) behaviours. In setting tax policy, their goal is to raise revenue with as little effect as possible on taxpayers’ economic behaviour. Over time, the operation of the normal budgetary process tends to result in a drift in the tax system. Budgets are apt to produce, after a while, a range of regulatory provisions in the form of tax incentives or, less frequently, tax penalties. This occurs because in the regular budgetary process attention is often focused on a particular region, sector, or type of activity, leading to narrowly directed tax provisions. In due course, the tax system becomes less efficient at raising revenues with minimal distortions in the economic behavior of taxpayers. Eventually, when the balance becomes sufficiently compromised, the Finance Department embarks on another round of “tax reform” to reestablish the system as an efficient revenue generating mechanism. Thus emerges the notion of a cycle. Examples of these reform episodes include the major changes that emerged (1970–71) following the report of the



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famous Carter Royal Commission on Taxation, the failed attempt (Trudeau/MacEachen) in 1981–82, and the reforms in 1986–88 (Mulroney/Wilson). The concept of a cycle suggests a regularity that probably ­overstates the actual pattern over time. However, the idea of attempting to maintain an on-going balance between tax as a revenue generating instrument and tax as a regulatory instrument continues and applies to other taxes as well. The nature of the balance varies according to the particular tax. One can think of a spectrum of instruments with revenue generation at one extreme and behavioral impact at the other. On the revenue end of the spectrum would be first a head or poll tax, and clustered around that end would be general income taxes and general consumption taxes such as the gst. They are, as noted earlier, put in place primarily to raise revenues and are intended (in their pure form) to impact economic behavior as little as possible. The pattern over time summarized above might be conceived in terms of a general income tax slowly drifting from the revenue end of the spectrum towards the behavioural change end as the tax structure becomes cluttered with special provisions (sometimes referred to as tax expenditures), and eventually there is a need to clean it up, that is, remove special provisions and pull the tax structure back along the continuum to its original position. That exercise is generally referred to as tax reform. At the other extreme (the regulatory end) would be fines and penalties, which are enacted primarily to constrain or prohibit certain behaviours rather than to generate revenues. Conceptually, one could also think of negative taxes (that is, subsidies) enacted for regulatory purposes, in this case to encourage rather than prohibit certain behaviours. Such measures are for the most part direct expenditure policy instruments rather than taxation instruments, though one might consider some refundable tax credits as examples. a framework

In this chapter, I begin to examine how this revenue-regulation dynamic has developed over the years, where it might be going in the future, and how these factors have altered the tax structure. To structure the discussion, refer to Figure 1, which presents an abstract representation of the relationship between taxation as a revenue generator and as a behaviour regulator. The “R” curve represents

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Revenue B

R1

R2

Tax Rate

Figure 1

the revenue raised (left vertical axis) at various rates of taxation for a given income profile (level and distribution of income). While the exact form of the curve will vary by tax base and by the structure of the base, the general pattern is likely either that depicted by R1 or R2. In the first case, revenues rise with increasing rates but by proportionally smaller increments. In the case depicted by R2, revenues rise with tax rates up to some maximum level and then fall as higher and higher rates begin to erode the base faster than revenues are generated. (The famous Laffer curve of the 1980’s predicted that for income taxes the curve would fall to zero revenues when the rate hit 100%.) The “B” curve represents changes in behavior (measured on the right vertical axis) as rates increase (for the same fixed income and tax structure). Behavioural change might be measured, for example, in terms of negative labour supply effects, investment reductions or distortions, or changes in consumption patterns. Tax system design can be considered in terms of seeking to achieve goals subject to constraints. For most general taxes such as income taxes and general consumption (sales) taxes, the policy objective is to reach a target revenue (on the R curve) without triggering inefficient behavioural changes. That is to say, maintaining the B curve as close to the x-axis as possible. Other taxes appear to have behavioural change as their primary objective, with revenue generation as



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secondary; tobacco taxes might be an example. In the first case the revenue – behavior relationship is a trade-off to be minimized. In the second case, policy conflict would appear to be absent or at least much less serious. Later I will address the case where governments have both a revenue objective and a positive behavioural objective (that is, they actively seek both an R and a B impact, not to minimize one in pursuit of the other). In terms of the tax reform episodes noted above, think of a ­broadbased income tax with an R objective and a minimized B. Over time, the tax code becomes cluttered with special provisions, each one added to pursue a policy objective (other than revenue, that is, a B effect). Each provision may be reasonable on its own, but collectively they begin to erode the revenue generating capacity or buoyancy of the tax (the R curve shifts down) and simultaneously the B curve shifts up. When the relationship between these two curves becomes sufficiently troubling, the government engages in a tax reform project to restore the revenue generating capacity of the tax (raise the R curve) and minimize “excess burdens” (reduce the B curve). Tax reform exercises are characterized by a “cleaning up” of the tax structure, broadening the base by removing or modifying special provisions, and in so doing often open doors for reductions in rates. structural changes and changing tax structures

Over the past three decades, there have been major changes in ­economic structures with impacts on tax policy that can be conceptualized in terms of the R- B trade-off. The most fundamental development in the external environment over that period is the development and expansion of global goods and financial markets, footloose production of many goods and services, and by historical standards, mobile factors of production, especially capital but labour as well. (In his writings on “the internationalization of public policy,” Doern clearly recognized these fundamental trends.) As a consequence some tax bases, particularly those based on capital, are more difficult for tax authorities to access than was previously the case. This affects the corporate income tax and the portion of the personal income tax base composed of earnings of capital. The increased mobility, to a lesser extent, also affects the ability to tax income from labour.

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These trends are, of course, relative to historical experience; they are not all or nothing propositions. In terms of Figure 1, the trade-off between R and B has shifted. In particular, the opening of markets has created more opportunities for taxpayers to modify their behavior in response to these relatively mobile taxes; the B curve has shifted up. For the same reasons, the R curve shifts down as less government revenue can be raised at a given tax rate for a given income profile. One impact of this structural shift has been to adjust the structure of income taxes to diminish the incentives for behavioural responses. In general, this has meant a move towards broader definitions of tax bases (i.e., fewer exclusions that create vehicles for behavioural responses) and lower rates (i.e., reduced incentives for behavioural responses). While governments still insert special provisions into the income tax system on a case-by-case basis, the tendency to do this has been dampened over time. For example, the number of special measures entering the tax code between the reform episodes of 1970– 71 and 1986 was much greater than those inserted since 1986.2 The changing economic structure and the resulting impact on a government’s ability to tax income from capital also provides a partial explanation for the gradual transformation of the personal income tax. It is moving closer to a general consumption tax in which income from savings is largely exempt. This has been achieved through the gradual enrichment of registered retirement savings plans. Most recently, beginning in 2009, we have seen the introduction of Tax Free Savings Plans (tfsp) into which individuals can place after-tax income and not subsequently be taxed on the earnings of these investments. Initially the limitation to the tfsp contribution is modest ($5000 per person per year), but along with the pre­existing registered savings plans, virtually all the income from savings can now be sheltered for the vast majority of taxpayers. Another recent example is the Registered Disability Savings Plan (rdsp) which also encourages saving, albeit for a specific group of taxpayers and with a specific purpose in mind. Similarly, the trend in corporate income taxation has been towards lower rates and less utilization of various specific measures to influence the course of a particular sector, region, or activity. In part, these trends reflect the need to protect the revenue capacity of the income tax (the R curve), and in part it reflects the weaker ability of the tax as an instrument of regulation. In general, lower rates



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mean that the incentive effects of differential treatments (e.g., taxbased incentives for specific types of investment) are less potent as tools for influencing the behaviour of economic agents. The major structural impact of globalization of domestic income tax bases has led governments seeking stable revenue sources, to look relatively more to other taxes with less mobile bases, in particular taxes on consumption. Most notably in Canada is the federal Goods and Services Tax (gst) and the corresponding provincial sales taxes which have been harmonized with the gst in four provinces3. These bases are less mobile internationally than are capital/ income bases, and thus have become a more attractive substitute over time as a significant and stable source of revenue. The gst, partly by its nature and partly as a result of the determination of governments has been relatively less susceptible to erosions that would undermine its revenue capacity (R curve) and enlist it as a policy instrument to affect economic behaviour (B curve). For example, governments in the early days of the gst resisted very strong popular demands for exemptions for books and housing. For the most part, concessions have been allowed only to remove or lessen the burden on other governments (municipalities) or public ­institutions (hospitals, universities).4 User fees are another instance of less mobile revenue sources that have increasingly been accessed by governments at all levels – federal, provincial, and municipal. The share of revenue coming from fees has risen, not dramatically, but steadily over the past 20 to 25 years (from about 6.5% to 7.5% of revenue for all governments combined). Because the revenue collection is linked directly to a particular good or service (and in some cases consumption or use is mandated by regulation) the base tends to be less mobile. A third consequence of the increased international mobility is a more pressing impetus for international accords to facilitate the taxation of capital. When national boundaries become less and less relevant to allocation of capital, multi-national accords are an obvious means to reestablish governments’ ability to tax capital income, at least at some common denominator level. While there are many bilateral tax treaties between pairs of countries, it has proved much more difficult to conclude broad multi-lateral framework agreements analogous to those that have been developed to govern the flow of international trade. While mobile capital makes such accords more attractive to governments, the difficulties in concluding such ­agreements

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are huge. Not the least of these is ensuring compliance, because it may always be in the interest of small countries to remain outside the agreement. new directions or back to the future?

In most cases as we have seen, general taxes are assessed primarily to generate revenues and policy seeks to minimize behavioural impacts. In other instances, the goal has primarily been behavioural control or modification. There are a few instances when both objectives take prominence. Taxes on tobacco have at times been used primarily to discourage consumption, while in other situations the emphasis seemed to shift towards revenue generation. While this tax is not insignificant in terms of revenue, it is still minor as a share of total revenues, and thus the trade-off dilemma for governments is not particularly acute when it shifts emphasis. In other cases, this trade-off is likely to be more difficult. A carbon tax proposal was debated in the 2008 federal election, and is already in place in British Columbia. As presented by its proponents, both R and B goals become prominent objectives of tax policy. Rather than seeing R or B as the objective, with the other acting as a constraint, the carbon tax attempts to strike a balanced achievement of both objectives. This pursuit of goals which are mutually inconsistent and where the tax may be a major component of the revenue system, presents a dilemma for policy. There are both short and long run aspects of this trade-off. The first, is finding the appropriate balance at a point in time. Presumably, up to some point on the R curve, policy makers can make advances on both goals – raising revenue and effecting behavioural change. Beyond that point, however, they are likely to enter the range of trading of one goal against the other. The second aspect is what happens over time. As behaviour alters in response to the tax, the R curve shifts down because a decrease in the discouraged activities will mean that, less revenue will be generated at any level of taxation. The B curve is likely to shift down and to the right as it will take higher tax rates to effect further responses in behavioural change. Adjusting to those shifts over time is a further challenge. Over time, this moving trade-off is likely to make the carbon tax less satisfactory as a major source of revenue and more of a ­regulatory tax to discourage consumption of carbon-based energy.



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Over time, what we have observed and will likely see continue, is that general taxation has become less about influencing behaviour and more about simple revenue generation in an environment where important tax bases are increasingly difficult to access. The general trend in response to this challenge has been towards more broadly defined tax bases and lower tax rates. The broad bases provide fewer vehicles for taxpayers to utilize and the lower rates represent reduced incentives to seek out such opportunities. Taxation is now much more about assuring secure and stable revenue flows and much less about regulation (as defined here). The prospect of environment taxes, particularly a carbon tax at first appears to be an exception to this trend. But over time, these are likely to become more purely regulatory instruments and less ­revenue generators. In the early 1970s, federal revenue budgets became broader as governments became more involved in microeconomic management and in social policy5 and accordingly developed new policy instruments in pursuit of the larger agendas. The suggestion advanced here is that taxation of a regulatory instrument is now becoming less effective and more costly to invoke; revenue systems will become more narrowly focused on raising required revenues while ­minimizing behavioural reactions. But, government will still confront the need to respond to situations; doing nothing is seldom a viable option. Doern, in his work, advanced the idea of a “market for governing instruments.”6 Following that line of thought, one might anticipate that as the cost of taxes as regulatory instruments becomes too high, governments will (re)turn to other instruments to achieve policy objectives whether these be direct expenditures, exhortation or direct regulatory rules.

notes

1� Institute for Research on Public Policy (irpp), Tax Reform in Canada: The Process and Impact (irpp, 1989). 2� The instances of this in the Harper government (since early 2006) have largely been limited to rather inconsequential and even silly ­measures such as credits for urban transit pass purchases, children’s organized sports expenses, and the promise in the 2008 election for a similar credit to offset costs of children’s culture expenses (a tax credit for music lessons!).

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3� Ontario has decided to harmonize its provincial sales tax with the federal gst, beginning July 1, 2010. 4� The reductions in the gst in 2006 and 2008 were strongly criticized by most economists in part because the tax is able to generate strong ­revenues with relatively little adverse behavioural impacts (low b curve). For the same reasons, one might speculate that in the longer term the gst rate will move up again. 5� Allan M. Maslove, Michael J. Prince, and G. Bruce Doern, Federal and Provincial Budgeting (University of Toronto Press for the Royal Commission on the Economic Union and Development Prospects for Canada, 1986). 6� See, for example, Richard Phidd and G. Bruce Doern, The Politics and Management of Canadian Economic Policy (Macmillan of Canada, 1978).

7 Science Advisory Mechanisms in Canada An Institutional Analysis jeffrey s. kinder

This chapter deals broadly with the intersection of science and ­governance. As a topic this has received considerable attention within the literature on science policy, particularly since the 1960s, although perhaps less so in Canada than elsewhere.1 Academic research centers dedicated to examining the interplay of science and governance began to emerge in other countries in this early period. In Canada, however, the major contributions to advancing understanding of science policy tended to come in the form of government reports and advisory body studies. Scholarly attention to science policy was rare. A key exception, of course, was the early scholarship of Bruce Doern (See Table 1). His 1972 book, Science and Politics in Canada, is a seminal volume that remains of value today. More recently, Bruce renewed his interest and scholarship on issues of science and innovation policy to the benefit of many younger researchers, including this author. Throughout his career, Bruce’s leadership has been instrumental in elevating science policy as an explicit area of focus in the study of public policy and in helping to build a small but vital ­community of science policy scholars and practitioners. The continuing importance of science policy and science advisory mechanisms is highlighted by one analyst who asserts that “the key to understanding modern government lay in the interplay of expert knowledge and politics.”2 Similarly, Jasanoff contends that in their expanding roles as advisors, scientists have emerged as a “fifth branch” of government.3 Other scholars approach the issue from a more balanced perspective. For example, Gillespie writes with awareness that “much of science has in general little or nothing to do with government, and that much of government has little or nothing to

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Table 1 The rich vein: Bruce Doern’s early scholarship on science policy and the scc ü Doern, G. Bruce (1969) Scientists and the Making of Science Policies, phd dissertation, Department of Political Studies, Queen’s University, Kingston. ü Doern, G. Bruce (1969) “Scientists and Science Policy Machinery,” in W. D. K. Kernaghan, ed., Bureaucracy in Canadian Government (Methuen). ü Doern, G. Bruce (1970) “Scientists and Science Policy Machinery in the Canadian Government: A Survey,” unpublished essay, Department of Political Science, Carleton University. ü Doern, G. Bruce (1970) “The Political Realities of Science Policy Making in the Federal Government,” Science Forum 3:3 (June), 21–25. ü Doern, G. Bruce (1970) “Mr. Trudeau, the Science Council and P.P.B.: Recent Changes in the Philosophy of Policy Making in Canada,” paper presented to the Canadian Political Science Association, 42nd Annual Meeting, June 3, Winnipeg, Manitoba. ü Doern, G. Bruce (1971) “The Role of Central Advisory Councils: The Science Council of Canada,” in G. Bruce Doern and Peter Aucoin, eds., The Structures of Policy-Making in Canada (Macmillan of Canada), 246–266. ü Doern, G. Bruce (1972) Science and Politics in Canada (McGill-Queen’s University Press)

do with science, but that there are intersections.”4 Drawing on the early scholarship of Doern and others, this chapter will explore one of these intersections through an examination of science policy advisory mechanisms. The exploratory nature and the limited breadth of the present analysis must be emphasized. First, as part of a broader research project on science policy advice and the history of the Science Council of Canada (scc), the chapter represents an initial look at the underlying elements of science policy advisory processes with a view to developing an analytical framework for understanding the evolution of these structures. Such a scheme is not fully developed here but key elements are examined. Second, while science policy advice is sought at all levels of ­government from international to local, the focus here is limited to the science policy advisory system of the Canadian federal government. Third, the range of mechanisms through which the federal government seeks and receives science policy advice is quite large. This advisory system includes both formal and informal mechanisms that generate both solicited and unsolicited advice and encompasses a wide array of entities ranging from Royal Commissions to ad hoc peer review panels. To focus the analysis, only the high-level, standing advisory bodies are examined as a key component of this system.



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Even with this choice it is not possible to examine all of these bodies in any depth and the scc has been chosen for initial emphasis. The analysis relies primarily on secondary sources including the general literature on science policy advice and other documents related to specific advisory bodies within the Canadian context. The project’s empirical work will continue to benefit from interviews of officials associated with these entities. It must also be stated that while the analysis draws in part on insights from my service in the secretariat of the Council of Science and Technology Advisors (csta), the views expressed are mine and do not necessarily represent those of the Government of Canada. The chapter is organized into three main sections. In the first ­section, I examine what is meant by science policy advice by describing its various types, functions and mechanisms. The second section provides a brief introduction to five of the major science policy advisory mechanisms employed by the federal government over the last century. This is done to begin to trace the evolution of these entities and their various structural and conceptual elements. The third section then draws on the broader literature on science policy and governance to examine in more detail the common structural and conceptual elements of science policy advisory relationships. science advice and public policy

In this chapter, science is defined broadly to encompass the natural, health, and social sciences and engineering. Science advice, then, is guidance derived from these disciplines in the context of a policy question. It is important at this point to distinguish between the two basic categories of science advice sought by governments. Writing in 1964 Harvey Brooks, a long-time science advisor to the U.S. government, introduced an important conceptual distinction into the science policy literature. He suggested that science policy deals with both science in policy and policy for science. By science in policy, Brooks had in mind matters that are basically political or administrative in nature but that rely significantly on scientific or technical input. Policy for science, on the other hand, is concerned with “policies for the management and support of the national scientific enterprise and with the selection and evaluation of substantive scientific programs.”5 The federal government has long sought the advice of the scientific community on the policies, infrastructure and resource allocation

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required for the effective operation of the nation’s scientific enterprise – i.e., advice on policy for science. Examples include the use of peer review panels to evaluate research grant proposals and award fellowships. This category also includes the use of program advisory committees to provide strategic oversight of a scientific field or a federal department’s research program.6 Governments also seek science advice as a critical input to broader policy and regulatory decisions – i.e., science advice for policy. This is particularly the case on sensitive issues involving people’s health and safety (food, medicine, transportation, etc.), animal and plant protection, and the environment.7 Examples include the use of internal briefings on the results of federally-performed research to inform departmental policy (e.g., fish stock assessments by government scientists to inform fisheries policy); the use of ad hoc fact-finding panels, usually set up for a temporary period, to address an issue or problem with technical dimensions (e.g., the commission that reviewed the Columbia shuttle accident); or the use of external advisory committees to advise decision makers on broad techno-political issues such as global climate change. As Smith explains these deal with “policy issues that have important scientific or technical dimensions (science in policy) rather than with science as such (policy for science).”8 Importantly, in 1964 Brooks had immediately cautioned against drawing a sharp line between these two aspects of science policy. The identification of uncertainties in science for policy, for example, has implications for the government’s policy for science because it helps prioritize the knowledge gaps that need to be addressed to support future decision making. Nevertheless, the two-part distinction has proved useful and, indeed, “has since served to anchor most discussions of the relationship between science and government.”9 Its continuing relevance was demonstrated recently during John Holdren’s Senate confirmation hearing to become President Obama’s science advisor, when he stated: Science and technology policy consists of two major strands: policy for science and technology – namely, the policies related to strengthening the research and development enterprise in the public and private sectors, to science and technology education and training, and to fostering the conditions under which advances in science and technology are translated into economic, security, and environmental benefits for society at large; and science and technology for policy – meaning the use of



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insights from science and engineering in the formation of those parts of economic policy, defense policy, space policy, health policy, environmental policy, agricultural policy, and so on, where such insights are needed to help shape sensible policies.10 The importance of obtaining advice from scientists to inform ­government policy with respect to specific research programs and proposals should not be overlooked. But the primary emphasis of the present effort is higher level science policy advice dealing with the larger issues of the national science enterprise and informing broader government policy and regulatory decision making. Functions of Science Advice Key to understanding the interplay of expert advice and public policy are the various ways science advice is used to assist policy makers. Smith lists four major functions. First, science advice provides factual insights to help policy makers identify and frame problems and understand a situation. Second, science advice provides knowledge to allow assessment and evaluation of the likely consequences of a policy. Third, it provides arguments, associations, and contextual knowledge to help policy makers reflect on the situation, improve and sharpen their judgments, and communicate about an issue. Finally, science advice provides procedural knowledge to help design and implement procedures for conflict resolution and rational ­decision making.11 But Smith also suggests that, in practice, “the decision to use expert advice and the questions this expert advice is required to address are political decisions.”12 He goes on to identify other important, if less “rationalist” functions of science advice including its role in serving: ü ü ü ü ü ü ü

as as as as to as to

a source of authority and legitimization of policies; a basis to “rationalize” a policy response; a basis to delay or avoid action; a scape-goat or to justify unpopular policies; centralize decision making; an arbiter over facts; and, clarify conflicts of interest in the policy process.13

Clearly, an understanding of science advisory bodies requires an appreciation of how they grapple with these various functions.

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Science Advisory Mechanisms As Price wrote a half-century ago, the problem of advisory machinery would be simple, “if we could rely on the classical administrative theory that the expert should be ‘on tap but not on top’ – which implies the availability of an anonymous or at least unobtrusive adviser whose expertise is at hand for the responsible executive to accept or not, at his discretion.”14 Of course, this rather simplistic view was dated even then as democratic public administration came to rely less on direct executive authority and more on open argument and persuasion through various types of committee processes. This more pluralistic approach to public policy making was accompanied by an increase in the use of advisory bodies by governments. The classical theory offers little guidance as to structural elements or operational principles that guide this advisory system. Science advisory structures can be categorized into three levels. At the macro level we include those advisory bodies that provide science advice to the highest levels of government, usually the prime minister, cabinet, or parliament. These bodies are typically standing committees with ongoing mandates to examine a wide range of science policy topics. Often such bodies can shape their own agendas as well as respond to specific requests for advice from decision makers. A mezzo level can be viewed as consisting of those science advisory bodies whose remit is more focused on specific organizations or areas of science. Examples include the science advisory bodies that advise individual departments or single sector/technology advisory bodies such as the former Canadian Biotechnology Advisory Council. At the micro level we have, for example, all the peer review committees that are empanelled to provide advice on the awarding of grants and fellowships or for the evaluation of specific research programs. This study focuses primarily on science advisory bodies at the macro level of the standing council variety, although much of the discussion of the key elements of these science advisory mechanisms is relevant to the other levels as well. the evolution of canadian science advisory bodies at the macro level

This section will provide a snapshot view of five advisory bodies that are being studied as part of the overall research project. While



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other bodies could have been included, those selected represent preeminent science advisory bodies through the last century. According to Kerwin and Kenney-Wallace, the science advisory system in Canada prior to World War II was quite simple: “The provinces showed little interest in science and technology insofar as they affected public policy. Federally, the limited advice that trickled in came from the National Research Council, the Royal Society of Canada, and an embryonic group of learned societies.”15 The section thus begins with the creation of the National Research Council (nrc), not because it represents the first time the Canadian government sought science advice but because the nrc does represent one of the first institutionalizations of the macro science advisory ­function in the modern characteristic form.16 Honorary Advisory Council on Scientific and Industrial Research The nrc began in 1916 as the Honorary Advisory Council on Scientific and Industrial Research (hacsir). The Council consisted of nine volunteers whose function was to advise a newly created committee of the Privy Council on science matters. Initially, the chair was a part-time appointment and a secretary was the Council’s only permanent staff member. From these modest beginnings the nrc’s role would grow, particularly during and following the Second World War, to become the primary component of the government’s science advisory machinery. For key parts of this period, the nrc “was championed by ­powerful Liberal cabinet ministers such as C. D. Howe.”17 Indeed, Doern highlights the very personalized and compact politician-­scientist relationship between Howe and nrc president C. J. Mackenzie.18 With the expansion of the nrc’s laboratory infrastructure and in-house science operations that continued following the war, concerns increased that the Council could no longer serve as an independent, disinterested source of science advice. In 1966, a new agency was created that assumed some of the nrc’s science policy advisory role. Science Council of Canada Created by an Act of Parliament in 1966, the purpose of the Science Council was “to define and determine long term objectives for science in Canada, to suggest appropriate paths for reaching them and

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to consider the responsibilities of the various segments of the ­industrial, academic and government communities in the field.”19 The Act created a council of twenty-five external members appointed for three-year terms, plus four associate members drawn from government. Initially, the scc did not have a permanent staff of its own but relied on the Science Secretariat located in the Privy Council Office (pco) for analytical support. Quickly, however, the openness of the Science Council, including its making public its advice, came into conflict with the Secretariat’s role as a confidential advisor within pco. By 1968, the relationship with the Science Secretariat was severed and the Council was made a crown corporation with its own professional staff. Although it reported to Parliament through the Minister responsible for science and technology, the scc, as an arms-length agency, could set its own agenda as well as respond to requests from government. According to Dufour and de la Mothe, the Council gradually lost favour with the government as the bureaucracy grew frustrated over its inability to control the Council’s agenda.20 In addition, by 1987 the Council’s role as science advisor to the centre had been reduced due to the creation of the National Advisory Board on Science and Technology (nabst). In 1992, in the name of “deficit reduction” the Science Council was abolished along with the Economic Council of Canada, the Law Reform Commission and other agencies.21 National Advisory Board on Science and Technology The nabst was created following the 1986 Speech from the Throne. Its purpose was to provide the Prime Minister with broad external advice on how science and technology could be more effectively exploited in Canada. Its composition was broadly based drawing members from academe, labour and the business community, from a range of disciplines and professional backgrounds, and from the various regions of the country. The nabst was quite active during its eight-year existence meeting three to four times a year and ­producing dozens of reports. Following a restructuring in 1991, the nabst was provided access to confidential government documents as a way to provide members a better appreciation of policies under development by the government.22 The Board’s advice was confidential although its reports were



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made public at the discretion of the Prime Minister. Prime Minister Brian Mulroney apparently took an active interest in his role as chair, thereby raising the Board’s profile and that of the role of external science advice. However, Kerwin and Kenney-Wallace suggest that while the nabst provided a novel debating forum for its members, it begged the traditional role of advice-giving from internal government advisors: “Sometimes ensuing tensions act as barriers to turning advice into action as a goal-oriented advisory board meets a processoriented bureaucracy.”23 Advisory Council on Science and Technology Following a sweeping review of s&t policy during 1994–96, the Chrétien government issued Science and Technology for a New Century. The Strategy acknowledged the government’s need for regular, direct access to science advisors to help identify emerging issues and to obtain external views on proposed policy directions. Among other things, the Strategy stated the government’s intention to create new institutions and mechanisms for science governance. The nabst was abolished in favor of a new Advisory Council on Science and Technology (acst). The acst assumed most of the nabst’s functions for reviewing the nation’s performance in science and technology and advising on a forward agenda. Interestingly, though, the Strategy stated the government’s view that “nabst’s more public functions, those related to mobilizing the broader scientific community and influencing Canadians’ attitudes toward s&t, would be best served by institutions at arm’s length from government.”24 The somewhat smaller acst consisted of only twelve members drawn equally from academe and the private sector. Chaired by the Minister of Industry, the acst members were appointed by, and nominally reported to, the Prime Minister through the Cabinet. However, in practice, most of its interactions were with the Cabinet Committee for Economic Union. The Council could commission expert panels and conduct public consultations, although the latter was rarely done, and its advice was confidential until released by the government. Science, Technology and Innovation Council With the release in May 2007 of its s&t Strategy, Mobilizing Science and Technology for Canada’s Advantage, the Harper Government

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sought to “modernize” the s&t advisory system. The acst, csta and the cbac were abolished and the Science, Technology and Innovation Council (stic) was created. The stic is mandated to “provide the government with policy advice on s&t issues and produce regular State-of-the-Nation reports that benchmark Canada’s s&t performance against international standards of excellence.”25 The stic consists of a chair and 17 members drawn from academe, business and government. Unlike its immediate predecessors, the stic is chaired by an academic who reports to the Minister of Industry. It is supported by a small secretariat at Industry Canada. The Council’s website makes clear that the stic operates in a responsive mode by providing advice on issues referred to it by government.26 To date, none of its reports or background analyses has been made public. What this brief review has shown is that the Canadian federal government has always employed some variant of a standing advisory body for matters related to science and technology. Interestingly, one can roughly trace the evolving focus of Canadian s&t policy by observing the changing titles of these groups; i.e., the early focus on industrial research (hacsir) followed by, over the last forty years, the progression of policy interest from science policy (scc) to science and technology policy (nabst and acst) and now ­innovation policy (stic). What is more puzzling is that despite their persistent presence in the machinery of government, there has been relatively little scholarship on Canadian science advisory bodies, beyond the early work of Doern. While it is clear that these bodies have many similarities it is also evident that there are many differences. Canadian science policy analysis would benefit from a greater understanding of these characteristics. Achieving this understanding will be aided by the development of an analytical framework that categorizes the core elements of science advisory bodies. These core elements are ­examined in the next section. key elements

At a basic, superficial level science advice is about “speaking truth to power.” While this phrase can be highly contentious, it can be useful in structuring our discussion in this section. To gain a deeper appreciation of how science advisory processes can be structured to



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inform decision making, the key elements of science advisory ­mechanisms are grouped into two broad areas. The first, under the heading of “Speaking Truth…” involves the elements around securing advice based on sound science, while the second, under the heading of “…To Power” relates to the integration of science advice in the policy process.

“speaking

truth…” accessing sound science advice

In securing high quality science advice, key concepts include ­validation, uncertainty and risk, openness and inclusiveness, and due diligence to ensure integrity. Ensuring Quality in the Face of Uncertainty Within the scientific community, validation of scientific excellence rests on a strong commitment to merit review based on evaluation by peers. The concept of peer review derives from the view that scientific quality is best judged by disinterested experts who share common values and norms about objectivity and skepticism. Peer refereeing procedures have come to be regarded as the most effective means of assuring quality science. For more than three hundred years, Western science has relied on peer review as the primary means of identifying work that deserves to enter the domain of certified knowledge.27 The U.S. National Academies and the Council of Canadian Academies subject all of their advice to peer review. Despite its broad support peer review is not without its critics. Cases of scientific misconduct have demonstrated that peer review is not infallible as a policing mechanism for assuring the integrity of scientific claims. There is some concern that peer review perpetuates an “old boys network,” that it rewards those scientists who are well-established in their narrow domains of expertise at the expense of younger voices with new ideas. Given that much policyrelevant science will of necessity be transdisciplinary in nature, it may not review well by scientists who have benefitted from the existing disciplinary paradigm. In addition, there are scholars in the area of science studies who question the dominant view that peer review yields objective evaluation. Based on these critiques, Jasanoff suggests that the benefits of peer review, particularly with respect

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to its ­ applicability in regulatory or policy-relevant spheres, may have been oversold.28 Nonetheless, most scholars continue to assert the importance of peer review as the primary quality assurance mechanism for assessing the science inputs, findings, analyses and recommendations of science advisors. How science advisory mechanisms make use of peer review or otherwise ensure the validity of the underlying science is an important consideration. Interestingly, the reliance on traditional peer review is increasingly coupled with an emphasis on greater openness (discussed below) in accessing quality science for public policy. In addition, science is often portrayed as a static set of facts rather than a dynamic process of discovery. Consequently, public decision makers (who have rarely been trained in scientific fields) often lack a full appreciation of the role of uncertainty in science. Uncertainty is inherent in science, especially in relatively new areas of study. As public policy problems often involve newly emerging issues at the boundaries between traditional disciplines, science for policy will usually contain a high degree of uncertainty. The more scientific uncertainty that is present, the more likely will exist rival claims to knowledge. While peer review can help in this situation, decision makers will inevitably be confronted with issues where uncertainty can not be eliminated but must be assessed and managed. Openness/Inclusiveness Given uncertainty and the possible limitations of peer review, ­accessing the best science advice requires casting a wide net in order to capture the full diversity of scientific opinion. Sir (now Lord) Robert May, as Chief Scientific Advisor to the U.K. government, called for a “presumption towards openness” in science advisory systems.29 Adopting a principle of openness not only implies transparency in the advisory and policy making processes (discussed later) but is also important for assuring the quality of the science. Science thrives on the competition of ideas which is facilitated by the open publication of data, analyses and conclusions. May called on governments to publish all the scientific evidence and analysis underlying policy decisions: “Openness will stimulate greater critical discussion of the scientific basis of policy proposals and bring to bear any conflicting scientific evidence which may have been overlooked.”30



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A desire to capture the full diversity of scientific opinion has implications for the composition of external advisory committees. With respect to the Science Council membership, approximately two-thirds of the initial members were physical scientists and engineers while the others were from the life sciences. No social scientists sat on the Council, although the chair of the Economic Council of Canada was an associate member.31 In the U.S., the Federal Advisory Committee Act provides that the membership of an advisory group shall be “fairly balanced in terms of the points of view represented and the functions to be performed by the advisory committee.”32 Based on a review of the literature, the following considerations emerge as necessary to achieve reasonable balance in the composition of an advisory group: ü individual qualifications – each member should have recognized, pertinent expertise or demonstrated ability ü fields of expertise – the members’ fields of specialty should be complementary and provide the relevant set of disciplinary expertise ü public impact – some members should be representative of ­geographical regions, organizations, or segments of the public directly affected by issues under consideration ü under-represented views and other demographic factors – special attention should be paid to obtaining qualified persons from groups historically under-represented in scientific fields such as women, under-represented minorities, and persons with disabilities. Members should be selected to balance age, ethnicity, ­language, etc. The literature also suggests that a regular rotation of participants be imposed on standing advisory committees with replacements chosen so as to preserve balance and continuity of representation. One of the more controversial aspects of calls for greater openness and inclusiveness revolves around the issue of advice from non­traditional sources. Most scientists would be perfectly comfortable with advisors being selected on the basis of the first two bullets above. Some would likely become concerned the more the last two are employed. Clearly, a greater emphasis on openness implies a heavier responsibility on the part of decision makers to appropriately weigh the multiple viewpoints from advisors in formulating policy.

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Ensuring Integrity The public expects government to employ due diligence to ensure the integrity of the science advice it solicits. The issue of integrity goes beyond the notion of assuring scientific quality discussed above. Misusing or ignoring credible science advice for personal advancement, financial gain, or political advantage are deemed unacceptable. This integrity element raises two related sub-elements: conflict of interest and bias. Avoiding conflict of interest is a key factor in maintaining public trust in the credibility of the science used in policy making. Even the appearance of a potential conflict can damage the public’s confidence in the advisory process. Such conflicts usually arise from advisors’ institutional affiliations, financial interests, or personal relationships. On the other hand, obtaining the best advice will often mean seeking the expertise of those most intimately involved in an issue and, therefore, may be or may be seen to be in conflict. The decision maker must weigh the need for obtaining the best expert advice with the need to maintain credibility in the process. The responsibility for documenting and avoiding potential conflicts of interest should be placed on the advisor. However, the ultimate responsibility for protecting against actual or perceived conflicts rests with the decision maker. Consideration of bias is perhaps of even greater importance than conflict of interest. Belief in the dispassionate nature of scientific discovery aside, the decision maker must be conscious of possible bias in the advice received. Unlike conflict of interest, which is typically more readily apparent due to specific affiliations, bias is often more subtle and difficult to detect, even within the advisor who aspires to be objective. Possible sources of bias include 1) disciplinary bias, often manifested as tensions or methodological differences between the natural and social sciences or various schools of thought; 2) institutional bias, for example, between academic, government and industrial researchers; 3) political bias based on party affiliations or political inclinations; 4) gender or ethnic bias; and 5) geographical bias including a bias against foreign sources of knowledge. Related to this discussion is the role of the advisory body’s chair and the influence he or she has over development of the advice. The scc was initially chaired by Omond Solandt, who brought to his chairmanship impressive credentials and “a personal relationship with the prime minister of the day and many captains of industry.”33



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In 1971, Doern suggested that “the connection between the Solandt philosophy and the Science Council philosophy is direct and conclusive…The Council, moreover, included members whose career perspectives were very similar to those of Dr. Solandt.”34 An analytical framework for understanding science advisory bodies needs to consider how these bodies deal with integrity issues of conflict of interest, bias and the influence of the chair.

“…

to power” integrating science advice and decision making

Obtaining sound science advice is necessary but not sufficient for an effective science advisory system. Science advice must be coupled to the decision making process. This is not to say that science advice should necessarily “carry the day” by determining a policy decision. The formulation of public policy usually requires addressing other factors such as economic, legal, political, foreign relations, and other considerations, as well as the science. Science advisors must be careful when considering recommendations that transcend science considerations or risk blurring their effectiveness as advisors on the scientific content of an issue. Rather, science advisors should be complemented by advisors competent in other aspects of public policy, as appropriate, to consider and advise on policy options.35 The need to couple science advice and decision making does mean, however, that for a science advisory system to be effective government must also consider issues related to the science/policy interface. Key elements include those related to the science advisor-decision maker relationship, access, timeliness, analytical support, ­transparency and, increasingly, managing public involvement. Reporting Relationship: Values, Trust and Confidentiality A key consideration in science advisory mechanisms is their reporting relationship with the decision makers. Practice has varied in Canada as to whether the high-level bodies report to the prime minister, another minister, cabinet or parliament. To a large extent, the choice reflects and shapes their role. According to Doern: Bodies like the Science Council seem to have been created out of at least a partial awareness that governments must be willing to “create their own critics.” The logic of this aspect of their

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role seems to imply that central advisory councils perhaps ought to be as much advisers to Parliament and other policy “critics” as they are to the policy “makers,” the Prime Minister and the Cabinet.36 The more recent examples have reported to the Minister of Industry. Effective relationships between decision makers and science ­advisors benefit from an understanding of their differing contexts and values. Science can be characterized as an activity that is longterm, that seeks facts and precision but often faces uncertainty, and that flourishes through the open debate of ideas. Policy, on the other hand, can be characterized as an arena in which decision makers are often required to take decisive action in the short-term, in response to perceptions of a shifting public interest, and often with a preference for secrecy. Tensions can also arise between these cultures due to scientists’ perceptions of a lack of scientific literacy in policy makers or policy makers’ perceptions of political naiveté on the part of scientists.37 Many authors stress the need for an advisory relationship built on trust and confidence. Beckler describes how the scientist, in accepting to serve in an advisory role, must accept certain limitations such as respecting the confidentiality of the information provided and avoid taking a public position on the issue while serving in the advisory capacity.38 A valuable function of advisors is to serve as a sounding board for the decision maker. Beckler cautions that, “Decision makers will hesitate to ask for outside advice if they fear that they may confront adversary positions by their advisers on the basis of information provided in confidence.”39 Of course, the advisor retains the option of severing the advisory relationship, and ­thereafter, “going public.” With respect to the scc, Doern noted: …the Council’s political strategic position had been that of the behind-the-scenes advocate. The Council was in agreement with this strategy, viz., that private informal persuasion, and not public confrontation, was the best way to get results. The Science Council would not be like the Economic Council of Canada which, the Science Council felt, had not been successful, or as successful as it might have been, because of its open ­critical assaults on government policy.40



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Access, Timeliness, and Analytical Support Scholars argue that to maintain integrity in how the advice is ­interpreted and used, advisors should report directly to the decision maker, and many analysts stress the importance of a close and continuing interaction between decision makers and science advisors. Where external advisory committees are used, this interaction can be facilitated by selecting advisors who understand the operations and methods of government. A close coupling can also improve the timeliness of the advice, a common concern around advisory bodies that often take many months to complete their analyses. In addition to the need for access to decision makers, scholars suggest that there is a strong linkage between the quality of scientific advice and the advisors’ access to relevant information. Smith maintains that “the quality of advice provided is … dependent on the access of advisers to all necessary information, in addition to that knowledge and expertise they already possess.”41 As the complexity of science policy issues increases, scientific advisory processes will be more effective when supported by in-depth analysis. Government decision makers must ensure that their advisors have access to, and are fully supported by, the analytic functions available within government. Beckler also stresses the importance of the advisory body’s professional staff in support of the decision-maker/advisor interface: “The role of the in-house professional support staff is critical in providing a transducer between the advisers and the decision-maker, in helping to formulate the s&t issues in a decision-making context, and in communicating and following up on the s&t advice received.”42 One of the differences observed in Canadian advisory bodies is whether their secretariats resided in government or externally. The implications of the two options require further analysis but de la Mothe suggests that after it was separated from the Science Secretariat in the Privy Council Office, the scc “slowly lost contact with, access to, stimulation from, and influence in the ‘corridors of power.’”43 Transparency and Public Involvement Most of the science policy literature from the early post-WWII and Cold War period emphasized the need for confidentiality between advisors and decision makers.44 This is perhaps not surprising given the national security implications of much of the science advice being

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sought in that period. In recent years, however, there has been an increasingly pervasive shift in emphasis towards greater transparency with respect to science advice in government decision making, at least in Canada and the U.K.45 Democratic governments are expected to employ open and ­transparent processes of decision making that demonstrate how inputs are used in reaching a decision. Transparency in the context of science advice implies that 1) the science and science advice underlying decisions are communicated, including the degree of scientific uncertainty and risk, 2) the public can recognize the mechanisms employed to ensure quality and integrity in the science advice, 3) the public has access to the reports and recommendations of the ­advisors, and 4) the policy decisions are presented in open fora.46 Many emphasize the need to go beyond a science advisory process that is merely transparent (i.e., visible) to the public. They argue for a process that actually involves the public in deliberation and decision making. Clearly, on issues involving science and technology, experts typically play the central role in assessing policy issues and providing advice to decision makers. But increasingly there are science policy issues that impact large number of citizens, if not whole populations. Fixdal argues that “in handling such policy issues it appears essential that the voices of the broader public [be] integrated somehow into the public debate.”47 Involving the broader public at an early stage has the possibility of mitigating greater negative debate and controversy when policies are announced. Another important rationale for the involvement of affected lay citizens in advisory processes is the “local” or “traditional knowledge” that they can bring to bear on an issue. Fixdal argues that lay persons may have “local, personal knowledge about the consequences in their lives and their communities which experts working with more abstract and generalized conceptions of policy issues may miss.”48 Calls for the “democratization of science” raise thorny issues about just how to achieve greater public involvement in science advisory processes. There are two basic models. The traditional approach consists of parallel processes that generate two (or more) streams of input to the decision maker: one flowing from scientific experts and the other(s) from a more broadly based group of stakeholders. This approach, favored by many scientists, has the advantage of maintaining the “purity” of science advice, untainted by political consid­erations or wider special interests. The disadvantage



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of such an approach is that the science advice does not benefit from a broader consideration and framing of the issue to be addressed and therefore may be irrelevant because it, in effect, answers the wrong questions. In addition, given that the decision model is basically a political one, the science advice can be ignored in favor of other streams of advice. A different model that is being experimented with in many ­countries attempts to open the science advisory process to broader inputs. Critics of these approaches charge that this will only lead to a “watering down” of the science. Proponents, however, contend that greater public involvement at an early stage can help ensure that the issue is framed in such a way that the science advice addresses relevant questions. Greater stakeholder involvement can also provide input on the acceptability of various policy options, ensure public values are considered, and lead to better decisions. As indicated earlier, while the scc as an arms-length body reporting to Parliament had a more public role, these “public functions” have been reduced in more recent advisory bodies. conclusion

The year 2017 will be an important milestone for Canada as it celebrates its 150th anniversary as a country. If, following the lead of the recent International Polar Year which actually spanned 24 months, we were to consider a ‘long year’ that spans 2016–2017, we can point to a number of other potential observances of relevance to the history of science policy advice in Canada: the 100th anniversary of the creation of the National Research Council (1916), the 50th anniversary of the creation of the Science Council of Canada (1966) and the 25th anniversary of its demise (1992). That year will also mark the 75th anniversary of the birth of Bruce Doern (1942), who has contributed so much to Canadian science policy scholarship. The increasing importance of the science-policy nexus and the ongoing evolution of Canada’s science advisory system suggest the need for a renewed research focus in this area. The purpose of this chapter was to initiate an exploration of how to approach science policy advisory mechanisms with a view to developing a framework by which the structures employed by the Canadian federal government can be examined. Drawing on the work of scholars and practitioners, the chapter first examined the types, functions and basic

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structures of advisory mechanisms, emphasizing the dual nature of science policy advice as advice on science for policy and on policy for science. The chapter next provided a brief, initial look at the major highlevel science advisory bodies that have been employed by the Canadian government throughout the last century. While these entities exhibit many similarities there are also evident, even from this cursory review, interesting differences in terms of reporting relationships, composition, mandates, support structures, degree of ‘publicness,’ etc. To begin to provide a framework for exploring these characteristics, the chapter then examined the key elements of science advisory processes, including structural and conceptual elements related to accessing excellent science advice and integrating it into the policy process. While much of the empirical work remains to be done, it appears based on this preliminary look that the key elements identified will be useful in examining the evolution of science advice for public policy in Canada. Many of these general elements were illuminated by Doern’s analyses of the scc, although most of his work on the Council focused on its early history. Clearly, more analysis is required, including a comprehensive ­history of the Science Council of Canada. This is the next logical step, as the nrc has already been the focus of much scholarship while the scc has not yet enjoyed much attention. Anniversaries provide an impetus for focused reflection and the upcoming convergence of anniversaries suggests that preparing a history of this important institution would be timely. It will also be opportune to be able to tap into the knowledge of those who have been associated with the scc before any more of those memories are lost to us.

notes

1� See Anthony Barker and B. Guy Peters, eds. The Politics of Expert Advice: Creating, Using and Manipulating Scientific Knowledge for Public Policy (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1993); G. Bruce Doern, Science and Politics in Canada (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1972); William T. Golden, ed. Worldwide Science and Technology Advice to the Highest Levels of Government (Pergamon Press, 1991); David H. Guston, Between Science and Politics: Assuring the Integrity and Productivity of Research (Cambridge University Press, 2000);



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Roger Pielke, Jr., The Honest Broker: Making Sense of Science in Policy and Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2007); Don K. Price, Government and Science (New York University Press, 1954); Daniel Sarewitz, Frontiers of Illusion: Science, Technology and the Politics of Progress (Temple University Press, 1996); William Smith, Science into Policy: An Evaluation of the Use of Science in Policy Formulation, Report #80 (New Zealand Ministry of Research, Science and Technology, 1998). 2� Bruce L. R. Smith, The Advisers: Scientists in the Policy Process (The Brookings Institution, 1992), v. 3� Sheila Jasanoff, The Fifth Branch: Science Advisers as Policymakers (Harvard University Press, 1990). 4� Charles C. Gillespie, Science and Polity in France at the End of the Old Regime (Princeton University Press, 1980), ix. 5� Harvey Brooks, “The Scientific Adviser,” in Robert Gilpin and Christopher Wright, eds. Scientists and National Policy Making (Columbia University Press, 1964), 73–96. 6� B. Smith, The Advisers (1992). 7� Robert May, The Use of Scientific Advice in Policy Making (U.K. Department of Trade and Industry, Office of Science and Technology, 1997). 8� B. Smith, The Advisers, 1–2. 9� Jasanoff, The Fifth Branch, 4. 10� John Holdren, “Statement of Dr. John P. Holdren, Director-designate, Office of Science and Technology Policy, Executive Office of the President, for the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation,” United States Senate, Washington, dc, February 12, 2009, 1. 11� William Smith, Review of Expert Panels for Provision of Scientific and Technological Advice for Development of Public Policy (University of Auckland, 1997). 12� Ibid., 7, my emphasis. 13� Ibid.; W. Smith draws on S. Boehmer-Christiansen, “Reflections on Scientific Advice and EC Transboundary Pollution Policy or The Many Uses of Scientific Expertise,” paper delivered at the Scientific Expertise in European Public Policy Debate conference, London School of Economics and Political Science, September 14–15, 1994. 14� Price, Government and Science, 129. 15� Larkin Kerwin and Geraldine Kenney-Wallace, “The Canadian Situation: Evolution and Revolution in Giving Advice,” in William T. Golden, ed.

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Worldwide Science and Technology Advice to the Highest Levels of Government (Pergamon Press, 1991), 107–10, 108. 16� Others may point to the Canadian Conservation Commission. According to Doern, this 32 member, part-time advisory commission was created in 1909 and represents “the first attempt to draw the resources of the ­scientific community to the aid of government policy.” Doern, Science and Politics in Canada, 3. 17� G. Bruce Doern and Richard Levesque, The National Research Council in the Innovation Policy Era: Changing Hierarchies, Networks, and Markets (University of Toronto Press, 2002), 39. 18� Doern, Science and Politics in Canada (1972). 19� Ibid., 11. 20� Paul Dufour and John de la Mothe, eds. Science and Technology in Canada (Longman, 1993). 21� John de la Mothe, “Dollar Short and a Day Late: A Note on the Demise of the Science Council of Canada,” Queen’s Quarterly 99, no. 4 (Winter 1992), 873–86. 22� Dufour and de la Mothe, Science and Technology in Canada, 31. 23� Kerwin and Kenney-Wallace, “The Canadian Situation,” 108–9. 24� Canada, Science and Technology for the New Century: A Federal Strategy (Industry Canada, 1996), 15. 25� Canada, Mobilizing Science and Technology to Canada’s Advantage (Industry Canada, 2007), 88. 26� Science, Technology and Innovation Council website. Available at: www.stic‑csti.ca/. 27� Jasanoff, The Fifth Branch, 61. See also Daryl E. Chubin and Edward J. Hackett, Peerless Science: Peer Review and U.S. Science Policy (State University of New York Press, 1990). 28� Jasanoff, The Fifth Branch, 62. 29� May, The Use of Scientific Advice in Policy Making (1997). 30� Ibid., 5. 31� Luther J. Carter, “Canadian Science Policy: Doubts Raised about Advisory Apparatus,” Science 161 (August 2, 1968), 450–1. 32� U.S. Government Accounting Office, Federal Advisory Committee Act: Advisory Committee Process Appears to be Working but Some Concerns Exist (GAO/T-GGD–98–163, July 14, 1998). 33� de la Mothe, “Dollar Short and A Day Late,” 881. 34� G. Bruce Doern, “The Role of Central Advisory Councils: The Science Council of Canada,” in G. Bruce Doern and Peter Aucoin, eds.



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The Structures of Policy-Making in Canada (Macmillan of Canada, 1971), 246–66, 251. 35� Bill Jarvis, The Role and Responsibility of the Scientist in Public Policy (Public Policy Forum, 1998). 36� Doern, “The Role of Central Advisory Councils,” 263–4. 37� See Marc Saner, “Map of the Interface Between Science & Policy,” Staff paper, Council of Canadian Academies (January 2007). Available at: www.scienceadvice.ca; L. Sarah Wren, “Creating Common Purpose: The Integration of Science and Policy in Canada’s Public Service,” Canadian Centre for Management Development (2002); Jarvis, The Role and Responsibility of the Scientist in Public Policy (1998); Pielke, The Honest Broker (2007). 38� David Z. Beckler, “A Decision-Maker’s Guide to Science Advising,” in William T. Golden, ed. Worldwide Science and Technology Advice to the Highest Levels of Government (Pergamon Press, 1991), 28–41. 39� Ibid., 35. 40� Doern, “The Role of Central Advisory Councils,” 262–3, my emphases. 41� W. Smith, Review of Expert Panels, 12. 42� Beckler, “A Decision-Maker’s Guide to Science Advising,” 34. 43� de la Mothe, “Dollar Short and a Day Late” (1992). 44� See C. P. Snow, Science and Government (Harvard University Press, 1961); Harvey Brooks, The Government of Science (Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 1968); Beckler, “A Decision-Maker’s Guide to Science Advising” (1991). 45� See May, The Use of Scientific Advice in Policy Making (1997); csta, Science Advice for Government Excellence (Industry Canada, 1999); Canada, A Framework for Science and Technology Advice: Principles and Guidelines for the Effective Use of Science and Technology Advice in Government Decision Making (Industry Canada, 2000). 46� Ibid. 47� Jon Fixdal, “Consensus conferences as ‘extended peer groups,’” Science and Public Policy 24.6 (December 1997), 366–76, 368. 48� Ibid., 367.

8 Policies of Culturing Science and Technology in Canada markus sharaput

introduction: recurring debates and the possibility of change

It is difficult to overstate Bruce Doern’s impact on the study of ­science and technology (s&t) policy in Canada. Before he began to address the issue, policy writing on s&t (both in Canada, and on Canadian s&t policy) was relatively limited. While the national research council was in existence, s&t was typically dealt with as a support or adjunct to other policy portfolios, and was seen as a subordinate output of the Treasury Board. Doern, along with a handful of others (notably Aucoin), was one of the first to respond to the growing attention paid to s&t issues by both government and the public in the late 1960s. His specific contribution was to highlight the political nature of s&t policy. Unlike earlier authors, who approached primarily as a technical exercise, Bruce highlighted the fact that the politics of s&t were both distributed and contested.1 He responded to the recommendations of the 1963 Glassco Report (a key factor in raising the public profile of s&t) with an explicitly political assessment of their viability, and a recognition that viable s&t policy must take into account the ­ political realities of the environment in which it was formed and implemented. Dating to the period before the Glassco report, historical efforts to promote a culture for science and technology (s&t) policy in Canada have foundered on a basic problem, the inherent complexity of s&t policy itself. Defined as purposeful and goal-oriented state activity directed towards science and technology, s&t policy covers



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an enormous potential terrain. Two issues have dominated the debate. First, whether s&t activity should occur inside or outside of government, and second, whether s&t policy should be focused on stimulating independent scientific research, or whether it should stimulate research that contributes to the national interest. If these different demands could be reconciled, a consensual ideal for s&t policy would stimulate free (i.e., scientist-directed) research, including both basic and applied research, in a networked context, which in turn was embedded in government such that the research produced met national policy goals, without interference by government in the research process. To date, such a consensus has not been achieved. The dominant discourse has moved back and forth between the poles noted above, with voices representing all sides of the debate present, but experiencing changing degrees of influence. The difficulty in achieving a consensus on the goal of s&t policy is compounded by the increasing complexity of coordinating such policy. Over time, the number of stakeholders in s&t debates has grown, as has the number of agencies involved in the formation or implementation of such policy. Lindquist and Barker have characterized s&t policy as the “quintessential horizontal policy,” noting that s&t policy activity spans both government departments and interest / stakeholder coalitions.2 While this characteristic is not exclusive to s&t policy, there is a quantitative distinction. Because science and technology play critical roles in the generation of information and the deployment of capacities, they help to set the conditions of possibility for any number of fields of endeavor. This means, among other things, that s&t policy problems are fundamentally problems of coordination, not only in terms of execution and implementation, but in terms of design. The wide array of stakeholders attempting to claim a place at the table means that s&t policy is inherently subject to contestation and debate, which is born out by its problematic history in Canada. Those agencies seeking to coordinate s&t policy not only need to coordinate the policy itself, but also the wide array of secondary agencies involved with it. The complexity of s&t politics, and the role played by competing ideas in that politics, has been a recurring theme of Doern’s work. Over the course of his career, Doern continued to revisit the topic of s&t policy, notably in terms of the evolution of science capacity in government.3 His broader research (in related files such as energy, intellectual property, the environment and innovation) also helped

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to establish s&t as a horizontal file within the Canadian policy l­iterature, with connections to, and implications for, a huge variety of other sectors. Combined with Doern’s extensive role as a supervisor and mentor to young scholars working in s&t policy and its related fields (including this author), he can be credited as one of the major founders of the s&t literature, and one of the most influential ­participants of debates around s&t in the last thirty-odd years. More recently, the debates around s&t policy have been framed in terms of the viability of industrial policy. Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, during a period where neoliberal thought was dominant, the primary theme in government was arm’s-length funding of s&t activity in the basic or pre-application stage. This stemmed, in part, from a reluctance on the part of policy formulators to be seen as generating industrial policy that would interfere in the market. By the early 1990s, however, criticism had begun to be leveled against federal policy-makers that the core s&t institutions, such as the National Research Council (nrc), were failing in their mandate to stimulate research that would be of benefit to Canada. This led to a reassessment of s&t policy at the federal level. Although such criticism and reassessment had occurred in the past, the latest pattern of re-evaluation was distinct in that it complemented a simultaneous re-evaluation of the operation of government as a whole, and a relatively successful framework policy project led by Industry Canada (ic). The impact of the innovation framework was a shift in emphasis. That shift can be described by the distinction between an economic approach, and one that is ecological. Traditional debates regarding s&t in Canada were economic in their orientation. They focused on the deployment and consumption of scarce resources. Key arguments involved where those resources should be employed, and to what end they should be consumed. Innovation-based approaches, in contrast, were more concerned with the organizational relationship between points of resource concentration. How different sites of resource employment related to each other was of more concern than where those sites were located.4 Taken together, this allowed for a re-articulation of the conceptual context for s&t policy, such that it could simultaneously be viewed as both independent and harnessed to meet the needs of Canada. Although the success of this s&t response was greatest at the discursive level, it opens up opportunities for resolving a longstanding debate in the portfolio.



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historical context for debate

There is little that is novel in the critique of s&t policy. In point of fact, the criticisms leveled against the federal s&t regime in the early 1990s emerged directly from those leveled at the end of the 1960s. It is evident that throughout the latter part of the twentieth century, there existed some form of barrier to the successful resolution of debates around s&t policy. In a 1966 Massey lecture, Paul Goodman made explicit reference to a fundamental conflict in any government effort to stimulate science: that it involved efforts to use a bureaucratic procedure (policy formation and implementation) to stimulate a non-bureaucratic process. For Goodman, scientific research was essentially anarchic, and consequently resistant to the organized, hierarchical mechanisms of government. He noted that while large firms (the kind typically addressed by s&t policy in the 1960s) may have performed science, the bulk of real breakthroughs came from smaller firms and actors who were not embedded in government relationships, and which lacked larger firms’ disincentives to systemic change.5 At the same time, Goodman argued that increasingly, science was embedded in a framework (whether governmental or industrial) that limited its capacity for free enquiry and transformative potential. Contemporary science, consequently, had less to do with progress or human-scale utility than it had to do with achieving political and economic goals devised according to a limited and non-utilitarian agenda.6 In terms of the Canadian experience, debates contemporary to Goodman’s lecture focused less on the normative role science should play, and more on the role it was not playing in the Canadian economy. Concern focused, if anything, on the failure to adequately embed science in such a way as to secure its benefits. In other words, while Goodman was concerned that science was too embedded in the socio-political power struggle to cause beneficial change, authors such as Lithwick, as well as government Reports such as the Glassco or Lamontagne, argued that science in Canada was inadequately embedded, such that it was failing to produce beneficial change (i.e., change consistent with national goals). Lithwick railed against an s&t policy directed primarily by the desires of scientific researchers, rather than the needs of national policy, a situation he ascribed to the lack of overarching social policy.7 There could be no science policy, he suggested, until such social policy was devised. In the mean

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time, the success of science policy would continue to be judged by the extent to which it allowed researchers to achieve self-defined goals. He also noted the growing share of medical research in terms of the total budget, despite “increasing evidence that the great social returns in terms of health will not result from medical but from environmental science.”8 Government, he suggested, was increasingly reliant on science both for “the right answers,” and for decisionmaking about what science was to be performed, a criticism that would recur in later years. Interestingly, the basic elements of Lithwick’s critique were echoed by the oecd the same year. It noted that while Canada had done an excellent job since World War II of building up its science capacity, it had failed to fully harness the “scientific potential” it had produced. The oecd advocated seeking to “give a more definite structure to the science policy machinery and endeavour to define the means in terms of the ends.”9 This surge in interest in the role s&t policy played in Canada may in part have been a product of the 1963 Glassco Report, which provided the first set of reliable data on Research and Development (r&d) patterns in Canada, covering the years from 1951 to 1961.10 Almost a decade later, the critiques leveled by Lithwick and the oecd were reiterated in the Lamontagne Report (1970–74), which noted that the period from 1945 to 1963 was characterized by a failure of Canadian science policy to meet its public duties to industry. The Report laid blame for this failure squarely on the shoulders of the National Research Council (nrc), which until the 1970s played a primary role in devising and ­implementing science policy in Canada.11 the pre-innovation context

One might expect that by the 1990s, the issues raised in the Glassco and Lamontagne reports would have been resolved. This, however, was not the case. The 1994 Auditor General’s Report devoted a chapter to a scathing review of the federal government’s s&t record. It noted that “with all the efforts in the last 30 years to provide some overall direction and to streamline the management of science and technology activities, the Office believes it would be reasonable to expect the government to have a clear sense of what it is trying to achieve through those activities and to direct its efforts in a way that would yield maximum return. Unfortunately, as Chapter 9 reports,



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that is not the case.”12 The Report went on to suggest that historically, the allocation of research funds in Canada had been more incidental than strategic. To some extent, it echoed Lithwick’s critique from 1969, noting that there “has been much activity but few results. Previous government-wide reviews have not produced resultsoriented action plans that lay out priorities to meet Canada’s economic and social needs and opportunities. Some of this lack of progress can be attributed to a lack of overall government-wide leadership, direction, and accountability for implementing desired changes.”13 For both the Auditor General and Lithwick, it was the lack of overall vision that led to the haphazard nature of policy and investment in s&t. The Report went on to claim that “successful development and implementation of a true strategy will require the joint effort of federal departments, provinces, industry and universities, and persistence and leadership by Cabinet. This may require a revised structure for science and technology in the federal government.”14 In other words, not only would a coherent s&t policy require a coherent s&t vision, it would require an effective coordination effort to realize that vision. The stress critics placed on coordination and coherent vision became problematic in the early 1990s due to a number of factors. First, the polarization of s&t debates remained strong as ever. Government agencies were torn between stimulating free, basic, self-directed research on the part of the scientific community, while at the same time ensuring that funding dollars went to projects with demonstrable, and favourable results. At the same time, policymakers were faced with the choice of where to fund s&t activity, whether in the government itself, or outside of it, in academic or industrial sectors. Gualtieri noted, in 1994, a growing tendency to favour “oriented basic research,” defined in the oecd’s Frascati manual as research without direct applicability, but with the expectation of applicability to current or future problems.15 The shift toward oriented basic research allowed s&t agents the opportunity to continue to support basic research (maintaining claims to scientific relevance and legitimacy), while still being able to demonstrate results. At the same time, it allowed policymakers to avoid accusations that they were selecting winners across industrial sectors, and using industrial policy to interefere with market dynamics. The concern with market interference was characteristic of the period. Neoliberal ideology had taken root in governments including

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Canada, and had ramifications for policymakers. Although the more radical adherents of neoliberal orthodoxy challenged the continued relevance of the state, it more commonly represented a claim that states would benefit from adopting market mechanisms, rendered more efficient by the competitive pressure exerted by market dynamics. In policy spheres, this manifested in the New Public Management (npm) movement.16 The npm discourse had two main components. One followed in the footsteps of public choice theory with a general critique of bureaucratic institutions. The second focused on a shift in emphasis from substantive to procedural policy; states were to focus less on what they were doing, and more on how they were doing it (which is to say, by adopting improved methods of doing policy, the policy that resulted would necessarily be better).17 The attack by npm proponents on traditional bureaucratic hierarchy and organization led some critics to dismiss it as an attempt at the marketisation of the state.18 The combination of this critique with procedural prescription, however, made npm far more sophisticated than its public choice predecessor. npm advocated dis-embedding of state agencies from their ­traditional hierarchies, the formation of partnerships and consultation relationships with private and third sector partners, and an emphasis on client-centred service delivery. The net effect of these prescriptions would be the alteration of both policy sub-systems and the larger environment in which they functioned.19 It meant a shift from substantive methods of socio-economic intervention to procedural management of a broader network of policy stakeholders.20 Taken together, these changes were described as a shift from government to governance. Although not exclusive to the npm project, the focus on procedural governance dovetailed closely with the neoliberal critique of government intervention, and the desire for a system of public management that maximized the impact of the market and market mechanisms. A key reform in early npm literature was a shift towards “results oriented” funding.21 Neoliberal and npm theorists argued that traditionally, both politicians and bureaucrats had incentives to reward constituents by funding policy inputs. By shifting emphasis toward rewarding success, one could eliminate wasteful or partisan programs, and improve the ones retained. This, in turn, required a shift from political evaluation (were state actors doing the right thing?)



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toward procedural and evidence-based evaluation (were state actors doing things right, and were they using appropriate means of ­determining what was going on?).22 The focus on procedural reform and science-based decision-making found expression in the s&t debates, insofar as s&t policy increasingly created demand for science-based policy capacity. Science was viewed as an efficient source of the “right” answers. Doern and Reed make a useful distinction between science (or s&t) policy and sciencebased policy. The latter involves the incorporation of scientific capacity into government and government decision-making, “where scientific knowledge and personnel constitute significant or effective inputs into, or are distinctive features of, the relevant decision-making process.”23 Science policy cannot be directly equated with sciencebased policy, though one might reasonably expect the latter to inform the former. Doern and Reed are also careful to note that sciencebased information is not the only contributor to policy decisions. Any number of sectors will have policy expertise distributed across institutional boundaries, and conflicts over policy formation can sometimes be attributed to conflicts over the source of expertise used to inform policy recommendations (whether, for example, to formulate based on science or industrial-economic priorities). The increased profile of science-based policy in the federal government, coupled with the expectation of measurable outcomes and policy relevance in s&t, provided the framework of debate in the early 1990s, organized around the question of what the relationship between the federal government and its sources of science capacity should be? On the one hand, in order to make evidence-based decisions and evaluate policy outcomes, the government required effective science-based policy capacity that was oriented toward, and met the needs of, government. On the other hand, if these resources were to be scientific, they could not be subject to the kind of political interference that Goodman warned about in the 1960s. Compounding the problem was what Doern and Reed refer to as a science deficit. They note that for the last fifteen years, funding to science budgets and the scientist supporting federal policy had been cut, with increases in funding going to the partnered, linked, and networked agencies noted above, with particular growth noted in those third-party foundations at greatest distance from day-to-day policy formation in government.24 The issue of how to resolve or correct this deficit was subject to debate. There has been historical

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disagreement over whether or not it is even possible to have “good” science (ie., the kind of science that generates reliable information useable by governments to mitigate risk) within government itself, due to the risk of political interference.25 Attempts to counter this problem in the 1990s resulted in a sudden proliferation of “arm’slength” agencies with a fluid relationship to the core institutions of s&t policy. the nrc and the proliferation of s&t agencies

Since the 1990s, the role of s&t agencies such as the National Research Council (nrc) has undergone ongoing change. Such institutions have been caught, historically, between their role as facilitators of independent, self-directed and science-driven research, and their role as instruments of strategic and national policy.26 The difficulty, for drafters of s&t policy, is that both outcomes are desirable, yet are commonly viewed as more or less exclusive. Attempts to resolve this tension in Canada have tended to founder on the inability of the drafting agency to coordinate sufficient institutional resources to surpass this contradiction. As Doern and Levesque note, the nrc went through a challenging transformation in the 1990s.27 Historically, the nrc has embodied the dualist vision of s&t policy in Canada. It simultaneously was expected to fund and facilitate independent scientific research, while at the same time, was intended to promote research that would be of importance to Canada. While these two roles are not necessarily in conflict, there exists a recurring potential for conflict to emerge. In the 1990s, this conflicting mandate was further challenged by cuts to budgets and personnel at the same time that the nrc was incorporated into a wider innovation-stimulating framework. Although this resulted in a variety of different pressures on the nrc, it was the impact of increasing network relations, coupled with the nrc’s role as a granting and funding agency, that are of particular interest to this discussion.28 It was the nrc’s role as a granting and funding agency29 that influenced its identity within the emerging s&t / innovation network; the question was to whom the nrc gave money and why. While in its early mandate, the granting function (for basic research) was primary, in the period under discussion, it was the nrc’s role as a



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funder of institutions that was increasingly relevant, particularly as a funder of industry, universities, and academic science. While the industrial funding role was, and remains most significant, via the Industrial Research Assistance Program (irap), in periods of fiscal restraint, the share of funding given to large science projects in universities tended to grow.30 As the nrc became incorporated into the emerging innovation framework, the funding role to universities was complemented by irap’s focus on funding small-to-medium enterprises (smes), companies with 50 or fewer employees) which were identified in that framework as key sites of growth, particularly in terms of jobs.31 In terms of an internal research capacity, the nrc’s capabilities in this area were contested over its history. An early focus was on military research, and other forms of support for the war effort in World War II (this research focus was transferred to the Defence Research Board in the post-War era, turning the nrc into what Doern and Levesque refer to as a “university without students”).32 The development of this capacity was not prompted by any political support for developing a science capacity within the federal government, but rather, had more to do with federal-provincial competition. Ontario’s initiation of a provincial lab program prompted a response by the federal government to generate a similar capacity. By the mid 1960s, increasing criticism stemming from the Glasco and Lamontagne Reports prompted a reevaluation of the role of the nrc. Both reports charged that the nrc had failed in its basic mandate to stimulate industries of benefit to Canada, and suggested that the funding emphasis shift to more result-oriented and targeted research. This led to a reform of the nrc in which business and industry were to have greater influence over funding allocation.33 By the 1990s, this resulted in the creation of permanent advisory boards, replacing more temporary advisory councils. At the same time, the nrc differentiated between labs, delineated by scientific discipline, and institutions, which were inter-disciplinary and clustered around particular projects or targets. Doern and Levesque suggest that the critical period of ­transformation for the nrc was in 1990–91, in which the nrc took on its current form as a tech transfer and information agency.34 The 1990s, they argue, were dominated by a shift from an orientation of competitiveness, to one of innovation. The transition created a somewhat competitive relationship with ic, which during the same period was

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attempting to enact a horizontal innovation framework predicated on the association of the two concepts. Although nominally part of Industry, the nrc operated independently, and was not fully integrated into the ic project. Perhaps in response, the federal government initiated a series of alternative funding agencies and science networks, for example the Canadian Foundation of Innovation (cfi), Canadian Institutes of Health Research (cihr), and the Networks of Centres of Excellence (nce). Although the latter, especially, had connections to both ic and the nrc, the expansion of the institutional infrastructure for s&t policy tended to undermine the ­centrality of the nrc to s&t policy development in Canada. The Networks of Centres of Excellence Program was an offshoot of the nserc, the agency which took over direct granting from the nrc in 1978. The nce program was a forerunner of other networked programs like the cihr and cfi. It is identified by Doern and Levesque as one of three key impacts the formation of the nserc has had on the nrc (the other two being nserc’s efforts to extend university-industry links and its role as a program co-founder with the nrc). Within government, the nserc-founded networks were viewed as a more decentralized and distributed approach to stimulating s&t activity.35 It also was viewed as having a better track record at expanding its available resources. In comparison, the cfi and cihr were even more successful at garnering funding. For example, while the immediate post-deficit era resulted in an investment of $13 billion invested in r&d by 1997, the distribution of that money strongly favoured universities and industrial partners of programs like the cfi and cihr.36 The base budget of the nrc, along with other traditional performers of s&t within the federal government (such as Health Canada, Natural Resources or Environment Canada) essentially stagnated.37 Di Salle notes that “between 1997 and 2003, Statistics Canada reports that the amount of r&d preformed annually by the federal government has increased from $1.7 billion to $2.1 billion or 24 per cent. In comparison, funding for research performed by the higher education sector has doubled from $3.9 billion to $7.8 billion and industry r&d spending increased by 42 per centfrom $8.7 billion to $12.3 billion.”38 Doern and Levesque suggest this “pecking order” in federal ­funding has to do with the association of a given agency with particular issues, and the leverage this gives bureaucrats and politicians in securing funding. For example, it is relatively easy to establish a link



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between health research and health care, or to secure funding for a “hot” project like the innovation framework. The nrc, explicitly associated with neither a priority single-issue, nor a favoured policy project, had to struggle to compete for funding streams. The nrc struggled with a perception that it was “too close to Ottawa in government, rather than being responsive to industry and market demands. In other words, that it was a tool of government policy, rather than a support to industry.”39 Di Salle suggests that the decentralized model resulting in a de-emphasis on the nrc was not only a product of preferential funding, but also was a response to an increasingly unstable and evolving technological context.40 A networked system, rather than a hierarchical and centralized one, allows for a more flexible response to change. In addition, Di Salle suggests, it is important to note that successful growth of the funding stream of an institution like the nserc is not without consequences. It exposes an agency to increased oversight and pressure to demonstrate tangible results from programs, while at the same time creating demand for further budgetary increases that may or may not be forthcoming. The early- and mid-1990s saw a rapid proliferation of s&t ­agencies at the same time that it saw the federal government under increased pressure to use science in decision-making. Fiscal restraint, active throughout the middle of the decade, was gradually eased after 1997, resulting not in a flood of money to existing s&t resources, but rather the expansion of the s&t community. At the same time this (somewhat counter-intuitive) process was in play, the government founded two inter-related initiatives. The first was a comprehensive review of s&t policy. The second was a coordinated effort by ic to reshape the conceptual environment in which s&t policy would be developed. the s&t review and industry canada’s innovation framework

Until the 1990s, an ongoing debate between advocates of basic versus applied research, and between advocates of independent versus inhouse s&t activity dominated the conceptual environment for s&t policy formation. By the end of the 1990s, a new framework for conceptualizing s&t policy was emerging. It was made possible by three factors. First, the proliferation of s&t agencies noted above,

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along with the effort to organize them into a networked system. Second, by a process of comprehensive s&t review. Third, and most importantly, it was made possible by the incorporation of the review into a larger project spearheaded by ic, that sought to rearticulate the role of ic in terms compatible with both neoliberal and globalization theory, and ensure an interventionary role in the economy that could be reconciled with emerging expectations of government. The s&t review process began in 1993, and culminated in 1996 with the release of a final report, Science and Technology for the New Century – A Federal Strategy.41 The report resulted in the formation of a s&t Advisory Committee (stac), which continued to issue annual assessments of s&t policy through the remainder of the 1990s. These reports provide a concise annual evaluation of the overall logic of Canadian s&t policy, with a focus on enumerating r&d benchmarks. They also served to transmit a set of core ideas closely associated with the emerging innovation framework being generated by ic. From its inception, the s&t review process was concerned with two key issues. First, how to respond to the ongoing problems of s&t policy formation, and second, how to do so in an environment dominated by change (driven primarily by the rapid development of technology and the increased exposure and inter-connection of globalization)? Most of the s&t Reports began with a preamble that stressed the challenge the federal government faced from a changing context, including the pressures of globalization, increased trans­ parency, and the transition to a knowledge-based economy.42 The Reports tended to focus most on the impact of new technologies, and the challenges and opportunities they afforded government. They suggested that globalization, rather than simply being a challenge to the state, also afforded an opportunity, provided that government seize upon the new capabilities that the technologies driving globalization afforded.43 In other words, the s&t review process made an explicit association between the science-based capacity issues explored by Doern and Reed, and the process of globalization. According to the s&t Reports, it was not only possible for ­government to benefit from technological change, but it was necessary for government to do so if it was to take on a coordinating role in the new “knowledge economy.” The need for such a coordinator was increasingly advocated, both by the stac, and by its “thirdparty” equivalent, the Council of s&t Advisors (csta).



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The 1996 s&t report identified five core goals. These included the development of a more systematic approach to move new ideas from conception through to the development of commercial products and services; the development of a stronger science culture to identify and support the development of strategic technologies; setting clear priorities and measurable goals for investment in science and technology; increasing the role played by government laboratories in commercializing technology; and the implementation of measures to support the rapid dissemination of technical knowledge to industry. Taken together, the implementation of these goals required treating innovation as a managed project, one with clearly defined goals and benchmarks. They confirmed the role of a governmental agency providing coordinating expertise and oversight; with ic actively pursuing this role in the period, it is not surprising that the stac ultimately became one of the dominant policy instruments of the ic project. Perhaps the most significant contribution of the stac was to develop a degree of policy capacity in the area of innovation, to disseminate the association between the ideas of innovation, competition and globalization within government, and to keep the innovation agenda visible. The primary vector for this was the advisory role played by the subordinate advisory Committees generated through the s&t process. The Committees transmitted the core conceptual referents of the Industry Canada national innovation system (icnis), and helped to establish common terms of reference across Ministerial boundaries. A critical example was the concept of a national innovation system itself, which was in explicit use by the s&t Committees by 1997. The annual report stated that “analysts have coined the phrase ‘national system of innovation’ to describe the intricate set of institutions, links and interdependencies on which modern societies now depend. This innovation system functions within the constraints of a complex world ecosystem. A productive national system of innovation can generate the knowledge that society needs to make environmentally sustainable decisions, produce sustainable economic growth, and support a high quality of life for current and future generations. Because of the close connection between the success of the innovation system and the need to achieve sustainable development, the various players, many of whom have been adversaries in the past, need to form partnerships. Having all parts of society working together toward common goals is key to determining the quality of life Canadians can expect in the future”.44

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By 2001, the s&t reports were explicit in their call for a central coordinating actor in government, noting that “despite the demonstrated value and success of federal government collaboration in s&t, the Council of Science and Technology Advisors reported the need to manage federal s&t resources more strategically with a horizontal approach across federal departments as a key step in fully integrating federally performed r&d into the national innovation system.”45 It should perhaps not be surprising that ic was to take on this coordinating role, given that at the same time the s&t review process was underway, it was developing a comprehensive horizontal policy framework based on the idea of ic as the central coordinating authority in an emerging national innovation system. If ic was to take on this role, it would face more than typical pressure to develop its s&t capacities. ic began a deliberate program of identifying hightechnology sectors whose regulatory profiles had horizontal implications, and accumulating expertise in the associated technology. A national innovation system (nis) consists of the complex ­interplay of innovating institutions and their larger supporting context. In discussing innovation systems, a first priority is to distinguish between the concepts of innovation, innovation policy, and the innovation system. Innovation implies more than incremental improvements in technology. It also refers to the ways those incremental improvements are embedded in the social fabric.46 A second key factor in the analysis of innovation came from economic macrogrowth theory. Lipsey notes that a critical contributing insight was the characterization of knowledge as a non-rivalrous good. Knowledge, as a marketable good, does not compete with itself. This allowed for a re-conception of economic growth consistent with emerging theories of the knowledge economy, including a developing understanding of innovation and innovation systems.47 The idea of knowledge-driven growth, coupled with the constant addition of contributing factors to the process of innovation, eventually found its final expression in the idea of the innovation system. An innovation system consists of the network of institutions that host and channel the process of innovation, as well as the interaction between them. It is this dynamic set of institutions that allow change to occur and to have an effect. Niosi notes that “it is not one type of institution that creates a system, but the simultaneous existence and the pattern of interaction of a series of institutions, and the feedback that they receive from the surrounding ­environment.



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These patterns of interaction must be such that the output of each type of institution must be reinforced by the operation of the other related institutions.”48 An innovation system’s primary functions are the integration of component elements and the transmission of information between these elements and between the system and its environment. An innovation system thus involves more than innovative capacity or the process of innovation; it also incorporates the various systemic elements which support this process; an innovation system implies not just a way of doing (innovation), but a way of being (innovative). Within any particular innovation system, core elements such as industry, academy and government are integrated in networked clusters with reflexive lines of communication, and are grounded in a structure which permits flows of information between this integrated structure and the market as a whole, so as to allow the system to quickly respond to market demands.49 This focus on institutional organization links discussion of innovation systems to the broader debates surrounding globalization, the state, and policy.50 If one’s focus is on the specific dynamics of institutional organization, then the analytic importance one assigns to those dynamics becomes a critical question. Early arguments regarding innovation systems dealt with the idea at a national level.51 They drew on institutional analysis of the state to focus attention on the specificities which characterised states, and distinguished between their innovation systems. Niosi notes that: the concept of national systems of innovation tries to capture some of these national specificities. In the more strict sense, national systems of innovation are defined as r & d systems: sets of organizations (universities, government laboratories, and industrial enterprises with r&d capabilities) that contribute to the creation of new and improved products and processes within national boundaries.52 The environment of these innovating agencies is sustained by financial and government institutions and organizations that fund, regulate, and support innovation. These organizations are linked by flows of personnel, funding, information, and regulations, as well as cooperative agreements and competition. But the relative importance of the three main components (academia, government-run labs, and industry) as well as the type of links between them, vary from

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one country to another. When the public and financial environment is included, one is defining a national system of innovation.53 As with other ­ institutional literature, early studies of innovation systems focused on the idiosyncrasies of, and differences between, different systems.54 The nis in Canada has historically been characterized by a number of important limitations. Among these are the relatively low overall spending on r&d, particularly when expressed as Gross Expenditure on Research and Development (gerd), or the spending on r&d expressed as a proportion of Gross Domestic Product (gdp). Low overall spending levels are accompanied by proportionately low levels of spending by industry, and a relatively high proportion by the Canadian government. Compounding this factor is the high degree of foreign direct ownership of the Canadian economy.55 A telling indicator of the combined effect of these limitations is that 80 per cent of patents filed in Canada are filed by foreigners. The net effect of these behaviour patterns has been to encourage Canadian actors to adopt, rather than develop technology; the bulk of what innovative activity did occur tended to be concentrated in areas with pre-existing resources and cultures of innovative activity, namely, the core urban metropoles dominating the Canadian economy. These limitations also account for the strong regional variation in innovative specialization by region.56 It is the immaterial assets distinct to the region (what Wolfe terms ‘untraded interdependencies’) which create the supporting linkages of the innovation system.57 Similarly, the historical accumulation of these assets and interdependencies tend to frame the development of local competencies, which in turn reinforce the tendency to build on what is already known.58 Increasingly, academic attention has focused on the regional scale, both because of the challenges involved in defining it, and because of the close association of the approach to existing traditions of economic analysis. While there is some validity to this argument, it is important to remember that innovation system policy, i.e. the deliberate attempt by states to foster the development of an innovation system which will in turn foster competitive success, is strategic in nature and formulated at the level of national space. It consists of efforts by states to adapt their policy strategies in the new environment of globalization, so as to foster the development of a competitive



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advantage for firms operating within the space of the state in question. While innovation systems may emerge organically at the regional level, states still seek to connect and coordinate such systems at the national level, and remain one of the primary mechanisms for ­coordination between hosted regions and their global counterparts. This means that national innovation systems emerge primarily as coordinating systems for economic growth. In other words, in the context of an “innovative economy” (with all the consequent references to globalization, new spaces and technologies, etc.), such systems operate as national economic policies, situated at the level of the state; successful globalization requires successful innovation, and successful innovation requires successful innovation systems policy. partial success of the innovation framework

The innovation framework developed by ic, and disseminated through both horizontal policy files and the advisory councils of the s&t process, consisted of a dual effort to develop the existing innovation system, while defining a place for ic as the central coordinator of that system. Culminating in the release of the 2002 White Paper on Innovation, the framework sought to resolve the conceptual impasse that had dominated discussion of s&t policy since the 1960s. While at a conceptual and discursive level the project was successful, the ability of ic to implement the framework, and transform the Canadian nis, was ultimately hampered by its lack of access to critical macro-economic instruments, and its failure to coordinate with key central agencies. Between 1993, when the federal Liberals under Jean Chrétien were first elected, and 2003, when the stability of that government’s policy formation was interrupted by internal division, external transition (to the post 9-11 environment), and jostling among successors, the Liberal government, spearheaded by ic, produced a succession of documents outlining Canada’s strategic response to globalization. These documents, the icnis were not revolutionary by any means; many of the recommendations made in the documents had pedigrees stretching back decades. They were distinguished, however, by two key factors. First, they were consistent in their conception and internal logic.59 Second, they were implemented with a reasonable degree of success by a Department able to reconcile government intervention with both the fiscal austerity supported by other portfolios, such

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as Finance, and with the regulatory environment created by Canada’s participation in international treaties and organization, particularly the nafta and the World Trade Organization (wto). The ability of ic to create policy consistent with these regulatory limits, combined with the opportunity to produce a consistent body of policy, made possible the emergence of a framework approach which subtly but significantly redefined the role of the federal government in the Canadian economy. At the same time, the tactics employed by ic to achieve this end meant that the ostensible goal of the framework, the establishment of a national innovation system coordinated by Industry, became difficult to achieve. From the 1970s onwards, ic assumed a role within the federal government in which it took over potentially problematic or controversial policy files. While ic was understood to be acting on behalf of the government as a whole, it also provided a degree of useful insulation and deniability. While this allowed ic to assume a coordinating role for the framework policy, crossing horizontal policy boundaries and ensuring a degree of inter-­ministerial cooperation, it also meant that innovation became an ic issue, rather than an issue for the government as a whole. As noted, however, there is a dependant relationship between innovation and innovation systems. Innovation, as a process, relies on a supporting system. The changes represented by innovation, or expanding the practice of innovation, depend on the same systemic supports. In the Canadian case, they required a structural shift away from the economic foundations (and institutional arrangements supporting them) that had characterized the country to date. Innovation required more than the coordination of industrial policy, it also required changes to the tax regime, the policies of the central bank, property law, labour, employment, and immigration policy, the active cooperation of Finance (rather than simply a passive non-resistance), to name just a few. Characterizing innovation policy and the formation of a national innovation system as an ic issue (despite the developing links between trade and industrial policy) ensured that support for this wider project would be lacking. Although the pedigree of the icnis extended well back into the 1970s, it was itself the product of (for want of better phrase) accepting the developing global regulatory environment. It was formed after the Liberal government broke with its election promise and upheld the nafta in 1993, and the bulk of it was developed after



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the transition of the gatt process into the wto in 1995. This is significant, in that the icnis represents one of the first long-term policy projects to completely internalize the basic rationale of the globalization project, that national economies could no longer ­compete on the basis of tariff protections or border restrictions, and more importantly, that new sectors could not be expected to develop under such conditions without penalty.60 Growth strategies now had to depend on the inherent potential and competitiveness of the sector in question, and successful exploitation of ‘enabling technologies’, those technologies with significant spillover effects in the economy. Moreover, it was now understood that governments had to adapt their economic strategies in order to retain their economic relevance without violating the restrictions mandated by regulatory treaty. Throughout the icnis, ic identified specific targets and goals, both for the government and for the country as a whole. In one element of the 2002 White Paper, the ‘knowledge performance challenge,’ intended to promote both innovative practice and the rapid adoption of new techniques into the market, the focus was on creating links between key actors, building up innovative capacity within universities, industry, and the government itself, as well as filling in gaps of expertise. Funding increases were initiated across all three sectors, but they tended to take the form of indirect resource provision. Expertise was loaned where applicable, for example, providing assistance to universities in finding market applications and private sector partnerships for new technology, and creating them if ­otherwise lacking. A key goal was to create links between and within these sectors. Small to medium sized enterprises (smes) were identified as critical factors for growth, yet such small firms tended to operate in ignorance of the various resources available to them. The knowledge performance challenge, consequently, granted specific funding to the nrc in order to educate such smes, and help them create partnerships both within Canada and internationally. It was hoped that existing methods of communication (such as funding links) could serve to disseminate information throughout a more integrated community. A second key goal involved the creation of an innovation ­environment. This meant the regulatory climate set by both governmental incentives for innovation, and the stewardship regimes that ensured that Canadians enjoyed the benefits of innovative activity.61 The challenge of the innovation environment was to manage innovation, to harness its creative potential, while transforming or deflecting

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its destructive tendencies. Innovative capacity (or competitiveness) was treated as a natural resource; something the government had an obligation to manage on behalf, and in the interests, of the public. What distinguished innovative capacity from other, more traditional resources was its destructive potential. If the transformative potential of innovation was left to develop unchecked and without guidance, some of the transformations it produces will have negative consequences.62 Even its positive potential would not necessarily be harnessed in favour of the Canadian public. ic, by rearticulating the government’s role as the public’s “innovation steward,” had found a way to reassert the government’s necessity to that public, and redefine its role in Canadian society. In the process of re-articulation, the government noted three key factors for consideration. First, that developing a managerial capacity regarding innovation depended on the extent to which government could acquire and coordinate new knowledge. Managing innovation demanded understanding innovation. Second, that innovation was an accelerating process. Government must not only acquire and manage information, they must do so in a timely fashion. Third, that the process of globalization, associated with the innovative economy, had a multiplying effect on the responsibilities of government. The competitive environment of globalization pitted states against each other in the race for investment and skilled personnel, at the same time that states must cooperate to deal with issues such climate change and disease control. The management of innovation thus took place in a context where the key actors were required to understand an accelerating process pitting them in competition against those with whom they had to coordinate projects of universal importance.63 As an innovation strategy, and an attempt to develop a national innovation system for the purpose of economic development, the icnis was consistently oriented towards a number of key goals. Initially, the goal of transformation was limited to the government, insofar as it focussed on implementing methods of regulating and governing ‘better.’64 By the time of its maturation in the Innovation White Paper, however, the project had expanded. The focus on embedding innovative behaviour within the larger fabric of society meant that the icnis was concerned with changing how the country worked. Most important was increasing the extent to which the Canadian economy relied on innovative, high-productivity (the two



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terms, in the conceptual space of the icnis, were interchangeable) sectors for its growth and competitive success. Second was the goal of transforming the Canadian workforce, and Canadian society as a whole, in order to embed a national innovation system that could generate and sustain the innovative potential needed for a ­productivityled innovation strategy. Third was the attempt to position ic as the clearing house for, and the coordinator of, innovative activity within the Canadian national innovation system itself. Last was the attempt to position within the federal government the “innovation policy file” as the key horizontal logic coordinating federal policy. The icnis gave ic an unprecedented opportunity to resolve the debates which had plagued s&t policy since the 1960s. The kind of network envisioned by ic, coordinated by but not subject to government agency intervention, meant that the internal – external debate became moot. The barrier imposed by the limits of government was blurred beyond significance by the networked innovation system. At the same time, the dynamics of the innovation system moderated the tension between basic and applied research. All research in an innovation system had the potential for application, and the linkages inherent in the system facilitated finding application for research pursued for interest’s sake. Moreover, the application to which research was put was expected to match the needs and desires of the state, insofar as it was the state (through the Department of Industry) that coordinated the system. Finally, the needs and desires of the state were articulated through its relationship with, and sensitivity to, the competitiveness demands of industry at large. At a conceptual level, the icnis offered a perfect solution. It resolved the tensions inherent to the discourse of s&t debates in Canada, while simultaneously repositioning ic as the pivotal s&t player. In practise, however, the icnis was less successful. Recall that within the conceptual environment informing innovation systems theory, competitiveness, innovation, and globalization were closely related, if not equated. By fostering the institutions of innovative competitiveness, ic sought to embed the globalization process within the institutional fabric of government. It did so by framing globalization as a transition to an innovation-led, productivity-driven economic model that required government intervention to function. It managed to embed this vision by drawing on traditional mechanisms, including the long association of ic with risky or potentially volatile policy portfolios; it would have free reign to define the issue,

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so long as the issue remained specific to ic (and it did not transgress the instrumental boundaries imposed by the compromise with the Department of Finance). The insulation of industrial policy from other critical policy files, however (such as finance and trade), the very insulation which made it possible for ic to appropriate the innovation agenda, also ensured that the Department would be unable to enact the kind of broad-based institutional change that the innovation agenda required to be, in fact, innovative. The horizontal strategy employed in the icnis ensured the transmission of the innovative logic to any area to which ic could connect, but it also ensured that this horizontal industrial ‘coalition’ would be the extent of the project. conclusion

Canada remains an s&t laggard. Our gerd still falls well short of our G8 peers, and our economy, despite more than a decade of effort remains both resource-dependant and vulnerable to economic fluctuations in our main trading partner. In the end, the pragmatic effects of the innovation strategy developed by ic were negated by the very factors that ensured its discursive success: its close association with a Department that had developed as a policy cut-out for the rest of government. To some extent, this failure was predicted by Bruce Doern more than thirty years ago. Doern noted that the very horizontality of s&t policy, that factor that made it so broad reaching in its application, was also its most significant political liability. The absence of clearly defined boundaries of responsibility, and of a coordinated client base, meant that whenever a minister responsible for s&t (or in its later incarnation, innovation) came into conflict with a minister from a more specific portfolio, the s&t advocate could not muster the same degree of political influence. Wide distribution of influence was bought at the price of limited ability to concentrate political power.65 The icnis has yet to resolve this fundamental political difficulty faced by advocates of the profile. Despite this broader failure, the icnis is a fruitful topic of study. If nothing else, it has shaken up how it is possible to approach the study of Canadian s&t policy, and shown that it is possible to change the conceptual context in which such policy is made. One of Bruce Doern’s most significant legacies has been to entrench the fact that ideas matter, both in politics and in policy. Their impact,



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however, has to be understood in context. The shift away from zerosum, economic-based thinking, and toward more systemic, ecological thinking, could yet bear important fruit. The spill-over effects of the American financial crisis have amply illustrated the dangers of relying on traditional industries, and the need to diversify the Canadian economy. Innovation systems and their potential for changing ideas about s&t policy will play a role in that process. The inability of ic to produce a wider transformation meant that the potential of innovation approaches have yet to be fully realized in the development of s&t policy in Canada. Developing that potential will require building a broader coalition, one with real access to mechanisms of macro-economic change. The conditions that might produce such a coalition remain an item of debate.

notes

1� For example, see N. H. Lithwick. Canada’s Science Policy and the Economy. (Methuen, 1969). Lithwick is one of the few significant ­monographs to predate Doern’s Science and Politics in Canada. (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1972). It is primarily a technical ­exercise, ­querying the assumptions made by the Economic Council of Canada regarding the impact of s&t expenditure on economic growth in Canada. What makes Lithwick so interesting is that he was clearly frustrated by precisely those factors of interest to Doern, namely, the politics (both internal and external) that set government priorities. For Lithwick, politics was something which occluded the policy process; for Doern, it was a factor which must be considered in order to understand that ­process. Interestingly, many of Doern’s observations were confirmed in F. Ronald Hayes. The Chaining of Prometheus: Evolution of a Power Structure for Canadian Science. (University of Toronto, 1973). Hayes had personal experience of the politics Doern described, and confirmed their ­significance in the ­formation of s&t policy in Canada. 2� E. Lindquist and M. Barker, “Central Agencies, Horizontal Issues, and Precarious Values: coordinating Science Policy in the Federal government,” in G. B. Doern and T. Reed, eds. Risky Business: Canada’s Changing Science-Based Policy and Regulation Regime (University of Toronto Press, 2000), 334. 3� For recent examples, see G. B. Doern and T. Reed, eds. Risky Business: Canada’s Changing Science-Based Policy and Regulation Regime

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(University of Toronto Press, 2000) and G. Bruce Doern and Jeffrey S. Kinder. Strategic Science in the Public Interest : Canada’s Government Laboratories and Science-based Agencies. (University of Toronto Press, 2007). 4� A traditional definition of ecology states that it is the study of the ­relationship of the organism to its environment. More recent ­developments are explicitly concerned with the relationship and flow of energy between elements in a biological system. While innovation policy is obviously not biological in the traditional sense, and can be adequately described in terms of “networks” or a “systems approach,” the economic vs. ecological metaphor immediately captures the distinction between s&t approaches and those of innovation. The former is concerned with the production, distribution, and consumption of resources, while the latter is concerned with the relationship between dynamic elements in a system. 5� P. Goodman, “The Morality of Scientific Technology,” in The Lost Massey Lectures: Recovered Classics from Five Great Thinkers (Anansi, 2007), 102. 6� Goodman noted that “apart from the cure of infectious diseases, some public services, and some household and farm equipment, there have been few recent advances in technique that have not proved to be a mixed bag in actual convenience”. Goodman, “The Morality of Scientific Technology,” 105. Although speaking in 1966, Goodman’s estimation of the value of technological progress is as applicable now, when one ­considers the debates around biotechnology, cell-phone use, or internet content. 7� N. Lithwick, Canada’s Science Policy and the Economy, 109–10. Interestingly, the s&t process in this period has been characterized as “personal.” Donald Phillipson notes that “‘everybody knew everyone else and everybody that mattered’ at the senior levels of industrial, academic and government science. Until the 1960s, science in Canada was very much the enterprise of a small elite group of men from similar socioeconomic backgrounds who held interlocking positions of power. Their networks of influence went ‘up’ to the politicians, ‘down’ to the top Canadian talent in their own fields, and ‘sideways’ to senior scientists in other fields… For most of Canada’s history, policy making was personalist: it operated on social capital rather than academic or scientific capital, and decisions were made on the basis of whom one knew. So the story of Canadian science policy is in large part the story of the people who made it.” Phillipson cited in J. Atkinson-Grosjean, Public Science, Private Interests: Culture and Commerce in Canada’s Networks of Centres of



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Excellence (University of Toronto Press, 2006), 40–1. In the absence of a strong institutional coordinator, or a strong personality to serve the same purpose, s&t policy consisted of the accumulated “pet projects” of senior s&t actors. 8� Lithwick, Canada’s Science Policy and the Economy, 111. 9� oecd, Reviews of National Science Policy: Canada (1969), 79. 10� D. Phillipson, “The National Research Council of Canada: Its Historiography, Its Chronology, Its Bibliography,” in R. Jarrell and Y. Gingras, eds. Building Canadian Science: The Role of the National Research Council / Scientia 15, no. 2 (1991). 11� Ibid., 184. 12� Auditor General of Canada, 1994 Report of the Auditor General of Canada (1994), 1.17.8. 13� Ibid., 9.5. 14� Ibid. 15� Roberto Gualtieri, “Science Policy and Basic Research in Canada,” in Susan Philips, ed. How Ottawa Spends 1994–95: Making Change (Carleton University Press, 1994), 302–3. 16� Despite the tendency to treat both neoliberalism and npm as coherent projects, it should be noted that they are in fact contingent in both their application and their effects. B. Amable, “Institutional Complementarity and Diversity of Social Systems of Innovation and Production,” Review of International Political Economy 7.4 (2000); M. Bevir et al., “Traditions of Governance: Interpreting the Changing Role of the Public Sector,” Public Administration 81, no. 1 (2003). Even if npm was inspired by a tacit neoliberal agenda, it was taken up by others and implemented in ways unexpected by its neoliberal proponents. The fact that a ‘pure’ npm agenda was only rarely applied suggests that institutional actors may have adopted the discourse for their own ends, but that what they implemented was a complex product of factors independent of any theoretical agenda. 17� npm referred to “a focus on management, not policy, and on ­performance appraisal and efficiency; disaggregating public bureaucracies into agencies which deal with each other on a user pay basis; the use of quasi-markets and of contracting out to foster competition; costcutting; and a style of management that emphasizes, among other things, output targets, limited term contracts, monetary incentives and freedom to manage.” Bevir et al., “Traditions of Governance: Interpreting the Changing Role of the Public Sector,” 2. While this description includes the changes in organization common to most

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of the discourse, it explicitly focuses on the adoption of market methods and incentives, as well as the incorporation of the market as an extension of the state. For further discussion, see P. Aucoin, The New Public Management in Comparative Perspective (Institute for Research on Public Policy, 1993). Although Bevir et al. offer a general definition of the concept, they are careful to note that the precise form the project took varied from case to case, a caution confirmed by Aucoin. 18� Osborne and Gaebler are often cited as the inspiration for npm. See D. Osborne and T. Gaebler, Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit Is Transforming the Public Sector (Plume, 1993). Their text, which laid out a ten point plan for government reform, drew heavily on existing business practice literature. 19� Client-centred service delivery was a link between npm and Alternative Service Delivery (asd). If npm dealt with the procedural process of policy formation, asd was the complementary set of recommendations for policy implementation. Much like npm, it advocated forming partnerships with non-traditional actors to increase both the available pool of information and the range of tools available. See D. Zussman, “Alternative Service Delivery,” in C. Dunn, ed. Handbook of Canadian Public Administration (Oxford University Press, 2002); and A. Daniels, “Customer Centred Government: Government from the Outside In,” in D. Barrow and I. Macdonald, eds. The New Public Management: International Developments (Captus, 2000) for a discussion of asd. 20� See J. deBruijn, “Instruments for Network Management,” in W. Kickert, et al., eds. Managing Complex Networks: Strategies for the Public Sector (Sage, 1997); and J. deBruijn, “Policy Networks and Governance,” in D. Weimer, ed. Institutional Design, (Kluwer Academic, 1995) for a detailed discussion of such management techniques. 21� Osborne and Gaebler, Reinventing Government (1993). 22� “Evidence-based” evaluation, originally stemming from an attempt to reform medical research and practice, typically means a shift toward the use of quantitative data in impact evaluation. See I. Sanderson, “Evaluation, Policy Learning and Evidence-based Policy Making,” in Public Administration 80, no. 1 (2002); and T. Greenhalgh, How to Read a Paper: The Basics of Evidence-Based Medicine, 3rd edition (Blackwell, 2006) offer two defences of the approach, claiming that despite the critiques leveled by constructivists and post-modernists (­similar to the critiques these approaches level at most quantitative ­methods), there remains a need to know “what is going on”, and that



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the appropriate application of quantitative data offers the best means of determining it. Greenhalgh’s defence is specific to the application of the evidence-based technique in medicine, while the approach has since become more popular in its application, including in areas where the quantitative data is more suspect. 23� G. B Doern and T. Reed, “Canada’s Changing Science-Based Policy and Regulatory Regime: Issues and Framework,” in G. B. Doern and T. Reed, eds. Risky Business, 5. 24� Doern and Reed, “Canada’s Changing Science-Based Policy and Regulatory Regime,” 8. 25� See W. Leiss, “Between Expertise and Bureacracy: Risk Management Trapped at the Science-Policy Interface,” in G. B. Doern and T. Reed, eds. Risky Business; E. Millstone, and P. van Zwanenberg, “Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (Mad Cow Disease): Lessons for Public Policy,” in G. B. Doern and T. Reed, eds. Risky Business. 26� D. di Salle, et al., “The Innovation Challenge and the National Research Council Response,” in G. B. Doern, ed. Innovation, Science, Environment: Canadian Policies and Performance, 2006–2007 (McGillQueens University Press, 2006). 27� G. B. Doern and R. Levesque, The National Research Council in the Innovation Policy Era (University of Toronto Press, 2002). 28� Doern and Levesque identify 4 key elements of this transformational challenge. First, that the nrc was expected to embody competing scales of innovation policy (national, versus regional or local systems of ­innovation), second, that it was faced with competing definitions of ­innovation policy, third, that it had to deal with all the traditional challenges of institutional change (compounded by the existing organizational complexity of the nrc), and fourth, the changing relative role of the nrc as the primary federal research agency, coupled with its increasing incorporation into an evolving network of research institutions. Finally, that the nrc, like other federal institutions, faced increasing pressure to market itself to both stakeholders and the wider public. Doern and Levesque, The National Research Council in the Innovation Policy Era, 5–7. 29� Doern and Levesque note that granting refers to funds distributed to individual scientists via a peer-review process, while funding refers to funds and financial incentives offered to institutions or large, multi­stakeholder projects. The granting function of the nrc was absorbed by the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council (nserc) in 1978. At the end of this portion of its mandate, the nrc was giving out close

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to $100 million in grants. Doern and Levesque, The National Research Council in the Innovation Policy Era, 41. 30� In 1991, at the beginning of the period under discussion, irap was the second biggest component of the nrcs budget, constituting 21 per cent of its total funds. 31� Phillipson, “National Research Council” (1991); Industry Canada, Building a More Innovative Economy (1994). 32� Doern and Levesque, The National Research Council in the Innovation Policy Era, 47. 33� Atkinson-Grosjean suggests that while the nrc has always been oriented towards the needs of industry, theories on how those needs would be met have been subject to change. She points to debates as early as the 1950s (including debates around the Massey and Gordon Commissions), between those advocating basic research funded through universities as a “pump prime” to industry and those who advocated directed, commercial, “applied” research. Atkinson-Grosjean, Public Science, Private Interests, 42. 34� Doern and Levesque, The National Research Council in the Innovation Policy Era, 51. Lapointe suggests that this kind of transformation is not exclusive to the nrc, noting a similar transformation undergone by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (sshrc). He characterizes this shift as one from being a granting council to a knowledge council, i.e., one concerned with transmission and sharing of information. Particular attention is drawn to a shift in orientation towards group research, network connectivity, and inter-disciplinary projects as being successful grant recipients. This changed orientation seems to have more successful for sshrc than for the nrc. R. Lapointe, “The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council: From a Granting to a Knowledge Council,” in G. B. Doern, ed. Innovation, Science, Environment: Canadian Policies and Performance 2006–2007. 35� Atkinson-Grosjean characterizes the formation of the nce as “the most dramatic change in Canadian science policy since the National Research Council was established in 1916.” Atkinson-Grosjean, Public Science, Private Interests, xiiv. The nce, with its focus on creating partnerships between industry and academic labs, was essentially an effort to create a research process both directed towards government goals, and ­untarnished by government interference. 36� The budget of the cfi was gradually increased, reaching $3.65 billion in 2003 Industry Canada. Canada, Minding our Future: A Report on Federal Science and Technology – 1997 (Industry Canada, 1997).



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37� This stagnation is particularly curious given the role that s&t capacity within the federal government plays in the kind of innovative economy that the emerging funding network was intended to produce. As Doern notes, increasing expectations of efficiency and effectiveness in government, coupled with the risk-management role government is increasingly expected to play, has resulted in an emphasis on (scientific) evidencebased decision making in government. G. B. Doern, Red Tape, Red Flags, Regulation for the Innovation Age (Conference Board of Canada, 2007). The acceleration of the pace of technological change, and the stated goal of the government in developing an innovation-based economy, suggests that the basic capability of government agencies to do science would be a greater priority than funding levels seem to suggest. While some of this capacity is presumably to be derived through coordination with industrial partners, the possibility of conflicts of interest, not to mention high profile regulatory failures like the Walkerton incident, suggest that a degree of independent capacity is to be welcomed. 38� D. di Salle et al., “The Innovation Challenge and the National Research Council Response,” 36–7. 39� Doern and Levesque, The National Research Council in the Innovation Policy Era, 142. The critique of being “too close” to Ottawa was not specific to the nrc. Doern notes a wave of Industry, Science and Environment (ise) agencies being generated in the 1990s, characterized by their network organization, partnership with agencies outside government, and their formation as nominally independent third-party foundations. G. B. Doern, “The Martin Liberals and Changing ‘ise’ Policies and Institutions,” in G. B. Doern ed. Innovation, Science, Environment: Canadian Policies Performance, 2006–2007, 17. Curiously, the idea of being “too close” to Ottawa had an opposite effect in the 1980s, making granting agencies like the nrc reluctant to form partnerships or to fund projects with clear industrial applicability, for fear that it would be seen as interference in the economy, or, heaven forbid, and activist industrial policy. Gualtieri, “Science policy and basic research in Canada” (1994). The reversal of policy stems primarily from a discursive and conceptual resolution of industrial policy with the process of globalization and the mandate of neoliberal philosophy, a resolution championed in Canada by the Department of Industry. 40� Di Salle, “The Innovation Challenge and the National Research Response” (2006). 41� Industry Canada, “Science and Technology for the New Century – A Federal Strategy” (1996).

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42� Industry Canada, Forging Ahead: A Report on Federal Science and Technology – 1999 (1999), 1. For example, the 1999 report began by stating that “the start of the 1990s also found us at the beginning of the fastest-growing technological revolution ever seen. This iteration of an industrial revolution – the ‘innovation revolution’ – was based largely on advances made in computing and communications technologies. The impacts of these technologies have caused a fundamental change in the nature of the world’s economy, and, indeed, in the way that citizens conduct their everyday lives. This innovation revolution led to the realization that, to compete effectively in the global economy, nations must be able to create and harness knowledge to generate jobs, growth and wealth.” Industry Canada, Building Momentum: A Report on Federal Science and Technology – 1998 (1998), 1. 43� Industry Canada, Science and Technology for the New Century – A Federal Strategy” (1996); Industry Canada, Minding our Future: A Report on Federal Science and Technology – 1997 (1997); Industry Canada, Building Momentum (1998); Industry Canada, Building Excellence in Science and Technology (BEST): The Federal Role in Performing Science and Technology, A Report of the Council of Science and Technology Advisors (1999); Industry Canada, Forging Ahead: A Report on Federal Science and Technology – 1999 (1999); Industry Canada, Achieving Excellence: Investing in People, Knowledge and Opportunity (2001); Industry Canada, Knowledge Matters: Skills and Learning for Canadians, Executive Summary (2002). 44� Industry Canada, Minding our Future: A Report on Federal Science and Technology – 1997, 1–2. 45� Industry Canada, Achieving Excellence: Investing in People, Knowledge and Opportunity, 64. 46� J. Niosi, “National Systems of Innovation: In Search of a Workable Concept,” Technology in Society: An International Journal 15, no. 2 (1993), 218–19. Niosi traces the development of the modern analysis of innovation back through the work of Lundvall and Freeman to Schumpeter. He argues that “the modern definition of innovation is based on Schumpeter’s classical concept. Innovations are new and improved products and processes, new organizational forms, the application of existing technology to new fields, the discovery of new resources, and the opening of new markets” (209). For Schumpeter the innovation process was located in large firms, while smaller firms, universities, government labs, and other sites of research played a subordinate role. Niosi credits Freeman with suggesting that social innovation in technology



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policy were also relevant to the innovation process as a whole, including the impact of government inducements to innovation. 47� Lipsey argues that the economic insights developed by Romer and other actually pre-dated much of the institutional literature. He notes that “in general terms I argue that the new macro-growth theory – which ­elaborates on the aggregate production function of Solow’s original ­neoclassical growth model . . . has arrived at the same place as the policy analysts and policymakers who have been dealing with the new globalized and knowledge-driven societies. Micro-growth theory got there earlier, but not being in the mainstream, particularly in North American, its influence on policymakers would not have been large. However, because of its microeconomic structure, this theory is able to go further than macro-growth theory, giving more detailed policy insights.” R. Lipsey, “New Growth Theories and Economic Policy for the Knowledge Economy,” in K. Rubenson and H. Schuetze, eds. Transition to the Knowledge Society: Policies and Strategies for Individual Participation and Learning (Institute for European Studies, 2000), 33. 48� Niosi et al., “National Systems of Innovation,” 218–19. 49� For a selection of readings on innovation and its connection to the market and globalization, see E. Carayannis and D. Campbell, eds. Knowledge Creation, Diffusion, and Use in Innovation Networks and Knowledge Clusters: A Comparative Systems Approach across the United States, Europe, and Asia (Praeger, 2006); R. Lester and M. Piore, Innovation: The Missing Dimension (Harvard University Press, 2004); G. Dosi, Innovation, Organization and Economic Dynamics: Selected Essays (Edward Elgar, 2000); C. Freeman and B-A. Lundvall, eds. Small Countries Facing the Technological Revolution (Pinter, 1988); C. Freeman, ed. The Economics of Innovation (Edward Elgar, 1990); B.-A. Lundvall, ed. National Systems of Innovation: Towards a Theory of Innovation and Interactive Learning (St. Martin’s Press, 1992); R. Nelson, ed. National Innovation Systems: A Comparative Analysis (Oxford University Press, 1993); J. Niosi, “Regional Systems of Innovation: Market Pull and Government Push,” in J. Holbrook and D. Wolfe, eds. Knowledge, Clusters, and Regional Innovation (McGillQueen’s University Press, 2000); and P. Cooke, “Regions in a Global Market: The Experiences of Wales and Baden-Wurttemberg,” in Review of International Political Economy 4.1 (1997). 50� A recent World Bank study, which stressed the interplay between four factors, including the policy and institutional framework, an innovation system, basic and continuing education, and an information technology,

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illustrates this. V. Goel et al., Innovation Systems: World Bank Support of Science and Technology Development (World Bank, 2004). The idea that an innovation system fosters a way of being, that it consists of a method of being innovative, links innovation to debates about the “performative state.” Weber has argued that states are best understood not as things, but as subjects in process. This in turn suggests that state efforts to articulate roles for themselves in new and innovative modes of being involves a re-articulation of the self; states are responding to globalization, to the threat of un-becoming, by becoming something else. C. Weber, “Performative States,” Millennium 27.1 (1998). 51� The definitions characteristic of innovation system analysis in the early 1990s either made reference to the nation state or to national firms. See Niosi et al., “Regional Systems of Innovation: Market Pull and Government Push,” (1993); Lundvall, ed. National Systems of Innovation: Towards a Theory of Innovation and Interactive Learning (1992); Freeman, ed. The Economics of Innovation (1993), Nelson, ed. National Innovation Systems: A Comparative Analysis (1993). 52� Niosi et al., “National Systems of Innovation” (1993). 53� J. Niosi, “Canada’s National r&d System,” in R. Anderson et al., eds. Innovation Systems in a Global Context: The North American Experience (McGill-Queen’s University, 1998), 92. 54� For an early analysis of the Canadian nis, see D. McFetridge, “The Canadian System of Industrial Innovation,” in R. Nelson, ed. National Innovation Systems (Oxford University Press, 1993). More recent developments of innovation systems theory suggest that the dominant institutional and organizational phenomenon central to the idea of an innovation system is now resident within regional spaces of activity. Regional innovation systems approaches thus attempt to map out the inter-relationships between the regional, national and global when analyzing innovative activity and innovation systems. See J. De la Mothe and G. Paquet, “National Innovation Systems and Instituted Process,” in Z. Acs, ed. Regional Innovation, Knowledge and Global Change (Pinter, 2000), 29–33; D. Wolfe, “Globalization, Information and Communications Technologies and Local and Regional Systems of Innovation,” in K. Rubenson and H. Schuetze, eds. Transition to the Knowledge Society: Policies and Strategies for Individual Participation and Learning (University of British Columbia Press, 2000). Gertler et al.’s study of innovative firms in Ontario (2000) suggests that the regional matters for more than just organization. M. Gertler et al., “No Place Like Home? The Embeddedness of Innovation in a Regional



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Economy,” in Review of International Political Economy 7.4 (2000). Their data indicates that indigenous firms embedded in the regional ­economy tend to produce more r&d, employ more high-skilled workers, and form closer relationships between firms and between firms and ­customers than their multi-national competitors. The study suggests that what matters is not just the existence of regionally-organized economic activity, but also the scale of the actors operating within it, the ­connections between those actors and the larger economy, as well as the connections between that economy and other scales of economic organization. 55� Doern and Reed, “Canada’s Changing Science-Based Policy and Regulatory Regime: Issues and Framework” (2000); Gualtieri, “Science Policy and Basic Research in Canada” (1994). 56� J. Niosi and T. Bas, “The Competencies of Regions and the Role of the National Research Council,” in J. Holbrook and D. Wolfe, eds. Innovation, Institutions and Territory: Regional Innovation Systems in Canada (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2000). 57� D. Wolfe, “Social Capital and Cluster Development in Learning Regions,” in J. Holbrook and D. Wolfe, eds. Knowledge, Clusters, and Regional Innovation: Economic Development in Canada (isrn, 2001). 58� Niosi et al., “National Systems of Innovation: In Search of a Workable Concept,” 218–9; Niosi and Bas, “The Competencies of Regions and the Role of the National Research Council” (2000). 59� A critical element in the formation of the icnis was political stability, a stability that took two primary forms: the security of the Liberal party in office, and the relative stability of key cabinet portfolios. When the Liberals took office in 1993, it was amid the disintegration of the federal Progressive Conservative party. Throughout the 1990s and the early years of the new century, the Liberal party seemed to be unassailable. This created conditions in which it was possible to conceive of long-term policy projects. At the same time, for the bulk of this secure mandate, core portfolios in the Liberal cabinet, particularly Industry and Finance, were held by the same people, with John Manley as Minster of Industry and Paul Martin as Minister of Finance. The balance of power and tradeoffs within Cabinet were also relatively stable. The combination of stability in both the external and internal political environment allowed for a degree of consistency rare in any area of federal policy.   The consistent political environment contributed to consistent policy design. From its inception, the icnis was designed as a framework, in that it established the basic rationale for further policy formation; each iteration of that framework involved an evolution from its predecessor.

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It is possible to track the evolution of thought within the icnis from its inception in the early 1990s to its completion in the early years of the new millennium. 60� More often than not, this imperative was framed in positive terms. The 2001 Science and Technology Report argued that “we live in an age of science, an age where discovery and innovation are major engines of ­economic growth and where advances in scientific research hold out the greatest promise to improve the human condition.” See Industry Canada, Achieving Excellence: Investing in People, Knowledge and Opportunity, 9. At the same time, the government noted that Canada’s capacity to generate this growth required development, when it acknowledged that the productivity gap “with the U.S. is almost entirely due to our lower level of productivity. Improving productivity is heavily reliant on innovation and, at present, Canada’s overall level of innovation capacity is near the bottom of the worlds leading economies.” (Ibid., 4). This “carrot and stick” approach was characteristic of the icnis, holding out the promise of productivity and growth, coupled with dire warnings of the need for urgent improvement. 61� Specifically, it meant the climate created by government stewardship regimes that “protect the public interest, and encourage and reward innovation. Instruments such as legislation, regulation, codes and standards create the conditions necessary for Canadians to enjoy the social and economic benefits of innovative activities. They play a crucial role in establishing public confidence in the innovation system, and the business confidence that leads to investment and risk taking.” Industry Canada, Achieving Excellence: Investing in People, Knowledge and Opportunity, 62. This represents the most mature expression of the stewardship role first articulated in the 1994 charter document of the icnis. 62� The innovation agenda has tended to focus on the creative aspects of the process – new industries, sectors, and jobs. It is important to remember, however, the destructive component, the loss of industries, sectors, and jobs through obsolescence and restructuring. 63� Industry Canada, Achieving Excellence: Investing in People, Knowledge and Opportunity, 64. 64� Industry Canada, Building a More Innovative Economy (1994). 65� Doern, Science and Politics in Canada (1972).

9 Digital State 2.0 sandford borins1

When Bruce Doern began studying public policy towards science and technology four decades ago, the technological fields that were of interest to policy makers included aerospace, energy, the environment, and health. Information technology (it) would not have been on that list because it was essentially an administrative function involving the management of large databases on mainframe computers. Furthermore, the industry was a stable oligopoly, with ibm as the dominant firm. In the last three decades, however, the it industry has been transformed through the advent of the personal computer – an invention originating in the private sector – and the development of email and the Internet, both of which had their start in basic research about communication among computers carried out in government labs and academe and funded by the us Defense Department’s Advanced Research and Projects Agency (darpa). This transformation has democratized the use of it, creating a potentially enormous impact on politics and government. In our book Digital State at the Leading Edge, published in January 2007, my co-authors and I explored whether information technology (it) is indeed transforming politics and government.2 As a transformation necessarily unfolds over time, we did this by means of longitudinal research about the impact of it between 2000 and 2005 upon the federal and Ontario governments, two widely considered to be at the leading edge. (For comparative purposes, the book also included chapters about the us and uk.) The transformation we were tracking was not in the essence of politics (seeking office and exercising power) or government (implementing policy and delivering service) but rather in how people understand and

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perform these activities. Our research ended with the federal election of January 2006. The purpose of this chapter is to report on the evolution of the relationship between it, politics and government in the last three years – a considerable period of time for rapidly-­changing technology – focusing on the federal and Ontario ­governments, but continuing to pay attention to the us and uk. The research for Digital State at the Leading Edge involved two surveys of federal and Ontario legislators, interviews of public servants in the it area, and comprehensive tracking of party websites during several election campaigns. As the research funding had been exhausted by the completion of the book, it was not possible to replicate original studies. As a consequence, the research methodology for this chapter – while still taking advantage of the access to political and civil service networks gained in the original writing – was more informal. Returning to terrain already surveyed, I have looked for significant changes, and noted their presence or absence. What follows is intended to be suggestive rather than exhaustive, a summary that is also an opening to further study. In 2007, along with my co-authors, I gave numerous talks to public servants based on Digital State at the Leading Edge and incorporating my latest thinking. The reactions of attendees have been very helpful. In April 2007, I began a weekly blog focusing on the impact of technology on politics and government, which is now posted at www.sandfordborins.com. The blog served the dual purposes of stimulating my thinking about and observation of government it and provoking reaction from readers. I observed the use of it in political campaigning, particularly on party websites, YouTube channels, and Facebook groups in the 2007 Ontario election, 2008 federal election, and 2008 us primaries and federal election. Finally, I did considerable reading about it, particularly in the newspapers of record in Canada (The Globe and Mail) and the us (The New York Times). One might argue that it would be preferable to focus on online resources, for example websites about politics (www.realclear politics.com, www.politico.com, www.Huffingtonpost.com). Focusing on the mainstream media, however, is a way of testing for changes in the influence of online technology beyond its self-defined purview. During the last three years, these two newspapers have been paying growing attention to it issues, as well as expanding their online editions. It also appears that the online editions have become increasingly important to their readership. It is not uncommon to see ­hundreds of comments, some by well-known party activists, on lead



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articles in The Globe and Mail by 6 a.m., just as the print newspaper is being delivered. These observations were validated by a recent Pew Research Center survey that noted that the us population’s use of the Internet as the primary source of news increased dramatically from 24 per cent in 2007 to 40 per cent in 2008, thus for the first time surpassing newspapers, which held constant at 35 per cent.3 Arguably, this affects not only the timeframe within which political news is disseminated, but the news consumer’s relationship to it. The speed of transmission is now matched by an immediacy, and variety of avenues of, response that is unprecedented. How this is changing the way citizens experience politics is a fascinating question. This chapter begins by reviewing the conclusion reached in Digital State at the Leading Edge about the nature and extent of it-based transformation in government as of early 2006. The chapter then presents evidence from the last three years that bears upon those conclusions. It starts with politics, focusing first on Barack Obama’s successful campaign for the presidency, which represents the global leading edge of online campaigning, before moving to the federal and Ontario campaigns. While there was nothing in Canada comparable in its online comprehensiveness to the Obama campaign, the impact of online campaigning has been increasing in ways worth exploring. Shifting from politics per se to the interface between politics and government, it discusses evidence of the politicization of the online presence of Canadian governments, coupling this with a related phenomenon: the establishment of advocacy websites for government priorities. The chapter also deals with the use of online technology within the public service, and includes an overview of the state of online service delivery, as well as recent Web 2.0 initiatives undertaken by public servants. The chapter concludes with some speculation about the likely impact of it on government in the near future, as well as a call for additional academic research in this area, particularly by younger scholars who are likely to be more familiar with emerging technology than scholars of earlier generations. an incomplete transformation

The over-arching conclusion reached in Digital State at the Leading Edge was that the it-based transformation was incomplete, with more evidence of material change in some areas than in others.4 We begin where the difference has been most striking. Government workplaces now fully incorporate, and public servants use, up-to-

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date it. There has been a reduction in the ranks of clerical employees, with a concomitant increase in the ranks of the it organization or, more generally, knowledge-intensive workers. Technology has heightened immediacy as an increasing proportion of public servants, especially senior managers, use BlackBerries or other personal digital assistants, with the consequence that politicians and public servants are constantly accessible to each other, the media, and citizens generally. Government websites are now the means of choice for the communication and accessing of government information. Information, as the digerati say, wants to be free, and citizens are making use of both official government information posted online and other information generated by or about politicians and available online in unanticipated ways, some of which have proven to be acutely embarrassing to governments and individual politicians. The transformation is less complete in the area of service delivery and organizational restructuring. Service delivery by online transactions has grown rapidly, but the older media, particularly the ­telephone, remain popular. it has the potential to restructure government based on integrated service delivery at the front end, joined-up policy making in the middle, and integrated procurement and support service at the back end. Restructuring initiatives such as Service Canada and Service Ontario have made some progress in that direction, but it is a reflection of their relative immaturity, that more needs doing in front-end integration and shared services. The organizational home and political reporting relationships of these initiatives are still unclear; Service Canada, for example, remains a component of Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, though it could well lay claim to status as a department. Management consultants selling it-solutions to government have emphasized its potential to affect enormous cost savings. Advocates within government have predicted transformative effects stemming from those savings. In reality, the impact of such savings is felt primarily on the twenty per cent of government spending accounted for by overhead costs. What is more, such savings are always at risk of being undercut by cost overruns on the complex it projects on which they depend. the new primacy of online politics

In the course of conducting the research for Digital State at the Leading Edge, several cios and politicians (among them former



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Ontario cios Scott Campbell and Greg Georgeff and federal minister Reg Alcock) who were early adopters of it were interviewed, and they often complained that most politicians, in their personal lives, were on the backward side of the digital divide and did not ­understand the potential impact of it on government or politics.5 In the light of developments over the last three years, these statements now appear ironic, to the point that one might say to cios seeking more attention from politicians, “be careful what you wish for.” Indeed, the two surveys of politicians’ use of it reported in Digital State at the Leading Edge showed increasing use of technology to the point that by 2005, over 90 per cent of federal mps and Ontario mpps were using email and the Internet daily, and a majority of both groups described themselves as either very competent or at least confident in their use of technology.6 More and more mps carry BlackBerries and use them constantly to stay in touch with their parliamentary and constituency offices, their colleagues, and the bureaucracy.7 That it is becoming increasingly important in political ­campaigning should not be surprising. Political campaigning is, in its essence, cut-throat competition; unlike the economic marketplace, politics is not focused on winning market share, but is winner-take-all. Political campaigns, because they involve long hours, little or no pay, commitment to a cause, and the prospect of rapid advancement if they are victorious, attract a disproportionate number of young adult participants (variously described as Generation Y, the Net Generation, millennials, or now Generation O).8 As they have become engaged in the high-stakes competition of politics, they have brought their it-driven culture to it, thus rapidly increasing the technological sophistication of campaigning in particular. This perspective on the use of it in campaigning is clearly evident in Tom Flanagan’s Harper’s Team: Behind the Scenes in the Conservative Rise to Power. Flanagan describes a number of episodes including the development of a sophisticated electoral data base (the Constituency Information Management System) now used effectively for direct-mail fund-raising, website development, the growth of the “Blogging Tories,” and the use of the BlackBerry for immediate contact with the media.9 He generalizes from these experiences to the ninth of his ten commandments for Conservative politicians: “We are living in the biggest, fastest-moving communications revolution in human history. Each election campaign features new technologies. We must be at the forefront in adapting new technologies

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to politics.”10 To paraphrase Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign: It’s the technology, stupid. the obama phenomenon

The prospect of a little-known first term senator defeating a much better-known candidate, who had the support of the party establishment, and then being elected president, was very unlikely. But, in retrospect, it is clear that Barack Obama was able to capitalize on his own formidable strengths: rhetorical skill with large audiences, experience in community organizing, an ability to connect with younger voters, and a deep understanding of technology’s transformative potential. In addition, his message of change came at precisely the right time, with an administration discredited first by its mishandling of the war in Iraq and then by its mishandling of the economy, and an opponent for the presidency who ultimately could not credibly disassociate himself from the administration. The question for those interested in the digital state is what part online technology played in Obama’s improbable but resounding election victory. Consider, first, the magnitude of the Obama campaign’s achievements. It raised nearly $750 million from 4 million donors, 550,000 of whom were contributing for the first time.11 It built huge online communities, with over a million subscribers to www.mybarack obama.com, two million to his Facebook group, and a million to his Myspace site. The ultimate achievement, of course, was his election victory, consisting of a convincing lead in both the popular vote and the Electoral College. From the digital state perspective, the most important aspect of that victory was his strength among Net Generation voters (defined as those between the ages of 18 and 29), who are the most active online. Their turnout increased from 48 to 52 per cent, and while John Kerry’s margin over George Bush among this group in 2004 was 9 per cent, Obama’s margin soared to a landslide-scale 34 percentage points.12 The Obama online campaign is now considered to be the true leading edge, the one that has made the greatest use of online technology and has done so most effectively. Digital State at the Leading Edge developed four key concepts for analyzing digital politics and government, and these can clearly be applied to the Obama campaign: digital leadership, procurement, organizational integration, and channel choice.13 The Obama campaign’s digital leadership



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began with the candidate himself, who is a technically-sophisticated BlackBerry user (or even addict). He saw the political potential of the Internet, stating “one of my fundamental beliefs from my days as a community organizer is that real change comes from the bottom up. And there’s no more powerful tool for grass roots organizing than the Internet.”14 What is interesting about this statement is that Obama saw the use of the Internet not as an end in itself, but as a means to an end. The end was winning power, the means was community organizing, and the Internet was a facilitator of community organizing; put differently Obama conceived of a continuum between online and offline political action.15 Community organizing revolves around direct contact among people: caucusing, meeting, door-to-door canvassing, and ultimately getting out the vote. In this view, online activities such as blogging or viewing videos on YouTube are useful to the extent that they lead to voting for Obama. Another aspect of Obama’s personal digital leadership is that, as he was launching his campaign, he sought out it industry leaders, for example, Netscape founder Marc Andreessen, for their insights into how online ­technology could support his community organizing approach.16 Digital leadership leads to procurement, the second key analytic concept. What matters here is whom the Obama campaign used for its online services and here, too, Obama’s choice was fortuitous. Nine days before launching his candidacy in February 2007, Obama hired Blue State Digital (www.bluestatedigital.com) a web development company founded in 2004 by four Net Generation members of Howard Dean’s presidential campaign. The firm’s mission is to use online tools to mobilize support for progressive candidates, causes, and products. And they were not expensive, charging only $1 million for services delivered between February 2007 and June 2008. In addition to Blue State Digital, Obama engaged 24-year-old Chris Hedges, cofounder of Facebook, as New Media director.17 The contractors at Blue State Digital set out to advance the techniques used in the Dean campaign, taking advantage of the latest technological developments. Thus, www.mybarackobama.com was modeled on Facebook (which was launched in 2005), but with the goal of making available online political tools (for example personal fundraising) and activities (calling voters, hosting meetings or parties). The concept of organizational integration has a slightly different meaning in this context than in government departments, for which it was used in Digital State at the Leading Edge. Here it means

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integration of the various components of the election campaign. To cite two examples: Drawing on his rhetorical ability, Obama often spoke at large rallies. To get a ticket, supporters were asked to provide their email address, zip code, and telephone number. From this minimal but critical personal information, the Obama campaign built up huge email and telephone banks, creating a flexible and invaluable data arsenal. A second example is get-out-the-vote telephoning on Election Day. A friend recounts that she went to Buffalo to contact voters. New York was already firmly in the Democrats’ column, so volunteers in New York were provided with phone numbers from swing states such as Nevada and North Carolina. In Harper’s Team, Tom Flanagan discussed to-the-minute reallocation of volunteers where needed as something the Conservatives hoped to do in the future.18 The final concept is channel choice. The Obama campaign ­operated on all channels, both traditional and online. Candidate speeches at large rallies is a political tradition in both the us and Canada, though, as will be discussed in the next section, Canadian campaigns have forsaken it for speeches to small groups of party faithful intended to produce thirty-second video clips and sound-bites. Ultimately, the Obama campaign involved huge amounts of face-toface activity: participation in caucuses in the states that held them, meetings, and door-to-door canvassing. The online operation supported these activities by giving volunteers information and by fundraising. Those who signed up for www.barackobama.com (which I did) received repeated messages detailing the broad outlines of the campaign’s rhetoric, new videos available online, and appeals for frequent small donations. The latter were almost always presented in terms of a specific cause (such as fundraising for a certain state in the primaries or the general election), a specific amount of money – especially if small donations were being matched by large donors – and a deadline. The online campaign was also waged in a wide variety of media, including www.barackobama.com, www.mybarackobama.com, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, and a YouTube channel with hundreds of videos. Some of the YouTube videos contributed by supporters themselves became immensely popular: Will I Am’s “Yes we Can” gained 14 million views, Obama Girl’s 13 million views, and Sarah Silverman’s “The Great Schlep,” over one million. The different online media were so seamlessly



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linked that, during the campaign, an enthusiastic supporter could have all Obama all the time. The Obama campaign showed how to integrate the entire online package both internally and with traditional face-to-face community organizing and campaigning. It had its roots in the Howard Dean campaign of 2004, but went far beyond the Dean campaign in two respects. First, Obama was a much more convincing orator. Second, the Dean campaign seemed to be using online technology for its own sake, for example in its plethora of meetups and online blogs, while the Obama campaign focused its use of online resources on mobilizing support for and participation in traditional face-to-face politics.19 In contrast to Obama’s integrated online vision, the 2007 Ontario and 2008 federal campaigns show that in Canada all the pieces are there, but they still do not add up to a coherent whole – or a digital vision. the 2007 ontario and 2000 federal campaigns online

None of the party leaders in the Ontario or federal campaigns adopted a mass mobilization approach comparable to President Obama’s campaign. Instead of taking their message to the masses, their preferred platforms are speeches in small rooms to the party faithful. The standard format is for the leader to speak in front of visual props and representative individuals (police, firefighters, nurses, teachers) reflecting the theme of the speech. The objective of such a speech is to produce short clips that network television could use or that could be posted online. It was not ever thus in Canadian politics, and indeed the tradition into the seventies was for party leaders to speak in large venues open to all, including hecklers. As a teenager, I recall my father taking me to hear Lester Pearson – hardly a charismatic orator – speaking to a packed house of 15,000 at Maple Leaf Gardens in 1963. Similarly, Allan Blakeney reminisced about the final rally of the 1971 election campaign, drawing a crowd of 5000 in the much smaller city of Regina.20 The rubric that comes to mind for appearances by Canadian politicians now is “boy in the bubble,” to signify the desire to keep tight control over the event, avoiding anything that could disrupt the intended message.21 A second great difference between the Obama campaign and Canadian

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campaigns is that Obama caught on with young adults in a way that no Canadian party leader since Pierre Trudeau at the height of Trudeaumania in 1968 has done, with the consequence that Canadian campaigns have not reflected as clearly the online behaviour of young adults. Canadian party websites contain considerable content similar to American party websites such as information about the leader, the platform, and the party and lots of video, in particular advertisements that have aired on television.22 The material about the leader (for example the Ontario Liberals’ www.dalton.ca and the federal Liberals’ www.thisisdion.ca) was generally intended to humanize him or her, for example by emphasizing his/her childhood and youth, family, and leisure interests. The party websites also include a page for press releases; for example, the Ontario Liberals posted as a sidebar all their 126 press releases, about one-third of which were attacks on the Conservatives. The parties often hive off separate sites to attack their rivals’ policies and in particular their leaders’ capability: in the recent federal election, attack sites included the Conservatives’ www.notaleader.ca and the Liberals’ www.scandalpedia.ca. The attack sites often appear to be aimed at younger voters with ironic and irreverent features the Net Generation is assumed to prefer. Where the websites fall far short of the Obama campaign is in the area of citizen engagement. Available activities are limited to joining the party, donating money, getting a sign, or volunteering for the local constituency. The two most advanced were the Ontario Conservatives’ www.leadershipmatters.ca, which included a competition among volunteers to recruit friends, and the federal Conservatives’ “My Campaign” page, that provided text for letters to the editor of local newspapers and scripts for calls to local talk radio. The sites usually have blogs, but only the ndp, Greens, and Bloc Quebecois had their leaders post entries and permitted citizens to post.23 Despite the limitations of the party websites, there was considerable online activity in the federal and Ontario elections, much of it initiated by citizens, rather than party leaders’ campaigns. It occurred in a number of areas, and reveals some of the changes the Internet and related technologies have generated in the world of election campaigning.24 In the federal campaign there was a great deal of online vetting of local candidates by rival party organizations and citizen journalists, with the result that discoveries of embarrassing information



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online compelled several candidates to resign or to be dropped by the national party. This is an extension of the tendency in the 2006 election campaign, commented on in Digital State at the Leading Edge, for party activists to seek and find information online that would be damaging to their opponents.25 This illustrates that, while individuals may control their own websites, they cannot control the information about them posted elsewhere. It also illustrates a stark difference from politics before the Internet. In the past, vetting was done primarily by party offices for their own candidates; now vetting is done – using online searches – by local constituency organizations about their opponents and by citizen journalists regarding all candidates. The level of scrutiny has dramatically increased and, not surprisingly, skeletons are being found in the online closets of more candidates. A second area of online politics involves the use of YouTube. Founded in early 2005, YouTube first came to political prominence with a video in the 2006 Virginia senatorial campaign showing Republican incumbent George Allen referring to a cameraman hired by the Democrats by the racial epithet “macaca.” The video, downloaded 500,000 during the campaign, contributed significantly to Allen’s unexpected defeat. Since then, YouTube has come to serve a variety of political ­functions, including parties using it as an alternative channel for their advertising, parties and citizens using it to post candidates’ gaffes (which reinforces the tendency discussed above of Canadian parties to run “boy in the bubble” campaigns), and citizens using it to advocate on behalf of candidates or causes. Some recent Canadian instances include www.torytube.ca, a YouTube channel created by the Ontario Liberals to display policy attacks upon and campaign gaffes by Conservative leader John Tory, Quebec singer Michel Rivard’s Culture en Peril video attacking the Harper government’s cuts to arts funding, and a televised interview in which federal Liberal leader Stephane Dion stumbled answering a question about how he would handle the economic slowdown. ToryTube, while not achieving large view counts, helped the Ontario Liberals create the impression that John Tory was not a credible leader. Culture en Peril, with one million views in three weeks, and the Dion interview, with 300,000, both went viral, the former contributing to the Conservatives’ failure to improve their showing in Quebec in 2008 compared to 2006, and the latter contributing to the damaging and ultimately fatal perception of Stephane Dion as a weak leader.

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The widespread use of YouTube in both the American and Canadian election campaigns gives rise to the hypothesis that it has become the current political killer app (that is, a software application so popular that it transforms online political discourse). YouTube poses significant advantages: anyone, whether highly organized political parties or individuals working at home, can post at no charge. Anyone can watch, as it has no membership requirement. It is easy for individuals to email YouTube videos or post them on other websites, hence facilitating their viral spread. When journalists refer to YouTube videos, they need not publish or display a complicated url as is often the case with web pages, but need only refer to the creator or subject of the video: the reader can readily find it using YouTube’s internal search engine. Finally, the developers of YouTube were proactive in contacting the presidential candidates in the primaries about how they could use it and in forging a partnership with cnn for candidate debates, in which questions were submitted on YouTube and posed to candidates on cnn.26 A third online aspect of the federal and Ontario elections consists of a variety of activities that could be referred to under the rubric of citizen engagement. These include issue-oriented websites, such as those supporting and opposing proportional representation in the Ontario referendum on electoral reform and those endorsing and opposing public support for faith-based schools; political blogs, such as those linked to the blog consolidator www.bloggingtories.ca; and citizen initiatives, such as the Facebook group Fair Vote Canada that facilitated strategic voting by supporters of the Liberals, Greens, or ndp designed to block a Conservatives majority. Citizen opposition to the television networks’ decision to exclude Green Party leader Elizabeth May from the leaders’ debates was quickly expressed in emails and postings on the Green and ndp blogs, and led the ­networks to an overnight reversal of their decision. The emergence of a Liberal-ndp coalition and the prorogation of Parliament in early December 2008 generated comparable on-line activity. The Globe and Mail’s lead news story posted at 1:30 pm on December 4, “Parliament Shut Down till January 26,” attracted over 1600 comments by 5 am on December 5. Stephane Dion’s amateurish response to Harper’s speech to the nation drew 10,000 views on YouTube on December 4, the day it was posted. The Facebook group “Canadians Against a Liberal/ndp Coalition Government” had



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113,000 members within a day, and an opposing group, “Canadians United Against Stephen Harper” had 20,000 members.27 While no Canadian campaign was comparable to Obama’s, there was still considerable online activity in the federal and Ontario campaigns. What is difficult to determine is how significant it all was. The Canadian government does not require the detailed monthto-month campaign donation reports that presidential candidates must file, and Canada has nothing comparable to www.techpresident. com, which tracks statistics such as YouTube views, Facebook supporters, and MySpace friends for the candidates, and hosts discussion of online politics. There is also no data available about party website traffic or donations made online. The one longitudinal indicator that could be accessed was the Canada Election Study which in 2004 and again in 2008 asked voters what was their main source of election information. In 2004, 55 per cent said television, 21 per cent newspapers, 12 per cent radio, and 3 per cent the Internet. In 2008, this had changed to 55 per cent television, 19 per cent newspapers, 8 per cent radio, and 8 per cent the Internet. This does show Internet use beginning to cut into radio and newspaper.28 Clearly, this is an area where more longitudinal information would be valuable. politicizing government’s online presence

Tom Flanagan’s ninth commandment to the Conservatives – It’s the technology, stupid – raises the question of how it-savvy politicians will use the government portal when they come to power. They will likely view the portal as an important opportunity to sell their political message to the voters. During the Chretien and Martin governments the Government of Canada home page (www.gc.ca/home or www.canada.ca/home) emphasized service delivery, with most space given to the links to three service gateways (service to Canadians, service to business, service to non-Canadians), and only a small postage-stamp sized link in the top left corner to the prime minister’s page. In April 2006, the Harper Government unveiled a totally revamped three-column home page, with news about the government, usually featuring the prime minister, in the dominant central column; a right sidebar with links to government priorities such as Canadian Forces recruiting, the Speech from the Throne, and the budget; and a left sidebar with a variety of links, including three

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small ones to the service gateways. The home page is bold, forceful, and brightly coloured and, not surprisingly, contains considerably more blue than during the years of Liberal governments. The Service Canada site (www.servicecanada.ca) provides an interesting contrast. It emphasizes connectedness by presenting services in terms of recipients rather than providers, and has an inclusive and friendly look and feel. As discussed in Digital State at the Leading Edge, the Service Canada site is a descendant of the Gateways and Clusters project, which utilized collaborative inter-departmental work teams with a higher than expected proportion of women.29 If the Canada site is Mars, then the Service Canada site is Venus. The Conservative rebranding of the Canada site is not unique. When Gordon Brown took over as the uk’s prime minister in June 2007, I observed that his predecessor Tony Blair, while a masterful communicator through traditional media, had little facility with new media, and the prime minister’s site (www.number10.gov.uk) paid as much attention to the history of Number 10 Downing Street and former prime ministers, in particular Winston Churchill, as it did to the current prime minister.30 A little over a year later, the Number 10 website was revamped to emphasize Prime Minister Brown, his policies, and news about him, and the historical material was ­relegated to a link at the lower right corner.31 Some governments, such as those of the us and uk, have both a political portal (www.whitehouse.gov and www.number10.gov.uk, respectively) and a service portal (www.usa.gov and www.directgov. gov.uk, respectively). To an extent, the federal government is evolving in that direction, with the Canada portal and the prime minister’s home page looking very similar, and three service portals, the most prominent of which is Service Canada’s. In the provinces, the obvious url for a portal is www.gov.[name].ca where the province’s abbreviated name falls in the middle. The question then arises of how much of any province’s portal is used for political purposes (photos of the premier or other ministers, news, political priorities, policy initiatives) and how much for governmental purposes such as links to services and departments or travel information for visitors. During summer 2007, a research assistant measured political content, so defined, versus governmental content for the federal government and the provinces and territories. Using the crude metric of surface area on the computer screen (without, for example, trying to weight space by proximity to the top of the page), considerable variation



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was observed. Three jurisdictions had a high percentage of political content (British Columbia, 62 per cent; Newfoundland and Labrador, 58 per cent; and the federal government, 48 per cent); three provinces and two territories (Ontario, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Yukon, and Nunavut) showed a medium level of political content (between 20 and 35 per cent); and five provinces and one territory (Quebec, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and the Northwest Territories) had political content of less than 20 per cent. Three hypotheses were formulated to explain this variation: the younger the premier, the greater the political content; the closer to the end of the mandate, the greater the political content; and the smaller the margin of victory in the previous election, the greater the political content. Each hypothesis was tested separately and found not to be statistically significant, possibly because there were only 14 observations. In addition to the sharing of space on the portal there are other issues that have emerged concerning the limits of political use of the government’s property in cyberspace, with politicians demanding more, and public servants quietly resisting. Practices that have been worked out between politicians and public servants represent what in the online world is called netiquette. Basic elements include the understanding between politicians and public servants that the content of the government portal is frozen when an election campaign begins, so that the sitting government loses the advantage of incumbency32; material created at the political level for the government website (for example, a premier’s video-blog) may not be transferred to the governing party’s website (though there is nothing to stop it from linking to the government website); and a new government may not use the government website to criticize its defeated successor (say under the rubric of correcting the misguided policies of the past). The Harper Government, controversially, posted links to its 2007 Speech from the Throne on frequently-visited government services sites such as the Environment Canada weather site (www.weatheroffice.gc.ca); it did not do so for the November 2008 Throne Speech. advocacy websites

Michael Prince, in his chapter in this volume, discusses exhortation as one of government’s policy instruments. Increasingly, governments have been turning to the Internet as a vehicle for their hortatory

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messages. Digital State at the Leading Edge profiled Steven Green, manager of creative services and new media in the Ontario Cabinet Office, who described one of his major functions as the development of “eye candy” websites.33 By this, he meant Ontario government websites using leading edge technology and attractive graphics to communicate the government’s messages to citizens, often advocating certain ideas or exhorting them to certain behaviours. A research assistant surveyed the federal government and provincial government portals for such sites in summer 2007. The sites are generally linked to tabs on the right sidebar of the governmental portals. At that time, the topics of such sites included public services and lifestyle information for youth (5 cases), healthy lifestyles (4), equalization (2), combating domestic violence (2), economic opportunities (2), the environment (1), and medical wait-times (1). While writing this chapter the federal, Ontario, and British Columbia portals were revisited to observe their most recent advocacy websites. The Canada site in November 2008 includes tabs for the Speech from the Throne, awards for military valour, information for Canadians travelling abroad, and ecoAction, which deals with energy conservation and reduction in carbon emissions. The Ontario portal contains tabs for Fairness, Ontario’s position on equalization; a progress report on achieving government goals; and investing in Ontario. The premier’s page also includes links to a site on climate change and ONzone, a site with information about government intended for teenagers. British Columbia was by far the biggest developer of these sites, with a long list of tabs down the right sidebar including: Health Link, a health advisory program; the budget; the Speech from the Throne; climate change; healthy living; assistance for forest industry workers; infrastructure development; advice for immigrants to bc; and even pride in the province (www.bestplaceonearth.ca). Looking at these sites together, a number of patterns appear. The sites are often, as Green says, “eye candy,” making use of video and eye-catching graphics. This is particularly the case with sites aimed at the Net Generation. (The exception is Ontario’s www.fairness.ca, which presents its case solely by text.34) Most of these sites are on “transmit” rather than “receive”: they provide information for all visitors but do not disaggregate information locally, provide transactions, or permit dialogue. The sites are likely not too expensive to develop and can readily be contracted out. When the sites go live,



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they are often accompanied by a launch intended to attract ­mainstream media attention to show that, by creating a website, a government is taking action about a problem. The launch might also be accompanied by television or print advertising intended to drive viewers or readers to the site. Thus, if exhortation is a policy instrument, then governments will take credit for using it. In some cases, though, government’s urge to take credit might be at odds with the desired impact; the Ontario government’s teen anti-smoking site, www.stupid.ca, in an attempt to be cool, downplays its origins. A final concern with advocacy sites is their evolution. After being developed outside the government, a site may start out with a grand launch supported by a marketing campaign and linked to a button on the portal. Over time, government priorities change, and its button on the portal will give way to buttons for the latest priorities. If an older eye-candy site is not to die, it must be kept current and must have an institutional home. It is therefore likely it will migrate back to some departmental site, and give up its distinct look and feel and high online profile in exchange for regular updating. One such example is an Ontario site about medical waiting times that started as www.waittimes.net, and now has been integrated into the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care website at http://www. health.gov.on.ca/transformation/wait_times/wait_mn.html. Given the nature of the exercise, it is essential that the data be kept current, and one could not imagine that happening without the cooperation of the ministry. online service delivery

In Digital State at the Leading Edge, David Brown discussed Government On-Line, the initiative of the Chretien and Martin governments to increase the availability and quality of online delivery of major federal government services.35 The program involved providing online information and transactional capability for 135 federal services, organized by three gateways and 31 clusters. It also included the creation of the Secure Channel for transmission of financial and personal data between government and individuals. One external measure of the effectiveness of this initiative is that Canada consistently ranked first in Accenture’s annual surveys of e-government maturity in national governments in economically advanced ­countries.

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Government On-Line reached its mandated sunset date on 31 March 2006, which turned out to coincide with the election of the Harper Government. An ongoing legacy of Government On-Line was the creation in February 2005 of Service Canada, an agency reporting to the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (hrsdc), with the responsibility of providing integrated services to Canadians through the in-person, telephone, and Internet channels. Thus, it was given responsibility for the federal government’s 23 call centres as well as the management of what was the service to Canadians gateway on the Canada site. At approximately the same time, the Government of Ontario established ServiceOntario, also an integrated service delivery agency, and located it in the Ministry of Government Services, together with the government’s human resources organization, it organization, and common procurement organization. One way of measuring progress in online service delivery is the biennial Citizen’s First survey undertaken by Erin Research for the Institute for Citizen-Centred Service on behalf of a consortium of agencies at all levels of government. The most recent survey, Citizens First 5, interviewed 6700 Canadians in fall 2007. It found a dramatic increase in the use of the online channel between 2003 and 2008, with the percentage indicating that they used the Internet in a recent service experience rising from 30 to 47 per cent and the percentage using email rising from 8 to 13 per cent. In contrast, telephone use stayed constant at 55 per cent and in-person service at government offices at 48 per cent. These percentages sum to more than 100 per cent, and indeed 59 per cent used two or more channels to receive service. Thus, the growing use of the Internet and email has complemented rather than displaced the other channels. The Internet has become the dominant channel for securing information and forms but service is often completed through one or more of the other channels. In terms of service quality, the Internet did very well, but telephone, while the most popular, continued to be the most problematic, with low satisfaction rates due to busy lines, lengthy waiting times, and trouble with automated systems.36 Service Canada has now been in existence for almost four years. It has grown to include 22,000 employees at 595 points of service throughout the country, and its 1-800-O-Canada call centre takes 55 million calls and the Service Canada website receives 22 million visits annually. By applying it, it achieved savings of $300 million



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in its first year through streamlining, for example consolidating 23 call centres, and reducing benefit payments made in error due to fraud. It has put in place performance standards and league tables for all its service centres and call centres. It has also started a service excellence certification program based in Regina, and by mid-2007, 50 per cent of all front-line workers had completed it. It has established a number of partnerships, for example, an agreement with Service Ontario by which parents registering a newborn can receive both a provincial birth certificate and federal Social Insurance Number within two weeks.37 Despite the progress Service Canada has made, improving service delivery does not appear to be one of the major interests of the Harper Government. Service Canada still has a somewhat anomalous and unresolved existence within hrsdc. It is understandable that it started its life within hrsdc, its first major client. But as Service Canada has begun to deliver services on behalf of an increasing number of departments, there is a rationale for making it a freestanding department or agency. Service Canada undertook one major advertising campaign, in spring 2007, using unexpended funds at the end of the fiscal year. The campaign has not been repeated. The e-pass, the electronic certificate developed by the Secure Channel initiative to support data exchanges and transactional services, is now readily available but it has not been supported by an awareness campaign. It would appear that the Harper Government is satisfied if Service Canada is running smoothly, but has made no attempt to invest in it in a way that would lead to displaying it as a major accomplishment. A final concern of the Harper Government is that enhancements in online service delivery would require investments in large it systems. Such investments carry the risk of cost overruns and delays, failures which can be embarrassing to the minister(s) responsible. The Conservatives are also familiar with the large project syndrome, having experienced it with their own Constituency Information Management System, which Harper has referred to as the Conservatives’ own gun registry.38 from e-consultation to web 2.0

Digital State at the Leading Edge chronicled the federal and Ontario government’s early attempts at e-consultation. The federal ­government

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initially focused on regulatory issues, while the McGuinty ­Government in the first year of its mandate (2003–04) consulted on a wide range of issues. The federal government built a low key consultation portal, www.consultingcanadians.gc.ca, while Ontario’s McGuinty Government launched a relatively high profile portal, www.townhallontario. gov.on.ca, but then scrapped it when turning from consultation to implementation in the middle of its mandate.39 It did facilitate e-consultation late in its mandate regarding the recommendation of the Citizen Assembly on Democratic Renewal to elect the legislature using a form of proportional representation, but this was handled on the Democratic Renewal Secretariat website, rather than on the consultation portal. The federal government’s portal is still active, though it is not linked to high profile portals such as the Canada or Service Canada sites and, at time of writing, hosts only 10 mainly technical consultations. The last three years have seen rapid growth in the popularity of social networking sites (Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube) and wikis (most notably Wikipedia). As discussed above, politicians have embraced them enthusiastically as a way of spreading their message, particularly to Net Generation voters. In addition, citizens have used them as a way of mobilizing support on particular issues in the context of the policy process. A video of the tasering and death of Robert Dziekanski, a Polish citizen attempting to enter Canada in October 2007 at Vancouver International Airport, was posted on YouTube and received over 700,000 visits and thousands of comments were posted. Professor Michael Geist, an opponent of the copyright legislation the Harper Government proposed in December 2007, posted a YouTube video outlining his arguments. Immediately a Facebook group, Fair Copyright for Canada, was started; it now has 92,000 members and local groups throughout the country. On November 16, 2008, the Ontario Government introduced a number of restrictions on young drivers, one of which would have prohibited drivers in the first year of their licence from transporting more than one unrelated teenaged passenger. Within a few days, a Facebook opposition group – Young Drivers against New Ontario Laws – was formed and it quickly grew to 150,000 members. On December 8, a mere three weeks later, the government rescinded this proposal.40 The question governments are pondering is how to respond to spontaneous citizen, especially Net Generation, use of social ­networking sites for policy discussion. Unlike the politicians, the



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­ ureaucracy has been wary of these sites. The Ontario government, b seeing Facebook as a potential distraction from work, has blocked public servants accessing it. In addition, there is a likely bias in the public service against involvement by public servants with such sites even in their private lives. Having a high online profile, especially one that is controversial, is seen by some public servants as inconsistent with the traditional anonymity and non-partisanship of the career public service and, in the federal public service, as possibly at variance with the Values and Ethics Code.41 Despite the official position, public servants seem to be coming to the realization that social networking sites cannot be ignored, especially if they are where the citizens are. The Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade – which is among the most liberal in terms of staff Internet use policy – has developed its own YouTube Channel and Facebook groups. While internally oriented, a number of departments have developed wikis for staff dialogue. Two notable ones are gcpedia, developed by the Treasury Board Secretariat’s Chief Information Officer Branch and intended for the entire public service, which at the time of writing had approximately 1600 users and 1400 articles, and the Natural Resources Canada wiki, which is used by approximately 2000 of its 5000 person staff.42 Mike Kujawski, a Net Generation “marketing specialist and social media expert,” has compiled a list of federal, provincial, and us government Web 2.0 initiatives, posted at http://government20bestpractices.pbwiki.com/ FrontPage. The overall impression is of a public service that is now groping for answers about how to fit into Web 2.0. For example, the Ontario Cabinet, including Premier McGuinty, saw the Net Generation response to the proposed driver’s license restrictions as a wake-up call. Consultation under the government’s rules on its tame e­consultation sites may work for highly organized groups such as regulated industries, but not for the large communities that form quickly about controversial topics. How does a government analyze, evaluate, and respond to something like the 15,000 wall posts on Young Drivers Against New Ontario Laws? Governments appear to be on the verge of lifting their bans on public servants visiting social networking sites, but they are still wary of the outspoken commentary found on them. Public servants are establishing wikis for internal use, but are not yet opening them up to the public. The advent of social networking sites in the last three years clearly has the potential

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to transform public consultation, but the politicians and public ­servants involved in policy-making are not yet as ready to jump into the unpredictable and fundamentally uncontrollable world of social networking as avidly as politicians seeking office.43 conclusion: looking back and forwards

Looking back over the last three years, there have been a number of very significant developments in the ongoing it-based transformation of politics and government. ü The increased use of social networking sites (YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, twitter, Wikipedia), led by but not restricted to the Net Generation, in political campaigning and in citizen-initiated policy dialogue ü The experience of the Obama campaign in linking online ­campaigning with community organizing that will now serve as a model for other politicians and other campaigns ü The more aggressive use by Canadian politicians of government websites for political messaging ü The increased use by Canadian governments of advocacy websites ü The greater use of online delivery of public services by Canadian citizens, even in the absence of high profile government initiatives in that area ü Canadian governments’ growing experiences with integrated ­service delivery agencies or ministries. Clearly, the leading edge of the digital state has advanced significantly in the last three years, with the growth of social networking ­technologies as an important driver of change. The four basic concepts of digital leadership, channel choice, it procurement, and organizational integration – applied earlier in this chapter to the Obama campaign – can also be applied to the current situation in Canada. The Harper Government has shown digital leadership in the sense of energetically exploiting government websites for political messaging, and some provincial governments, most notably bc Premier Gordon Campbell’s, have done likewise. The question we might ask is whether they have been too aggressive. If Harper at some point in the future were replaced by a Liberal government relying on ongoing support from the ndp and the Bloc, the



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Canada site might be purged of aggressive government party ­messaging. This might lead, as will be discussed below, to digital leadership shifting back in the direction of enhanced service delivery. From the standpoint of channel choice, it is clear that the growing political involvement of the Net Generation is leading to more utilization of the online channel, particularly in terms of leading edge social networking sites, but also in terms of more popularity for online media and government services. Under procurement, we note that advocacy websites are reasonably compact it projects with high political salience that can readily be outsourced. On the other hand, large it projects, which often must be outsourced, still raise political concerns in terms of the likelihood of politically embarrassing cost overruns or delays. The final concept, organizational integration, comes into play in the growth of integrated service delivery organizations such as Service Canada, but it also speaks to their efforts to enable users to integrate the various services available to them, for example through information shared among government services accessible by e-pass on the Secure Channel. In as swiftly changing an area as this, prediction, especially for the long term, is difficult, so we will focus only on some evolving issues, best considered as open questions. Barack Obama’s two months as President-elect and the first months of his presidency show his continued desire to advance the frontier of online governance. At the personal level, he has been able to resolve the security issues posed by continuing to use his BlackBerry to keep in contact with his closest friends and associates.44 His organization created the first-ever website for the office of the President-elect with the revealing title www.change.gov and housed on the us Government’s official portal. The website retained the look and feel of the campaign website, in particular incorporating lots of video and capacity for users to send messages. When he became President, the official website www.whitehouse.gov was revamped to increase transparency. An Office of Public Engagement has been established within the White House to promote dialogue with citizens. President Obama has updated the traditional presidential Saturday morning radio address to a Saturday morning video address posted on YouTube. The Obama campaign organization has been renamed Organizing for America and has been folded into the Democratic National Committee. It continues to contact its 13-million person email list, for example encouraging supporters to hold house meetings to discuss economic

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recovery at the same time (February 8 and 9) the House and Senate were debating recovery legislation. There remain many questions about the Obama Administration’s ongoing use of the Internet.45 Will contact with his national constituency about policy issues translate into effective pressure on marginal legislators – moderate Republicans and conservative Democrats – that will help push Obama’s agenda into law? Will the White House website be open to public consultation in the way Obama’s campaign and Presidentelect sites were? Will Obama’s supporters start to display “mobilization fatigue”? Will the websites for departments and agencies reflect the new tone of the White House site? Will the us government hire a cadre of Net Generation “new media” directors and staff who will set in motion a comprehensive Web 2.0 transformation in Washington? All these questions deserve careful scholarly attention. The Canadian political party facing the greatest challenges is the federal Liberals, who are deeply in debt, and who have chosen a new leader without the benefits, in terms of both public visibility and internal policy development, of an open leadership campaign. Will necessity in this case become the parent of innovation? Will the Liberals make creative use of the Internet for fundraising, for example by setting both immediate and long term collective goals as well as encouraging and rewarding party members for achieving personal goals, earmarking funds raised for specific purposes, and incorporating matching donations? Will they open their policy development process, for example through the use of online discussion forums, wikis, and other social networking tools? Will the Liberals use social networking technology to enlist the Net Generation as a strong ­support base, as Obama has so successfully done? The use of Web 2.0 social networking sites for policy dialogue, particularly by the Net Generation, will continue to grow. The overnight growth to 150,000 members of a Facebook group opposing Ontario’s proposed law changes for young drivers demonstrates how quickly that constituency can mobilize when its interests are challenged. Undoubtedly, there will be other issues where social networking sites are used for instant mobilization about policy issues. While Canadian politicians have used social networking sites without a great deal of popular response (as measured by the membership of their Facebook groups), some public servants have been denied access to Facebook, on the grounds it would be a distraction. Net generation public servants, where encouraged by their senior managers,



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are experimenting with social networking approaches such as departmental Facebook groups and internal wikis. While the online component of public consultations was, in the past, handled by government websites, the public service is likely to turn to popular private sector social networking sites as part of its consultation and outreach initiatives. The Harper and McGuinty Governments might provide an interesting contrast, in that the former has exerted tight central control over its message, while the latter has often encouraged open public dialogue as an important component of policy development. What can we expect for the future development of integrated ­service delivery agencies such as Service Canada and ServiceOntario? In his recent study, Kernaghan mentioned a number of unresolved issues.46 Will governments require that departments transfer their service delivery operations to these organizations, or will they be contestable, in that departments can retain their own service delivery operations unless the government-wide service agency can do it better? Will the agencies remain as operations within a particular ministry, as is now most commonly the case? Or will they become ministries in their own right? Will they be able to co-operate across jurisdictional boundaries (both geographically and by level of government) to offer truly seamless service? Will they be able to put in place identity management and authentication systems that protect users’ privacy, thereby convincing them to agree to share their data across programs? A radically different alternative to governmental integrated service delivery agencies such as Service Canada would be a Web 2.0 approach.47 Government would attempt to meet citizens wherever they are online, and make extensive use of intermediaries. The intermediaries could be social networking sites or entrepreneurs who could combine government content and transactions with private sector content to develop business models that meet user needs. Examples of the latter could include banks acting as intermediaries for government financial transactions such as taxation and benefits in combination with their own financial services, or travel agents integrating their services with government online health and travel advisory services. For this to happen, government must be willing to make its online services available, in a fine-grained form, for intermediaries to combine with their own content (or mashup, to use contemporary terminology). The same questions that were posed about Web 2.0 consultation are relevant here. Governments have

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built their own websites to combine messaging about services, policy, and politics. Intermediary-developed services would likely undercut the cyberspace identity governments have worked so hard and spent so much to build since the dawn of the Internet age. A second consideration is whether intermediary-delivered services would meet the same standards of privacy and confidentiality that governments have developed on their own websites. One indication that this approach is under consideration in the us is that the incoming Obama administration announced that it would operate www.change.gov under the Creative Commons approach, in which its content is freely available for reuse. So Web 2.0 may have major ramifications in the delivery of public services, just as in politics and policy-making. Canada is now in a deep and possibly long recession. One of the ways the Harper Government’s January 27, 2009 budget intended to stimulate the economy was through investment in infrastructure. The budget defined infrastructure broadly to encompass it as well as bricks and mortar. Programs that will support the it industry include a temporary 100 per cent capital cost allowance (depreciation) rate for computer hardware and software systems purchased after January 27, 2009 and before February 1, 2011 and allocating $225 million over three years for broadband coverage of unserved communities. The only major provision to support the online delivery of public services is an allocation of $500 million in 2009–10 to Canada Health Infoway in support of the goal of having 50 per cent of Canadians with electronic health records by 2010.48 The government, however, could have made other investments in improving the delivery of public services. As discussed above, telephone service delivered by government call centres needs to be improved, and initiatives in that area could create jobs. Service improvement will require large it projects, and those projects would provide support for the it industry at a time when private sector demand is likely to weaken. In a recession, many more people will turn to the government for services, and so improvements in the quality of these services, for example the speed with which EI payments are delivered, could emerge as quality-of-life issues for the electorate.49 If the economy remains in recession, the Harper Government might turn to these initiatives in future stimulus packages. What, then, is the future of public administration scholarship about it and government? When Bruce Doern began to study science policy four decades ago, very few Canadian policy scholars were working in that field. Despite its enormous impact on government,



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there are still few Canadian public administration scholars working on it and government. Significant research opportunities wait in this field. Some scholars of the baby-boom generation working in this field include Kenneth Kernaghan and John Langford, focusing on the role of it in integrated service delivery and David Brown, studying the federal cio as an instrument of governance. What the study of it in politics and government needs is more participation by scholars who are themselves members of the Net Generation. Scholars of the baby-boom generation, myself included, are not likely to be current with the latest technology and software, and may well have made lifestyle choices not to engage those technologies. On the other hand, scholars of the Net Generation are more likely to be current with these technologies, and therefore to understand, from their own lived experience, how their impact on politics and government. There are a few members of a younger generation – most notably Cynthia Alexander at Acadia, Patrice Dutil at Ryerson, Cosmo Howard at Victoria, Kathy McNutt at Regina, and Jeffrey Roy at Dalhousie – whose scholarship encompasses this field. But the field is wide enough, and the questions are of sufficient importance, that there is ample room for others. A festschrift intrinsically deals with the continuity of scholarship from one generation to another. It is thus a perfect forum for this call for younger scholars to engage themselves in study of the impact of it on politics and government – which ongoing study and observation has convinced me is the future of governance and citizenship.

notes

1� The research assistance of Laura Sampson is gratefully acknowledged. Comments on drafts of this chapter were provided by David Brown, Steven Green, Beth Herst, Kenneth Kernaghan, Laura Sampson, Evan Sotiropoulos, Ericka Stephens-Rennie, and Brigitte Torok-Watkins. 2� Sandford Borins, Kenneth Kernaghan, David Brown, Nick Bontis, Perri 6, and Fred Thompson, Digital State at the Leading Edge (University of Toronto Press, 2007). 3� Alex Mindlin, “Web Passes Papers as a News Source,” The New York Times, 5 January 2009, B3. 4� Sandford Borins, “Is it Transforming Government: Evidence and Lessons from Canada,” in Borins et al., Digital State at the Leading Edge, 357–69.

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5� Sandford Borins and David Brown, “Digital Leadership: The Human Face if it,” in Borins et al., Digital State at the Leading Edge, 284–9, 292–4. 6� Kenneth Kernaghan, “Making Political Connections: it and Legislative Life,” in Borins et al., Digital State at the Leading Edge, 234–47. 7� Harris MacLeod, “Call them CrackBerries: mps addicted to their little BlackBerries,” The Hill Times, 2 June 2008. 8� For a discussion of the use of it by what he calls the Net Generation, see Don Tapscott, Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing your World (McGraw Hill, 2009). 9� Tom Flanagan, Harper’s Team: Behind the Scenes in the Conservative Rise to Power (McGill Queen’s University Press, 2007), 85–7, 150, 170, 232, 264. 10� Ibid, 288–9. 11� Michael Luo, “Obama Hauls in Record $750 Million for Campaign, With Plenty Left to Spend,” The New York Times, 5 December 2008, A29. 12� Tufts University Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, “Young Voters in the 2008 Presidential Election,” 24 November 2008. Available at: www.civicyouth.org; accessed 3December 2008. 13� Sandford Borins, “Conceptual Framework,” in Borins et al, Digital State at the Leading Edge, 14–36. 14� Brian Stelter, “A Facebook Founder Brings Social Networking to the Obama Campaign,” The New York Times, 7 July 2008. 15� Ted Dickinson, “The Machinery of Hope: Inside the Grass-roots Field Operation of Barack Obama, Who Is Transforming the Way Political Campaigns Are Run,” Rolling Stone, 20 March 2008. 16� David Carr, “Obama’s Personal Linked In,” The New York Times, 10 November 2008. 17� Tom Lowry, “Obama’s Secret Digital Weapon,” Business Week, 24 June 2008; David Talbott, “How Obama – Really – Did It,” Technology Review, September/October 2008. 18� Flanagan, Harper’s Team, 272–3. 19� Fred Thompson, “Evolution or Revolution: E-Government in the United States,” in Borins et al., Digital State at the Leading Edge, 304–5. 20� Allan Blakeney and Sandford Borins, Political Management in Canada, 2nd ed. (University of Toronto Press, 1998), 84. 21� “Boy in the bubble” is also the title of the first song on Paul Simon’s album Graceland (1986). The song alludes to technology in verses such as “these are the days of miracle and wonder, this is the long-distance



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call, the way the camera follows us in slo-mo, the way we look to us all” and “these are the days of lasers in the jungle somewhere, staccato ­signals of constant information, a loose affiliation of millionaires and billionaires.” 22� Sandford Borins, “Tory’s Tories: The Ontario PC Party’s Websites,” 25 July 2007; Sandford Borins, “The Ontario Liberal Website: Kodachrome or Black-and-White,” 8 August 2007; Sandford Borins, “The Federal Party Websites: Not at the Leading Edge,” 10 September 2008. All available at: www.sandfordborins.com. 23� Another way in which all parties are taking bloggers more seriously is by giving them accreditation and access comparable to mainstream media at their conventions and conferences. 24� Sandford Borins, “The Election Online: An Overnight Analysis,” 15 October 2008. Available at: www.sandfordborins.com. 25� Borins, “Is it Transforming Government: Evidence and Lessons from Canada,” in Borins et al., Digital State at the Leading Edge, 364. 26� Virginia Heffernan, “Clicking and Choosing: The Election according to YouTube,” The New York Times Magazine, 16 November 2008. 27� The counts in this paragraph were all tracked by the author. 28� The 2004 data are in Kenneth Kernaghan, “Moving Beyond Politics as Usual? Online Campaigning,” in Borins et al., Digital State at the Leading Edge, 190–1. The sample size was 4220. Unpublished data for the 2008 Canada Election Study were provided by its research director, Professor Elisabeth Gidengil. The sample size was 2354. 29� Borins and Brown, “Digital Leadership: The Human Face of it,” in Borins et al., Digital State at the Leading Edge, 282–4. 30� Sandford Borins, “New Prime Minister, New Website?” 5 July 2007. Available at: www.sandfordborins.com. 31� “Number 10 website has massive re-design to improve communication to citizens,” Public Sector it News, 18 August 2008. Available at: www.publictechnology.net. 32� This can be considered the online extension of the practice of the public service ceasing its role in policy-making during election campaigns. 33� Borins and Brown, “Digital Leadership: The Human Face of it,” in Borins et al., Digital State at the Leading Edge, 280–1. 34� The Ontario Government used this site to post Premier McGuinty’s letter to federal party leaders during the 2008 election campaign, as well as their responses. 35� David Brown, “The Government of Canada: Government On-Line and Citizen-Centred Service,” in Borins et al., Digital State at the Leading Edge, 37–68.

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36� Erin Research, Citizens First 5 (Institute for Citizen-Centred Service, 2008), 48–53. 37� Kenneth Kernaghan, “Case Study – Service Canada” (Institute for Citizen-Centre Service, 2008). Available at: www.iccs-isac.org/en/isd/ cs_ser_can.htm. 38� Flanagan, Harper’s Team, 86. 39� Sandford Borins and David Brown, “E-Consultation: Technology at the Interface between Civil Society and Government,” in Borins et al., Digital State at the Leading Edge (University of Toronto Press, 2007), 253–76. 40� Murray Campbell, “Ontario drops plans to limit passengers in teens’ cars,” The Globe and Mail, 9 December 2008, A12. 41� Sandford Borins, “Facebook or Faceless?” 24 May 2007. Available at: www.sandfordborins.com. 42� Vito Pilieci, “Government Creates own Version of Wikipedia,” The Ottawa Citizen, October 29, 2008; Anna Belanger, Peter Cowan, and Marj Akerley, “NRCan’s Collaborative Revolution,” Canadian Government Executive (October 2008), 6–8. 43� These issues are discussed in terms of the impact of Internet-enabled ­citizen mobilization on the roles of political parties, Parliament, ­ministers, and the public service in Jeffrey Roy, “Beyond Westminster Governance: Bringing Politics and Public Service into the Networked Era,” Canadian Public Administration 51, no. 4 (December 2008), 541–68. 44� Peter Baker, “New Symbol of Elite Access: Email to the Chief,” The New York Times, 1 February 2009. 45� Jim Rutenberg and Adam Nagourney, “Retooling a Grass-Roots Network To Serve a YouTube Presidency,” The New York Times, 26 January 2009. 46� Kenneth Kernaghan, Integrating Service Delivery: Barriers and Benchmarks (Institute for Citizen-Centred Service, 2008). 47� This approach is outlined in Ai-Mei Chang and P.K. Kannan, “Leveraging Web 2.0 in Government,” (ibm Center for the Business of Government, 2008). Available at: www.businessofgovernment.org/pdfs/ ChangReport2.pdf. 48� Department of Finance Canada, Canada’s Economic Action Plan: Budget 2009. Available at: www.budget.gc.ca/2009/pdf/budget-­planbugetaireeng.pdf. 49� Gloria Galloway, “Jobless Irked by Delays in Getting ei Cheques,” The Globe and Mail, 19 December 2008.

10 Canada-United States Energy Relations From Domestic to North American Energy Policies?1 monica gattinger

During the 2008 American presidential race, Republican presidential hopeful Senator John McCain proclaimed to the Economic Club of Canada that “[Canada and the United States] must … work to ensure reliable energy supplies and increase sources of renewable energy … We stand much to gain by harmonizing our energy policies, just as we have gained by cooperating in trade through nafta.”2 Although Senator McCain was ultimately unsuccessful in his bid for the American presidency, his assertion was not surprising in the context of fluctuating energy prices, the global economic downturn, enduring concerns over energy security in the United States, the ascendance of climate change on domestic and international policy agendas, and increasingly integrated North American energy markets. McCain’s recommendation was certainly not the first of its kind nor is likely to be the last. It does, however, raise a number of important questions for Canada and for Canada-United States and North American energy relations. What are the drivers of, prospects for and desirability of harmonizing Canadian and American energy policies? Would such harmonization involve energy in toto or only certain segments or functions of the industry? To what degree are energy policies already harmonized? Given the asymmetry between Canada and the us, would energy policy harmonization processes result in the Americanization of Canadian energy policies? If Canada and the United States were to pursue a path of harmonization, what processes to achieve this goal could or should be used? Finally, what is the place of Mexico in this dossier?

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This chapter explores these questions. To set the context for the analysis, it begins with an overview of Canada-United States energy markets, policy and politics since the coming into force of the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement (cufta).3 It then turns to the questions posed above, beginning with Canada-us energy policy relations from the mid-1980s to the present, emphasizing emergent harmonization processes. As the analysis reveals, there are strong drivers of energy policy harmonization between Canada and the us, and harmonization is already evident in some policy areas. The chapter argues that ‘North American’ approaches to certain energy policy issues are worth considering, but it is crucial to recognize and address the asymmetrical power relations implicit in harmonization processes. In addition, it is imperative that such undertakings include meaningful representation and influence of a broader-based set of stakeholders than currently take part in bilateral and trilateral energy discussions. The chapter builds on G. Bruce Doern’s longstanding, impressive and prolific array of scholarship in the energy field, a field that has tended to draw more attention from economists focused on the economic dimensions of energy market integration, deregulation, privatization, trade liberalization, and the like, than from political scientists, exploring the political, institutional, and administrative aspects of energy policy and regulation. Bruce is one of the rare political scientists in Canada who has delved into this domain in a substantial way and is arguably the scholar who has done so the most extensively and consistently throughout his career. While he has published countless journal articles and book chapters in the area, perhaps his greatest contribution is the many books and edited collections he has spearheaded or co-directed. These include, with Glen Toner, The Politics of Energy: The Development and Implementation of the nep (Methuen, 1985); with Arslan Dorman and Robert Morrison (eds.,), Canadian Nuclear Energy Policy: Changing Ideas, Institutions and Interests (University of Toronto Press, 2001); Canadian Energy Policy and the Struggle for Sustainable Development (ed., University of Toronto Press, 2005), and, with Burkard Eberlein (eds.,) Governing the Energy Challenge: Canada and ­Germany in a Multilevel Regional and Global Context (University of Toronto Press, 2009). Not only did (and do) these volumes make important contributions to the energy literature, they also reflect Bruce’s penchant for collaboration and supporting junior scholars



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in his research programme. Indeed, my own research programme in the energy sector would not have emerged had it not been for early work with Bruce as both research assistant and co-author on Canada and Canada-us energy matters. Our co-authored book chapters and book (Power Switch: Energy Regulatory Governance in the TwentyFirst Century, University of Toronto Press, 2003) laid the groundwork for my subsequent research in. As is the case for so many scholars and former students, I owe a sincere debt of gratitude to G. Bruce Doern for his invaluable support and mentorship in my academic development. energy markets, policy and politics

Canada and the United States share increasingly integrated energy markets, characterized by extensive energy trade, interdependence and mainly market-oriented policy approaches. This section examines these characteristics, beginning with energy market integration, trade liberalization and deregulation/restructuring. It then turns to enduring structural and political features shaping bilateral energy politics. Energy Market Integration, Trade Liberalization and Deregulation/Restructuring Canada-us energy relations are characterized by mutual interdependence due in large part to the distribution of energy reserves within and between the two countries and to domestic patterns of supply and demand. In 2004, Canada’s crude oil proved reserves dwarfed those of the United States, standing at 179.3 billion barrels compared to 21.4 billion barrels.4 In natural gas, Canada’s 87.8 trillion cubic feet of proved reserves were roughly half those of the United States, whose proved reserves stood at 192.5 trillion cubic feet. Following major discoveries in recent years of shale gas in the us, the difference in natural gas proved reserves has widened even further. In electricity, Canada and the us possessed 107 and 968 gigawatts of generation capacity, respectively, in 2004.5 Energy production and consumption patterns differ markedly between the two countries: Canada’s energy production exceeds demand while us demand exceeds its supply. As such, us requirements for imported energy generate considerable market opportunities for the energy sector in Canada as well as mutual interdependence between the two countries.

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Both countries have pursued trade liberalization and energy market deregulation and restructuring since the mid-1980s. Trade liberalization began under the Canada-us Free Trade Agreement. cufta’s energy chapter essentially disallows price controls in the oil and natural gas sectors, prohibits the establishment of policies to create different domestic and export prices for energy, and includes proportionality provisions that significantly constrain the Canadian federal government from reducing exports by stipulating that reductions in the quantity of energy offered for sale to the us market must be offset by proportional reductions of energy offered for sale domestically. cufta’s energy provisions helped to ensure secure and predictable access for Canadian energy producers to the American marketplace, and assuaged energy producers’ concerns that they would again be subject to federal intervention in the energy sector along the lines of the National Energy Program (more on the nep below). The North American Free Trade Agreement (nafta) carries over the cufta energy provisions for Canada-us energy trade, and also includes Mexico.6 In addition to energy trade liberalization, Canadian and American governments have considerably deregulated the oil and gas sectors, and have restructured electricity markets. Canada has privatized Petro-Canada, removed foreign ownership restrictions, and deregulated prices. Beginning in the 1980s, the us deregulated prices and established nondiscriminatory open access transmission in the oil and gas sector. Electricity market reform began in the 1990s, and the pace of restructuring has varied considerably across states and provinces. Restructuring has involved privatization of public utilities, division of those portions of the electricity supply industry that lend themselves to market forces (generation and wholesale/retail supply) from those that are natural monopolies (distribution and transmission), introducing competition into the wholesale and retail electricity markets, and the use of performance-based regulatory mechanisms in the regulated portions of the industry.7 As a result of trade agreements and deregulation in the oil, natural gas and electricity sectors, Canada-us energy trade has increased rapidly over the last decade.8 Table 1 shows bilateral energy trade in the post-cufta period and reveals that Canada is a net energy exporter (particularly in oil and gas) and that American imports of Canadian energy have grown considerably. The volume of petroleum imports more than tripled between 1985 and 2007 and natural gas



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Table 1 Canada-United States energy trade, selected years, 1985–2007

Petroleum (million barrels) Natural gas (billion cubic feet) Electricity (terawatthours)

Imports to US from Canada

US Exports to Canada

1985

1985 1990 2000 2007

1990

2000

2007

281   341   661   885

0.03

0.03

0.04

0.07

926 1,448 3,544 3,777 NA   16   49   50

0.2 NA

17 16

73 13

472   20

Data for 2007 are preliminary. 1 terawatthour = 109 kilowatthours. United States Energy Information Administration, Annual Energy Review 2007 (Government Printing Office, 2008); United States Energy Information Administration, International Electricity Imports and Exports, Table 8.1 Electricity Overview, 1949–2007 (2008). Available at: www.eia. doe.gov/emeu/international/electricitytrade.html; accessed 29 July 2009.

imports more than quadrupled. There was also strong growth in electricity exports to the us over the last two decades. Oil and gas imports to the us represent significant proportions of the country’s net energy imports and consumption. In 2007, over eighty percent of natural gas imports to the us were sourced from Canada and this represented close to fifteen percent of us consumption.9 In the same year, petroleum imports from Canada comprised some eighteen percent of American imports, positioning Canada as the largest petroleum supplier to the us in 2007.10 Canada exports large proportions of domestic supply to the us: Canada exports roughly half the oil and gas it produces, and all (natural gas) or virtually all (oil) of this is destined for the United States.11 Energy Politics In comparison to the early 1980s, there are two key similarities and four main differences in the politics and context of contemporary Canada-us energy relations.12 The first is Canada’s small population relative to the United States, and the fact that Canada’s energy resources tend to lie in less densely populated parts of the country. This characteristic has rendered Canadian energy development closely linked to the us. The economic viability of constructing a pipeline from one part of Canada to another, for example, often depends on its passing through the United States to serve American markets along the way. As a result, many major energy decisions in Canada necessarily involve American influence and require decisions

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by us authorities and regulators. The geographical distribution of Canada’s population and energy reserves can also lead to tension between energy consuming provinces (particularly the major population centres in Ontario and Québec) and energy producing provinces.13 Canada’s divided and decentralized jurisdictional arrangements for energy can intensify these inter-regional tensions. The Canadian constitution confers lands, mines, minerals and royalties to the provinces. Federal power in the energy sector, meanwhile, derives from the federal government’s jurisdiction over interprovincial and international trade, taxation, and treaty-making.14 The decentralization and division in political jurisdiction along with the inter-regional structural realities of Canadian energy supply and demand produce the requirement for substantial federal-provincial negotiation over energy policy. The second similarity in comparison to the early 1980s is that American energy policy influences Canadian energy development regardless of whether us policy is protectionist or market-oriented. The implications for Canada of American electricity sector restructuring, discussed further on in this text, are a case in point. The first main difference in the contemporary energy milieu is that it is highly improbable that the Canadian government would intervene in as strong a fashion as it did in 1980 with the National Energy Program (nep). The nep established a two-price policy for oil, curtailed oil exports and froze gas exports to the United States, and generated significant tension in Canada-us and federal-provincial energy relations.15 Not only is a renewal of this strong form of energy policy intervention unlikely for domestic political reasons, i.e., avoiding the wrath of energy-producing provinces and the implications for national unity, it is also improbable because of a second main difference in the current energy environment: the country’s trade obligations under the cufta (superseded by nafta). As noted above, these agreements prohibit the government from establishing twoprice policies like those found in the National Energy Program and virtually eliminate the possibility that the Canadian government would intervene to reduce the quantity of energy offered for sale to the United States. The third and fourth main factors differentiating the current era from the past pertain to market integration. The us and Canadian economies are increasingly integrated, which heightens mainstream



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industries’ focus on competitiveness in relation to American ­counterparts and prompts closer attention on any lever of cost advantage, i­ncluding energy costs. Market integration in the contemporary period also extends to Mexico. This is the fourth issue differentiating contemporary energy politics from the past. A number of factors foster continental energy markets: trade liberalization, domestic deregulatory reform, industrial convergence in gas and electricity, and information technology permitting instantaneous market transactions.16 While the vast majority of energy trade is bilateral Canada-us and Mexico-us trade, as discussed further below, bilateral energy relations increasingly take place under the rubric of continental energy discussions. To these four main differences, one can add the intense focus on energy security in the United States in the post-9/11 period. Given longstanding American dependence on imported energy, energy security has been an enduring concern for the country. While the intensity of this concern ebbs and flows on the tides of geopolitical, energy resource and economic considerations, a number of factors and events have generated a strong emphasis on energy security in recent years. us dependence on foreign energy sources doubled between 1980 and 2004.17 In addition, the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks heightened existing energy security concerns and generated an intense focus on hard security (security of critical infrastructure, energy companies’ cyber security, security of energy facilities, etc.). Further, the August 2003 electricity blackout, that left some 50 million people in Ontario and the Midwestern and Northeastern us without power, intensified energy security concerns, particularly those over electricity reliability. Finally, rising energy prices – most notably in oil up until recent times – have focused attention squarely on energy security. A final difference in the current period is the growing focus on the environmental impacts of energy exploration, production, distribution and consumption. The energy-environment interface has grown both in scope and complexity over the last number of decades and governments are increasingly called upon to address environmental issues such as climate change, species at risk and air quality – all of which have implications for the manner in which energy is produced and consumed. The environmental imperative often produces frictions between traditional energy policy and regulation and environmental policy.18

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from domestic to north american energy policies?

Given energy market interdependence between Canada and the United States, the generally pro-market policies pursued by both countries, and the enduring and evolving aspects of bilateral energy politics, it is not surprising to hear calls like Senator McCain’s for energy policy harmonization. This section examines the prospects for and desirability of Canada-us energy policy harmonization, beginning with an analysis of bilateral energy policy relations over the past couple of decades. It then turns to relations in more recent times, noting the drivers of harmonization and the emergence of harmonization in a number of areas. Finally, it queries the desirability of and prospects for further energy policy harmonization, paying particular attention to the politics of harmonization processes. Canada-US Energy Policy Relations in the Post-CUFTA Period Bilateral energy policy relations can assume a variety of forms, both over time and across energy sub-markets or functions (research, development, production, distribution/transmission, etc.). Figure 1 develops a spectrum of these relations with conflict at one end and harmonization at the other.19 Starting on the left-hand side, bilateral policy relations can be characterized by open conflict, where interests diverge. In between the poles of conflict and harmonization lies independence, where governments regard the policies of their counterparts as given and seek neither to influence them nor to adapt their policies in response. Coordination, lying between independence and collaboration, refers to countries mutually adapting their policy frameworks to one another. While each jurisdiction recognizes the other’s distinct policy and regulatory framework, it gives consideration to the implications of domestic policy and regulatory change for the other country. Collaboration, meanwhile, refers to the exchange of data, expertise or knowledge across borders, and working together to achieve common objectives. Harmonization connotes developing common policy or regulatory frameworks across jurisdictions. In the post-cufta period, Canada-us energy policy relations have been characterized predominantly by policy coordination, collaboration, and, as revealed in the previous section, implicit harmonization of broad policy directions, owing to the many shared interests and

Conflict

Canada-United States Energy Relations Independence Coordination

215 Harmonization

Collaboration

Figure 1  A spectrum of bilateral policy relations

considerable degree of energy interdependence between the two countries. Following the August 2003 power outage, for example, Canada and the United States collaborated to establish a bilateral task force charged with investigating the cause of the blackout and recommending how to decrease the possibility of power outages in the future. Collaboration between Canadian and American officials on electricity reliability has been ongoing following the release of the Task Force’s final report, and the Canadian government sought and obtained “coordination language” in American electricity reliability legislation to ensure that the development of mandatory reliability standards would include coordination with Canada. Instances of open conflict between the two countries post-cufta are rare.20 Rather, one sometimes finds a policy path of independence taken by the United States, with the Canadian government intervening to attempt to persuade us governments to move rightward along the spectrum toward coordination. These processes can be characterized as sensitized coordination, in which Canadian actors aim to sensitize American authorities to the importance of taking implications for Canada into account when developing energy policy, legislation and regulation. In the energy-environment domain, for example, American initiatives to promote renewable electricity production since the early 2000s have drawn concern from the electricity sector in Canada. The enactment of renewable portfolio standards (rpss), stipulating the amount of electricity that must be generated from renewable energy sources, can represent barriers to Canadian electricity exports either by discriminating against non-domestic electricity or against certain renewable energy forms, notably existing hydroelectricity. On the rps file, the Canadian government has fully advocated the position to American governments that us ­programs should treat electricity imports in the same manner as domesticallygenerated electricity.21 Even when Canada and the us have explicitly pursued independent policy paths – orientation toward the Kyoto Protocol in the early 2000s, for example – it has not tended to result in open conflict and

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the two countries have continued to collaborate in areas of mutual interest. While the Chrétien government ratified the Kyoto Protocol and expressed its concern to the United States over the Bush administration’s repudiation of the agreement,22 the two governments announced shortly thereafter that they had agreed to collaborate on a number of initiatives, chiefly in research and technical areas, including technology development, carbon sequestration, and accounting and measurement of emissions.23 One tends not to find explicit efforts toward policy or regulatory harmonization. Indeed, the North American Energy Working Group (naewg), a trilateral initiative comprised of energy officials from Canada, the United States and Mexico, explicitly states at the outset of many of its reports, “This cooperative process fully respects the domestic policies, divisions of jurisdictional authority and existing trade obligations of each country.”24 Having said this, many of the developments described in the previous section constitute implicit harmonization of broad policy directions and generate considerable pressures for further energy policy and regulatory harmonization. Indeed, a number of recent policy developments in the naewg and beyond suggest Canada-us energy policy relations are poised for greater harmonization. Harmonization processes can emerge from a number of sources or pathways. Banting, Hoberg and Simeon propose three factors that can propel convergence in domestic policy approaches: emulation, in which policy approaches in one country are adopted in the other through a process of learning; parallel domestic factors, where countries respond in similar ways to common domestic pressures, and international constraints, where international treaties or concerns over international competitiveness lead to similar policy choices.25 In the energy sector, a fourth factor must be added to these three: interdependence, which highlights the pressures for harmonization resulting from market integration and interdependence. All four of these factors can be seen at work in the energy sector and they are generating strong drivers of and incentives for harmonization. Emulation is illustrated by oil and gas deregulation and electricity market restructuring over the past few decades. In electricity, jurisdictions in Canada, notably Alberta and Ontario, adopted market restructuring initiatives in part by emulating American experience. Parallel domestic factors are also inducing Canada and the us to adopt similar energy policy approaches. Technological advances



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available to both ­countries have prompted governments to introduce competition into various segments of the electricity supply industry, for example, and domestic interests in Canada and the us pressuring governments for environmental protection are also stimulating greater interest in measures to combat climate change, to promote the use of alternative energy sources, and to conduct research into carbon sequestration, among others.26 International constraints also generate pressures for ­harmonization, particularly us concerns over energy security in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The United States often turns toward Canada and Mexico to strengthen its energy security. Not only is this evident in Senator McCain’s remarks, but it also formed a core part of the Bush administration’s May 2001 National Energy Policy, which conceived of energy security in continental terms, and viewed increased energy production and cooperation in North America as an important building block of energy security.27 For Canada, this means principally its oil and gas reserves, but also electricity sector integration.28 An important step toward developing this continental approach to energy was the 2001 creation of the above-mentioned North American Energy Working Group. The work of the group has focused predominantly on taking stock of information on energy resources, energy infrastructure, and policy and regulatory frameworks in the nafta countries, but it is increasingly turning its attention toward harmonization as well. Indeed, the naewg may be exceeding early descriptions of the group as pursuing collaboration around matters of mutual interest. In the words of an official participating in the process, at its first meeting in June 2001, “the naewg decided to set forth a goal beyond any of those hence stated…[and]…agreed to pursue full integration of the North American energy market.”29 In natural gas, for example, the naewg articulated a continental path for natural gas development through publication of North American Natural Gas Vision.30 In the oil sector, the group has put forward policy recommendations for an approach to develop Alberta’s oil sands,31 a development that is rather surprising given that this resource is located solely in Canada and its development is largely under provincial jurisdiction. The final factor propelling harmonization is energy inter­dependence between Canada and the us. Progressive bilateral energy market integration heightens economic, policy and regulatory ­interdependence between the two countries. As Dukert notes, the process of energy

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market integration exerts a “ratcheting effect” on further integration: once pipelines and electricity inter-ties have been constructed across the border, these physical and institutional connections favour further integration, and resist reversals in the process.32 Moreover, as noted below with reference to the electricity sector, interdependence can generate strong pressures to develop common policy and regulatory frameworks for energy trade and reliability, although these harmonization processes can take place through unilateral – as opposed to bilateral – means. While the analysis above identifies sources of harmonization, it does not speak to the politics of the process. Given the economic, demographic and political asymmetries between Canada and the United States, it is important to explore the contours of bilateral harmonization politics. Does energy policy harmonization between Canada and the United States mean the Americanization of Canadian energy policies? A review of the four factors above suggests that it might. With the exception of parallel domestic factors, all of the other factors can generate an over-representation of American interests and policy in harmonization processes. Emulation can confer asymmetrical influence to American policy and regulatory frameworks when the us is the “first mover” and when Canadian policy-makers have incentive to follow a us lead. This is often the case, for example, when industry presses for common policy or regulatory frameworks to establish a “level playing field” for business in North America. International constraints can also direct harmonization toward American approaches to the extent that us policy and regulation constitutes an international constraint for Canada (more on this below). Similarly, interdependence can engender Americanization when it propels the adoption of us approaches to reduce differences between Canadian and American markets. Indeed, these last two factors can combine to generate powerful incentives for Canada to adopt American policy and regulatory frameworks. In the electricity sector, for example, reciprocity requirements of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (ferc) propel harmonization around an American pole. In order to export power to the us, Canadian utilities are required by the Commission to make their transmission networks accessible to other companies on a nondiscriminatory basis, a requirement with which they have tended to comply.33 They have also restructured their operations internally and



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created new regulatory bodies in order to become ferc-accredited wholesale power suppliers to the American marketplace.34 Given the influence of the ferc on electricity restructuring in Canada, some scholars have characterized the Commission as a “quasi-­supranational” organization35 or even as “imperial.”36 As Froschauer notes, “[w]ith the increasingly transnational regional electricity market overlapping the us-Canada border, some regulatory sovereignty has effectively shifted to Washington, forcing provincial utility commissions and legislatures to harmonize utility restructuring requirements and transmission services to comply with ferc […].”37 American influence can be amplified by energy market interdependence. Continuing with the electricity example, when regulatory changes occur in the us, it can be very costly for provincial power suppliers to choose not to adopt these same measures as it would prohibit them from accessing us markets. The development of mandatory reliability standards provides a further example of this double incentive – international constraints and interdependence – toward Americanization. ferc approved some eighty reliability standards in 2007 and Canadian provinces are now called upon to adopt them. Some provinces have already taken this step (e.g., Ontario and New Brunswick), and the North American Electricity Reliability Corporation (nerc), the organization responsible for developing and implementing the standards, is actively encouraging the other provinces to follow suit. Notwithstanding the potential asymmetry in bilateral ­harmonization processes, the pursuit of common energy policy approaches between Canada and the United States may be advantageous. This is not to suggest, though, that energy policy harmonization in toto is feasible politically, technically or institutionally. Although uniform policy and regulation may be welcomed by the energy industry – indeed, market players may coordinate bilaterally to pursue this end – it is not clear that harmonization would be welcomed so readily by the public and civil society sectors in Canada (or the us). Canadian energy policy and regulatory frameworks reflect Canadian interests and considerations and are shaped by distinctive federal-provincial preoccupations, regional cleavages, industrial structures, environmental perspectives, aboriginal considerations, etc. They are the product of political processes that have produced a distinctive balance between the particular economic, environmental, social and aboriginal interests at play in a given jurisdiction. Domestic policy

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and regulatory processes also reflect domestic political “styles,” institutions and industrial structures that do not necessarily resemble ways of doing things in other jurisdictions. As such, the prospects for energy policy harmonization in toto would seem slim. Nonetheless, there are certain areas of energy policy that could benefit from harmonized approaches. Tackling climate change is one example. Developing harmonized approaches to reducing greenhouse gas (ghg) emissions would not only help to provide business a level playing field, it might also lead to a more equitable distribution of the costs of energy production. As it stands, Canada, as a major energy producer – much of it for export – is also a major ghg emitter. And yet from the perspective of equity, some Canadians could reasonably ask, “Why should Canada produce greenhouse gas emissions to supply energy to the United States?” Americans also question Canadian energy production, particularly development of the oil sands given the heavy environmental footprint of synthetic crude vis-à-vis conventional oil (higher ghg emissions, extensive requirements for water, damage to the boreal forest, production of tailings ponds, etc.). Recent years have witnessed protests and ad campaigns against the oil sands by American environmental groups, pronouncements by politicians including President Barack Obama against ‘dirty oil’ including the oil sands, and a resolution by the us Conference of Mayors against use of oil sands fuel for municipal vehicles. Harmonized processes on climate change are already evident at the national and sub-national levels. Canadian provinces and us states, for example, have developed joint approaches to reduce ghgs through the Western Climate Initiative, including common reduction targets and the development of a carbon cap-and-trade scheme. At the national level, harmonization is also emerging, with federal governments committing to joint carbon sequestration research and pilot projects and establishing a trilateral agreement between Canada, the us and Mexico for energy science and technology research, including the capacity to develop joint program funding and exchange of personnel. A number of other examples of emergent or nascent ­harmonization on climate change underscore the potential for asymmetry in such processes. The development of low carbon fuel standards for gasoline in California, for example, has prompted Ontario and British Columbia to commit to adopting the same standards. Further, both the Obama administration and the Harper government seek to



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develop cap-and-trade systems and more broadly, to address climate change, but the Harper government’s attempt to engage the us in developing a Canada-us treaty on energy security and climate change was unsuccessful. Instead, the American federal government appears to be moving ahead on climate change with seemingly little reference to Canada. While the Harper government announced in June 2009 that it plans to develop a cap-and-trade system, it is difficult to imagine this system departing too significantly from whatever American approach is developed given the need to maintain access to the American marketplace. Similarly, the Harper government has delayed development and implementation of emissions reductions requirements for industrial emitters, in part to see what American initiatives will be enacted38 – which could likewise stimulate harmonization around an American pole. Another issue for which harmonization may be worth exploring is the import of natural gas via tanker (i.e., liquefied natural gas, lng). Sourcing gas in this way requires massive infrastructure investment to build lng terminals and the storage, regasification, and pipeline facilities they require. And yet, this process appears to be proceeding with little coordination between Canada, the us and/or Mexico. As of February 2008, the private sector had put forward applications for forty-four lng terminals in North America, while only a total of thirty were likely to be required39 (actual requirements are likely far lower following the recent discovery of massive reserves of shale gas in the us). Given the tremendous investment costs involved, rationalizing these processes makes considerable economic and political sense. Ports located in Canada, for example, could be planned from the outset with greater certainty as to us demand – and related infrastructure requirements. A harmonized approach could also ensure greater equity or burden-sharing in the distribution and location of lng terminals, given the local opposition that frequently surrounds their construction. A final example is labour. Canada and the us have rapidly aging populations, while Mexico, in contrast, has a much younger population, which could represent an important potential source of labour for the other two countries.40 The energy sector, like many, faces labour shortages that are only likely to become more acute as the Canadian and American populations age. Putting in place harmonized approaches to labour force development for the North American energy sector could enhance efficiency in the sector, and, if pursued

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carefully, contribute to economic, social and labour force ­development in Mexico. discussion and conclusion: what path forward?

With the emergence of nascent harmonization processes in recent times, the potential desirability of harmonization in some policy areas, and the often asymmetrical politics of harmonization, the question of how to move forward procedurally is an important one. While formal meetings between political leaders of Canada and the United States often constitute the public face of bilateral energy policy relations, in the main, it is public servants in energy and energy-related line departments and agencies on both sides of the border who manage ongoing bilateral policy relations “at the working level.” A wide range of formal and informal instruments and mechanisms are used to manage bilateral energy files – everything from informal exchanges (phone calls, e-mails, meetings, etc.) and informal instruments such as Memoranda of Understanding (mous), to formal mechanisms and instruments including working groups or task forces, formal agreements requiring ratification by the political executive or legislature (e.g., treaties), and joint organizations (e.g., the Commission for Environmental Cooperation). The Energy ­Consultative Mechanism (ecm) has been a key bilateral mechanism for annual exchange on bilateral energy issues. In addition to these bilateral forums and mechanisms, there are two main trilateral forums.41 The first is the above-mentioned North American Energy Working Group. Chaired jointly by Natural Resources Canada, the us Department of Energy, and the Mexican Secretariat of Energy, the group has met semi-annually and worked within domestic legal frameworks to strengthen energy markets in North America in the areas of reliability, infrastructure, technology, production, best practices, regulations, energy efficiency and conservation.42 The second trilateral forum was established in 2003 by the federal energy regulators in Canada, the us and Mexico to exchange on matters of mutual interest. Notwithstanding the existence of these trilateral mechanisms, however, given the differences in constitutional and policy frameworks between Canada and Mexico, as well as their geographical distance from one another and differences in ­orientation toward the us,43 much of the work in these trilateral forums remains



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dual bilateral (Canada-us, us-Mexico). For example, in 2004, under the auspices of the regulators’ trilateral forum, Canada’s National Energy Board and the United States’ Federal Energy Regulatory Commission signed a bilateral mou providing for coordination on the timing of decision-making and application procedures when related matters are before both agencies. While such transgovernmental processes are often noted for their effectiveness (speed, flexibility and decentralization), their democratic legitimacy is increasingly being called into question.44 They have been criticized for lacking transparency, openness and representativeness, deliberative quality and accountability.45 Transparency refers to the ability for non-government actors to access relevant information regarding decisions being made, while openness and representativeness connotes the capacity for those who are affected or concerned by a policy issue to attempt to influence the process (openness) and the extent to which those who are involved in a policy process represent the full breadth of potentially affected or interested parties (representativenes).46 Deliberative quality, meanwhile, centres on the nature of communicative exchanges in bilateral policy processes, and refers to open debate in which all opinions can be expressed and considered in an equal manner: “a system in which, first, differing conceptions of the public interest are allowed into the policy process, and second, those conceptions are given a fair and thoughtful hearing.”47 Accountability connotes the capacity to monitor and sanction agent behaviour in principal-agent relationships and includes such mechanisms as hierarchical supervision, judicial review, parliamentary investigations, and the electoral dependence of politicians on citizens.48 Measured against these criteria, Canada-us and North American energy relations come up rather short. They are generally characterized by low or partial transparency: only some information regarding the main forums such as the ecm and the naewg is publicly available. Basic information on their purpose, meeting dates, issues under discussion and some research documents are often made public (particularly for the naewg but much less so for the ecm and the trilateral national regulators’ forum), but their members, meeting agendas, minutes of meetings, substance of policy discussions, decisions reached, etc., are by and large not in the public domain. Other mechanisms and processes display varying levels of transparency but are mainly limited or partially transparent (e.g., while the text of

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mous is in the public domain, informal contacts between Canadian and American counterparts are not generally documented or reported on publicly). Canada-us energy relations also appear to display low or partial openness and representativeness. Participants in bilateral channels and forums are by and large technical public sector experts, and when others are present, they generally hail from the private sector. The naewg, for example, has consulted the private sector on some of its reports and has sometimes included company representatives in its deliberations, but participation beyond the private sector is scant. Likewise, in the electricity sector, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation is only comprised of public and private industry representatives. Moreover, there are signs that opportunities for participation in bilateral policy relations are diminishing. In the electricity sector, for example, since 1990, the National Energy Board almost never holds public hearings when applications for export permits are before it.49 Given the limited transparency, openness and representativeness of bilateral energy policy relations, it is difficult to assess their degree of deliberative quality but the asymmetrical relationship between Canada and the United States in economic, political and demographic terms may hamper the deliberative quality of bilateral policy relations. As mentioned above, in the electricity sector, Canadian provinces wishing to export power to the us have been obliged to adopt American regulatory requirements, prompting calls that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is a “quasi-supranational” or even “imperial” organization. With regard to accountability, bilateral energy relations would appear to be characterized by partial accountability. The informal, decentralized and technical character of bilateral energy relations is often hailed by public officials as highly effective in terms of problemsolving capacity. ecm meetings, for example, have been noted by officials for their focus on enhancing cooperation and reducing bilateral irritants.50 However, where relations and mechanisms are informal, agreements are not subject to legislative ratification, rendering it more difficult for the political system – and by extension citizens – to hold their elected representatives to account. Accountability may also be challenged given the difficulty of tracing decisions to individual actors, and through them to elected officials. When the Oil Sands Experts Group of the naewg reports or the nerc develops electricity



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r­ eliability standards, how does one trace recommendations made and accountability for decisions taken to Canadian or American officials? In light of this, and given the importance of issues being (or to be) discussed in harmonization processes, it is imperative that the democratic legitimacy of energy relations in North America be enhanced. If Canada and the United States, along with Mexico, are to pursue harmonized approaches in discrete energy policy areas, the processes to achieve these ends must be transformed: their transparency must be enhanced, they must become more open to and representative of the full breadth of stakeholders in the energy policy domain, their deliberative quality must be addressed, and means of securing domestic accountability must be strengthened. If, as Senator McCain contends, “we stand much to gain by harmonizing our energy policies,” we must also identify those areas where harmonization is desirable and have due regard for the politics and processes through which it is pursued.

notes

1� This chapter draws on a broader research study examining democratic legitimacy in Canada-United States policy relations. The project has received funding from the Standard Grants Program of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (sshrc). For a related analysis probing the extent to which Canada’s energy relations in North America are shifting from bilateral (intergovernmental) to binational and/or trinational (quasi-supranational) approaches, see Monica Gattinger, “Canada’s Energy Policy Relations in North America: From Bilateral to Trinational Approaches?” in Monica Gattinger and Geoffrey Hale, eds. Borders and Bridges: Canada’s Policy Relations in North America (Oxford University Press, 2010).   Many thanks to Burkard Eberlein for his helpful comments on a draft version of this text presented at, ‘A Conference in Honour of Professor G. Bruce Doern – Policy: From Ideas to Implementation,’ (Ottawa, National Arts Centre, November 7, 2008). 2� John McCain, The prepared remarks for the presumptive Republican nominee John McCain’s speech to the Economic Club of Canada (Ottawa, June 20, 2008). Available at: www.cbc.ca/world/ story/2008/06/20/f-mccain-remarks.html; accessed 29 July 2009.

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3� This chapter examines the oil, natural gas and electricity sectors. Its ­primary focus is on Canada-us energy relations, although relations with Mexico are explored where appropriate. 4� The figure includes Canada’s vast oil sands, which contain 175 billion barrels of proven reserves. Approximately 315 billion barrels of Canada’s oil sands are considered potentially recoverable under anticipated developments in technology and economic conditions. Alberta Energy and Utilities Board, Alberta’s Reserves 2002 and Supply/Demand Outlook 2003–2012, Statistical Series 2003–98 (2003).   North American Energy Working Group, North America – The Energy Picture II (Canada, Mexico and the United States, Natural Resources Canada, 2006). 5� Ibid. 6� Mexico accepted only minimal energy commitments in nafta owing to the political sensitivities and constitutional limitations surrounding energy market liberalization in the country. In Mexico, energy and sovereignty are intimately tied and there is significant political opposition to energy market liberalization. As for the constitution, it defines control of energy resources as a component of the national patrimony, reserves subsoil rights to the Mexican people and prohibits foreign participation in ‘strategic’ sectors of the industry such as oil exploration, refining, pipelines, electricity and basic petrochemicals. See Gary Clyde Hufbauer and Jeffrey J. Schott, North American Free Trade: Issues and Recommendations (Institute for International Economics, 1992), 185. 7� Paul L. Joskow, “Electricity Sector Restructuring and Competition: Lessons Learned,” Cuadernos de Economía 40, no. 121 (2003), 548–58. 8� Paul G. Bradley and G. Campbell Watkins, “Canada and the U.S.: A Seamless Energy Border?” C.D. Howe Institute Commentary 178 (April 2003). 9� United States Energy Information Administration. Annual Energy Review 2007 (Government Printing Office, 2008). 10� Ibid. 11� Bradley and Watkins, “Canada and the U.S.” (2003). 12� G. Bruce Doern and Monica Gattinger, “Another ‘nep’: The Bush Energy Plan and Canada’s Political and Policy Responses,” in Norman Hillmer and Maureen Appel Molot, eds. Canada Among Nations 2002: A Fading Power (Oxford University Press, 2002), 74–96. 13� G. Bruce Doern and Monica Gattinger, Power Switch: Energy Regulatory Governance in the 21st Century (University of Toronto Press, 2003).



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  Traditionally, provinces in western Canada, but increasingly provinces on the east coast as well, where offshore resources are being developed. 14� In the United States, the federal government has broader powers in the energy domain, including jurisdiction over interstate energy transmission, hydropower licensing, siting and abandonment of interstate natural gas facilities, international energy infrastructure and trade, the wholesale power market, and treaty-making. State governments have jurisdiction over most energy activities in their borders, including retail electricity and natural gas sales; construction of electric generation, transmission and distribution facilities, and regulation of local distribution natural gas pipelines. 15� For a full discussion of the nep, see G. Bruce Doern and Glen Toner, The Politics of Energy: The Development and Implementation of the nep (Methuen, 1985). 16� Joseph Dukert, “The Evolution of the North American Energy Market: Implications of Continentalization for a Strategic Sector of the Canadian Economy,” American Review of Canadian Studies 30, no. 3 (2000), 349–59. 17� North American Energy Working Group, North America (2006). 18� For a thorough examination of the energy-environment interface, see G. Bruce Doern, ed. Canadian Energy Policy and the Struggle for Sustainable Development (University of Toronto Press, 2005). 19� This spectrum first appeared in Monica Gattinger, “Canada-United States Electricity Relations: Policy Coordination and Multi-level Associative Governance,” in G. Bruce Doern, ed. How Ottawa Spends 2005–2006: Managing the Minority (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2005), 143–62. It has been lightly modified since its original appearance based on ­subsequent research. 20� An exception to this would be periodic conflict over us attempts to open parts of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (anwr) to oil exploration and drilling. The Refuge, which borders on the Yukon, is pristine environmental land and its coastal plain is the summer migratory destination for the Porcupine caribou, which spend their winters in the southern part of the refuge and in Canada. Porcupine caribou are central to the culture and subsistence of the Gwich’in (‘people of the caribou’) First Nation people, who live in northeast Alaska and northwest Canada. The Canadian government has supported the Gwich’in in their active opposition to drilling in anwr, urging the United States to protect the refuge whenever the prospect of anwr drilling is on the American policy

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agenda. Further potential exceptions discussed below are American ­opposition to the import of oil from the oil sands and the potential for American low carbon fuel standards to curb oil sands exports to the us. 21� See Bertin Côté, “Remarks to the New England Governors and Eastern Canadian Premiers,” Notes for remarks by Mr. Bertin Côté, Minister (Economic) and Deputy Head of Mission, Canadian Embassy, Washington dc to the 27th Annual Conference of New England Governors and Eastern Canadian Premiers, 26 August 2002 and Michael Kergin, Ambassador Kergin’s Letter to Rep. W.J. Tauzin and Sen. P. Domenici, September 12, 2003 (2003).   Canadian government attempts to avert congressional mandating of a pipeline route through Alaska to bring Alaskan natural gas to the lower 48 states provides another example of sensitized coordination (the ­pipeline could also have been routed in such a way as to collect Canadian natural gas from the Mackenzie Delta along the way). In this instance, the Canadian government was not successful in achieving ­sensitized coordination. See Monica Gattinger, “From Government to Governance in the Energy Sector: The States of the Canada-us Energy Relationship,” American Review of Canadian Studies 35.2 (2005), 321–52. 22� Richard Cameron, “Canadian Perspectives on North American Energy Issues,” Remarks by Mr. Richard Cameron, Assistant Deputy Minister, Energy Sector, Natural Resources Canada at the conference, North American Energy: The United States and Canada, 15 January 2002. 23� Government of Canada, “Joint Statement of the us Department of Energy and Natural Resources Canada,” Press Release 2002–29, 19 March 2002. 24� North American Energy Working Group, North America – Regulation of International Electricity Trade (2002). 25� Keith Banting, George Hoberg and Richard Simeon, eds. Degrees of Freedom: Canada and the United States in a Changing World (McGillQueen’s University Press, 1997), 15–17. 26� The constellation of energy interests and the existing energy supply ­profiles in Canada and the us condition policy approaches adopted in response to these pressures, but these common drivers can ­nonetheless stimulate policy harmonization. 27� National Energy Policy Development Group, Reliable, Affordable, and Environmentally Sound Energy for America’s Future (us Government Printing Office, 2001), 8-8 to 8-10.



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28� Marjorie Griffin Cohen, “Imperialist Regulation: us Electricity Market Designs and their Problems for Canada and Mexico,” in Ricardo Grinspun and Yasmine Shamsie, eds. Whose Canada: Continental Integration, Fortress North America and the Corporate Agenda (McGillQueen’s University Press, 2007), 439–58. 29� Vincent Devito, Case Study: North American Energy Working Group, A Teaching Resource from the Centre for International Governance Innovation’s North American Portal. Available at: www.portalfornorthamerica.org, 3. 30� North American Energy Working Group, North American Natural Gas Vision: Experts Group on Natural Gas Trade and Interconnections (Canada, Mexico and the United States, January 2005). 31� North American Energy Working Group, Oil Sands Workshop spp Report (Canada and the United States, 2006). 32� Joseph M. Dukert, “The Evolution of the North American Energy Market,” Policy Papers on the Americas 10.6 (Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1999). 33� Pierre-Olivier Pineau, Anil Hira and Karl Froschauer, “Measuring International Electricity Integration: A Comparative Study of the Power Systems Under the Nordic Council, mercosur, and nafta,” Energy Policy 32 (2004), 1457–75. 34� For a discussion of these changes in Québec, see Jean-Thomas Bernard, “Structure du marché québécois de l’électricité: changement majeur ou simple accommodation commerciale?” Gestion 25.1 (2000), 75–82 and Louis Simard, Alain Dupuis and Luc Bernier, “Entreprises publiques et intérêt général à l’heure de la gouvernance,” Administration publique du Canada 49, no. 3 (2006), 308–33. 35� Adrian Van den Hoven and Karl Froschauer, “Limiting Regional Electricity Sector Integration and Market Reform: The Cases of France in the eu and Canada in the nafta Region,” Comparative Political Studies 37, no. 9 (2004), 1079–103. 36� Cohen, “Imperialist Regulation” (2007). 37� Karl Froschauer, White Gold: Hydroelectric Development in Canada (University of British Columbia Press, 1999), 232. 38� Gloria Galloway, “Emissions Rules Delayed to Match us Timetable,” The Globe and Mail, 29 May 2008, A12. 39� David Hughes, “Opening Keynote Presentation,” Remarks at the ­conference Canada’s Energy Security: Superpower or … a Player? Institute of Public Administration of Canada, 25–26 February 2008.

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40� Isabel Studer, “Obstacles to Integration: nafta’s Institutional Weakness,” in Isabel Studer and Carol Wise, eds. Requiem or Revival? The Promise of North American Integration (Brookings Institution Press, 2007), 53–75. 41� Canada and the us also enhance collaboration through their involvement in multilateral forums including the International Energy Agency (iea), the oecd, and the apec Energy Working Group. 42� The naewg operated under the auspices of the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) between Canada, the United States, and Mexico until the quiet suspension of the SPP in 2009. 43� In the main, Canada views us energy demand as an opportunity while for Mexico it is generally perceived as a threat. Moreover, the key issues and interests in Canada and Mexico’s respective bilateral energy relations with the us can differ substantially. As a result, trilateral talks often tend toward dual bilateral Canada-us and Mexico-us discussions. On these points, see Monica Gattinger and Jesús F. Reyes-Heroles, “Power in Canada-us and Mexico-us Relations: The Politics of Energy,” Paper prepared for Relating to the Powerful One: How Canada and Mexico View their Relationship to the United States, a trilateral seminar organized by the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University, the Department of International Relations at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México, and the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University, 5–6 May 2003. 44� Anne-Marie Slaughter, “Agencies on the Loose? Holding Government Networks Accountable,” in George A. Bermann, Matthias Herdegen, and Peter L. Lindseth, eds. Transatlantic Regulatory Cooperation: Legal Problems and Political Prospects (Oxford University Press, 2001). 45� See, for example, William Coleman and Tony Porter, “International Institutions, Globalization and Democracy: Assessing the Challenges,” Global Society 14, no. 3 (2000), 377–98; Joan DeBardeleben and Achim Hurrelmann, Democratic Dilemmas of Multilevel Governance: Legitimacy, Representation and Accountability in the European Union (Palgrave MacMillan, 2007); B. Guy Peters and Jon Pierre, “Multi-level Governance and Democracy: A Faustian Bargain?” in Ian Bache and Matthew Flinders, eds. Multi-level Governance (Oxford University Press, 2004), 75–89; Mark Rhinard, “The Democratic Legitimacy of the European Union Committee System,” Governance 15, no. 2 (2002), 183–210; Grace Skogstad, “Legitimacy, Democracy and Multi-Level Regulatory Governance: The Case of Agricultural Biotechnology,” Paper presented at the Conference on Globalization, Multilevel Governance



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and Democracy: Continental, Comparative and Global Perspectives, 3–4 May 2002; Slaughter, “Agencies on the Loose” (2001); and Anne-Marie Slaughter, “Disaggregated Sovereignty: Towards the Public Accountability of Global Government Networks,” Government and Opposition 39, no. 2 (2004), 159–90. 46� Coleman and Porter, “International Institutions,” 288–9. 47� Rhinard, “Democratic Legitimacy,” 191. 48� Fritz Scharpf, “Problem Solving Effectiveness and Democratic Accountability in the eu,” Political Science Series 107 (Institute for Advanced Studies, 2006), 4. 49� Froschauer, White Gold, 232.   Where one appears to find a little more openness is in conferences addressing bilateral energy matters (for example, with the support of Natural Resources Canada, the Forum of Federations and Queen’s University hosted a fall 2007 conference in Toronto examining ­governance of the Canada-us electricity sector, and a few participants representing environmental and public interest organizations were in attendance). 50� John Stewart, “Making the Most of U.S.-Canada Energy Ties,” Foreign Service Journal (December 2003), 40–6.

11 Policy Making in the Indeterminate World of Energy Transitions Carbon Capture and Storage as Technological Transition or Enhanced “Carbon Lock In” james meadowcroft and matthew hellin

The transition to a low carbon emission economy presents major challenges to contemporary societies. Over the course of the twentieth century developed countries experienced large scale changes in the energy sector: the rise of oil and then gas; the electrification of society; the growth of power from nuclear fission; and the switch to automobiles for the transport of people and goods. Now we stand on the threshold of further change: change that will require a dramatic transformation of the way we produce and consume energy, as we struggle to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and manage human induced climate change.1 The energy policy challenges that confront Canada have been a recurrent theme in Bruce Doern’s writings over more than fourty years. From the National Energy Program, through free trade and the deregulation of North American energy markets, to the emergence of the climate issue, and discussions of ‘sustainable energy’, he has been concerned with the ways in which energy policy relates to broader political problems concerning economic management, regulation, science policy, public safety and environmental quality, distributional equity, and national unity.2 This paper explores difficulties presented by the uncertain ­implications of future technological pathways. It focuses on carbon capture and storage (ccs) as a technological option that has increasingly come to the fore in policy debates about climate change.3 The



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­ iscussion is organized into four parts: first, a brief introduction to d ccs; second, a review of current debates about orienting the transformation of large-scale socio-technological systems; third, a juxtaposition of ccs and the perspective of “transition management;” and finally some additional reflections. Although ccs is approached here from one particular perspective on innovation for sustainability (“transition management”) the article brings out more general dilemmas about the wide-scale deployment of the ccs option as part of a strategic response to climate change. the turn towards ccs

Studies by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (ipcc), the International Energy Agency (iea), and a host of governmental organizations have suggested that ccs could play a significant role in reducing carbon dioxide emissions over the coming century.4 According to the ipcc, ccs “is a process consisting of the separation of co 2 from industrial and energy-related sources, transport to a storage location and long-term isolation from the atmosphere.”5 Technical options for ccs include geological storage, ocean storage, and the fixation of co 2 into inorganic carbonates. Current interest is largely focused on geological storage. Uncertainties surrounding the environmental implications of ocean storage (whether in the water column or on the deep ocean floor) have dampened early enthusiasm for this approach. And, while research is ongoing, the large volumes of materials to be mined, transported and interred for industrial fixation into inorganic carbonates constitute major economic and environmental hurdles.6 Carbon dioxide to be injected into geological formations would be captured from large fixed ­emitters such as fossil fuel power stations, oil and gas facilities and other industrial concerns. Stationary sources emitting more that 100,000 metric tonnes a year currently account for over 60 per cent of total greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel combustion.7 Capture and transport of emissions from millions of mobile and small-scale sources (such as automobiles, aircraft, diesel generators, and so on) is currently considered impractical. And the direct capture of co 2 from the air is not viable today. ccs is now generally presented as part of a diversified portfolio of mitigation strategies that would also include: the promotion of energy efficiency; the extension of established low carbon energy

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systems such as nuclear and hydro electricity; the development of new-renewables such as solar, wind, and bio-fuels; an end to deforestation and the enhancement of biological sinks; and the reduction of emissions of other greenhouse gasses. Sometimes ccs is described as a “bridging option” to allow other technologies to mature and societies to adjust to a carbon neutral energy system.8 And it has also been portrayed as a key to advancing towards a “hydrogen society.”9 ccs is particularly appealing for a number of reasons: ü There is growing evidence that greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced dramatically if we are to avoid “dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.”10 Emissions in developed states may have to fall by 80 per cent or more by mid century, with global releases declining to virtually zero in the long run. ü Modern industrial societies remain heavily reliant on fossil fuels to meet their energy needs. Fossil fuels account for about 80 per cent of all energy used, and in the transportation sector this ­dependence is nearly total.11 ü It will be difficult to achieve emission reductions a) on the required scale, b) in the necessary time frame, and c) at reasonable cost, by relying exclusively on alternative mitigation strategies. The fact that societies have invested immense resources in the ­existing carbon based energy infrastructure and that many countries possess large untapped fossil fuel reserves also make the deployment of a technological option that will permit the continued exploitation of fossil fuels almost irresistible. Significant efforts are now underway to develop carbon capture systems for large industrial and energy installations, to identify potential storage sites and establish demonstration facilities, to perfect monitoring regimes for long-term geological sequestration, and to establish appropriate national and international regulatory frameworks.12 In addition to technical issues, attention is being paid to complex questions related to liability regimes, licensing and monitoring, public acceptance, financing of r&d and infrastructure investment, and the place of ccs within the international climate change regime (including inclusion in national greenhouse gas inventories and emissions trading mechanisms such as the eu ets and the cdm).13 With respect to the environmental risks posed by ccs it is usual to distinguish between local risks (to the health of workers,



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c­ ommunities and ecosystems) posed by contamination of soil and groundwater, co 2 leakages to the atmosphere, increased seismicity, and so on, and global risks (to the climate system) posed by the escape of carbon dioxide that was supposed to have been removed from contact with the atmosphere.14 ccs requires three basic activities: capture of carbon dioxide, transport to a suitable depository, and long term storage. It is worth considering each of these operations in more detail. ccs begins with the physical separation of co 2 from the industrial processes where it is produced. For example, with respect to fossil fuel power generation there are three main approaches to capturing co 2: post combustion (removing co 2 from the dilute mix of flue gasses produced when fuel is burned in air); pre-combustion (gassifying the fuel, extracting the co 2, and then burning hydrogen); and oxyfuel combustion (burning the fuel in an oxygen-rich environment, and then removing the co 2 from the co 2-rich waste stream). Industrial production of co 2 has been carried out for many years and the basic technologies that would be involved in large scale co 2 capture are well established. On the other hand, no large generation facility employing ccs has yet been built. In technological terms much remains to be done to improve efficiency and reduce costs of various aspects of the capture process (for example, improving reagents for post-combustion removal), and to integrate the different capture components into large scale generation facilities. In the longer term there are ­possibilities for developing novel capture technologies. Capture is potentially the most expensive element of ccs. The capital costs will be large and there are significant energy requirements to operate capture systems. Current estimates suggest that as compared to a conventional plant, fuel requirements to generate a given power output might rise by an average of 16 per cent, 19 per cent and 31 per cent for Natural gas combined cycle (ngcc), Integrated gasification combined cycle (igcc), and Pulverized coal (pc) plants respectively.15 And this implies a proportionate increase in other resource inputs (and their associated environmental impacts) as well as greater co 2 production. Thus the co 2 emissions ‘avoided’ by a ccs equipped power plant would be significantly less than the co 2 that would be sent to storage. At present there are considerable uncertainties about the cost of different technological options. Retrofitting existing plants would be expensive. It is preferable to design plants for ccs and to time investment with the regular cycles of

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capital renewal. Today there is some talk of developing standards for “ccs-ready” facilities, so that plants built in the next few years will not be locked-out of ccs (for their approximate 40 year life­ span), because the necessary technological, financial, regulatory and political preconditions for ccs are not yet in place. Overall, analysts foresee possibilities for significant cost reductions over time as ­capture technologies mature. With respect to environmental risks, capture operations will be sited at large industrial facilities, and the risks are not so very different from those that are already routinely managed. co 2 leakage would pose a potential hazard to workers and adjacent communities. Since the gas is heavier than air, it can accumulate in low lying or enclosed spaces and in concentrations above 10 per cent it is fatal.16 On the other hand, there is considerable experience of working with co 2 flows in the chemical and oil and gas industries, and these risks can presumably be managed by adjustments to standards regimes, health and safety regulation, and industrial permitting systems. Transport from the point of capture to a long-term storage facility would be primarily by pipeline or ocean tanker. Technologies for the long range transport of liquids and gasses by pipe line and tanker are well developed. Transport involves costs that are more or less directly proportional to distance, so areas where capture sites and storage locations are in close proximity are early candidates for the deployment of ccs. Energy is required to move commodities through pipelines or to power ocean transport and this again implies additional co 2 production. There are of course some risks from leakage – from “fugitive emissions” as well as accidents. Local risks (to workers, human populations, and ecosystems located near transport routes and terminals) do not appear higher than for comparable oil and gas infrastructure. Again, such risks could presumably be managed using established approaches to the construction and operation of such facilities. Long term storage would take place in oil and gas reservoirs (that may or may not still be in production), deep coal deposits and saline aquifers. Technologies for underground injection are well developed and co 2 has been used in the oil industry for several decades in enhanced oil recovery operations. Because co 2 can facilitate hydrocarbon extraction – in partially depleted oil wells but also ‘coal-bed methane’ from deep coal deposits – these sites are particularly ­attractive storage areas. Over the long term, however, the storage



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potential of deep saline aquifers is believed to be greater by an order of magnitude. In terms of environmental risks, local concerns relate to ­production workers, communities and ecosystems located above and adjacent to storage areas. Various pathways for leakage have been hypothesised including undiscovered natural faults, ruptures caused by pressure increases, and migration beyond the cap rock formation. The most significant risks of leakage are thought to be at the point of injection or at other wells which enter the reservoir that are ­inadequately capped. To manage these risks emphasis would be placed on good initial site selection, careful monitoring during the injection phase, and protocols for the long term surveillance of the reservoir. Further study of the behaviour of co 2 post-injection would enhance understanding of underground migration and behaviour within the host formation. Given that experience with the deliberate storage of carbon dioxide is presently limited to a few sites, there are still gaps in knowledge about how best to ensure long-term retention.17 It is generally assumed that leakage risks would be highest for early deployments of the technology. As experience accumulates, lessons would be drawn and more effective approaches deployed. Yet the opposite may also be true (or at least the time scales on which this learning takes place may be longer than initially appreciated). For example, early experiments will be closely monitored. But as familiarity with the technology grows, and there are no catastrophic failures at storage reservoirs, there may be pressure to relax strict monitoring regimes. Moreover as the most obvious storage sites are exhausted, there may be a tendency to bring more dubious sites into service. And as ccs moves away from the generally stable institutional context of well-developed states, into more volatile areas in the developing world, the possibilities for irregularities in site selection, failures in injection procedures, and poor monitoring, increase. The environmental value of ccs as a greenhouse gas abatement strategy depends on the reliability of long term storage.18 According to the 2005 ipcc Special Report a retention rate of greater than 99 per cent is very likely over the first 100 years, while a retention rate of greater than 99 per cent is likely over 1000 years.19 These estimates are reassuring, but they are based on little direct ­experience. So there is some concern that leakage rates of the technology as actually deployed might turn out to be greater.

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Consider the following thought experiment. Global emissions peak in 2020 and are then reduced to 10 per cent of maximum levels by 2100. If one third of the avoided carbon dioxide is stored, a one per cent annual leakage from the accumulated stock in 2100 would surpass the annual co 2 emissions allowance for that year. Even a 0.1 per cent annual leakage rate would use up more than ten per cent of the 2100 global carbon dioxide budget. But by 2100 the stock of stored carbon could in fact be two or more times higher (because this simple calculation has not accounted for the rise in energy use over the century or the increased co 2 emissions generated by ccs activity itself), and then the impacts of these leakage rates would be more profound. And of course, if a larger proportion of avoided emissions were sequestered, or a lower ultimate emissions ceiling was defined, the impacts of potential leakage rates would grow proportionally larger.20 Viewing things on a longer time horizon of several centuries would not completely alleviate the problem. True, some fraction of the stored co 2 will eventually combine chemically with the reservoir rocks making storage essentially permanent. On the other hand, anthropogenic emissions will have to decline ultimately to practically zero if climate is to be stabilized. And as the size of the reservoir of stored co 2 expands, then the cumulative impacts of even very low leakage rates could be significant. It should be emphasised that this is a thought experiment only. There is no evidence to suggest that leakage rates would be 10 or 100 times greater that the ipcc anticipates. It is not clear what mechanisms could cause leakage of this order of magnitude. And major escapes would be unlikely to remain undetected, because of their potential to create substantial local environmental damage and cause loss of human life.21 Moreover, leakage could be addressed in various ways: careful monitoring could identify problematic storage sites, and leaks could be plugged or the stored carbon dioxide could be transferred to more secure facilities. The sequestration of co 2 generated from biomass, or drawn down directly from the atmosphere (assuming this becomes practical), could provide net co 2 extractions that could be sequestered to replace leakage – just as by constantly bailing a leaky boat it can be kept afloat. Yet a number of important conclusions do flow from these ­observations. First, ccs is unlikely to be a “bury and forget” technology – ccs sites may require long term monitoring and presumably



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in some cases active remedial action, and/or ongoing leakage ­mitigation activities, into the far future (perhaps several hundred years and beyond). Indeed one could imagine a situation where fossil fuel use had all but ended, but the active management of carbon stocks in abandoned storage sites would continue. Second, the large scale deployment of ccs represents a potential transfer of long term risks to future generations just as surely as does the disposal of nuclear waste – although the nature of the risk is very different. Third, the development of an adequate approach for the long term management of storage facilities will be critical to public acceptability of this emerging technology. transitions in large-scale socio-technological systems

Over the past several decades scholars have paid increased attention to the role of technological innovation in economic development and to the determinants of long term socio-technical change. We have learned about the “social shaping” of technology, the competitive dynamic that orients the emergence of new systems, and the institutional contexts that can favour or discourage innovation. With respect to the energy system, analysts have highlighted ­obstacles to a wide scale transformation that would significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions and/or dependence on fossil fuels.22 John Holdren has pointed to the scale of capital investment sunk in the existing energy infrastructure – about 12 trillion dollars – to say nothing of the structures and equipment built to use this energy (buildings, machinery, cars, trucks, and so on). Moreover, he emphasises: The entrenched economic and political power of the ­organizations – public as well as private – that achieved their powerful positions by creating and sustaining the historical and current patterns of energy supply and demand and are ­understandably interested in preserving the status quo.23 Gregory Unruh has applied the concept of “carbon lock-in” to describe how contemporary societies have become bound to a carbon-intensive energy trajectory over the last two centuries.24 Studies of technological development have shown how early competition over the purposes and orientation of new technologies

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t­ ypically settles down after the emergence of a “dominant design.”25 Thereafter the focus of innovation is on incremental improvements and cost reductions. To borrow the idiom developed by Hughes, actors concentrate on attacking “reverse salients,” overcoming technical and cost barriers to the further advance and deployment of the core technology.26 In such a mature technological field there is systemic bias against fundamental innovation promoting alternative approaches that would ultimately render existing competencies obsolete. Increased specialization and interdependence among firms, the codification of standards and working practices, the activities of private associations such as unions and industry associations, the adaptation of other societal spheres to the demands and consequences of the mature technology, as well as patterns of state regulation and public expenditure (subsidies), all stack the deck in favour of incumbent technologies. The modern fossil fuel energy system displays these characteristics, with close integration among the components of the hydrocarbon industry (exploration, extraction, transport, combustion, retail); interdependence with support and supply enterprises (finance, insurance, maintenance, equipment manufacture); co-evolution with other functional subsystems (chemical industry, electricity distribution, transport, agricultural production); and with broader patterns of human activity and settlement (the design of cities, patterns of international trade). And the result is to “lock in” the fossil fuel based energy system and to ensure a “locking-out” of “alternative carbon saving technologies.”27 One perspective on socio-technological transformation that has particularly engaged with issues of energy, climate change and sustainability is ‘transition management’. Drawing inspiration from historical studies of long-term technological change (“transitions”, say from an ocean transport system reliant of sailing ships to one based on steam ships),28 writers in this tradition ask how it might be possible to guide such transitions in a socially desirable direction. Noting widespread recognition that there are major design flaws in a number of critical societal subsystems, Dutch researchers such as Rene Kemp, Jan Rotmans and Derk Loorbach have enquired how one might move towards more sustainable agricultural, transport and energy practices. The idea of transition management was taken up in the Netherlands Fourth National Environmental Policy Plan, and a number of programs inspired by the approach have since been implemented by the Dutch government.29



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Kemp and Rotmans define “transition management” as “a ­ eliberate attempt to bring about structural change in a stepwise d manner.”30 It is “based on a two-pronged strategy” that is “oriented towards both system improvement (improvement of an existing trajectory) and system innovation (representing a new trajectory of development or transformation.”31 The perspective starts with the concept of a societal ‘transition’ between dominant socio-technological paradigms. The concern is with long term (25–75 year) shifts in the character of socio-technical systems. The argument is that such transitions involve a sequence of phases (“predevelopment,” “take-off-,” “breakthrough” and “stabilization”) that display particular characteristics. By understanding these characteristics, government can steer transitions in a more socially desirable direction. The ideas of “transition goals,” “transition visions,” and “interim objectives” play an important part in this perspective. Transition “goals” are broad objectives that are “democratically chosen and based on integrated risk analysis.”32 They establish the orientation for desired social advance in relation to a particular societal domain. Transition “visions” are inspiring images of the future, and an evolving basket of such visions can draw different actors into the transition process. “Interim objectives” provide a concrete orientation for action as well as a foundation for assessing progress, drawing lessons and re-assessing options. With respect to the energy system, goals such as “safety,” “reliability,” and “affordability” would be integrated with judgements about the urgency of moving to a low-carbon energy system to address the risks of climate change. Visions could be articulated around alternative futures for the energy supply system. The “status quo” (emphasizing continuity with existing infrastructure), “the hydrogen society” (where hydrogen became the principal energy carrier), or the “all-electric society” might function in this capacity, although these options would need to be fleshed out in terms of social as well as merely technical dimensions.33 In each case, low-carbon technologies would have replaced current reliance upon co 2-releasing fossil fuels. “Interim objective” could be fixed to advance particular socio-technical innovations, while leaving open which vision (or hybrid among them) would ultimately triumph. Transition management theorists employ a variety of conceptual tools to understand change processes. For example, they draw on a distinction between “niches,” “regimes,” and the “socio-technical landscape” to capture differences in the scale at which change

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occurs.34 Niches are specialized spaces where new technologies and forms of social organization are tried out. They allow the accumulation of experience and the reduction of costs. Regimes are practices, rules and assumptions that orient public and private actors in relation to a broader arena. And the socio-technical landscape refers to the general technical, economic and political frames that influence behaviour. As theorists in this tradition are keen to point out, the transitions with which they are concerned are above all shifts in “assumptions, practices and rules”. Of course, technologies change too; but new technologies are “made by people guided by new ideas, a new outlook and a new set of assumptions.”35 Transition management is about achieving gradual change by exploiting the potentialities of the existing system. It recognizes that there are formidable obstacles to broad system change (the pull of dominant technologies and the influence of economic and political incumbents), and it seeks to exploit the dynamics of the existing system to encourage change that can both optimize current ways of doing things and simultaneously open the door to movement beyond them. In this context particular emphasis is placed on “hybrid technologies and two-world technologies” (system improvements that “may act as a stepping stone to system innovation”), and on the “exploitation of niches.” Thus transition management eschews measures that simply strengthen established practices and encourage socio-technical “lock-in.” One could say that a studied ambiguity lies at the heart of the approach: policy makers encourage inventiveness and draw stakeholders into innovation networks, and yet they keep open the determination of the precise line of future advance. By this point it should be evident that transition management is really quite demanding of government, calling for a depth of foresight and a subtlety of intervention that states have not typically displayed. Indeed, government must function as “facilitator-stimulator-­controllerdirector, depending on the stage of the transition.”36 ccs and transition management

Having looked at basic features of ccs and transition management it is now time to bring the two together. The question is: what light can each shed upon the other? Let us start with how ccs appears from the vantage of transition management.



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CCS from the Perspective of Transition Management From the perspective of transition management ccs appears as a technology with the potential to limit carbon dioxide emissions associated with fossil fuel combustion. Considering the energy system as a whole, it can be seen as an incremental adjustment to the basic configuration of the existing fossil fuel infrastructure. ccs would be applied to power stations, oil and gas processing facilities and large industrial concerns to prevent co 2 reaching the atmosphere. To this extent ccs is essentially an ‘end of pipe’ approach, albeit a particularly complex and costly one. ccs draws on technologies that have already been developed by the fossil fuel industry (including technologies related to combustion engineering, petroleum exploration and extraction, and the transformation and transportation of hydrocarbons). It will involve economic actors, financial centres, and research and training organizations that have traditionally been active in the fossil fuel sector. It would allow existing production chains to remain relatively stable. For example, in electricity generation much of the process before the fuel reaches the plant (fossil fuel exploration, production, and transport), and after the production of the electricity (transmission of electricity supply from central generation to localized consumption), would be virtually unchanged. No adjustment would be required from consumers. Indeed they need hardly be aware ccs is occurring (except to the extent that it is associated with increased energy prices). In short, ccs is compatible with a continuation of the basic features of the current energy system – the extraction, processing and long range transport of fossil fuels, centralized generating systems and electricity grid architectures, large scale international trade in hydrocarbons (with a relatively small number of countries supplying world markets), and the dependence of many industrialized countries on fuel imported from remote and often politically unstable regions.37 On this reading, ccs can be understood as a contribution to “optimizing the current energy system” rather than transforming it into something different – say one based on renewable forms of power generation. It is this that led transition management theorists to express rather sceptical views about the potential of ccs. For example, Kemp and Rotmans have written that transition management:

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Is also oriented towards system innovation. Unfortunately, the fruits of technical fixes will contribute more quickly to policy objectives in the short term. An example of this is co 2 collection and storage. Another example is the catalytic converter which helped to achieve reductions in automobile NOx emissions but increased energy use and did not deal with the many social and economic problems related to car use. Technical fixes are no solution to complex social problems.38 Here ccs is compared with the catalytic converter which provided a “technical fix” to pollution problems and contributed to “system improvement,” but did not point in the direction of wider system innovation in the transportation sector. And these authors go on to emphasize that transition management “implies refraining from large scale investment in improvement options that only fit into the existing system and which, as a result, stimulate a ‘lock-in’ situation.”39 Thus to the extent that ccs represents a “technical fix” of this sort, transition management would be sceptical about its ­ultimate significance. Yet this does not mean that transition management would be hostile to ccs. Transition management is not opposed in principal to the optimization of the current system. On the contrary, writing in this tradition emphasises that we should pursue two objectives simultaneously – system optimization and system innovation. As Kemp and Rotmans argue, “transition management does not aim to realize a particular path. It may be enough to improve existing systems.”40 On this reading, ccs technology could be considered important because of its potential to deal with current problems, even if it did not offer a route to subsequent system transformation. Catalytic converters were not “bad” – they produced notable environmental benefits, even if they did not undermine the essential architecture of the existing energy or mobility systems. In the same way, ccs would not be “bad,” even if it served only to perfect the operation of the existing system. Still, the investment caveat mentioned above would presumably apply: governments should not direct large scale public investment to an option that did not open up avenues for the larger transformation of the system. Of course there is another possibility: perhaps ccs is not a dead end system-optimizing approach after all. Perhaps it actually has the potential to open up pathways that would more radically alter the



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existing energy system. In fact, some analysts see ccs in just such a light – as a pathway to a low emission hydrogen economy.41 It would work something like this: ccs would allow the development of a hydrogen energy distribution system on the basis of the existing fossil fuel industry. Fossil fuels would supply the energy to create hydrogen (through methane reforming or coal gasification), and ccs would take care of the associated co 2 emissions. An immediate advantage would be the elimination of air pollution emissions at the point at which the hydrogen was consumed to produce energy (say in fuel cells or by direct combustion, in cars and trucks in an urban environment). The construction of a hydrogen infrastructure could assist the deployment of renewables, by providing a storage medium for intermittent sources. And as increased solar, wind, and other new renewables (and ultimately perhaps fusion) came on line, these entirely carbon-free energy sources could displace fossil fuels in the generation of hydrogen. The argument is that through such a stepwise process the infrastructure for a clean hydrogen economy could be built up more quickly than by attempting to move immediately to renewable technologies which are not yet sufficiently mature to satisfy a significant fraction of our energy needs. In other words, if hydrogen has to wait for renewables to mature, or for fusion to arrive, then it will be delayed for a very long time indeed. A similar sort of argument could be made with respect to electrification – where the role of electricity (rather than hydrogen) is expanded as an energy carrier. Smaller industrial facilities and the transport sector that currently depend on fossil fuels could convert to electricity (for example, hybrid or all electric cars). In the first instance the additional electric power would come from ccs-equipped fossil generating plants, but eventually these could be replaced by mature renewables. In either case (hydrogen or enhanced electrification) the mitigation burden assumed by ccs grows (as does the volume of stored emissions). And of course, there is the additional possibility of combining ccs with biomass, essentially drawing down atmospheric emissions – useful in the case where anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions overshoot a ‘safe’ stabilisation level. And here ccs might have a life beyond fossil energy. Surely with these alternatives ccs could qualify as a “two world” technology, of the kind favoured by transition management theorists: one that can simultaneously open up possibilities for system improvement and system innovation. As such, ccs could be supported by a

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broad coalition of actors, who currently have different views on the ultimate desirability, timing and orientation of more fundamental system change. And in this case the caution about large-scale investment in technologies that lack transformative potential would presumably be overcome, and so ccs could benefit from active governmental support within the context of a transition management oriented public policy. But does ccs really possess this dual character? Just how ­significant is its transformative potential as compared to its propensity to stabilize the current equilibrium? Certainly there are grounds for arguing that ccs could slow (rather than accelerate) movement away from a fossil fuel based energy system.42 In practice there will be competition for investment funds – and money poured into ccs will not go into new renewables. ccs will exert a pull on the science and technological communities to concentrate research and training in this area. And as a specialized ccs sector develops within the energy system (involving operating companies, equipment manufacturers, financial analysts, insurers, regulators, monitoring organizations, researchers, and so on), it will develop its own momentum that will tend to push for an ever greater reliance on ccs. Thus the overall effect of the technology could be to strengthen the current carbonbased infrastructure. So we are led again to the conclusion that theorists of transition management (and makers of public policy) should be sceptical of ccs. Transition Management from the Perspective of CCS Now let us turn the discussion around and ask what light debates about ccs shed on transition management. One critical issue relates to the uncertain potential of emerging technologies and to the consequent difficulty of determining an appropriate policy response. The truth is that it is extremely difficult to anticipate the ultimate implications of ccs. ccs involves a complex set of technologies that can help reduce carbon emissions and will induce some change to existing energy systems. But whether on balance this opens up, or closes downs, avenues for more profound change is highly uncertain. The analysis of system change and policy strategies provided by transition management theorists suggests that emerging socio­technical innovations can be divided into three basic categories: a) dead end system improvements; b) potentially transformative



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system improvements; and c) system innovations. And the basic policy ­recommendation is that we should avoid large scale public investment in (a), while supporting (b) and (c). The problem is that it is not at all clear how we are to decide which innovations fit into (a), (b), or (c). At first glance the items to be placed in category (c) appear relatively clear – these are innovations that imply systemic change. They fit poorly within incumbent socio-technical arrangements, and pose some form of challenge to “dominant designs.” As we have seen with respect to ccs above, categories (a) and (b) are much harder to define, since the transformative potential (in contrast to the enhanced lock-in potential) of a given technology may be hard to assess. Part of the problem here has to do with unknowns (and unknowables) about the true potential of emergent technologies and about the future course of societal evolution. It is far from clear which incremental technological improvements have the potential to open the door to wider transformations and which do not. But it is also far from clear which system innovative approaches have the real potential to generate system transformation and which are actually ‘hopeless cases’ that, because of inherent (but as yet unappreciated) limitations, or of an inability to reduce costs, or of the overall (path determined) characteristics of the existing socio-technical structure, have no chance of achieving wide-scale deployment and hence of generating real systems change. History is littered with “system innovations” that never got off the ground, or which crashed and burned in short order – and this is as true of social innovations generally as it is of socio-technical innovations.43 So in principle there is a forth category of innovation, (d) “dead end system innovations,” and in an ideal world we would not waste “large scale social investments” on these sorts of innovation either. Indeed, one could argue that “dead end system innovations” (d) are even less valuable than “dead end system improvements” (a), because at least the latter are improvements to the state of the world while the former are only imagined improvements that can never come to be. But this would be to neglect the potentially positive role which ‘dead end system innovations’ might play in spurring sponsors of incumbent technologies, and of other systems innovations, to improve their own designs in the mistaken belief that the “dead end systems innovation” ­technology actually posed a real challenge. One underlying difficulty relates to the problem of defining the “system” with respect to which one is making judgements, and where

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the boundaries of this system lie. What appears as a quite radical change within one context can appear as no more than an incremental adjustment to a larger whole. Consider the domains we are discussing in relation to energy and fossil fuels. Is the system whose transformation concerns us “the global energy system,” “the fossil fuel energy system,” “the power generation system,” or the “carbonemitting” energy system?44 Or perhaps it is the “fossil fuel economy” more generally (that includes the linkage to the chemical industry, for example)? It is not immediately clear which of these is the most appropriate scale to approach socio-technical transitions, or that potential innovations will always fall in the same category ­independent of the level that is privileged. Sometimes when reading the transition management literature one gets the idea that system change must be really big: if it does not cut profoundly into societal practices then the change is just a “technical fix.” But just how big is big? The development of fission power represented a major technological innovation and created a whole new socio-technical complex related to the mining and refinement of uranium, the construction and operation of reactors, as well as the associated financial, research, educational and regulatory structures. On the other hand, nuclear power makes up a small proportion of current global power capacity, proved quite compatible with existing distribution and generating systems, and drew extensively on established technologies (such as steam turbines, construction and engineering techniques). All in all, nuclear power made a major change to the existing power generation field (providing an alternative energy source) but did not overthrow the dominance of fossil fuels. But of course overthrowing the dominance of fossil fuels is a rather big task. It has been suggested that one way to solve the dilemma of ­appropriate scale is to start from the urgent social problems one is attempting to resolve.45 Then one can reflect on the “system” that must be transformed in relation to the patterns of societal interaction that create these problems. The energy issues which most preoccupy governments today relate to a) climate change and b) security of supply. Climate change implies an avoidance of co 2 emissions, but if ccs can be made to work it does not necessarily imply an abandonment of fossil fuels. Security of supply implies an avoidance of over dependence on (especially imported) oil and gas, but it does not necessarily imply the end to the hydrocarbon era. Still, it is clear



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that movement away from hydrocarbons and towards non carbonbased energy systems can help with both issues. So where does that leave us in terms of the “transition” to be managed? Perhaps the answer is that there is no single energy “transition” but rather a multitude of transitions that will occur over different time scales, over different parts of the energy system. Moreover these “transitions” may signify different things in different countries or regions. Some countries, particularly those without fossil fuel reserves and with high environmental ambitions (Sweden, for example), may deliberately define their objectives in terms of a move away from fossil fuels. Others (such as Germany) will emphasise limiting atmospheric releases of carbon and breaking dependence on hydrocarbon imports from unstable regions. Development of a wide array of carbon neutral energy sources is perhaps the common thread and this is likely to lead to a more diverse set of ways of meeting energy needs than we have known in the past. additional reflections

This essay has considered the emergence of ccs in relation to recent writings on the management of change in large socio-technical systems. It has juxtaposed ccs as a technological option to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions with the theoretical perspective of “transition management”. Some implications of the argument will now be made more explicit. Throughout the discussion attention has been drawn to ­uncertainties and ambiguities associated with the potential of ccs to serve as an option for large scale greenhouse gas mitigation. The extent to which ccs can be deployed in a cost effective and timely manner is still unclear. Appropriate regulatory frameworks for managing long term leakage risks remain to be developed. We do not know whether high prices associated with carbon capture and storage will accelerate movement towards new renewables or whether economies of scale and technological innovation will drive down carbon management costs and open up a new era of fossil energy exploitation. Furthermore, the role of hydrogen in the unfolding story remains obscure. Radical indeterminacy is a general feature of technological development, yet the configuration of uncertainties surrounding ccs poses particular challenges for societal actors. The future of ccs will be linked to the evolution of the broader economy and the pattern of

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societal response to the climate change issue. It will be closely intertwined with the fate of other emerging energy and climate mitigation options. The stakes are particularly high because of the critical position fossil energy supplies play in the current industrial/economic order, and the potentially devastating implications of human induced climate change. With respect to transition management, the ccs case suggests that simple decision rules – such as whether a technology has a “one” or “two world” potential, whether or not it will open up possibilities for “system change” – cannot be used as a basis for decisions about governmental support. Instead a more pragmatic “balance of utilities” standard is required, where the comparative benefits and costs (opportunities, risks and uncertainties) of options are weighted against one another. Considering the scale of existing global reliance on fossil fuels, the political influence of fossil fuel interests, the urgency of controlling greenhouse gas emissions, and the relative immaturity of renewable alternatives, the exploration of the potential of ccs is virtually inevitable. Countries with large fossil reserves are likely to be ­especially interested in this option. Nevertheless, ccs poses real difficulties for policy makers – in terms of deciding the appropriate level of public commitment to the emerging technology, determining suitable forms of policy support, assigning an appropriate place to ccs in the energy system and within a basket of climate change measures, and establishing the regulatory mechanisms needed to ensure public acceptability and manage short and long term risks. The uncertainties and ambiguities surrounding ccs are already providing fertile ground for the construction of different political visions regarding the character and significance of this new technology. In particular, the potential of ccs to appear as either a gateway to a post-fossil energy economy or as an enhancement of the current fossil energy lock in, as well as doubts about the long term reliability of storage, suggest that it will generate greater public controversy in the future. Early studies have revealed a rather benign public attitude towards ccs,46 but the base level of public understanding of what is involved is currently so low that it is not clear what can be concluded from this data for the longer term. Environmental organizations are divided, with some seeing ccs as a critical technology to get the world onto a low carbon emission pathway, while others



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present it as a dangerous distraction that perpetuates reliance on dirty coal and sucks resources away from the real solutions of ­renewables and energy efficiency.47 One thing is clear, however. The development of robust regulatory frameworks and transparent international procedures for managing ccs activities will be critical to their long term acceptability. Precisely because the large scale deployment of ccs carries environmental risks, it will be important to establish a clear division of responsibility among public and private actors involved in ccs, and to set in place mechanisms to address any difficulties that may emerge.48 And this involves a delicate balancing of a complex array of considerations spread over various time scales. Although governments will play the pivotal role in regulating ccs, there are good arguments to suggest that companies involved in ccs activities, as well as fossil fuel producers and consumers (rather than just “taxpayers” at large), should be contributing financially to meet the costs both of long term monitoring and of developing hedging strategies to address leakage risks. This could be achieved in a variety of ways, including imposition of a “storage levy” or allocation of revenue from a carbon tax or the auction of emissions permits. The idea would be to bring forward into current economic calculations some element of the costs of long term monitoring and of hedging future risks. After all, although a ton of carbon dioxide stored underground is vastly preferable to a ton of carbon released into the atmosphere, it is not quite as good as avoiding the creation of that ton of carbon dioxide in the first place. With respect to the international sphere, agreement is needed regarding international standards for ccs activities, accounting of stored carbon, and the integration of ccs into mechanisms such as the cdm. Above all, there needs to be confidence that emissions listed as sequestered really have been sequestered, and that verification procedures are adequate to uncover problems. Poor selection of reservoir sites or management of ccs systems could have serious consequences over the long term. This could be addressed through a variety of co-operative and capacity building mechanisms. But ultimately the issue of international monitoring will come to the fore. Be that as it may, ccs presents us with a sampling of the multiple uncertainties that face policy makers and political communities as they attempt to chart a collective response to the threat of climate

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change and work towards alternative energy pathways. Bruce Doern’s writings on earlier energy conundrums such as the regulation of nuclear power, Canada’s National Energy Program and free trade in North America point to the complexities and conflicts that beset energy policy.49 And as we move into a carbon constrained world the horizon remains clouded. After all, the future of ccs will inevitably be intertwined with that of other uncertain pieces of the energy puzzle such as nuclear power and biofuels. Today the auto industry stands on the brink of divergent development trajectories. For the first time in nearly a century technological options for power systems in the automotive sector appear relatively open. Will more efficient gasoline cars, plug in hybrids, all electric vehicles, biofuels, or hydrogen vehicles move into the ascendant? And will societies begin to address mobility issues though modal shifts (from passenger vehicles to public transit) and a reduction in distance traveled (through changed work and recreation patterns, and redesigned urban form). Time will tell. But one thing of which we can be certain is that no energy options are easy options in the era of a carbon constrained world.

notes

1� James Meadowcroft, “Governing the Transition to a New Energy Economy,” in Fraser Armstrong and Katherine Blundell, eds. Energy… Beyond Oil (Oxford University Press, 2007). 2� G. Bruce Doern, The Atomic Energy Control Board: An Evaluation of Regulatory and Administrative Processes and Procedures (Law Reform Commission of Canada, 1976); G. Bruce Doern, Government Intervention in the Canadian Nuclear Industry (Institute for Research on Public Policy, 1980); G. Bruce Doern and Glen Toner, The Politics of Energy: The Development and Implementation of the nep (Methuen, 1985); G. Bruce Doern and Monica Gattinger, Power Switch: Energy Regulatory Governance in the Twenty-First Century (University of Toronto Press, 2003); G. Bruce Doern, Canadian Energy Policy and the Struggle for Sustainable Development (University of Toronto Press, 2005); G. Bruce Doern and Burkard Eberlein, Governing the Energy Challenge: Canada and Germany in a Multilevel Regional and Global Context (University of Toronto Press, 2009). 3� Jenny Stephens, “Growing Interest in Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage (ccs) for Climate Change Mitigation,” Sustainability: Science, Practice & Policy (2006), 2, 4–12. Available at: http://ejournal.nbii.org;



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Andreas Tjernshaugen, “Political Commitment to co 2Capture and Storage: Evidence from Government r&d Budgets,” Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change 13 (2008), 1–21. 4� International Panel on Climate Change (ipcc), Special Report on Carbon Capture and Storage (ipcc, 2005); International Energy Agency (iea), co 2 Capture and Storage: A Key Carbon Abatement Option (oecd/iea, 2008). 5� ipcc, Special Report on Carbon Capture and Storage, 2. 6� Bob Mitchell and Jan Van Ham, Canada’s co 2 Capture and Storage Road Map (Natural Resources Canada, 2006). 7� ipcc, Special Report on Carbon Capture and Storage, 19. 8� H. Coninck, J. Anderson, P. Curnow, T. Flach, O. Flagstad, H. Groenenberg, C. Norton, D. Reiner, and S. Shackley, “Acceptability of co 2 Capture and Storage,” report by the Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands, the Institute for European Environmental Policy, Det Norske Veritas Baker and McKenzie and the Tyndall Centre (2006), 30. 9� Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum (cslf), cslf Technology Roadmap (2004), 6. 10� Tom Marr-Laing, Matthew Bramely and Mary Griffiths, Carbon Capture and Storage: The Pembina Institute’s Position (Pembina Institute, 2005); ipcc, Climate Change 2007: Mitigation of Climate Change – Summary for Policymakers (ipcc, 2007). 11� iea, World Energy Outlook 2006 (oecd/iea, 2006); Godfrey Boyle, Bob Everett and Janet Ramage, Energy Systems and Sustainability (Oxford University Press/Open University, 2003). 12� Clifton Associates, “The Long Term Storage of co 2: A Regulatory Requirements Project” (2004); accsept Project, “Summary of the Main Findings and Key Recommendations” (December 2007). Available at: www.accsept.org/outputs/wp_5_2dec_2007_final.pdf. 13� H. Coninck and S. Bakker, “co 2 Capture and Storage: State of the Art in the Climate Negotiations,” report by the Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands (ercn) (December 2005). Available at: www.ecn.nl/­ publications/Default.aspx?pu=bs&yr=2005. 14� David Keith, Towards a Strategy for Implementing co 2 Capture and Storage in Canada, (Environment Canada, 2002); Mitchell and Van Ham, Canada’s co 2 Capture and Storage Road Map (2006). 15� ipcc, Special Report on Carbon Capture and Storage, 25. 16� Jason Heinrich, Howard J. Herzog, and David M. Reiner, Environmental Assessment of Geological Storage of co 2 (Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 2004), 10.

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17� John Gale, “Geological Storage of co 2: What Do We Know, Where Are the Gaps and What More Needs to Be Done?” Energy 29 (2004), 1329– 38; ipcc, Special Report on Carbon Capture and Storage (2005). 18� The specialist literature includes discussion of ccs as a “temporary” ­storage strategy, which delays the release of co 2 to the atmosphere by decades and centuries (thereby gaining time for further technological development), nevertheless, the current consensus suggests that storage must be essentially permanent and leakage rates very low. See ipcc, Special Report on Carbon Capture and Storage (2005); European Commission, “Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the Geological Storage of Carbon Dioxide” (2008). 19� ipcc, Special Report on Carbon Capture and Storage, 246. The ipcc defines “very likely” as a probability between 90 per cent and 99 per cent. “Likely” is a probability between 66 per cent and 90 per cent. 20� D. Hawkins, “No Exit: Thinking about Leakage from Geologic Carbon Storage Sites,” Energy 29 (2004), 1571–8. Similar results appear if one starts from the ipcc’s estimates of cumulative storage by century’s end of 60–600 GtC. A 1 per cent annual leakage rate would amount to 30 per cent–300 per cent of the 2100 carbon budget while a 0.1 per cent rate would consume 3 per cent–30 per cent of that budget. 21� We are indebted to David Keith for this observation. 22� For example: Klaus Jacob, “Governance for Industrial Transformation – the Scope of the Challenge,” in Klaus Jacob, Manfred Binder, and Anna Wieczorek, eds. Proceedings of the 2003 Berlin Conference on the Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change (Berlin Environmental Policy Research Centre, 2004); and Staffan Jacobsson and Anna Bergek, “Transforming the Energy Sector: The Evolution of Technological Systems in Renewable Energy Technology,” in Klaus Jacob, Manfred Binder, and Anna Wieczorek, eds. Proceedings of the 2003 Berlin Conference on the Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change (Berlin Environmental Policy Research Centre, 2004). 23� John Holdren, “The Energy Innovation Imperative: Addressing Oil Dependence Climate Change and Other 21st Century Energy Challenges,” Innovations 1, no. 2 (2006), 3–23, 6. 24� Gregory Unruh, “Understanding Carbon Lock-In,” Energy Policy 28 (2000), 817–30, 828. 25� Philip Anderson and Michael L. Tushman, “Technological discontinuities and dominant designs: a cyclical model of technological change,” Administrative Science Quarterly 35 (1990), 604–33; James Utterback,



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Mastering the Dynamics of Innovation 2nd edition (Harvard Business School Press, 1996). 26� Thomas Parke Hughes, “The Evolution of Large Technological Systems,” in E. Wiebe, E. Bijker, Thomas Parke Hughes, and T. J. Pinch, eds. The Social Construction of Technological Systems : New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology (Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 1987). 27� Unruh, “Understanding Carbon Lock-In” (2000). 28� Frank Geels, Technological transitions and System Innovations: ­ A Co-evolutionary and Socio-technical Analysis (Edward Elgar, 2005); Frank Geels, “Major System Change through Stepwise Reconfiguration: A Multi-Level Analysis of the Transformation of American Factory Production (1850–1930),” Technology in Society 28 (2006), 445–76; Frank Geels and J. Schot, “Typology of sociotechnical transition ­pathways,” Research Policy 36 (2007), 399–417. 29� Rene Kemp, Jan Rotmans and Derek Loorbach, “Assessing the Dutch Energy Transition Policy: How Does It Deal with Dilemmas of Managing Transitions?” Journal of Environment Policy and Planning 9, nos 3–4 (2007), 315–31. 30� René Kemp and Jan Rotmans, “The Management of the Co-Evolution of Technical, Environmental and Social Systems,” in Matthias Weber and Jens Hemmelskemp, eds. Towards Environmental Innovation Systems (Springer, 2005), 42. 31� Ibid., 45. 32� Ibid. 33� Ibid., 50–1. 34� Jan Rotmans, Rene Kemp and Margaret van Asselt, “More evolution than revolution: transition management in public policy,” Foresight 3 (2001), 15–31. 35� Kemp and Rotmans, “The Management of the Co-Evolution of Technical, Environmental and Social Systems,” 38. 36� Ibid., 49. 37� And of course environmentalists worry that all the other impacts of fossil fuel usage (for example, from mining and transporting coal, producing conventional air pollution and waste ash, and so on) would also continue. 38� Kemp and Rotmans, “The Management of the Co-Evolution of Technical, Environmental and Social Systems,” 48. 39� Ibid., 49. 40� Ibid., 46.

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41� ipcc, Special Report on Carbon Capture and Storage, 9; Mark Jaccard, Sustainable Fossil Fuels: The Unusual Suspect in the Quest for Clean and Enduring Energy (Cambridge University Press, 2006); D. R. Simbeck, “co 2 Capture and Storage – the Essential Bridge to the Hydrogen Economy,” Energy 29 (2004), 1633–41. 42� Coninck et al, “Acceptability of co 2 Capture and Storage” (2006). 43� For example, the Anglo-French supersonic passenger jet Concorde, ­introduced in 1969 was supposed to transform civil aviation. But for a variety of reasons (including fuel costs and environmental concerns) it was the Boeing 747 that heralded a new air transport era. Pneumatic trains and the zeppelin are two other potentially transformative ­technologies that were still born. 44� Adrian Smith, Andrew Stirling, and Frans Berkhout, “The Governance of Sustainable Socio-technical Transitions,” Research Policy 34 ( 2005), 1491–510. 45� James Meadowcroft, “Environmental Political Economy, Technological Transitions and the State,” New Political Economy 10 (2005), 479–98. 46� Coninck et al, “Acceptability of co 2 Capture and Storage” (2006); D. Reiner, T. Curry, M. de Figueiredo, H. Herzog, S. Ansolabehere, K. Itaoka, M. Akai, F. Johnsson, and M. Odenberger, “An International Comparison of Public Attitudes towards Carbon Capture and Storage Technologies” presented at the 8th International Conference on Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies (Norway, June 2006). Available at: http://sequestration.mit.edu/bibliography/policy.html 47� For the supportive position see: Aage Stangeland, “Why co 2 Capture and Storage (ccs) Is an Important Strategy to Reduce Global co 2 Emissions,” Bellona Position Paper (The Bellona Foundation, June 2007). For a critical perspective see Greenpeace International, “False Hope: Why Carbon Capture and Storage Won’t Save the Climate” (Greenpeace International, 2008); and Gabriela von Goerne and Fredrik Lundberg, “Last Gasp of the Coal Industry,” Air Pollution and Climate Series 21 (Air Pollution and Climate Secretariat, October 2008). 48� Rose Murphy and Mark Jaccard, “Geological Carbon Storage: The Roles of Government and Industry in Risk Management,” in Glen Toner, ed. Innovation, Science, Environment: Canadian Policies and Performance 2008–9 (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2008). 49� See, for example, Doern, Government Intervention in the Canadian Nuclear Industry; Doern and Toner, The Politics of Energy: The Development and Implementation of the nep ; and Doern and Gattinger, Power Switch: Energy Regulatory Governance in the Twenty-First Century.

12 Growing the Children of Brundtland The Creation and Evolution of the nrtee, iisd, cesd, and sdtc serena boutros, lillian hayward, anique montambault, laura smallwood, and glen toner

There is nothing more difficult to plan, no more dangerous to manage, than the creation of a new system. For the creator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old system and merely lukewarm defenders in those who gain by the new one. (Machiavelli, 1513)

The World Commission on Environment and Development (wced) was created in 1983 to develop “a global agenda for change” that would assist countries around the world in their pursuit of sustainable development. Our Common Future, its landmark final report published in 1987, put sustainable development issues on the political agenda. A major component of the Canadian response to the wced challenge to build societal capacity for sustainable development was the creation of four innovative institutions. Three of the four institutions can trace their roots directly to the government of Canada’s response to the publication of Our Common Future. The National Round Table on the Environment and Economy (nrtee) and the International Institute for Sustainable Development (iisd) were direct outcomes of Brian Mulroney’s commitment, made on the dais of the United Nations General Assembly in December 1988, to institutionalize the Canadian response to the recommendations of Our Common Future. The Commissioner of Environment and Sustainable Development (cesd) was created in the mid-1990s by

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the Jean Chretien Liberal government in reaction to the perceived inadequacies of the Mulroney government’s response. The only 21st Century institution in this comparative study is Sustainable Development Technology Canada (sdtc) which was created in 2001. The conceptual roots of sdtc can, however, be traced back to the Liberals’ critique of the inadequacy of the Conservative’s initial response to Our Common Future and in particular to the wced’s injunction to find viable public policy investment instruments to overcome market failures in capitalizing innovative sustainable ­development technologies. By having very different mandates, all four institutions have been successful in broadening discussions and communicating the importance of sustainable development. This success has in large part been a result of their independence: all four institutions were created at arm’s length from the executive branch of government. However, this independence has also circumscribed their ability to effect change as they have limited decision making power, particularly the kind required for the paradigmatic social change envisaged by the wced. This chapter will analyse the origins of each institution, and their successes and challenges, concluding with the lessons that can be learned from Canada’s approach to the institutionalization of ­sustainable development. This chapter, perhaps more than any other, underscores Bruce Doern’s influence as a teacher and mentor over four decades. Toner took a phd course from Doern in 1978 and went on to become Doern’s first completed phd supervision and then faculty colleague in the School of Public Policy and Administration (sppa). Together they would co-author a book and several journal articles and book chapters, as well as collaborate on a number of research projects. Doern and Toner were co-creators in 1997 of the sppa graduate program in Innovation, Science, and Environment (ise). Boutros, Hayward, Montambault, and Smallwood were ise students and each did a capstone M.A. course with Toner in 2007–08 focusing on one of the four institutions assessed in this chapter. All four studies were subsequently published in the 2009 edition of the Innovation, Science, and Environment volume founded by Doern. This edition was coedited by Toner and James Meadowcroft, another faculty member in the sppa and co-author with a student of a chapter in this volume. The practice of engaging students in faculty research and building the community of public policy scholars is a well established ­tradition



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in the sppa and can be traced to Doern’s commitment to institution building and genuine interest in his students. Several of the authors in this volume co-authored with Doern as students and went on to establish successful professional careers. A number of them were from the “generation” of students that came along between Toner and the other co-authors of this chapter. The editors argued in the introduction of this volume that Doern’s: a) contagious intellectual curiosity on public policy questions, b) broad range of conceptual and substantive policy field interests, c) extraordinary ability to keep several research publication projects on the go at the same time, and d) inspiring and nurturing approach to students, contributed to his powerful impact on the discipline of public policy and administration in Canada and abroad. This chapter is a perfect example of his influence over several generations. institutional creation and common drivers

In the late 1980’s, public interest in the environment in Canada was escalating. A series environmental disasters such as the Bhopal chemical disaster in India (1984), the Three Mile Island (1979) and Chernobyl (1986) nuclear plant accidents, and unusually intense droughts in the late 1980s reinforced the notion that environmental problems were increasingly global in nature and required urgent attention.1 Amplifying this sentiment were a series of more local environmental emergencies during this same period, such as the pcb fire in Quebec, a major tire fire in Ontario, and the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska. These events influenced the political climate toward the environment in the mid-to-late 1980s. While environmental matters were not on the Mulroney government’s priority list when it took office in 1984, public opinion polling began to reveal growing public concern for the environment. A significant shift toward new and comprehensive environmental initiatives demonstrated that the Conservatives’ attitude toward the environment was also evolving. Contextually, the period from the early 1970s to the mid 1980s saw the emergence of several important international environmental events and agreements, such as the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment, the creation of the United Nations Environment Program in 1972, and the 1979 Convention on LongRange Transboundary Air Pollution. The wced was created by the

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United Nations in 1983 in response to the 1980 World Conservation Strategy, a science-based report by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. The 21 wced Commissioners appointed were leading figures from all corners of the globe, lead by Gro Harlem Brundtland who would later become the Norwegian Prime Minister. The wced undertook consultations in a number of ­countries across the globe, including Canada. The wced’s most memorable meeting during its 1986 visit to Canada was with the Canadian Council of Resource and Environment Ministers held in Edmonton, Alberta. As a direct follow-up to that meeting, the National Task Force on Environment and Economy was formed. It brought together Canadian environment ministers, senior executives from Canadian industry and environmental nongovernmental organizations, and academics to initiate dialogue regarding the integration of the environment and the economy. The multi-stakeholder dialogue initiated by the Task Force was amongst the first of its kind in Canada. There was growing public support for increased environmental regulation. Industrialists were concerned that Canada would mimic the U.S. and adopt a strong regulatory approach and thus were open to dialogue with traditional adversaries. Environmental groups sensed the opportunity to shape policy outcomes in a manner never before possible and thrived in this era of increased funding and influence. The visit of the wced to Canada focused considerable media attention on sustainable development. The central role of two prominent Canadians ensured that the Commission’s work reached the highest political echelons. Maurice Strong, a Commissioner, and Jim MacNeill, the Secretary General, 2 worked proactively to ensure that the recommendations of the Task Force were taken seriously.3 Our Common Future appropriately identified sustainable development as a societal problem requiring fundamental changes in the behaviour of citizens, industry, and all levels of government. The Task Force was challenged to recommend actions to the Canadian Council of Resource and Environment Ministers that would foster and promote environmentally sound economic development.4 The release of the Task Force’s report, one month prior to the publication of Our Common Future, generated extensive media coverage. The report was well-received throughout Canada and was also applauded internationally. Canada was highly commended by many other countries, and in particular by Brundtland herself, for helping to establish



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credibility for the work of the wced by proving that senior decision makers from all across a society could come together for the purpose of integrating environmental concerns with the economy.5 As a result, Canada emerged as a prominent leader in the international ­sustainable development movement.6 The Task Force members were so motivated by their experience of working in a roundtable forum with other sector leaders that their most significant recommendation to the prime minister and premiers was to institutionalize the cross-sectoral advice in a permanent roundtable. Mulroney responded with the creation of the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy (nrtee) in 1989. The idea of an international institute for sustainable development emerged from Our Common Future’s significant international theme. Prime Minister Mulroney addressed the UN General Assembly in the debate on Our Common Future and was looking for a concrete “announceable” to solidify Canada’s leadership. Given the immense public appetite for environmental action and the opportunity to address an international forum, it was a perfect time for Mulroney to announce the establishment of an institution with a focus on international sustainable development issues. Hence, on September 29, 1988 Mulroney announced to the General Assembly the establishment of “a Centre which will promote internationally the concept of environmentally sustainable development. This centre will be located in Winnipeg and will work closely with the United Nations Environment Program and other like minded international institutions and organizations.”7 Two years later, the funding agreement for the International Institute for Sustainable Development was signed at the Globe ’90 Environmental Technology Trade Show and Conference in Vancouver by Manitoba Premier Gary Filmon and Federal Environment Minister Lucien Bouchard. The predominance of international engagement in the overarching conference themes and the sheer number of international delegates provided the ideal back drop for the announcement of the creation of iisd. Upon their re-election in 1988, the Conservatives went on record committing their government to a major environmental and sustainable development initiative which emerged as the 1990 Green Plan. The Green Plan represented a major political breakthrough in that the Conservatives overcame their initial unease with environmental and sustainable development issues to put in place a major initiative with significant financial implications.8 During the formulation of

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the Green Plan in the summer of 1989, a coalition of environmental groups presented Minister Bouchard with a Greenprint for Canada. It was an extensive sustainable development action plan and recommended, amongst other things, the creation of an auditor general for the environment.9 When it emerged the following year, the Green Plan did not include this recommended institutional change, although it did require federal departments and agencies to implement policies and procedures for environmental auditing. The purpose was to evaluate organizational compliance with environmental standards and policies, as well as to measure performance against desired goals and objectives.10 Pressure increased with the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, a massive international gathering of heads of government that focused on actions to incorporate sustainable development in countries’ governance systems. Subsequently, the Liberal Party dedicated an entire chapter to sustainable development in their 1993 electoral manifesto, known as the “Red Book,” which included the promise to create an environmental auditor general.11 The defeat of the Conservatives in 1993 led to the quiet phasing out of Green Plan initiatives. The Chretien-led Liberal government set to the task of implementing the Red Book promises and created a House of Commons Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development. The government asked this Committee, as well as a team at Environment Canada, to examine ways to establish an environmental auditor general who could ensure that the government’s actions were carried out in a sustainable manner. After holding hearings, the Committee recommended the establishment of an independent commissioner of the environment and sustainable development with responsibility for reviewing how well government policies, programs and spending support Canada’s transition toward sustainable development, while providing liaison, monitoring, and encouragement to government, parliamentarians, and the public on sustainable development.12 In April 1995, the government rejected the Standing Committee’s recommendation and adopted a proposal closer to that recommended by Environment Canada by creating the position of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development within the Office of the Auditor General. Later in the 1990s, a $1.3 billion windfall from the sale of PetroCanada shares presented the Liberal government with the opportunity to integrate the environment and the economy by combining



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Canada’s substantial natural resource economy with the innovative knowledge-based economy. Our Common Future had noted the emerging global anxiety with climate change and a number of its chapters encouraged governments to invest in innovative technologies to reduce the air quality and climate change impacts of industrial activity. Following the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, Canadian federal and provincial governments created the National Climate Change Process, which was the research and engagement component that informed the Government’s 2000 National Implementation Strategy on Climate Change. The National Process was an in-depth consultative project, establishing sixteen “issue tables” involving 450 experts from industry, academia, non-governmental organi­ zations and government. One of the recommendations from the Technology issue table was the creation of a fund for the development and demonstration of technologies that had the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.13 The federal government’s budget tabled in 2000 was the first to publicly announce the creation of a sustainable development technology fund. Its language drew clear parallels between economic growth, sustainable development and innovation, stressing the development, dissemination and use of environmental technologies. Sustainable Development Technology Canada was created to fill a specific niche within the complement of existing programs and organizations in the Canadian innovation system, such as Industry Canada’s Industrial Research Assistance Program, the Canadian Foundation of Innovation, and Technology Early Action Measures to name a few. Despite the considerable hurdles encountered while ushering the Bill through the House of Commons and Senate committees, the Sustainable Development Technology Canada Act received Royal Assent in the summer of 2001. organizational structures, challenges and opportunities

Though these four institutions were borne of similar drivers, their organizational structures and functions are notably distinct. Each structure was carefully crafted to achieve its own objectives. This section explores the structural and organizational issues that have shaped their evolution over time by examining the various barriers faced and opportunities seized by each organization.

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National Round Table on the Environment and Economy The nrtee’s mandate is to identify, explain and promote the concept of sustainable development. A roundtable is a multipartite body, designed to reflect diverse backgrounds and experiences, differing perspectives and insights as well as divergent values and beliefs. The thrust behind the creation of the nrtee was to engage Canadian society with the ideas and principles of sustainable development. A roundtable structure was seen as the most fitting precisely because the sustainable development challenge is beyond the scope of any one sector, jurisdiction or community. The nrtee is comprised of 24 members, appointed by cabinet to serve two year terms. It meets four times a year and members are drawn from the following four general groupings: political, business/industry, science/strategic policy, and public interest/labour/professional. The National Round Table on the Environment and Economy Act, passed in 1993, was a critical breakthrough in its evolution as it provided the nrtee with a far-reaching legislated mandate as a departmental corporation to play both a catalytic societal change role and a more focused advisory role. Designed to explore innovative approaches to integrating the environment and the economy into decision-making forums in both the public and private sectors, the nrtee was not intended to develop or deliver programs, nor was it designed to be a major source of expertise on technical aspects of the economy or ecological systems. Rather, the nrtee sought, through its members, to act as a catalyst, forging new strategic partnerships and building broad consensus on the implementation of sustainable development in Canada. It could hire the technical expertise as required to help members come to agreements. At the time the nrtee was conceived, it was believed that it was well-positioned to take on the challenging role of catalyst. There was a perceived need for a catalyst because sustainable development issues transcend boundaries and jurisdictions. Moreover, it was believed that the nrtee was well-positioned to take on the challenging role of catalyst by leveraging the credentials and networks of its members, working through their respective ‘spheres of influence’ to forge strategic partnerships. The nrtee’s ability to bring together leaders from a variety of sectors, particularly from the environmental non-governmental organization and business community, was a significant achievement, owing in part to the understanding and



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mutual respect developed at meetings of its predecessor, the National Task Force on Energy and the Economy. The evolution of the nrtee reveals an ongoing struggle to remain relevant to both governmental and societal debates, reflected in the ongoing organizational tension between its roles as a societal catalyst versus advisor to the federal government. Post-Rio, the nrtee struggled with the perception that it was unfocused and lacking in effective organizational coherence as a result of overextending itself, tackling rather ambitious social change initiatives and issues that were too large and open-ended.14 The nrtee’s focus on the ‘economy’ side of issues was slipping and with it the interest of the business community. The resignations of cabinet ministers during the early 1990s reflected a near breakdown of its original design and intent. Specifically, the vision that the nrtee would flourish into the first expanded model of an arms length body with government representation, including the federal ministers of the Environment, Finance, Industry, Science and Technology and Energy, Mines and Resources departments. With the resignation of cabinet ministers just a few years after its inception, some of the founders of the nrtee feared that its original intent to break traditional institutional moulds was failing and they, arguably, foresaw its lapse into becoming “just another advisory body.”15 During the Chretien government’s expenditure reduction Program Review in mid-1990s, nrtee struggled to stay on the Prime Minister’s radar and faced increasing budget constraints. Instead of allowing itself to become obsolete, nrtee built its credibility through its annual ‘Greening the Budget’ submissions which started in 1996. These submissions helped to bolster its position as an independent advisor for the federal government by connecting the organization to one of the most important decision-making processes in the government – the federal budget. Starting in 2001, nrtee began to undertake leading-edge work on high profile issues such as climate change, brownfields redevelopment, urban sustainability, and ecological fiscal reform. These ‘State of the Debate Reports’ revealed a substantial expertise and helped to increase nrtee’s independent advisory role for the federal government as demonstrated by the references made to the nrtee in the federal budget. Though it has struggled, at times successfully, to make its reports relevant to the federal government, it has often faced subtle and not so subtle resistant from the federal bureaucracy. Ironically, requests

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for reports from the government has caused internal struggles within the membership regarding how to strike the proper balance between taking requests for advice from the government while still maintaining the nrtee’s independence from government.16 Some members even began to feel that the nrtee should not be responding to requests from the government. This has particularly been the case since the Stephen Harper-led Conservative government came to power in 2006 after over a decade of Liberal rule. The Harper government was suspicious of the federal bureaucracy and turned to the nrtee as a source of policy advice independent of the bureaucracy. Interestingly, since its inception the nrtee was one of the only bodies to report to the prime minister. Therefore, its role and influence has waxed and waned depending on the interest shown by the prime minister. Despite its dependence on the nrtee for advice on climate change, for example, the Harper government downgraded the reporting relationship of the nrtee to the Minister of Environment, arguably a symbol of the organization’s decrease in power and importance and a diminishment of the catalyst function, although the two roles are not mutually exclusive – providing advice is a large part of ­fulfilling a catalyst role. The nrtee’s expertise has led it to become an authoritative voice on climate change throughout Canada with the federal government increasingly relying on its reports for advice on Kyoto obligations, climate change adaptation, and Clean Air Programs. The Harper government sought the nrtee’s advice concerning targets and scenarios for reducing Canada’s emissions of greenhouse gases in the medium and long-term term, though, arguably, the advice has often failed to be adopted. The nrtee has positioned itself to continue to specialize in environmental issues and to provide advice to the federal government. Nevertheless, by maintaining its annual green budget submission to the government’s budget process, nrtee has created a valuable linkage between sustainable development and the federal budget which will ensure that sustainable development issues remain on the radar and on the books.17 Although the nrtee has transformed itself into primarily an ­advisory body, the roundtable movement it continues to symbolize has significantly affected how public involvement is done by governments throughout Canada. Through the nrtee, it was successfully demonstrated that people from diverse backgrounds can be brought



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together to discuss and debate complex, and often thought to be irreconcilable, public policy issues, to come up with solutions and recommendations. In so doing, it has profoundly influenced the way public consultations have been embedded in Canadian governance. Public/multi-stakeholder consultations are considered key public policy tools; the nrtee helped challenged the status quo on how decisions are made. International Institute for Sustainable Development The International Institute for Sustainable Development (iisd) was created under the Canada Corporations Act, Part II: Corporations Without Share Capital as a private, not-for-profit organization. This model was specifically chosen due to the fact that both federal and provincial governments were involved in its creation, which meant that the establishment of the organization as a Crown Corporation was impossible.18 The result was that the institution was developed as a kind of hybrid, receiving funding from both the governments of Canada and Manitoba. The creation of the institution as an independent organization has been lauded as an ‘inspired decision’19 because of the freedom it provided to take risks, appoint its own board of directors and determine its own funding structure. These freedoms have enabled iisd to grow into a flexible and agile organization. Even though it is a independent institution, iisd maintains close relationships with its funders. It has entrenched this relationship in the organization’s bylaws which grant the President of cida, the Deputy Minister of Environment Canada, and Premier of Manitoba observer status, which allows them to participate in board meetings. iisd has found that the benefit of having major donors participate in this way is that they are able to gain an understanding of what the institution is doing and identify ways in which they are able to collaborate.20 While it is Canadian-based, iisd is also a fundamentally international organization exemplified by the international representation on its board of directors. While membership on the board must be 50 per cent plus one Canadian, international representation has consistently been an important consideration for the institution. The result is that many individuals from around the world have contributed to the work of iisd. Hence, an international perspective is

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always part of its decision making, an undeniably important ­characteristic for an organization which seeks to have a voice both at home and abroad. iisd’s life has been marked by a number of crises and challenges which it has taken in stride and overcome in ways that has ultimately made it a more resilient organization. The most significant of these challenges resulted from the mid-1990s Program Review exercise undertaken by the Liberal government. The structure chosen for iisd was a popular model during the late 1980s and early 1990s,21 characterized by funding arrangements in which the government provided funding to define core business and establish relationships with stakeholders. With core business funding virtually guaranteed, these organizations often felt little push to produce innovative work or seek additional funding from outside sources. This all changed for iisd when between 1996 and 1998, as a result of federal government funding cuts, the organization saw its core funding, upon which it was almost entirely dependent, slashed by approximately 45 per cent. This could have easily been the end of the organization. However, instead of resulting in its almost inevitable demise, the funding cut led to a fundamental shift in the way that the institution did business; it seized the opportunity to diversify its funding sources and transform a spending culture into a revenue culture. The change in funding sources has shaped the institution in many ways, and actually fixed one of the flaws in the original model for iisd in which the core funding provided little impetus for innovative thinking. The new model saw iisd shift to a bonus system based on living within an agreed budget and meeting fundraising targets.22 As program directors became fundraisers, they were required to listen carefully to their audiences, produce innovative project ideas, shop around their proposals to numerous potential funders and raise the funds required to support their projects. What could have been a near fatal blow to the institution lead to a fundamental shift in the orientation of the organization and enabled iisd to become significantly more entrepreneurial. The benefits of this organizational shift are evident in the ­institution’s achievements. In 2004, iisd was declared the “Most Effective sd Research Organization” in a GlobeScan survey. The survey asked “experts who have either had a direct role in sustainable development research organizations, had dealings with them, or studied them […] to name a maximum of four specific sustainable ­development



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research organizations that they consider to be particularly ­effective.”23 iisd was considered by experts to be more effective than other well known sustainable development institutions such as the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, the World Resources Institute and the United Nations. While ranking these institutions against one another is difficult due to their vastly different mandates and activities, it still speaks volumes about the effectiveness of iisd, a small organization in comparison to the others. Often, iisd looks outside Canada for partners, organizations and governments willing to work with them. The result is that iisd has developed a very positive reputation in the international community. Since 2002, iisd has consistently had more designated grants coming from governments outside of Canada than inside, a reflection of the value that is placed on its work by governments around the world. In terms of specific country contributions, Canada remains a top donor, with the Government of Canada contributing approximately $2.2 million in designated grants in 2007–08. The next largest contributor was Norway with close to $1.4 million in designated funding in 2007–08.24 One of iisd’s main goals is communicating sustainable development and ensuring reliable sustainable development information is readily available and accessible to a wide range of audiences. While this has been a goal of the organization since its inception, it truly started being realized at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit with the daily summary of proceedings, called the Earth Summit Bulletin (since renamed the Earth Negotiations Bulletin (enb)). This publication allowed non-governmental organizations, the media, and countries with small delegations to keep up to date on outcomes of key negotiations, something that had previously been the domain of wealthy countries with large delegations. This not only improved the ability of delegations to inform themselves about all aspects of the negotiations but it also created a common knowledge base which improved communications between parties and ultimately increased the quality of the negotiations themselves.25 After taking up the enb, the challenge then became finding a fast, efficient and effective way to distribute it and other iisd publications. Having been interested in information networks and electronic databases since the early 1990s, iisd become one of the first 1000 users of the World Wide Web.26 In the summer of 1994, as part of its strategy to improve sustainable development communications,

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the institution launched Linkages, a website which publishes ­electronic versions of enb and has become the internet location for iisd’s reporting services. This technology has allowed high quality sustainable development information to reach a wide range of users ever since. The popularity of the enb (which covered close to 70 meetings in 200827) and Linkages (which has over 80,000 members28) speaks to the need for concise, comprehensive and neutral reporting of meetings, negotiations and conferences. iisd has identified and filled this information gap, and continues to produce publications that make information on both high-level environmental negotiations and sustainable development issues available in an accessible and reliable way. Having been created outside of government and the centre of political power, iisd has been free to grow and seek out investors and target specific audiences. However, these achievements have had little impact on advancing the sustainable development agenda within Canada, making iisd something of a sustainable development paradox. On one hand, it is an incredibly effective organization that is very well regarded internationally and which produces a vast amount of material that helps to shape environmental negotiations and international decision making. On the other hand, iisd has not adequately had its message taken up within Canada and had to survive incredibly deep cuts to its core funding as a result of government policy. While it has many achievements and successes, the institution’s innovative thinking and advice have made an impact on the international stage but have yet to have a significant effect on Canadian sustainable development policies. Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development The mandate for the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development is to provide parliamentarians with objective, independent analysis and recommendations on the federal government’s efforts to protect the environment and foster sustainable development. In March 1994, Minister of the Environment Sheila Copps asked both the House of Commons Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development (scesd)29 and a team at Environment Canada to investigate the establishment of an environmental auditor general who would ensure that the government’s actions were carried out in a sustainable manner. The ­recommendations



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diverged greatly. After several hearings, the scesd came to the c­ onclusion that an independent commissioner was the only way to promote sustainable development and hold the government accountable. Environment Canada, on the other hand, was of the opinion that an environmental auditor housed within the confines of the Office of the Auditor General (oag) would be the most effective and efficient way to hold government to account. The Liberal government chose a sort of hybrid by creating a Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development but housing it within the oag. The cesd was assigned two primary roles: to review how well government policies, programs and spending support Canada’s move towards sustainable development, and to liaise, monitor and encourage the government, parliamentarians, and the public on sustainable development issues. In addition to the formal program audit process inherited from the oag, the cesd has a host of additional institutional tools at its disposal to raise awareness of the importance of environment and sustainable development issues in Canada. These include: a public petitions process which allows for citizen engagement; the review and assessment of departmental sustainable development strategies (sds) to hold federal departments accountable for how well they are incorporating sustainable development into their plans and priorities; studies to help generate creative thinking about sustainable development within government and provide parliamentarians and public servants with examples of best practices of sustainable development integration; and, the Commissioner’s Observations chapter in the cesd Annual Report, which provides the cesd with the opportunity to comment on the overall governmental effort. The cesd has been shaped primarily by the first two Commissioners, Brian Emmett and Johanne Gélinas. Both had sufficient tenure in the post to develop their vision of the role of the Office in advancing sustainable development within the federal government. Brian Emmett came to the cesd from Environment Canada, where he had worked for several years as a senior official and played a key role in the development of the Green Plan. As the first Commissioner, Emmett created a learning culture for the Office and treated it as a ‘mini-university’ to generate thinking on sustainable development within government. By conducting studies and polling departments, the office established the baseline from which it could assess government performance on meeting sustainable development objectives.

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While departments found the studies useful, building the reputation of the office outside the government was more challenging, as the cesd reports did not garner substantial media or public attention. Auditing, and in particular the success of the 1999 toxic substances audit, attracted parliamentary hearings and media attention, prompting Emmett to a shift away from studies and to place a greater emphasis on the audit process. Despite the increased visibility of the Office and the greater prominence of sustainable development in the media, departments’ apparent half-hearted commitment to the sds process and lack of implementation exposed the limitations of the audit role. There were no penalties for failure to perform, and only limited guidance for how to improve. Johanne Gélinas took over the role of Commissioner in 2000 and focused on building stronger relationships with leaders who could propel sustainable development further into Canadians’ daily life. She raised the cesd’s profile through strategic engagement with parliamentarians in both the House and Senate and by expanding her engagement with committees beyond the well-established relationship with the scesd. She also increased the salience of sustainable development with the public through numerous speaking engagements highlighting the cesd’s work and by ramping up the public petitions process. In addition to a stronger presence domestically, Gélinas dramatically strengthened the reputation of the cesd internationally by assuming a leadership role in the United Nations’ International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions (intosai) environmental working group on behalf of the Auditor General. In large part due to Gélinas and the cesd staff’s formidable efforts, the environmental working group has earned the reputation as intosai’s most successful committee. It became evident to Gélinas and others that the government was not making sufficient progress on sustainable development. Gélinas’ strong critiques of the government’s lack of engagement with sustainable development were voiced clearly in the Commissioner’s Perspective in each annual report. Her powerful 2006 report on the government’s climate change efforts drew the cesd into a very high political and media profile. The sds, which were to be the lynch-pin of the Canadian bottom-up approach to sustainable development, were becoming a bitter disappointment; a fact that was made clear in her reports. There was a sense in the oag and on behalf of Auditor General Sheila Fraser that the work of the cesd was crossing an



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invisible line into advocacy, which conflicted in a fundamental way with the audit role of the oag. This tension was increased internally by a new committee system, established by Fraser to oversee the quality control of the audit work, which attempted to influence the topics chosen for the Commissioner’s report as well as the outcomes. Finally, the structural contradiction of deploying Commissioner-like functions within an audit office led to conflict and ultimately in Gélinas’ very public dismissal. The departure of Gélinas in January 2007 brought to the fore the fundamental question of location and function of the cesd, as evidenced by the media attention garnered by her dismissal and subsequent parliamentary efforts by the opposition parties to create an independent commissioner. Without question, the unresolved institu­ tional design issue remains relevant to this day. Former parliamentarian Charles Caccia noted, “sustainable development is too important to relegate to the oag.”30 The Commissioner’s rank as a second-level official within the oag provides too low a profile for a commissioner. The oag is a longstanding institution with a solid reputation, but the Commissioner’s lack of autonomy from the ag has greatly restricted both the type of work the cesd can do and its internal capacity building.31 The role of an auditor requires maintaining both the appearance and reality of dispassionate, non-policy audit-based advice. As such, the cesd necessarily cannot actively advocate for innovative policies that would help put Canada on a sustainable path. As a result, sustainable development policies are left to the guidance of individual ministers; deferring the long-term issue of sustainable development to those with short-term political lifespans. The only tool with the potential to advocate best practices are the studies, however the oag’s discomfort with their potential policy implications has made the audit office an inhospitable home for them. The absence of a forward looking advocacy function and the inability to issue early warnings or suggest areas of focus has ­hampered the sustainable development transition process.32 What has been most problematic at an intuitive level is that the title of ‘commissioner’ arouses certain expectations of what that role is supposed to deliver. The commissioner title was chosen because the House of Commons ‘wanted environment to be special’, however, and some would say unfortunately, it was accompanied by the mandate of an auditor.33 This simple misnomer has resulted in a great deal of confusion; in Parliament, the public and within the oag itself.

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As Sheila Fraser has stated “…there seems to be a discrepancy between expectations being placed upon us and what we are actually in a position to do, and people are not aware of this.”34 While a Commissioner typically acts as an advocate and advisor and comments on the policy direction of the government (such as with the Commissioners of Human Rights or Official Languages), an auditor typically fills in the accountability and information function. Recently, the cesd has been preoccupied with ‘institutional ­soulsearching’ in response to the criticisms from parliament and the media. In 2007, the Auditor General established a high-level ‘Green Ribbon Panel’ to review the effectiveness of the cesd within its current mandate, and the October 2007 Commissioner’s Report was dedicated to the review of the sds and petitions processes. There have also been more formalized changes to the role of the cesd, as the Liberal opposition sponsored Federal Sustainable Development Act (fsda) gained Royal Assent in June 2008. The Bill initially called for the creation of an independent commissioner, which, while supported by the rest of the opposition parties, was opposed by the Conservative government due to concerns about the advocacy ­function and was ultimately stricken from the text on technical grounds. Despite noted challenges, the cesd has been successful in helping to maintain environment and sustainable development on the radar of the government, media and public through a number of tools that the Commissioner has access to. The tools that are at the cesd’s disposal, allow for a number of venues through which issues surrounding sustainable development can be communicated to the public as well as the government and also provides means though which the public can become involved in and informed of environmental issues being addressed by the government. The public petitions process fulfills the ombudsman role of the cesd and provides a mechanism for citizen participation by allowing citizens to make inquiries to federal ministers related to the environment and sustainable development and receive a response in a timely manner. One of cesd’s greatest strengths is the rigorous performance audits that have generated Canada the reputation as a world leader in environmental auditing. The auditing process is an essential element of environmental governance as it provides citizens with an independent view of value for money and government performance against its own stated goals.



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The much criticized departmental sds remain the cesd’s primary tool for ensuring that federal departments are incorporating sustainable development into their plans and priorities, and there is no doubt that they are having some influence on the way that government considers its operations, if not in a desired ‘transformational’ manner. With the creation and implementation of the Environment Canada-led government wide Federal sd Strategy under the new fsda, it is likely that the departmental strategies will become much more focused and integrally tied to the results frameworks of departmental operations. The Commissioner’s Perspective chapter has earned the reputation as being a hard hitting barometer of ­sustainable development in Canada.35 With the fsda, the Commissioner’s role with respect to the sds process has been modified in the Auditor General Act. The fsda presents an opportunity for the cesd to take stock and examine the best points of entry to engage government and citizens and improve the accountability functions of the cesd, within its current institutional constraints. That being said, it is almost certain that Canada has not seen the last of the debate over the independence of the cesd. Sustainable Development Technology Canada sdtc is a foundation created in 2001 through an Act of Parliament. This is notable since only two of the 16 other foundations have been created through legislation. Providing a legislative basis for the foundation represents a greater step toward the institutionalisation of sd than if the cfsdt had remained a not-for-profit corporation under the Canada Corporations Act.36 sdtc’s governance framework is similar to other foundations in that it is bicameral, with two 15 member bodies who are drawn from the private, public and academic sectors in Canada: a board of directors, who govern the business of the foundation and provide strategic direction, and a member council who act as the ‘shareholders’ of sdtc. sdtc’s governance framework underscores the principle behind the creation of the foundation, that partnerships between the various sectors are necessary to achieve sustainable development. The foundation model is advantageous because it offers features which are not possible within, or can be compromised by, traditional

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departmental structure. The experience and expertise of its staff is complemented by the knowledge and experience of sdtc’s board members, thereby strengthening the peer-review process. Having board members with in-depth knowledge of market conditions and challenges to provide direction on strategic areas of investment is critical. It is a synergy of knowledge that would be nearly impossible to replicate within government. In addition, the provision of multiyear funding liberates foundations from the annual appropriation cycle, and the risk of on-again off-again funding. In sdtc’s case, the latter would have serious implications for companies who would be reluctant to undertake the onerous proposal submission process only to be denied funding because of political vacillation. Furthermore, the guarantee of long-term funding provides the incentive for leveraged contributions from other sectors, and recognizes the long term nature of scientific research and development. For a government modelled on the Westminster system, the foundation is a radical organizational form. Unlike departments controlled by Ministers, it places a significant amount of trust in unelected governors who are beyond the reach of political influence. This trust has been demonstrated through four federal budget allocations totalling just over $1 billion from both Liberal and Conservative governments. Compared to the other Canadian sustainable development ­organizations, sdtc has faced few challenges, though it has had to adapt to changing rules and requirements. sdtc’s independence has been threatened by incremental burdens arising from new clauses in its funding agreements with its sponsoring departments, from central agencies, and finally, from legislative changes. The Federal Accountability Act (faa) significantly altered the reporting requirements for foundations. This was a response to the Auditor General’s February 2005 Status Report chapter on the accountability of foundations, which noted that there were gaps in the external audit regime and ministerial oversight of foundations.37 To correct this accountability gap, part three of the faa extends the application of the Access to Information Act to crown corporations and foundations, while part five amends the Auditor General Act to include foundations within the Auditor General’s performance evaluation purview. Both Elliot Philipson, ceo of the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, and Vicky Sharpe, ceo of sdtc, argued against these measures, as such changes would compromise their foundation’s ability to protect their clients’ highly sensitive intellectual property.38 They argued that these



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amendments could have significant negative repercussions on the foundations’ operations since entrepreneurs would be unwilling to provide the detail and quality of information in their proposals that was necessary for the screening process if their intellectual property could not be guaranteed to be protected. Despite attempts to include an exemption to allow sdtc’s ceo to refuse to disclose certain records containing information relating to applications for funding, eligible projects, or eligible recipients the House of Commons rejected this modification. The legislative changes to the faa and the Auditor General’s Act have had a direct impact on the foundation model, exposing these funding vehicles to value for money audits on their operations. The changes to the Access to Information Act mean that sdtc’s work is subject to access to information requests. In addition, the expenses and revenues of the foundation are now included in the government’s annual financial statements. Fortunately, to date sdtc has not received any problematic requests. Despite these new burdens, sdtc has demonstrated success in building its reputation as an effective organization. There has been a consistently high demand for its services, receiving a total of 1,497 statements of interest in 13 rounds, representing interest from some 4400 different entities. The rigour and thoroughness of sdtc’s approval process removes the risk to the viability of the technology, thereby removing major barriers to investment from other partners. In addition, the greenhouse gas verification tool sdtc uses in their assessment process calculates the potential for emissions reductions from a technology. Knowledge of the technology’s environmental benefit in most cases would remain unknown without sdtc funding as the cost of establishing a durable and verifiable claim to emissions reductions – requiring 1000 hours of the technology’s use, at fullscale – is prohibitive for most companies. sdtc has conservatively estimated that technologies funded so far have the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 135 megatonnes by 2012. sdtc has played a very important capacity building role for smallto-medium sized enterprises in their attempts to commercialise their technologies. As these firms drive innovation in the clean technology marketplace, but often lack vital experience, they are the appropriate target for sdtc’s efforts; this is further evidenced by the fact that 90 per cent of sdtc-funded projects are led by small-to-medium sized enterprises. sdtc helps develop their capacity by providing assistance

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to firms building a business plan for their technology, which is a time-intensive process. For example, for those whose statement of interest is accepted, sdtc will visit applicant-consortia sites to meet with those involved in the project. If an applicants’ detailed proposal is not accepted, sdtc provides considerable feedback to firms in refining them by giving detailed explanations on the strengths and weaknesses of their business plan and how it might be improved. For this purpose, sdtc designs and hosts “Entrepreneurial Excellence” workshops. These are venues for mentorship and coaching and allow entrepreneurs to learn from other applicants’ experiences. So far, these workshops have yielded positive outcomes: of the 28 applicants who attended, 14 have gone on to receive funding from sdtc with their revised and improved proposals. sdtc also provides significant value-added by helping firms to identify consortia members, from industry, government or academia. In this sense, sdtc is building the sustainable development infrastructure of the country by creating partnerships that might otherwise never have materialised. sdtc is also advancing sustainable development policy. By ­collecting and analysing the information provided through the statements of interest, sdtc has a broad and in-depth understanding of the state of clean-technology development in Canada; the market’s needs, players, and potential direction. It publishes this analysis in its sd Business Case, which provides policy makers as well as industry an overview of the investment potential in the featured sector, and outlines a vision for Canada’s future potential in it. sdtc is also engaging in policy development more explicitly by partnering with other sustainable development institutions. Using its “bottom-up” knowledge of the market, sdtc is partnering with nrtee in order to provide advice to the government on how it can encourage the coming to market and dissemination of environmental technologies. This partnership is significant because it shows the synergy of sustainable development institutions. Finally, sdtc is advancing sustainable development by being a model for emulation. Within Canada, sdtc has played an important leadership role by providing guidance and advice to provincial governments interested in developing a funding instrument for environmental technologies. So far, sdtc has received requests from three provinces, Ontario, Alberta, and British Columbia, and has expended considerable effort to guide them through the institutional development process. sdtc has also served as a model for both the Australian and Norwegian governments.



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The impact of these efforts is significant. To date, the total funding committed to sdtc-approved projects is $1.14 billion. As sdtc’s funding is only $342 million of this total, it is successfully leveraging $2.30 for every dollar invested. Furthermore, 82 per cent of the industry portion of $798 million in leveraged. This underscores the point that sdtc is engaging industry to invest in technological development and demonstration rather than crowding it out. In Canada, there continues to be a lack of investment at the “pre-seed” stage, with sdtc remaining the single most important player in that niche. As tracked by the Cleantech Network, a clean technology industry association, non-sdtc funding at this stage is less than $10 million. Simply put, this phase is too risky for most venture capitalists or angel investors who fund the early and expansion phases, let alone banks and industry who tend to invest at the very end when the product is close to market. The rationale for sdtc’s mandate is also supported by the finding that numerous sdtc projects have previously received funding from other government sources, including 24 Industrial Research Assistance Program projects and 15 Natural Resources Canada’s canmet Materials Technology Laboratory projects. The unique assistance at the various phases of the technologies’ path to market demonstrate the complementary nature of the government’s innovation instruments, and underscores sdtc’s important niche within that system. Finally, sdtc projects have been successful. On average, consortia from completed projects with sdtc investment have received increasing funding since 2006. 24 of the projects in which sdtc had invested $70 million have raised $513 million in the past three years. so what does it mean? footprints of the children of brundtland

The creation of these four small specialized non-executive bodies was meant to be part of a broader systemic change process envisioned by the Brundtland Commission Report. While small organizations can play specialized roles in niche sectors, a truly transformative societal sustainable development change process will require the large institutions of government and business which have a wide scope of influence on investment and policy decisions to trigger concrete actions. This analysis of the children of Brundtland institutions shows that broad international processes like the wced can have real

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impacts at the national level when governments respond, as each represents a political decision taken as part of Canada’s response to the wced. Each organization has had a real impact as it has grown, with its leadership overcoming challenges and exploiting opportunities along the way. The nrtee successfully demonstrated that people from diverse backgrounds can be brought together to discuss and debate complex and supposedly irreconcilable positions on environmenteconomy issues. The roundtable movement helped change the way public policy is made in Canada. iisd has taken its place as a world leader in sustainable development and as a critical source of information on environmental issues. iisd’s leadership in sustainable development information and ideas has carved out a place for Canada in the international sustainable development arena. The hard hitting audit work of the cesd has earned Canada a reputation as a world leader in environmental auditing. Petitions provide an avenue for Canadians to engage ministers and departments on sustainable development and environment issues. sdtc has had an impact on the Canadian innovation agenda. The environmental technologies it is helping to develop will dramatically improve the health of Canadian and global ecosystems and transform the landscape of the environmental technologies market in Canada. Through their engagement with industry, academia, and government, all four organizations have become substantial knowledge brokers of sustainable development which will become even more important at the 21st Century unfolds. In design terms, they are all highly constrained. While they are all truly institutional innovations – essentially founded without a rulebook and moulded and shaped by creative leaders – they were intentionally designed to reside outside of the executive branch of the Canadian government, not directly answerable to ministers. This has been lauded as an innovative stroke of design genius as it gives them the advantage of not having to comply with all of the legal and cultural constraints of government bureaucracy. Hence, they have been able to exercise a degree of flexibility that would be impossible within government, take risks that would be unfeasible in a bureaucracy, and produce innovative materials and results that would be extremely difficult within the checks and balances of the cabinet system. Despite of the benefits of existing outside of the executive branch, there are also significant disadvantages. Being at arm’s length means that all four organizations are also at arm’s length from



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­ ecision-making; making them reliant almost entirely on their powers d of persuasion, with little opportunity to provide much more than advice to those at the centre of power. With primarily soft tools at their disposal, it is difficult to make substantive progress in moving society toward a sustainable development trajectory. Such a societal transformation will require a firm and ongoing commitment by governments to use the full range of legal, regulatory, taxation, and expenditure tools in the policy tool kit. Being outside the centre of political and bureaucratic power, these organizations simply do not have access to theses tools conclusion

As this chapter has illustrated, each organization has faced adversity in its short life. When they were established, there was no rule book for creating or growing these organizations; they essentially started from a blank sheet of paper and required creativity and imagination to grow. Each relied on a reservoir of Canadian leadership talent and strong personal commitment to moving Canada in the direction of sustainable development. Many of the same people were involved in the development of more than one of these four by cross fertilizing boards of directors and advisory panels. This has allowed the organizations to learn from one another’s experiences and to partner in interesting ways around the extensive networks of staff, boards and advisors. We conclude that each has been a positive contribution, but recognize that they are ultimately small players in a much bigger game. Ultimately, for the sustainable development trajectory to become meaningful firms and governments must do a much better job of integrating sustainable development principles into the production and policy mainstream of Canadian society. “The removal of Dofasco, zenon, Falconbridge/Noranda, Inco, Shell Canada and Alcan from their Canadian owners in the space of less than two years signalled a significant shift in governance and power relations around a number of high visibility companies in the sustainable development discourse in Canada.”39 This process has also shrunk the number of Canadian companies involved in various international sustainable development organizations and indexes. Unless other firms in the retail services, high technology, and manufacturing sectors step ­forward and join existing leaders in the energy, resource and financial

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sectors we risk a period of decline in leadership form the private sector. On the other hand, in the current financial crisis, governments in Canada and elsewhere are insisting that long term energy and material efficiency gains become a priority for firms and that sustainable development oriented “green jobs” become a central part of the corporate response. Post Our Common Future, the performance of Canadian ­governments has been inconsistent, with episodic leadership, and implementation efforts failing to meet rhetorical commitments. The 2008 Federal Sustainable Development Act may move the yardsticks forward within the practices of the federal government. But, in addition to it, strategic environmental assessment applied to the lens of cabinet decision making, a rigorous approach to environmental stewardship of its internal operations including green procurement of goods and services, strengthened and coherent regulations, a stronger environmental information base, and the serious utilization of financial incentives and disincentives via ecological fiscal reform of economic instruments will all be required if the federal government is to become the leader it needs to be for Canada to make real progress toward a sustainable development trajectory.40 The children of Brundtland institutions have shown they are capable and ready to play their role.

notes

1� G. Bruce Doern and Thomas Conway, The Greening of Canada: Federal Institutions and Decisions (University of Toronto Press, 1994), 14. Between 1990 and 2005 Bruce Doern contributed a dozen edited books, book chapters and articles in journals such as Governance and Environmental Politics to this policy field literature. The focus of his research was on environmental science, the environmental regulatory regime, and the core institutions of environmental policy in Canada, in particular Environment Canada. This chapter builds on and adds to Doern’s work on environmental institutions by undertaking the first ­comparative assessment of the four sustainable development agencies created during this period. 2� Strong had previously held the position of Under-Secretary General and Special Advisor to the Secretary-General of the United Nations; Executive Director of United Nations Environment Programme (1976–78), and Secretary General, United Nations Conference on the Human



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Environment (1970–72). MacNeill was also former Director of Environment, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (1978–84) and Canadian Commissioner General, un Conference on Human Settlements (1975–76). 3� Robert Gale, Canada’s Green Plan: A Study of the Development of National Environmental Plan, Submitted to the German Parliament (1997), 100. 4� National Task Force on the Environment and the Economy, Report of the National Task Force on the Environment and the Economy (1987), 1. 5� Ken Ogilvie and Brian Pannell, Promoting Sustainable Development using an Appropriate Mix of Policy Instruments: The Role of the nrtee (National Round Table on the Environment and Economy Working Paper, 1995), 5. 6� William Lafferty and James Meadowcroft, eds. Implementing Sustainable Development: Strategies and Initiatives in High Consumption Societies (Oxford University Press, 2000); Barry Dalal-Clayton, Getting To Grips with Green Plans: National Level Experience in Industrialized Countries (Earthscan, 1996). 7� External Affairs Canada, Address by the Right Honourable Brian Mulroney, Prime Minister of Canada, Before the un General Assembly (September 29, 1988), 8. 8� Glen Toner, “The Green Plan: From Great Expectations to ­ Eco-backtracking … to Revitalization?” in Susan D. Phillips, ed. How Ottawa Spends 1994–95: Making Change, (Carleton University Press, 1994), 231. 9� Greenprint for Canada Committee, Greenprint for Canada: A Federal Agenda for the Governmment (1989). 10� Tim Williams, “Sustainable Development in the Federal Government.” Available at: www.parl.gc.ca/information/library/PRBpubs/ prb0512-e.html#. 11� Liberal Party of Canada, Creating Opportunity: The Liberal Plan for Canada (1993). 12� House of Commons Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development (scesd), Report on the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development (1994). 13� Technology Issue Table, Enhancing Technology Innovation for Mitigating Greenhouse Gas Emissions, prepared for the Government of Canada (1999), 17. 14� Tom Shillington, Evolution of the nrtee’s Mandate and Planning Processes: Background Paper, prepared by Shillington & Burns Consultants Inc. (2006), 12.

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15� Ann Dale, Personal Interview, 26 October 2007. 16� Alexander Wood, Personal Interview, 18 July 2007. 17� Serena Boutros, “A Child of Brundtland – the Institutional Evolution of the National Round Table on the Environment and Economy,” in Glen Toner and James Meadowcroft, eds. Innovation, Science, Environment – Special Edition: Charting Sustainable Development in Canada 1987– 2007 (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2009), 156–80. 18� David Runnalls, Personal Interview, 24 July 2007. 19� Jim MacNeill, Personal Interview, 26 October 2007. 20� Runnalls, 2007. 21� Robert Slater, Personal Interview, 21 September 2007. 22� David Runnalls, Personal Communication, 12 February 2007. 23� GlobeScan, The GlobeScan Survey of Sustainability Experts. Available at: http://surveys.globescan.com/sdroleaders/sose04–2_resorg.pdf. 24� International Institute for Sustainable Development (iisd), Annual Report 2007–2008 (iisd, 2008), 36. 25� Lillian Hayward, “The Best of Brundtland: The Story of the International Institute for Sustainable Development,” in Glen Toner and James Meadowcroft, eds. Innovation, Science, Environment – Special Edition: Charting Sustainable Development in Canada 1987–2007 (McGillQueen’s University Press, 2009), 181–202. 26� Ibid. 27� iisd Reporting Services, “Meetings covered by iisd rs in 2008.” Available at: www.iisd.ca/meetings/2008.html. 28� iisd, Annual Report 2007–2008, 26. 29� The scesd is where the main parliamentary work on sd is done. It addresses sd generally under specific provisions including the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, the National Roundtable on the Environment and Economy Act, the Auditor General Act, the Oceans Act, and Canadian Environmental Protection Act, as well as various ­statutes establishing departments. Frédéric Bouder, Governance for Sustainable Development in Canada (oecd, 2001), 15. 30� Charles Caccia, Personal Interview, 5 February 2008. 31� Glen Toner, Testimony before the Standing Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development, Ottawa, 12 February 2007. Available at: www2.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?DocId =2687836&Language=E&Mode=1&Parl=39&Ses=1#Int-1893109. 32� Laura Smallwood, “Advocate or Auditor? The Conflicted Role of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development,” in Glen Toner and James Meadowcroft, eds. Innovation, Science,



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Environment – Special Edition: Charting Sustainable Development in Canada 1987–2007 (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2009), 203–29. 33� Robert Slater, Personal Interview, 14 August 2007; Ron Thompson, Personal Interview, 26 July 2007. 34� Sheila Fraser, Testimony before the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, Ottawa, 8 February 2007. Available at: http://cmte.parl.gc.ca/Content/HOC/committee/391/envi/evidence/ ev2679902/enviev41-e.htm#Int–1887907. 35� Smallwood, “Advocate or Auditor?” (2009). 36� Anique Montambault, “Building a Sustainable Development Infrastructure in Canada: The Genesis and Rise of Sustainable Development Technology Canada,” in Glen Toner and James Meadowcroft, eds. Innovation, Science, Environment – Special Edition: Charting Sustainable Development in Canada 1987–2007 (McGillQueen’s University Press, 2009), 230–52. 37� Auditor General of Canada, “Accountability of Foundations,” Status Report (February 2005), 1. 38� Vicky Sharpe, Personal Interview, 26 August 2008. 39� David Wheeler and Annika Tamlyn, “Canadian Business and the Sustainability Challenge: Engagement and Performance,” in Glen Toner and James Meadowcroft, eds. Innovation, Science, Environment – Special Edition: Charting Sustainable Development in Canada 1987–2007 (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2009), 131–55. 40� Glen Toner and Francois Bregha, “Institutionalizing Sustainable Development: The Role of Governmental Institutions,” in Glen Toner and James Meadowcroft, eds. Innovation, Science, Environment – Special Edition: Charting Sustainable Development in Canada 1987–2007 (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2009), 30–53.

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Contributors

peter aucoin is Eric Dennis Memorial Professor Emeritus of Government and Political Science and Professor Emeritus of Public Administration, Dalhousie University. His 1995 book, New Public Management: Canada in Comparative Perspective (irpp), was the recipient of the international Charles Levine prize for the best comparative book on public administration. His most recent book is Modernizing Public Accountability (csps, 2005) with Mark Jarvis. He is a member of the Order of Canada and a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (Academy of Social Sciences). sandford borins is a professor of Strategic Management at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, and a research fellow at the Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the Harvard Kennedy School. He writes a blog about public ­management, narrative, and information technology at www.­ sandfordborins.com and is lead author of Digital State at the Leading Edge (University of Toronto Press, 2007). serena boutros has a ba (Hons) in public affairs and policy man­ agement, with a minor in economics and an ma in public administration, with a specialization in innovation, science, and environment, both from Carleton University. She is currently a policy analyst with Natural Resources Canada, working in the science and policy integration sector. john a. chenier is president of Isis Research Limited and editor of two biweekly newsletters, Inside Ottawa and The Lobby Monitor.

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Contributors

He is a graduate of the School of Public Policy and Administration (ma 1974) and maintains his links to the school with occasional stints as a sessional lecturer. monica gattinger is an associate professor in the University of Ottawa’s School of Political Studies. Her research focuses on North American integration, energy policy, and regulation (Canada-United States) and Canadian cultural policy. She is co-editor of Borders and Bridges: Canada’s Policy Relations in North America (Oxford University Press, 2010). lillian hayward has a ba (Hons) in philosophy and a minor in cell and molecular biology from McGill University and an ma in public administration, with a specialization in innovation, science, and environment, from Carleton University. She is currently a policy analyst for the International Polar Year Federal Program Office at Indian and Northern Affairs Canada. matthew hellin is a policy advisor with the Ontario Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure and is involved in the development of regulatory policy for the electricity sector. He holds an ma in political science from Carleton University, where he studied energy politics and policy, including extensive research on carbon capture and ­storage technologies. jeffrey s. kinder has an ma in science, technology and public policy from George Washington University and is a phd candidate in the School of Public Policy and Administration at Carleton University. His research interests include science and technology policy, government laboratories, innovation systems, and science advisory mechanisms. He is the co-author with G. Bruce Doern of Strategic Science in the Public Interest: Canada’s Government Laboratories and Science-Based Agencies (University of Toronto Press, 2007) and is currently manager, S&T Strategy, at Natural Resources Canada.  allan m. maslove is professor of public policy and administration at Carleton University. He was the founding dean of Carleton’s Faculty of Public Affairs and Management and served as director of



Contributors

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Research for the Ontario Fair Tax Commission (1991–93). He is the author of numerous works on budgeting and taxation. james meadowcroft is a professor in the School of Public Policy and Administration and the Department of Political Science, Carleton University. He holds a Canada Research Chair in Governance for Sustainable Development and is the author/editor of numerous articles and books on environmental governance and sustainable development, including Implementing Sustainable Development: Strategies and Initiatives in High Consumption Societies (Oxford University Press, 2000) and Caching the Carbon: The Politics and Policy of Carbon Capture and Storage (Edward Elgar, 2009). anique montambault has a ba (Hons) in political science from McGill University and an ma in public administration, with a specialization in innovation, science, and environment, from Carleton University. She is currently a senior program policy and evaluation analyst for the Drug Strategy and Controlled Substances Office of Demand Reduction at Health Canada. leslie a. pal is Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy and Adminis­ tration at Carleton University and the author/editor of twenty-five books and over sixty articles/chapters on various aspects of Canadian and international public policy, including Beyond Policy Analysis: Public Issue Management in Turbulent Times, Fourth Edition (Nelson, 2009).  michael j. prince is the Lansdowne Professor of Social Policy in the Faculty of Human and Social Development at the University of Victoria. He was a faculty member at Carleton University, from 1978 to 1988 in the School of Public Administration. He is the co-author with James J. Rice of Changing Politics of Canadian Social Policy (University of Toronto Press, 2000) and the author of Absent Citizens: Disability Politics and Policy (University of Toronto Press, 2009). markus sharaput holds a phd in political science from York University and is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Lakehead University. His research interests include science and technology policy, intellectual property policy, and the links

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Contributors

between innovation systems and industrial policy. He is the co-author with G. Bruce Doern of Canadian Intellectual Property: The Politics of Innovating Institutions and Interests (University of Toronto Press, 2000).  laura smallwood has a bsc (Hons) in environmental science, with a minor in law, and an ma in public administration, with a specialization in innovation, science, and environment, both from Carleton University. She is currently an environment policy analyst at the Canadian International Development Agency, working in the strategic policy and performance branch glen toner is professor and director of the Carleton Research Unit in Innovation, Science, and Environment (cruise) in the School of Public Policy and Administration at Carleton University. He has written extensively on energy, environment, and sustainable development policy, including editing Sustainable Production: Building Canadian Capacity (ubc Press, 2006) and Innovation, Science, and Environment Special Edition: Charting Sustainable Development in Canada 1987–2007 (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2009).