How Ottawa Spends, 1994-95: Making Change 9780773595873

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How Ottawa Spends 1994-95: Making Change

Making Change

SUSAN D. PHILLIPS EDITOR

Carleton University Press Ottawa

1994

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HowOttawa Spends1994-95

©Carleton University Press, Inc. 1994 Carleton Public Policy Series #15 Printed and bound in Canada Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data The National Library of Canada has catalogued this publication as follows: How Ottawa Spends 1983Annual. 1994-95 ed.: Making Change Each vol. also has a distinctive title. Prepared at the School of Public Administration Carleton University Includes bibliographical references. ISSN 0822-6482 ISBN 0-88629-229-8 (1994-95 ed.) 1. Canada—Appropriations and expenditures—Periodicals. I. Carleton University. School of Public Administration. HJ7663.S6

354.710072’2

Carleton University Press 160 Paterson Hall Carleton University 1125 Colonel By Drive Ottawa, Ontario K1S5B6 (613) 788-3740

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Cover design: Karen Temple Acknowledgements Carleton University Press gratefully acknowledges the support extended to its publishing program by the Canada Council and the Ontario Arts Council. The Press would also like to thank the Department of Communications, Government of Canada, and the Government of Ontario through the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Recreation, for their assistance. The School of Public Administration gratefully acknowledges the support of ITT Canada Limited.

Aaron Wildavsky (1930-1993) This edition of How Ottawa Spends is dedicated to the memory of Aaron Wildavsky. Professor Wildavsky was a leading founder of modem public policy and public expenditure analysis and the founding Dean of the School of Public Administration at the University of California at Berkeley. On both counts, the School of Public Administration at Carleton University owes much to him for the important inspiration he provided. More directly, Professor Wildavsky established a link with Carleton University through several visits, most recently as the keynote speaker at the How Ottawa Spends Colloquium in June 1990. Those of us at Carleton who were fortunate to know Aaron Wildavsky personally will always remember his intellectual breadth and curiosity, his sharply probing but, at the same time, friendly critical capacities, his unique and engaging style, and his infectious sense of humour.

The opinions expressed by the contributors to this volume are the personal views of the authors of the individual chapters, and do not reflect the views of the editor or the School of Public Administration of Carleton University.

Contents Preface.................................................................................................. K CHAPTER 1 Making Change: The Potential for Innovation under the Liberals Susan D. Phillips................................................................................ 1 CHAPTER 2 Commissioning Ideas: Representation and Royal Commissions Jane Jenson...................................................................................... 39 CHAPTER 3 How Ottawa Bends: Plastic Words and the Politics of Social Morality Stephen Brooks................................................................................. 71 CHAPTER 4 Citizens, Experts and Budgets: Evaluating Ottawa’s Emerging Budget Process Evert A. Lindquist............................................................................ 91 CHAPTER 5 Breaking the Habit: Attentive Publics and Tobacco Regulation A. Paul Pross and Iain S. Stewart.................................................129 CHAPTER 6 Public Service 2000: Dead or Alive? Gene Swimmer, Michael Hicks and Terry Milne...........................165 CHAPTER 7 The Swimsuit Edition on the Shore of Hudson’s Bay: Magazines, Culture and Technology C. Leigh Anderson and David Hennes.......................................... 205

CHAPTER 8 The Green Plan: From Great Expectations to Eco-Backtracking ... to Revitalization? Glen Toner..................................................................................... 229 CHAPTER 9 Federal Expenditures and First Nations Experiences Michael J. Prince........................................................................... 261 CHAPTER 10 Science Policy and Basic Research in Canada Roberto Gualtieri........................................................................... 301 CHAPTER 11 Education and Training in the Knowledge Economy: Prospects and Missed Opportunities Riel Miller......................................................................................339 APPENDICES Fiscal Facts and Trends...................................................................375 The Authors.....................................................................................395

Preface The purpose of the How Ottawa Spends series is to provide informed analysis and to stimulate debate about federal govern­ ment policies and practices. In this fifteenth edition, we address the factors that facilitate and frustrate the process of innovation in government. The authors explore the role and sources of ideas, the extent to which institutions and organized interests help or hinder change in public policy and the potential for innovation in a variety of policy fields. Collectively, we address the issue of whether the new Liberal government is likely to be able to make real change in policy direction and the governing process, as we were promised during the election campaign. How Ottawa Spends is produced by the School of Public Administration at Carleton University. It is truly a collaborative effort that depends on the co-operation and contributions of many people. The pressure to meet our tight production deadlines is onerous and I thank all the authors for their good cheer and scholarly integrity in doing so. On behalf of the authors, I would like to thank the many government officials and representatives of non-governmental organizations who have given generously of their time and their knowledge. As a peer-reviewed publication, How Ottawa Spends relies on the assistance of many academic colleagues who provide comments, criticism and advice to the editor. This year, special thanks are due to Bruce Doern, Katherine Graham, Rianne Mahon, Allan Maslove, Leslie Pal, Saul Schwartz and Gene Swimmer, as well as to the many individuals who provided comments directly to the contributors. Carolyn Chisholm, Aideen Nabigon, Ted Reed and Eric Robinson worked diligently as research assistants. Under the direction of Allan Maslove, Eric Robinson also produced the tables and charts that appear in the appendix, Fiscal Facts and Trends. Amanda Begbie, who was in charge of production, did an excellent job in managing the technical aspects of creating a pleasing and accurate text. The School’s superb Administrator, Martha Clark, effectively managed the process; Shelley Henderson provided extraordinarily efficient copy editing; and invaluable professional service was provided by David Lawrence at Carleton University Press and French translators, Sinclair Robinson and

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Nandini Sarma. On a personal note, I would like to thank my husband, Brian Little, for his unfailing support and helpful suggestions throughout this project.

Susan Phillips Ottawa April 1994

1

Making Change: The Potential for Innovation under the Liberals S u s a n D. P h i l l i p s

Resum e : Ce premier chapitre prepare le terrain pour un examen du role des id6es, des int^rets et des institutions dans le processus des innovations au niveau du gouvemement. Nous rdsumons les dix chapitres suivants, nous etudions le potentiel d ’innovation du nouveau gouvernement liberal et nous faisons une analyse du budget f&teral de 1994. Nous concluons qu’il y a en g6n£ral un potentiel innovateur chez les libSraux, mais sous certaines reserves. Le changement ne sera pas facile, vu les contraintes politiques, dconomiques et institutionnelles qui s’exercent sur l’^laboration des politiques. Le renouvellement de la fonction publique sera essentiel ft la realisation de changements r£els dans la direction des politiques ou les pratiques gouvemementales. A bstract: This introductory chapter sets the stage for examining the role o f ideas, interests and institutions in the process o f innovation by government. It provides a synopsis o f the following 10 chapters, reviews the potential for innovation by the new Liberal government and provides an analysis o f the 1994 federal budget. We conclude, in general, that there is strong potential for innovation under the Liberals, but serious cautions are noted. Change will not be easy because the political, economic and institutional constraints on policy-making are enormous. Public service renewal will be essential to making real change in policy direction or governing practices.

In October 1993, the Liberals were elected on a platform of making change: of challenging conventional thinking, being innovative, restoring public confidence in government and “getting government right.”1 A decade earlier, the Conservatives under Brian Mulroney had also campaigned on the importance of change, promising to deliver a new agenda for economic renewal.2 Indeed, politicians regularly compete for office with promises to alter radically the policies of the former regime, yet we know very little about how governments actually effect major innovations in policy direction or in the process of governing. Why do the good intentions of some governments fail to be realized, while others succeed in making change? How can a new government encourage significant shifts in

How Ottawa Spends

how we think about public policy problems and their solutions? To what extent does innovation depend on new ideas? How do the institutions of government, which are themselves relatively stable, and networks of organized interest groups and policy experts facilitate or frustrate innovative change? These questions will be particularly important as Canadians assess the performance of the Chretien Liberals because the new government has made innovation a central theme of governing, almost for its own sake. In fact, in their policy agenda— Creating Opportunity (commonly called the Red Book)— the Liberals state boldly that promotion of innovation is a basic responsibility of government: “A task of government is to help Canadians realize that innovation doesn’t ‘just happen’; rather, it thrives best in countries that consciously understand the process and take appropriate meas­ ures to create a national system of innovation.”3 Once in office, the Liberals started off their agenda of change with a bang. In his first few days as Prime Minister, Jean Chretien announced the cancellation of the Conservatives’ expensive deal to purchase EH-101 helicopters. This was quickly followed by the rejection of the agreement to privatize Toronto’s Pearson airport, the signing of federal-provincial agreements for investment in infra­ structure as a means of job creation, the development of an “integrity” package to regulate lobbying activity more tightly and to promote ethical behaviour of MPs and the announcement of a major review of Canada’s social programs. Yet six months later, some critics are arguing that “creating opportunities” has given way to “managing circumstances.”4 The Liberals have already become embroiled in a classic conflict of federalism that pitted Quebec against most of the other provinces and severely tested the federal government’s relationship with Aboriginal peoples as a result of its unilateral decision to reduce tobacco taxes. The new government’s first budget, presented in February 1994, bears remarkable resem­ blance to those of the Mulroney government in its last years. The Budget’s modest attempts at deficit reduction have been soundly criticized by the business community as “small change,” but its deep cuts to unemployment insurance (UI) benefits set off angry protests in the streets of many Canadian cities. But it is still very early in the mandate. In spite of these initial set-backs, will the Liberal government be innovative and make real change in the direction of public policy and in the process of governing, as they promised us they would? Or is our political 2

Making Change

system so constrained by its indebtedness, international markets, federal-provincial relations, organized interests and bureaucratic practices that significant change is virtually impossible for any government? The chapters in this volume of How Ottawa Spends explore the process and potential of innovation. We examine the role of ideas and competing interests and consider how the institutions that must develop and implement innovation affect the likelihood that it will be successful. Failure of existing policies in a number of the major fields targeted for change by the Liberals are identified and the possibilities for innovation are considered. To the extent possible so early in its term, the chapters assess the progress that the Chretien government has made so far on its agenda of innovation. The authors’ conclusions are mixed, but several themes emerge. First, ideas as a source and spark of innovation are critical and, in many respects, the federal government in recent years has diminished its ability to produce or absorb new ideas. Second, institutions matter. Several chapters argue that policy innovation has been stymied due to bureaucratic infighting or simply because the organizational structures of departments have not been able to connect ideas and implement change. Third, politics counts, in ways that are both constructive and confiscatory. It is increasingly difficult for a government to take and maintain effective charge of its political agenda, in large part because governing has become highly perme­ able to outside influences, including international sources, interest groups and, through consultation mechanisms, Canadian citizens. These constraints do not make the authors of the following chapters uniformly pessimistic about innovation under the Liberals, but collectively they suggest that institutional and attitudinal changes within government, development of new relations with a variety of constituencies and a strong degree of political will are essential. Perhaps the central message of this volume is that the call for change and innovation on a number of policy fronts is not merely hollow election rhetoric; it is critical to the effectiveness of programs that are valued by Canadians and is vital to restoring the public’s trust in government— a trust that has been greatly diminished over the past decade. This introduction considers, in general terms, the factors that affect innovation in public policy. It offers a synopsis of the following 10 chapters, gives an overview of the Liberal policy agenda and provides an analysis of the 1994 budget. 3

How Ottawa Spends

THE PROCESS OF INNOVATION IN GOVERNMENT While change merely suggests difference, the term “innovation” implies newness. Innovation is defined as the generation, acceptance and implementation of new policies, products, processes or services where “new” is defined in relation to the adopting organization.5 While some innovations may represent entirely new inventions or original ideas, others may involve the adoption of new ways of doing things through imitation or modification of the practices of other organizations. Nonetheless, they are new and innovative for the organization that adopts them. Innovation is a creative and political process in which change may occur in one monumental step or may proceed through a series of small incremental stages.6The very word “innovation” often invokes a bias that all innovation is positive, represents progress and redresses the problems that it was designed to fix. In reality, however, not all innovations are intended to be rational solutions to specific problems or existing program ineffi­ ciencies. Sometimes governments initiate innovation because it is symbolic— a way of creating distance from other governments and political parties— or because the very appearance of change, increas­ ingly valued for its own sake, creates a positive public image. It is also important to remember that many innovations turn out to be inefficient or ineffective, or the change achieved may not be the projected or intended one at all.

Ideas, Interests and Institutions Innovations begin with ideas, although ideas work their influence through institutions and a variety of interest groups and individuals. It is often the act of seizing upon a new idea that launches the innovative process, recruits experts to develop its policy ramifica­ tions and provides the rationale that sustains momentum throughout the implementation stages. Two categories of ideas are important to an understanding of public policy innovation. The first category we might call public philosophies or policy paradigms. These are organizing frameworks of ideas that not only specify the goals of policy and the kind of instruments that can be used to attain them, but define the very nature of the problems that are being addressed.7 In order to have a claim, policy paradigms must be broadly shared by others in society, but because they are so widely shared, these framework ideas are not easily dislodged. As moral visions, they 4

Making Change

help to forge a sense of collective purpose and to organize politics.8 Once a policy paradigm takes hold, the discourse that flows from it serves as a gatekeeper that defines the limits of the possible, organizes and defines, or redefines, the interests of various political actors and often represses other ideas and innovations.9 The second category of ideas— technical or program ideas— usually flows from the first. These more specific types of ideas establish cause and effect relationships and methods for influencing these relationships in the context of particular settings and programs and they are, at least initially, usually the preserve of experts. The degree to which program ideas are closely linked with policy paradigms varies enormously across policy fields and over time. It is generally agreed, however, that the influence of ideas on public policy and their capacity to produce significant change are greatest when program ideas are closely embedded in a policy paradigm.10 The influence of ideas does not automatically rise from their innate qualities. Ideas do not exist in isolation and they seldom go anywhere on their own. Rather, ideas and the innovations based on them need champions and public acceptance, both of which are channelled and constrained by institutions, politics and competing interests. In his explanation of the differential rates and enthusiasm with which various countries took up Keynesian economic policies beginning in the 1930s, Peter Hall argues that the adoption of a new idea as policy depends on its viability in three contexts.11 First, the relationship of the new idea to current ideas and contemporary theories that have a claim on defining and addressing the problems of the day is important. It is against this tableau of prevailing ideas and theories that the utility and ability of the innovation to solve public policy problems will be judged and will find supporters. Depending on historical experience and prevailing ideas, a new idea may be interpreted quite differently in different settings. Second, ideas must be politically viable: people need to be persuaded, supporting coalitions of interests constructed, opponents challenged and politicians brought onside. Without dedicated cham­ pions, ideas are unlikely to be adopted as innovations. In defining the nature of policy analysis, Aaron Wildavsky explains the importance of ideas and research (which he describes as art) on the one hand, and the role of persuasion (which he calls craft) on the other hand:

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How Ottawa Spends

In discovery, analysis as problem solving is more art than craft, more finding new ways than persuading others of their feasibility and desirability. In justification, analysis is more craft than art. Not that I prefer one to the other. Without art, analysis is doomed to repetition; without craft, analysis is unpersuasive. Shifting the frame of dis­ course, so that different facts become persuasive, suggests that art and craft are interdependent.12

Third, transformation of ideas into policy and practice de­ pends on their administrative viability, that is on the institutions that must implement them. Indeed, implementation may be the most difficult and most vulnerable stage of the innovation process because at this stage dysfunctional organizational politics, if they exist, become most evident.13 Important institutional factors relate to the structure of the state itself and, in particular, whether the depart­ ment, unit or individual with the idea has the requisite information and authority to implement it as opposed to being highly dependent on other parts of government. The greater the number of people or organizational levels who must approve or have a hand in implemen­ tation, the more likely it becomes that delay or resistance will occur.14 This is one reason why ministerial and cabinet support is usually critical. Sufficient financial and human resources are also essential. Perhaps nothing can stop the implementation of an innovation faster, nor is more likely to do so in the current climate, than lack of money, although the initial impetus for innovation often arises out of conditions in which resources are so severely strained that change becomes a necessity. Conducive internal management practices are also often identified as vital to innovation. These include a supportive organizational culture, encouragement and incentives to change, recognition for being innovative and sufficient time to develop the ideas and their policy implications, coupled with a sense of urgency that change is necessary.15 Innovation, viewed in this way, involves an interdependence of ideas, interests and institutions and, consequently, the capacity for and actual achievement of innovation is time- and issue-specific. The chapters in this volume consider the potential for innovation in this light.

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Making Change

THE POTENTIAL FOR INNOVATION: THE CHAPTERS IN REVIEW Each of the authors in this volume was asked to consider the genesis of innovation, the sources of ideas, the federal government’s record in the policy field and the potential for making change. The con­ tributors write from differing perspectives on a variety of topics of direct relevance to the Liberal’s policy agenda. As editor, I have not attempted to force them to find common ground or to reach any sort of consensus about the potential for innovation under the Liberals. We begin by focusing on the ideas behind innovation and the language that is used to present them. .

One vitally important source of ideas that has greatly influenced policy debates in recent decades is the royal commission. Jane Jenson views royal commissions as having enormous potential for innovation and for the production of new ideas. She develops a way of thinking about the role of royal commissions in the policy process by locating them with reference to the politics of representation. Jenson argues that there is a central tension within commissions over the role of commissioners, public consultation and research. The chapter documents the mounting research efforts of policy-formulating royal commissions and examines alternative models of their own learning processes. Her conclusion is that recent experience signals a new era for royal commissions, both in how they produce ideas and how they encourage representation. It is an era in which they increasingly will be called upon to democratize their ways of learning. Stephen Brooks makes the case that in order to understand the influence of ideas on policy, we have to look at the language that is used to convey these ideas. He notes that some of the most significant policy innovation in recent years has occurred in the area of “social morality,” for example, in human rights and equality, cultural identity and gender issues. This innovation, Brooks argues, has been brought about as the result of the influence of “plastic words.” These are terms, such as “communication” and “development,” that are in common use in everyday language, but have been imbued with a pseudo-scientific aura. Their impact is enormous because they have moral connotations and frequently preclude open debate in ways that are not always obvious to us. Brooks demonstrates the insidious influence of plastic words by examining their use in representa­ tive texts in three areas of social morality: human rights, Canadian culture and violence against women.

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How Ottawa Spends

In chapters 4 ,5 and 6, we examine the role of public consultation and organized interests in the policy-making process and investigate the reforms that have been made to the institution of the public service. •

The most exciting aspect of the Liberals’ 1994 budget is that, for the first time, the shackles of secrecy were loosened to allow Canadian citizens to express their ideas in the budget formulation process by participating in pre-budget conferences. In reviewing the public consultation process that produced the February budget, Evert Lindquist offers a mixed assessment. “Given the tight time frame, the public conferences were competently managed and the individuals who were invited to participate represented a good cross-section of Canadians, but the agenda for the conferences was too broad and the time available to grapple with issues was too short.” While Lindquist thinks that the experiment in public conferences is a worthwhile innovation with considerable potential, a number of modifications need to be made for future budgets. These include better means of selecting participants, a stronger role for interest group leaders, an earlier start, improved dynamics in the conference workshops and provision of much better information by the government. Finally, the budget process needs to be linked to other major policy initiatives. The first crisis for the Liberal government came in early 1994, surrounding its decision to reduce tobacco taxes in response to a concern over cigarette smuggling. The chapter by Paul Pross and Iain Stewart shows what a nightmare this issue was for the Liberals: it turned into a classic conflict between Quebec and the other provinces, involved the issue of Aboriginal sovereignty, diminished the public stature of the Health Minister and potentially undermined the integrity of the government’s planned highprofile exercise in health-care reform. Pross and Stewart argue that the current dispute over tobacco taxation has to be understood in the context of a 30-year struggle between the tobacco industry and the health lobby. Victories at various points in this struggle have been largely determined by success in being able to define the nature of the issue and capture the terms of political discourse. In the last round, in which concerns over law and order rose to the top, health groups have been the losers—at least temporarily. But the debate is far from over. The contribution by Gene Swimmer, Michael Hicks and Terry Milne examines the package of public service reforms known as PS2000 that the Liberals inherited from the Mulroney government. These authors provide an assessment of several PS2000 reforms: 1) Operating Budgets, 2) special

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Making Change

operating agencies, 3) personnel deployment and 4) the new Universal Classification Standard. They also review the Liberal’s reorganization of departments and the Cabinet. The analysis offered by Swimmer, Hicks and Milne produces several important messages that government officials, especially central agency officials, should take seriously. It is evident that the transformation of public service culture that was the central goal of PS2000 is barely visible and is likely to be further undermined by wage freezes and staff cuts. The annual reports that describe the performance of the special operating agencies—the new quasi-independent agencies designed to work more like business—are, in general, woefully inadequate and this raises concerns about the agencies’ public accountability. In analysing personnel practices, the authors note that measures must be taken to ensure that the deployment process is voluntary and fair. Finally, the new job evaluation plan that is the basis for restructuring the classification system— one goal of which is to reduce the barriers to advancement for women— may contain significant gender biases that might actually work against women in the public service.

The remaining chapters focus on innovation in specific policy fields. Here, the importance of departmental structures, bureaucratic politics and extraneous constraints is often abundantly evident. In anticipation of many of the problems that the federal government will face with the electronic highway as it rolls into the homes of Canadian consumers and across old regulatory regimes, Leigh Anderson and David Hennes examine the current policies and policy instruments designed to protect Canadian culture. They focus specifically on the magazine publishing industry, although their analysis has significant implications for other cultural industries. Anderson and Hennes conclude that innovative and durable solutions to protect Canadian culture in the face of new technologies that challenge all the old rules are not likely to appear within the current policy-making environment. This is due to strong bureaucratic, political and economic constraints. First, institu­ tional arrangements divorce the federal department that governs commu­ nications technology, now housed in the Department of Industry, from the arm that protects culture, in the Department of Canadian Heritage. Second, policies for the cultural industries are a series of fragile political compromises and any attempt to formulate new policies is likely to lay bare a number of submerged tensions. Finally, the manoeuvrability of the federal government in protecting and regulating the cultural industries is severely restricted by the debt and the pressures of free trade. 9

How Ottawa Spends

Glen Toner provides a detailed analysis of the ideas and politics that surrounded the development and implementation of the Conservatives’ Green Plan (their comprehensive environmental policy). He also explores the likelihood that the Liberals will be able to live up to their strong commitment to sustainable development. The Green Plan represents a fundamental paradigm shift, argues Toner, in how we approach issues related to the environment and the economy. The fact that the Conservative government’s Green Plan did not meet its original objectives was not due to the inherent content of the plan, but rather to bureaucratic politics. “Without exaggeration, the single strongest constraint on a broad, systemwide strategy that would profoundly reduce the negative impact of the federal government’s policies and operations on the environment was the senior public service, particularly in key economic departments.” In spite of internal politics, Toner concludes that the Green Plan has helped to advance policy debates over the environment and the economy from a sustainable development perspective. The Liberal’s ability to make their version of the Green Plan a success will depend primarily on political will. In Chapter 9, Michael Prince leads us in a clear and concise way through the myriad of fiscal arrangements between First Nations and the federal government. His chapter provides insight into the impact on both First Nations governments and Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) of the changes that have occurred in these arrangements since the early 1980s. Prince emphasizes that funding mechanisms are not simply a means for transferring federal monies, but also devices for empowering First Nations governments, enhancing service delivery effectiveness and elaborating accountability relationships. His conclusions are that the reforms to date do not constitute a radically different approach to funding First Nations or organizing accountability practices, as had been recommended by the benchmark Penner Report in 1983. Moreover, the Liberals’ first budget does little to begin to implement the Red Book promise of establishing new fiscal arrangements for Aboriginal peoples. Science policy and support for basic research are critical to a nation’s ability to generate new ideas, make new discoveries and create a scientific research community. Popular opinion seems to be that Canada fares very poorly in comparison with other countries in its funding for basic research. Roberto Gualtieri challenges conventional wisdom by providing extensive original data that show that funds spent by the federal government, industry and universities on basic research are growing, in spite of expenditure restraint. Friends of basic research will need to be vigilant, 10

Making Change

however, Gualtieri warns, due to the gradual deterioration in research infrastructure and cuts in funding for post-secondary education. This chapter represents an innovation for How Ottawa Spends because it is the first time that a federal public servant has contributed to the volume. Because the literature on science policy and research and development (R&D) in Canada is scarce and we wanted to begin a debate on this topic with some solid statistics, we chose to break our own conventions. .

The final chapter, by Riel Miller, discusses the potential for adopting an innovative approach to certification of training that has been developed recently in various European countries. Prior learning assessment involves a range of methods for evaluating the skills that people acquire over time, regardless of where and how these skills were acquired (for example, through formal training, voluntary work or in the home). Miller begins his analysis with the contention that the Red Book’s policy changes related to training and education are recycled ideas that are inadequate because they are based on only partial assessments of the requirements and obstacles to the development of a “learning” economy. His thesis is that a significant transformation of yesterday’s education and training systems will require a comprehensive rethinking of how individuals, firms and governments make choices about what skills to learn and how to use those skills. A new and innovative method for skills certification is one step towards that transformation.

Because it is still very early in the Liberals’ term, these chapters cannot provide definitive analyses of how this government has been and is likely to be innovative; rather a more complete assessment of the Liberal record will have to wait for another edition of How Ottawa Spends. We can detect, however, some early trends in how the new government is transforming Conservative ideas and institu­ tions into Liberal ones.

FROM CONSERVATIVE TO LIBERAL IDEAS AND INSTITUTIONS A central task for the Liberal government will be to convert the existing modes of thinking about policy inherited from the Conserva­ tives into what are, or at least appear to be, new ideas. While the Liberals have developed and made commitments in the Red Book on many concrete ideas for change, they will also need to knit these program ideas together into a policy paradigm to avoid the non-

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How Ottawa Spends

strategic, merely frenetic, activity that is produced by a lack of connections among multiple program-specific ideas. A second task will be to assess whether the institutions that will be charged with implementing policy innovation have the capacity to do so and to initiate structural changes as necessary.

Creating New Ideas In examining the Liberals’ rhetoric about change and innovation, it is important not to lose sight of the fact that the Mulroney gov­ ernment was effective in establishing a public philosophy that changed how we conceive of the role of the state and that introduced change in a number of policy areas. During its first term from 198488, the Mulroney government implemented a wide range of neo­ conservative, pro-market policies aimed at shrinking the size and role of the state through downsizing, privatization and deregulation. In their second term, the Conservatives seized on a new but closely related framework idea that gained widespread acceptance, in part because it seemed to offer a logical and coherent view about how the world works. This is the notion of “competitiveness.” It was adopted as the rationale for deficit reduction, controlling inflation rates, cuts to social programs, plans for expansion of training and labour force programs, downsizing and enhancing productivity within the public service. It also served as the basis for the Prosperity Initiative, which produced more reports and talk than real change. But as Frances Abele notes in her introduction to the 1992-93 edition of How Ottawa Spends, which is dedicated to examining the politics of competitive­ ness, there has been very little sustained analysis to indicate that careful thought underscored many of the measures advanced in the name of competitiveness.16 What was forgotten in this pursuit of market solutions for public policy is that competitiveness— as applied to nations and governments rather than firms— is, in reality, a metaphor. In a scathing attack on many scholars of American trade policy— and the same argument could be applied to Canada—Paul Krugman argues that the current “obsession” with competitiveness is not only misguided, but dangerous.17 Countries simply do not compete the way corporations do and the obsession with competitiveness, Krugman argues, risks both diminishing the quality of economic policy analysis and provoking trade conflict. In his words:

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Making Change

The idea that a country’s economic fortunes are largely determined by its success on world markets is a hypothesis, not a necessary truth; and as a practical, empirical matter, that hypothesis is flatly wrong. That is, it is simply not the case that the world’s leading nations are to any important degree in economic competition with each other, or that any of their major economic problems can be attributed to failures to compete on world markets.18

Because it is essentially metaphorical and tainted with a Tory association, competitiveness is beginning to lose some of its claim as a central organizing idea and rationale for federal government policy, although the language has become so ingrained that the word is still bandied about, almost without thinking, by some Liberal politicians and many public servants. What is likely to replace competitiveness as the central framework idea for the Liberal government? We are already beginning to see the emergence o f a new idea, although at this point it is trickling into government language, rather than being taken up wholeheartedly. It is the notion of community and stresses individual responsibility as a citizen of a community. This was the unequivocal message delivered by Marcel Masse, Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and Minister responsible for Public Service Renewal, to a national conference on government relations in December 1993: This process is going to require Canadians to adopt a new perspective on their governments. We have to find ways of encouraging citizens and communities to reassume responsibility for solving some prob­ lems and issues which in the last few decades they have placed on the doorstep of government. We need to find out more about how communities and citizens are dealing with this challenge, and to do what we can, with limited resources, to encourage what in French we call “responsabilisation”—responsibility-taking.19

Although this notion may not become as developed into a quasi-theory as competitiveness has become, it is likely to have substantial clout because it is a derivation of both liberal political philosophy and communitarianism, which stresses the responsibili­ ties as well as the rights of citizens.20 Ironically, it is also “small cconservative” in that it would have the long-term effect of reducing the size and role of the state, although this is more a consequence, rather than a central objective. Moreover, the notion of responsibility-

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taking is convenient in a period in which the issues that are overwhelming the political agenda are social policy and justice reform, economic restructuring and job creation. In the ongoing overhaul of social programs, for instance, the argument is already being made that citizens have to take the responsibility to engage in training programs if they are going to accept UI or other benefits. This is quite different than saying individuals should seek training because it helps to improve the competitive position of the individual and, hence, the nation. In order to develop into a full policy paradigm— and avoid simply becoming a mask or excuse for expenditure cuts— the notions of responsibility and community need to be more fully articulated and their implications expanded. A development of the paradigm will press the definitions of community and its cultural identity, require discussion of the role of groups as well as individuals, force explication of the reciprocal responsibilities of the state and its citizens, and necessitate real opportunities for the exercise of responsibility in decision-making through citizen participation.21 As a framework idea, the emphasis on community and responsibility, as opposed to competitiveness and individual rights, offers a rationale for drawing Canadians together in times when they are being pulled apart perhaps more than ever before by economic, regional and nationalist forces.

The Red Book Promises Whether or not the Liberals succeed in inventing or defining a framework idea, they have already committed themselves to over 100 specific program or policy changes in Creating Opportunity. These proposals concentrate on seven policy areas.22 Economic Policy. A two-track fiscal policy is emphasized, directed at job creation and growth while simultaneously reducing the deficit to 3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by the fall of 1996. A large number of specific commitments are made, including a capital infrastructure program; reductions in defence spending; a 15 percent cut in the $4.1 billion consulting and professional services budget of the federal government; renegotiation of federal-provincial arrange­ ments (especially Established Programs Financing (EPF)) that are expiring in the near future; replacement of the GST with a system that is perceived to be fairer, but that generates equivalent revenues; and 14

Making Change

renegotiation of the free trade agreements to iron out certain details. In addition, a large section of the Red Book is devoted to measures for creating an “innovative economy.” Included are ideas such as creating a technology network among universities, industry associa­ tions and government to help firms acquire the best technology; strengthening R&D in small and medium-sized business; expanding support for basic research; implementing conservation measures for the fisheries; and providing help to family farms through new income stabilization and supply management systems. Social Policy (broadly defined). Although the Red Book prefers to use euphemisms like “investing in people” and “the fabric of Canadian life,” it devotes considerable attention to social, education, health and cultural policy. Strangely, the Liberal manifesto is remarkably silent on the issue of income security and welfare reform, although a major review of social policy was announced in the Throne Speech. In the area of labour markets and training, commitments are made to provide funding for apprenticeship programs and workplace training; create a Canadian Youth Services Corps and dedicate $100 million a year to it by its third year; restore funds cut from the Literacy Program; and expand the number of child-care spaces by 50,000 in each year following a year of 3 percent growth (up to a total of 150,000 spaces). As a means of addressing the anticipated debate with the Reform Party over user fees, the Red Book expends considerable space on a discussion of health-care policy that promises protection of universal medicare; a national prenatal nutrition program; re­ examination of health-care funding within the principles of the Canada Health Act; creation of a National Forum on Health, chaired by the Prime Minister; and establishment of a Centre of Excellence for Women’s Health. In relation to Canadian culture, two specific commitments are made: to help Canadian books, films and recordings increase their share of the market, and to provide stable multi-year funding (at an unspecified level) to the CBC and Canada Council. In the area of immigration, the Red Book states that the policy of the past decade, which sets immigration levels at approximately 1 percent of the population per year, will be continued. In addition, changes will be made to allow refugees easier access to work permits and there will be stricter enforcement of measures to prevent false refugee claims. 15

How Ottawa Spends

Justice Issues. The Liberals correctly anticipated the strength of public opinion on law and order concerns, and they have undertaken the responsibility to strengthen gun control laws; change the Young Offenders Act to increase sentence lengths for certain violent crimes and clarify conditions under which young offenders can be treated in adult court; launch a nation-wide public education campaign to deal with violence against women and children; increase funding for services for battered women; and restore the Law Reform Commis­ sion, Court Challenges Program and the Race Relations Foundation. Aboriginal Peoples. The Party’s commitment to the principle of the inherent right to self-government for Aboriginal peoples is affirmed. Some specific promises are to gradually wind down INAC “at a pace agreed upon by First Nations”; explore new fiscal arrangements; create an independent land claims commission to speed up the resolution of claims; support the development of alternative justice systems; and help Aboriginal peoples obtain capital for their economic development projects. Sustainable Development. In areas of sustainable development and environmental protection, the Red Book makes some of its most concrete commitments, including to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 20 percent from 1988 levels by the year 2005; conduct a comprehen­ sive baseline study of federal taxes, grants and subsidies to identify barriers to sound environmental practices; complete the parks system by the year 2000; and ratify the Law of the Sea Treaty. Government Integrity. Part of the Liberal agenda is a commitment to restore public confidence in government by enhancing the role of Parliament and allowing more free votes in the House of Commons; reforming MPs’ pension plans to end double-dipping (whereby retiring MPs receive pensions even if they are receiving salaries from new federal government jobs); developing a code of conduct to guide the behaviour of parliamentarians and political staff; appointing an independent ethics counsellor; and more tightly regulating lobbying activity. Foreign Policy. Finally, the principle that Canada should have an independent foreign policy and open foreign policy-making process is noted. This includes a commitment to continue to support human 16

Making Change

rights worldwide; strengthen Canada’s role in international peace­ keeping and attempt to convert surplus military bases to peacekeep­ ing training facilities; and avoid arbitrary cuts to foreign aid programs without consultation with the international development community.

Institutional Capacity Are the institutions and management practices that the Liberals inherited from nine years of Conservative government up to the task of making the extensive series of innovations and changes promised in the Red Book? While there are likely to be pockets of real creativity in certain policy fields, it is evident that the institutional capacity of the federal government to be innovative has been reduced significantly in a number of ways over the past decade. First, political parties are not well equipped as institutions to develop policy or to be truly representative of Canadians. As Alexandra Dobrowolsky and Jane Jenson argue, the refusal of the federal government to take the medicine recommended by the Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing, which was intended to make parties better able to formulate policy, operate actively between elections and be more representative of the Cana­ dian electorate, has left parties weaker than ever.23 The strong presence of two regional parties in the current Parliament— the separatist Bloc qu6becois as the official opposition with 54 seats and the Western-based Reform Party with 52 seats— further deteriorates the likelihood that parties will become institutions that can develop national policy, rather than protect regional interests. It is also unlikely that Parliament will be any less dominated by partisan bickering than in the past, and this is not conducive to constructive debates over ideas. Second, the fiscal constraints imposed by Canada’s large debt and the Conservative government’s lack of trust in the public service have eroded the government’s in-house research capacity. With downsizing came deep cuts to the public service, and permanent policy analysts were often replaced with outside consultants on contract.24This has produced an erosion of institutional memory, the loss of a generation of new recruits and a generalized malaise of low morale. Over the course of the 1980s, in-house research activities declined due to the elimination of many of the policy analysis units that had been established in the 1970s under the Trudeau Liberals 17

How Ottawa Spends

and the fact that internal research had little credibility at the political level. The emphasis of internal research and analysis, Marcus Hollander and Michael Prince observe, has been on operations and matters related to the efficiency and effectiveness of existing programs, rather than on devising new or better systems and programs.25 Under the Conservatives, policy was steered by minis­ ters, their chiefs of staff and public opinion surveys, while public servants were left to attend to the rowing of daily operations. Innovation, however, often requires that organizations have two systems: one to run business as usual and handle crises, and the other with sufficient “slack” (time, resources and talent) to develop new ideas and look at different ways of doing things. We might think of this slack as analogous to R&D in the private sector, but it has never been valued to the same extent in the public service and is often the first area within a department to be slashed when cuts are announced. As a result, there is now very little R&D capacity in government departments. Donald Savoie suggests that creativity has also been stifled by the outmoded structures of government.26 The hierarchical struc­ tures and command-and-control practices that are the legacy of bureaucracy as it developed in the nineteenth century are highly adept at delivering large-scale and routine services in a consistent and uniform manner. But, these structures are poorly suited to the policy environment at the end of the twentieth century which necessitates quick and flexible, often individualized, responses to community, regional or sectoral needs and new forms of co­ management through public-private partnerships. Where new nodes of flexible policy and partnerships have been attempted, they have tended to be added onto existing departments without fundamentally altering basic departmental structures. In addition to the rigidity of traditional line departments, Canada has one of the largest central agency apparatuses in the Western world.27 The main purpose of the well-staffed central agencies of Treasury Board, the Department of Finance, the Privy Council Office and the Public Service Commission is to say “no,” or at least to act as gatekeepers— a task they have not been particularly successful at doing, if the growing deficit is any indication. As Savoie argues, however, central agencies are rarely innovative or creative. Although there is and always will be a need for accountability and financial control, serious reform must also

18

Making Change

examine and possibly redefine the role and responsibilities of the central agencies. Outside sources of ideas, such as think-tanks, royal commis­ sions, universities and interest groups, often substitute for the inhouse generation of ideas. While Jane Jenson is highly positive about the ability of royal commissions to produce new ideas and innovative policy recommendations, many observers are very criti­ cal of Canada’s independent research institutes. In comparison with the U.S., Canada has an embarrassing paucity in the number, expertise and funding of independent research institutes, and the Mulroney government reduced this number even further when it eliminated the Economic Council and the Science Council in 1992. In a harsh criticism of Canadian think-tanks, Alan Tupper states that their work, particularly on the public debt, has been very disappoint­ ing: “They have commissioned little theoretical, comparative or impressive interdisciplinary work.... The value of their policy prescriptions is undermined by their flimsy research base and their overtly political character.”28 The cuts to the budgets of the three granting councils, which provide funding to university-based re­ searchers, show that the Conservative government did not look to universities in any serious way for new ideas; in general, however, university researchers in Canada have not actively sought out a strong role in public policy.29 Interest groups are also a source of ideas and policy innova­ tion. But, rather than attempting to work co-operatively with a wide range of interest groups, the Mulroney and Campbell governments were sometimes openly hostile to groups outside the business community. While groups were regularly invited to perfunctory consultations, their funding was seriously slashed, which reduced their ability to conduct research, and they were seldom taken seriously. Indeed, the Conservatives (and many journalists) often railed at how “special interest groups” have destroyed democracy. While interest groups are often vocal critics of government—which may be an annoyance for public officials, but is nevertheless a vital part of the democratic process— the federal government needs to reconsider the positive role that interest groups might play in emerging styles of governing. Not only do they provide useful expert and popular knowledge that governments often do not have, but they can be helpful partners in delivering services. Such partnerships may be one way in which government can become more democratic, flexible and community-responsive.30 19

How Ottawa Spends

Perhaps the external source of ideas that has increased most significantly in its influence is the example set by other countries. Communications technology means that the concept of “foreign” is increasingly a foreign concept, as we have become more attuned to international developments. The growing importance of the diffu­ sion of innovations is abundantly evident in our adoption, borrowed from the U.K., Australia and New Zealand, of special operating agencies, service standards and other recent management reforms. The institutional situation that the Liberal government inher­ ited is an unenviable one that does not encourage us to be optimistic that innovation will be easy. The constraints of a very large debt, debilitatingly high unemployment and the threat of Quebec’s separa­ tion greatly restrict alternatives and the choice of instruments in many policy fields. Public service renewal and restructuring will be a necessary prerequisite to policy change in many cases. Perhaps the positive aspect o f the current situation is that the need and urgency for change has seldom been stronger, so that the incentives to figure out ways to be innovative are great.

Starting Institutional Change at the Top The Cabinet that will steer the Liberals through their Red Book agenda is a lean one in comparison with most cabinets of the past 20 years. Prime Minister Chretien kept intact, with a few minor changes, most of the departmental restructuring initiated by Kim Campbell during her short tenure in office, which had already significantly reduced Cabinet from the bloated size of 35 that it had attained in the late Mulroney years. Now there are 23 ministers (including the Prime Minister) in the cabinet, representing 24 departments. Borrowing from the accepted practices in the U.K., France and Australia, there are also eight new positions called secretaries of state, each of whom is assigned to assist a cabinet minister in specific areas. Although the secretaries of state are part of the ministry, they have a smaller staff and receive less pay than full ministers. Chretien made the first major change to the structure of cabinet committees since Mulroney implemented the “ops and chops” system (the Operations and the Expenditure Review committees) in January 1989.31 Under the Chretien system, the structure of Cabinet shifts from a very hierarchical one— in which a large number of standing committees had a very minimal role and everything had to

20

Making Change

pass through the small club of senior ministers in the Operations Committee— to a flat, more collegial structure. The Priorities and Planning Committee, often called the inner cabinet, has been abolished. Now the full cabinet is the decision-making body and there are only four committees: Economic Development Policy, Social Development Policy, Treasury Board and a Special Commit­ tee (whose job is to review Orders-in-Council). This flatter structure fits well with Chretien’s personal leadership style which is one that places trust in and allows great latitude for individual ministers to act in their areas of responsibility.32 The Prime Minister is generally much less visible than was Mulroney who, as a broker, liked to be at the centre of decision-making in his cabinet and caucus, and in front of the media cameras on almost every issue. Chretien carefully selects, however, those issues that he personally wants to handle. On these, he appears to remain in firm control, as he did on the debate over reductions in tobacco taxes. As promised in the Red Book, the large cadre of partisan policy advisers in ministers’ offices has been trimmed and the position of chief of staff eliminated. The public message that the Liberal government is trying to send is that they trust and want to work closely with the public service and that professionals in the departments, rather than partisan staff, will be the primary policy advisers within government. Whether this shift in attitude and these structural changes can compensate for the low morale and insecurity created by a decade of downsizing and ongoing wage freezes will be interesting to see and is discussed in more depth in Chapter 6. One good indication of the strength of the Liberals’ commitment to policy innovation and public service renewal lies in the manner in which they plan to spend tax dollars, as indicated in the Budget.

THE 1994 BUDGET If the Liberal government’s first budget, presented on February 22, were a standalone document, it would be very disappointing. Its deep cuts to UI benefits could be seen as an old Tory ploy that favours the middle class and business, but is cold-hearted towards the 1.5 million unemployed Canadians. On the other hand, the Budget’s relatively mild overall approach to deficit cutting has been read by many conservative economists and business leaders as a missed opportunity to tackle the deficit seriously in the first year of a mandate, when there is the greatest room to manoeuvre. 21

How Ottawa Spends

Finance Minister Paul Martin, however, emphasized that the 1994 budget does not stand alone, but is Part One of two parts. Realistically, this is neither a frivolous claim nor a delaying tactic. By the spring of 1995, the policy and legislative changes that will be produced as a result of the major overhaul of social programs currently in progress should be in place. The social programs are in need of major restructuring not only to fix the many dysfunctions embedded in them, but because they consume collectively about 45 percent ($70 billion) of federal government spending.33 Thus, if the federal government wants to make major expenditure cuts, it will need to look at the social programs and federal-provincial transfers, rather than at the operations of government alone. It is certainly preferable to rethink and restructure these programs rather than to hack at them randomly with across-the-board cuts. But the Liberal philosophy has never been to reduce the deficit simply through spending cuts; rather it is to promote growth in the economy through job creation. The real dilemma for the Finance Minister, then, was how to do several things at once: deliver on some of the Red Book promises; reduce the deficit and make significant cuts without sounding like Tories; and build public confidence in the government across regional, class and gender lines. The strategy for doing this involved several elements. First, the Budget was “purified,” politically and economically, by separat­ ing it from other major revenue and expenditure actions (actions that would normally be part of a budget) that have been taken in the Liberals’ first six months in office. For example, by announcing the dramatic reductions in tobacco taxes as a separate event, a mere two weeks earlier, the Liberals saved the Budget from becoming embattled in the federal-provincial warfare and public furore that were the inevitable results of this move. Similarly, the decision to sign the infrastructure agreements with provincial governments very early not only provided a sense of momentum, but created the public perception that this major new spending initiative was being financed by money diverted from the cancelled helicopter deal. Second, the budget process itself was innovative because for the first time it allowed citizens to have input during pre-budget consultations. Although Paul Martin has been criticized for hearing only the advice he wanted to hear, the consultations ensured that the Minister and his officials were not wildly out of touch with public opinion.34

22

Making Change

Third, the Finance Minister was careful to appear to get the numbers right regarding future growth in the deficit and the economy. The incredibly optimistic forecasts used by the Conserva­ tive government in recent years had seriously damaged their public credibility to the extent that Canada’s bond rating was downgraded by one company following the April 1993 budget.35 Rather than relying primarily on statistics provided by the Department of Finance, the Minister used private sector forecasts— and conserva­ tive ones at that. If growth in real GDP is higher than the 3.0 percent rise estimated for 1994 or the 3.8 percent increase assumed for 1995, the government will have a comfortable buffer for unanticipated spending and will appear to be surpassing its goals. The revenue forecast, however, has been criticized as too optimistic: the Minister is counting on a spectacular 8 percent rise in revenues to $123.9 billion, a growth rate that has not been seen in the past five years.36 A fourth way in which the Budget tries to do several things at once is through its strategic use of symbolic language. The objective is to create the impression that this budget is primarily a means of retooling government and that the quintessential entrepreneurturned-finance-minister is not favouring the business community in his pursuit of growth strategies. To this end, the Budget contains a large measure of at least symbolic fairness.37 Moreover, in his budget speech, the Finance Minister did not focus solely on deficit cutting, which his budget delivers little of for 1994-95. Instead, he talked about three challenges: to build a framework for economic renewal; construct responsible social programs; and to restore fiscal sanity to government.38 Finally, the Budget truly is a framework document in that it sends strong signals and sets strict boundaries around what must be achieved in the review of social policy and the renegotiation of federal-provincial transfers. It also provides indications to various constituencies that many other policies and programs are on the table for fundamental re-examination, including seniors’ benefits, post­ secondary education and, of course, health care. Overall, the Budget relies heavily on economic growth in order to meet the goals set for deficit reduction by 1996. Total spending rises slightly from $160.3 billion in the previous fiscal year to $163.6 billion in 1994-95. A strong growth in revenues, however, is projected to trim the deficit to $39.7 billion in 1994-95 and $32.7 billion in 1995-96, from a level of $45.7 billion in 1993-94.39 If the economy performs moderately well, The Budget Plan predicts that 23

How Ottawa Spends

the target of a deficit of 3 percent ($25 billion) of GDP by the third year of the mandate will be met.

Meeting the Red Book Commitments The Budget contains a number of new programs related to promises made in Creating Opportunity which, in total, require $1.7 billion in new funding in 1994-95, $3.1 billion in 1995-96 and $2.7 billion in 1996-97. Job Creation and Training. The infrastructure program (involving outlays for new capital projects jointly funded with provincial and local governments) accounts for the largest amount of new spending at $702 million in 1994-95. Other measures include funding for the Residential Rehabilitation Program ($50 million per year); the Youth Services Corps ($25 million this year, rising to $100 million in 1996-97); a youth apprenticeship program (beginning in 1996 with $96 million); restoration of the literacy program ($5 million); and funding for Aboriginal educa­ tion ($20 million) and an Aboriginal head-start program ($10 million). Research and Development. Support for R&D has been significantly increased—by $100 million this year, rising to $300 million in 1996-97. This includes small increases in the budgets of the three granting councils and of the National Research Council. In addition, a technology network ($60 million over three years) will be established to help small firms get access to cutting edge technology and market their products globally. For each of the three years, $25 million is directed towards assisting business obtain venture capital. Canada’s space program is also funded with $220 million over the next three years. Small Business: This is the “motherhood” issue of the Budget. There is extensive discussion of the vital importance of small and medium-sized firms in creating jobs and considerable plans for studying ways that government can assist small business. This rhetoric, however, is not accompanied by funding. The exception is the reduction in UI premiums, which is promoted mainly as an initiative to help small business by reducing payroll taxes.40 Health: Support is provided, as promised, for a Centre of Excellence for Women’s Health ($3 million in 1994-95), prenatal nutrition programs ($10 million) and a National Forum on Health ($3 million). As a measure to avert what are expected to be significant increases in smoking rates as a result of cheaper cigarettes, $160 million is allocated in 1994-95 to health promotion and enforcement measures against tobacco smuggling.41 24

Making Change

Social Programs: The major changes in social program spending are not due until Part Two of the Budget is presented in 1995. But support for the provincial experiments in social policy reform is indicated, with alloca­ tions of $400 million in each of 1994 and 1995. In addition, there is $1.7 billion over five years to assist in the long-term adjustment of people displaced by the loss of the Atlantic fishery. UI premiums for 1995 will be rolled back to their 1993 rate of $3 per $100 of insurable earnings; this has a cost of $125 million to cover shortfalls in the UI fund. Although financing for the expansion of child-care spaces (assuming a growth rate greater than 3 percent) is indicated with $120 million in 1995 and $240 million in 1996, this program is distinctly downplayed in both The Budget Plan and the Minister’s speech.

Smaller amounts of funding are provided to restore the Court Challenges Program, the Law Reform Commission and the Race Relations Foundation. In addition, the Red Book idea of “Action 21,” a public education campaign to promote sustainable develop­ ment that is modelled along the lines of Participaction, received $3 million. The first time home buyers plan was also extended. The appearance is created that dozens of other election promises are also being met because commitments— without specific dollar allocations— are made to establish task forces and strategies to study these issues. In The Budget Plan, the Finance Minister names no fewer than 20 such comprehensive reviews, task forces and federal-provincial forums.

Spending Cuts and Tax Increases These initiatives are to be paid for by cuts to existing programs, rather than through a general increase in taxes. Although Paul Martin hinted during the budget consultations that tax increases were a possibility, there has been a strongly held position in the Department of Finance over the past few years that there is no room for more taxation. Thus, the Minister appeared to be listening to what Canadians told him in the consultations, although whether he was ever serious about tax hikes remains a mystery. The $2.2 billion expenditure reductions for 1994-95 ($15 billion over three years) bear a strong resemblance to those made in the Conservatives’ last budget, although these are much bigger cuts than the former government ever attempted.

25

How Ottawa Spends

By far the largest single cut, accounting for one third of the total savings, is to UI benefits. Most UI claimants will have to work longer to qualify for lower levels of benefits for a shorter period, although exceptions are made for single parents in the lowest earning categories. Because the amounts of the reductions are, in part, determined by previous work history, the Atlantic provinces—which have high levels of seasonal unemployment—will be hit the hardest. Defence spending is cut by $1.9 billion over the next three years (exclusive of the $1.7 billion saved from the cancelled helicopter contract). This will be achieved through the brave move of closing several bases and two of Canada’s three military colleges, and through significant reductions in headquarters staff.42 Major reductions are planned in transfers to the provinces under EPF and the Canada Assistance Plan (CAP) in 1996-97, although no new restraint measures are planned for this year. Beginning in 1995, transfers under CAP will be frozen at 1994-95 levels for all provinces (their growth rates are already limited for B.C., Alberta and Ontario).43 The Budget Plan does a sleight-of-hand trick in its discussion of federal-provincial trans­ fers by referring to the “social security” transfer, which groups together two quite separate funding arrangements—social assistance which is funded under the cost-shared CAP and post-secondary education which is financed under EPF. In 1996-97, both EPF and CAP transfers, pending social security reform, will revert to their 1993-94 amounts. This results in a huge cut of $1.5 billion in 1996. The message of this artificially fabricated social security transfer is that the transfers in all three areas— social assistance, post-secondary education and health care—will be redesigned and funded at greatly reduced levels. Operating budgets of government departments and agencies are slashed by $468 million in 1994, $1.1 billion in 1995 and $1.6 billion in 1996. The freeze on public sector wages, which have been frozen since 1991, will be continued for another two years and annual pay increments within grade will also be suspended. Because the federal payroll is only 7 percent of government spending, this measure will achieve relatively small savings. Its objective is clearly political rather than economic. The wage freeze has symbolic value: that public servants continue to share the pain of deficit reduction. More important, it is both the carrot and the stick to extract concessions from the public service unions in the ongoing negotiations over job security and ways to eliminate waste in govern­ ment.44

26

Making Change

International assistance, which the Red Book promised not to arbitrarily cut without consultation, is reduced by 2 percent in 1994 and frozen thereafter, resulting in a savings of $400 million over three years. Regional development assistance through the Atlantic, Western and Quebec regional agencies is to be trimmed by $69 million and grants to business by other departments will be reduced by 5 percent ($48 million). .

Financial support to a wide variety of interest groups, which was so dramatically slashed under the Conservatives, is again the target of cuts of 5 percent per year. In addition, a major review is promised of government support of all interest groups with a view to reducing overall levels and promoting reliance on other sources. On the expenditure side, there is a minute increase (worth at most $12.50 per person) in the value of the tax credit for charitable donations. Collectively, these measures should be read as a clear signal that the Liberals expect interest groups to support themselves to a much greater extent through private funding. The non-refundable age tax credit, which currently goes to all persons over 65 years of age, regardless of income, will become income tested and will be completely eliminated at an income level of $49,100. It will not, however, convert to a refundable credit, as the Ontario Fair Tax Commission recommended; it is, therefore, actually a tax increase (of $490 million over three years), rather than a move to improve equity as the Budget suggests.45 Funding is ended for the mega-science project of the KAON particle accelerator in B.C.

Promises are also made for studies of government operations and programs that may produce future savings through efficiency and productivity gains. Specifically, a comprehensive review— what one is tempted to call “Nielsen Mach II”— will be conducted by the Minister responsible for Public Service Renewal, Marcel Masse, of all aspects of departmental spending to ensure that lower priority programs are reduced or eliminated.46 In addition, Treasury Board will conduct evaluations of the effectiveness of programs in all departments. Finally, service standards, the equivalent of the U.K.’s “Citizen Charters,” will be published by each department by 1995. Although the Budget did not present any general increases in taxes, there is some broadening of the tax base. This should be viewed as one of the elements of symbolic fairness: Canadians increasingly resent what are perceived to be unfair “perks,” whether 27

How Ottawa Spends

they go to MPs, business or the wealthy. In the interests of ensuring that all Canadians are seen to be paying their fair share, some tax expenditures to business and upper income earners were eliminated for a total savings of $575 million in the first year. These measures include elimination of the $100,000 lifetime capital gains exemption (a largely symbolic measure because most people with incomes large enough to take advantage of the exemption have already done so— and can still do so for the 1994 tax year); reduction of the deductible allowance from 80 to 50 percent of the value of business meals and entertainment expenses; and extended taxation of employer-paid group life insurance premiums.

Comments on the Budget How should we interpret this budget? First, it shows that the state’s role as guardian of the poor has tilted to one that favours individual responsibility-taking. Although the changes to UI slightly improve benefits to single parents in the lowest income categories, the main political message is that premiums have to be reduced and thus benefits must follow. Finance Minister Martin strongly supports the position of the business community when he says, “There is no doubt in my mind that it is these payroll taxes like UI premiums and workmen’s compensation that are the silent killers of jobs.”47 Thus, the Liberals attacked UI benefits not just because this provides relatively easy, big money, but because they wanted to send an unequivocal signal to the social policy review process and the Canadian public that UI is to become much less generous, especially for those who use it on a regular basis to supplement short stints in the labour force. In particular, the federal government has shown its solidarity with the Liberal premiers of Newfoundland and New Brunswick, who are undertaking radical experiments in welfare and UI reform which, at least in the short run, may be immensely unpopular given the nature of their economies. The second clear signal is that social policy reform will be extended to post-secondary education and that EPF will soon be replaced with a radically different set of transfers that separates health funding from post-secondary education funding. One option that is being widely discussed is to refinance post-secondary educa­ tion through transfers to individuals (through an expanded student loan program), rather than through block transfers to provinces. This may mean that university and college tuition will rise dramati­

28

Making Change

cally.48 It would be highly counter-productive, however, and anti­ thetical to the Liberal principles outlined in the Red Book for developing technology, supporting R&D and being innovative over the long-term if funding for post-secondary education were reduced. Third, the Budget has significant institutional implications within the federal government. Perhaps the biggest winner is the Treasury Board Secretariat. Treasury Board will have an expanded role in the evaluation of the effectiveness of programs, and it will have a hand in the implementation of published department-wide service standards. These new responsibilities are likely to change the accountability relationships not only between departments and the public, but between departments and Treasury Board. Central agency controls appear to be growing stronger at the very time that PS2000 has finally had some small impact on relaxing them, and a number of observers would argue that they need to be loosened even further. Finally, the reaction of international markets to the Budget illustrates the severe constraints under which finance ministers operate, and it demonstrates the fragility of economic forecasts. The turbulence in the markets, pushing the dollar down and interest rates up, that occurred in the month after delivery of the Budget— whether directly and solely attributable to the Budget or not— has made the deficit projections much less realistic. Higher interest rates increase the cost of financing the debt, cut into the reserves set aside for unanticipated spending and potentially choke off economic expan­ sion, thereby reducing revenues. The reaction of the markets also had critics demanding that the Finance Minister take remedial action by introducing further spending cuts. This confusion was aggravated by an apparent contradiction between Paul Martin, who said further cuts would be made, and Jean Chretien, who said they were not necessary in order to meet the deficit target for 1996. Ultimately, the Prime Minister declared that further expenditure reductions will be made over the next year, but the confusion left the impression that the government is uncertain about the specifics of its deficit reduction strategy outside of its fixation with social policy reform. In sum, the Budget pleased few people. Clearly, the real test for the Liberal government will come in its 1995 budget, when it must deliver seriously on job creation, social policy reform and deficit reduction.

29

How Ottawa Spends

PARTING WORDS Is there strong potential for making real change and being innovative under the Liberals? Many of the authors of this edition of How Ottawa Spends conclude that there is. In a wide variety of policy fields— social policy Justice, training and education, technology and culture, sustainable development, Aboriginal governance and R&D— there is a compelling and urgent need for change which may serve as a catalyst for action. But the authors in this volume also caution that change will not be easy or automatic and that the political, economic and institutional constraints on policy-making are enor­ mous. There are several fundamental prerequisites to innovation. First, ideas are important and after years of shrinking the state and its capacity for research, the federal government needs to strength its ability to develop or be receptive to new ideas. This involves democratizing the process by which government learns— of listening to a diverse range of both expert and popular opinion. Democracy involves at least three elements: a tolerance for organized interests, opportunities for citizens to be heard and fairness so that debates and policy agendas are not dominated by one set of interests, usually privileged ones. More than symbolic fairness must become the practice of the Chretien government; therefore, integrity in govern­ ment, openness and a sense that Canadians equitably share in both the pain of the lingering recession and the wealth of economic growth that is optimistically predicted for the next few years is essential. As is evident in the following chapters, institutions and their politics are also important factors in innovation. They can facilitate or doggedly deter the implementation of new ideas and reform. Thus, public service renewal deserves to be a high priority because without the institutional capacity, talent and morale to carry through on reform, little real change will actually occur. In recent years, we have used a variety of metaphors, mainly mechanistic ones such as “reinventing” and “reengineering,” to describe and think about the process of change in government. Perhaps one small way to assist innovation is to replace these with a new, richer metaphor that better reflects the organic nature of innovation. I suggest that gardening might be an instructive compari­ son. Successful gardening involves, among other things, careful selection (avoiding exotic imports that will not thrive under local conditions); companion planting (putting the appropriate things and

30

Making Change

individuals together); feeding and cultivating (nurturing creativity, new ideas and policy experiments); weeding (removing outmoded practices and structures); pruning (cutting back expectations); and composting (transforming waste into useful inputs). Most of all gardening— and innovating— involves hard and sustained work.

NOTES My appreciation to my colleagues—Katherine Graham, Jane Jenson, Brian Little, Allan Maslove, Ted Reed and Gene Swimmer—whose comments and constructive suggestions greatly improved this chapter. The excellent re­ search assistance of Carolyn Chisholm, Aideen Nabigon, Ted Reed and Eric Robinson is also gratefully acknowledged. Some of the arguments made in this chapter may not be shared by the other contributors to this volume. 1

2

3 4 5 6

7

The phrase “getting government right” was used frequently during the campaign by Marcel MassS, now Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and Minister responsible for Public Service Renewal. For an insightful, but unflattering picture of how the Conservatives decided that the central issue of the campaign should be change itself, particularly change in the process of governing, see Ron Graham, OneEyed Kings (Toronto: Totem Books, 1987), pp. 284-305. The Con­ servatives presented a policy agenda, their equivalent to the Red Book, soon after they were elected. See A New Direction for Canada: An Agenda for Economic Renewal (Ottawa: Department of Finance, November 1984). Liberal Party of Canada, Creating Opportunity: The Liberal Plan for Canada (Ottawa, September 1993), p. 44. Edward Greenspon, “Reality Rocks Liberal Game Plan,” The Globe and Mail [Toronto], April 9, 1994, p. Al. Rosabeth M. Kanter, The Change Masters (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983), p. 20. On innovation as a political process, see Peter J. Frost and Carolyn P. Egri, “The Political Process of Innovation,” Research in Organiza­ tional Behavior, 13 (1991), pp. 229-95. There is a massive literature on innovation, but it is overwhelmingly focused on the private sector. For a discussion of innovation in government, see James Iain Gow, “Diffusion of Administrative Innovations in Canadian Public Admin­ istrations,” Administration & Society, 23, 4 (February 1992), pp. 43054; and Innovation in the Public Service (Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Management Development, 1991). Peter A. Hall, “Policy Paradigms, Social Learning, and the State,” Comparative Politics, 25 (April 1993), pp. 275-96.

31

How Ottawa Spends

8

9

10 11

12 13 14

15

16

17 18 19

32

This distinction of two levels of ideas is taken from Margaret Weir, “Ideas and the Politics of Bounded Innovation” in Sven Steinmo, Kathleen Thelen and Frank Longstreth, eds., Structuring Politics: Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Analysis (Cambridge: Cam­ bridge University Press, 1992), pp. 207-09. For a discussion of political discourse, see Jane Jenson, “Paradigms and Political Discourse: Protective Legislation in France and the United States Before 1914,” Canadian Journal o f Political Science, XXII, 2 (June 1989), pp. 235-58. Weir, “Ideas and the Politics of Bounded Innovation,” p. 208. Peter A. Hall, “Conclusion: The Politics of Keynesian Ideas” in Peter A. Hall, ed., The Political Power o f Economic Ideas (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1989), pp. 370-86. Aaron Wildavsky, Speaking Truth to Power: The Art and Craft o f Policy Analysis (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1979), p. 389. Frost and Egri, “The Political Process of Innovation,” p. 243. Peter A. Hall, “Policy Innovation and the Structure of the State: The Politics-Administration Nexus in France and Britain,” Annals, 466 (March 1983), p. 46. This discussion is largely based on Theresa M. Amabile, “A Model of Creativity and Innovation in Organizations,” Research in Organiza­ tional Behavior, 10 (1988); and Paul de L. Harwood, Adaptive Organizations and People (Halifax: Institute for Research on Public Policy, 1991). Frances Abele, “The Politics of Competitiveness” in Frances Abele, ed., How Ottawa Spends 1992-93: The Politics o f Competitiveness (Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1992), pp. 1-22. Paul Krugman, “Competitiveness: A Dangerous Obsession,” Foreign Affairs, 73, 2 (March/April 1994), p. 39-44. Ibid., p. 30. Marcel Mass6, “Getting Government ‘Right’: The Challenge of Imple­ mentation” (Notes for an address to the National Conference on Government Relations, Ottawa, December 1, 1993), p. 7. The notion of responsibility-taking is already finding its way in veiy real terms into the reform of social policy. One of the multitude of social policy experiments in New Brunswick, for example, now requires a single mother who is an applicant for social assistance to name the father of her child or children, upon threat of the withholding of benefits to her family. This allows the government to pursue the father for support payments. While many social policy reformers would strongly reaffirm attempts by the state to collect child support from “deadbeat” parents, the notion of indiv­ idual responsibility-taking adds legitimacy and strength of argument to this initiative; most social policy advocates, however, would regard the withholding of benefits in such a case as misplaced punishment.

Making Change

20

21 22

23

24

25

26 27 28

29

On the philosophical base of liberalism and communitarianism, see Will Kymlicka, Liberalism, Community and Culture (Oxford: Claredon Press, 1989); Amitai Etzioni, The Spirit o f Community (New York: Crown Publishers, 1993); and Philip Selznick, The Moral Commonwealth (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992). Will Kymlicka, Recent Work in Citizenship Theory (Ottawa: Multiculturalism and Citizenship Canada, 1992). These are arranged in a slightly different manner than in the Red Book, but I wanted to sort them according to the usual categories by which most analysts think about public policy, rather than by the strategic language of Creating Opportunity. This section provides only the highlights and a representative listing of some of the commitments made in the Red Book; it is by no means complete. Alexandra Dobrowolsky and Jane Jenson, “Reforming the Parties: Prescriptions for Democracy” in Susan D. Phillips, ed., How Ottawa Spends 1993-94: A More Democratic Canada ...? (Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1993), pp. 43-81. In fact, the overall size of the public service has not been reduced significantly at all, but its composition has changed with a growth in temporary and casual jobs at the expense of full-time positions. Marcus J. Hollander and Michael J. Prince, “Analytical Units in Federal and Provincial Governments: Origins, Functions and Sugges­ tions for Effectiveness,” Canadian Public Administration, 36, 2 (Summer 1993), p. 196. Donald J. Savoie, “Reforming Civil Service Reforms,” Policy Op­ tions, 15, 3 (April 1994), pp. 3-7. Ibid., p. 6. Alan Tupper, “Think Tanks, Public Debt, and the Politics of Expertise in Canada,” Canadian Public Administration, 36, 4 (Winter 1993), p. 545. In terms of resources, it is interesting to compare Canada’s C.D. Howe Institute (which has a staff of 16 and revenues of $1.8 million) or the Institute for Research on Public Policy (which has a staff of 11 and revenues of $1.7 million) with the U.S. Brookings Institute (which has a staff of 240 and a budget of US$19.6 million) or the Hoover Institute (with some 80 resident scholars, professional library staff and a budget of US$19 million, drawn from Stanford University’s allocation, and an endowment of US$125 million). For a more extensive comparative analysis, see Evert A. Lindquist, “Think Tanks or Clubs? Assessing the Influence and Roles of Canadian Policy Institutes,” Canadian Public Administration, 36,4 (Winter 1993), pp. 547-49. The fact that the Conservative government tried to merge the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and the Canada Council with little rationale for doing so, shows their antipathy towards 33

How Ottawa Spends

30

31

32

33

34

or at least lack of insight into the nature of both university-based research and the arts and culture. The merger was halted by the Senate following strong and convincing lobbying against the action by associations representing university scholars. For further discussion of the evolving relationships between interest groups and the state, see Susan D. Phillips, “Fuzzy Boundaries: Rethinking Relationships between NGOs and Governments,” Policy Options, 15, 3 (April 1994), pp. 13-17, and “How Ottawa Blends: Shifting Government Relationships with Interest Groups” in Frances Abele, ed., How Ottawa Spends 1991-92: The Politics o f Fragmenta­ tion (Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1991), pp. 183-228. The Mulroney cabinet structure is discussed in Katherine A. Graham, “Discretion and the Governance of Canada: The Buck Stops Where?” in Katherine A. Graham, ed., How Ottawa Spends 1989-90: The Buck Stops Where? (Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1989), pp. 16-22. Thomas Shoyama, Deputy Minister when Chretien was Minister of Finance in the late 1970s, described Chretien as being open to new ideas and willing to leave his bureaucrats to fill out the details, but he never left any doubt about who was the boss. Murray Campbell, “Chretien Accorded Respect,” The Globe and Mail [Toronto], November 1, 1993, p. Al. These figures include $52.7 billion in social program spending (in 1992-93) and $18 billion in cash transfers to the provinces for educa­ tion, health care and social assistance. See Department of Finance, Federal Spending: Background (Ottawa, January 1994), p. 37. See also Fiscal Facts and Trends in this volume for a breakdown by sector of federal government expenditures. The dysfunctions in the existing social programs are numerous and include disincentives to work due to high tax-back rates; insufficient support for training; and the increased use of UI as regular support due to persistently high structural unemployment, rather than its use as an insurance program for temporary relief from downturns in the business cycle (as it was originally intended). There have also been growing inequities across the provinces in how the costs for social assistance are borne under the cost-shared CAP. The Conservative government placed limits on growth in expenditures under CAP for B.C., Alberta and Ontario at the same time that the recession and high unemployment rates were forcing more people onto social assistance. This has hit Ontario the hardest with the result that Ottawa now pays only 29 percent, instead of the intended 50 percent, of Ontario’s social assistance costs. The Ontario government has been lobbying the Liberal caucus hard to try to reverse some of these disparities. See Ontario, Ministry of Inter­ governmental Affairs, Ontarians Expect Fairness from the Federal

Making Change

34 35

36

37

38 39

40

41

Government (Toronto, January 31, 1994). Eric Beauchesne, “Martin Only Heard Budget Advice He Liked,” The Ottawa Citizen, January 31, 1994, p. A5. For an analysis of the 1993 budget, see Susan D. Phillips, “A More Democratic Canada ...?” in Phillips, How Ottawa Spends 1993-94, pp. 21-28. Bruce Little, “Martin Budget High on Optimism,” The Globe and Mail [Toronto], February 23, 1994, p. Bl. Over the past six years, revenue forecasts consistently have fallen short, missing their targets by 5 percent in 1991, 8 percent in 1992 and 10 percent or $12.2 billion in 1993. This trend is so embarrassing that Finance Minister Martin has asked an outside consultant to examine the way in which his department predicts revenues. See Bruce Little, “Triumph of Hope over Experi­ ence,” The Globe and Mail [Toronto], February 28, 1994, p. All. Giles Gherson, “How To Cut Spending by the Billion and Not Look Like a Tory,” The Globe and Mail [Toronto], January 14, 1994, p. A 16. Canada, Department of Finance, The Budget Speech (Ottawa, February 22, 1994), p. 3. The Budget Plan devotes considerable space to a discussion about the actual level of the deficit that the Liberals inherited. Although the figure finally derived is $45.7 billion, this includes a number of charges for “restructuring,” such as penalties for cancellation of the helicopter contract and other defence cuts, incurred by the new rather than the former government. Canada, Department of Finance, The Budget Plan (Ottawa, February 1994), pp. 11-15. When complete year end figures became available for 1993-94, the news on the deficit was better than the Budget had predicted; it was $1.7 billion less than projected, primarily due to lower interest payments on the national debt and declining unemployment insurance pay-outs (due to lower benefit rates or the fact that many of the unemployed ran out of benefits). See Alan Freeman, “Cuts Not Limited to Budget, PM Says,” The Globe and Mail [Toronto], April 14, 1994, p. A3. The budget papers contain a separate volume that outlines the Liberals’ intentions to assist small business. See The Honourable John Manley and The Honourable Paul Martin, Growing Small Business (Ottawa: Industry Canada, February 1994). Note that the cuts to tobacco taxes have a major effect on government revenues in 1994-95, with losses estimated at $380 million. These losses are projected to become revenue gains in 1995 due to the tobacco manufacturers’ surtax that should bring in $70 million annually. Canada, Department of Finance, The Budget Plan, p. 23. For further discussion of the issues surrounding tobacco taxation, see the chapter by A. Paul Pross and Iain S. Stewart in this volume. 35

How Ottawa Spends

42

43

44

45

46

47

36

The four bases to be closed are in Chatham, N.B.; Cornwallis, N.S.; Ottawa and Downsview (near Toronto). This is a move that the Conservative government talked about, but backed away from as a result of pressure from the local communities. The closure of the military college in Saint-Jean, Quebec (the other candidate is in Victoria, B.C.) set off a spark of protest from the Bloc quebecois and the Quebec government because they believe it will deter Francophones from pursuing a career in the military. At the time of publication, negotiations were under way with several universities in Quebec to take over the college in Saint-Jean. Established Programs Financing (EPF) is an unconditional “block” transfer, of which roughly one third is supposed to be spent on post­ secondary education and two thirds on health care. In reality, the money goes into the general revenues of the provinces and there is no means for Ottawa to enforce the intended distribution—or even to ensure that the money is spent on health care and higher education at all. In contrast, CAP is a cost-shared program in which the federal and provincial governments split the costs, although due to previous restraint measures, the three richest provinces now pay more than their original 50 percent. The freeze imposed in this budget will create imbalances for the other provinces as well. Treasury Board President, Art Eggleton, made no attempt to disguise the proposed trade-offs when he told the unions that if savings could be found (achieved perhaps through the elimination of waste) that are roughly equivalent to the amount saved as a result of wage controls, the freeze would be reversed. Marvin Gandall, “Public Service Pay Freeze,” The Ottawa Citizen, March 1, 1994, p. A9. I am indebted to Allan Maslove for suggesting this point. Ontario Fair Tax Commission, Fair Taxation in a Changing World (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993), pp. 321-25. For a discussion of the extensive review of programs undertaken by the Nielsen Task Force in the first term of the Mulroney government, see V. Seymour Wilson, “What Legacy? The Nielsen Task Force Program Review” in Katherine A. Graham, ed., How Ottawa Spends 1988-89: The Conservatives Heading Into the Stretch (Ottawa: Carleton Univer­ sity Press, 1988), pp. 23-47. Hugh Winsor, “Liberals Put the Middle Class on Top,” The Globe and Mail [Toronto], February 24, 1994, p. A4. This position, however, is not uniformly accepted. It stands in contrast to studies conducted by the Ontario Fair Tax Commission which show that the costs of premiums are passed on to employees, rather than being absorbed by the employer. Ontario Fair Tax Commission, Fair Taxation in a Changing World, pp. 469-76.

Making Change

For a discussion of some of the proposals for changing post-secondary education funding, see Judith Maxwell, “More Carrots Please” in Keith Banting, ed., The Future o f Fiscal Federalism (Kingston: Queen’s University, School of Policy Studies, forthcoming).

2

Commissioning Ideas: Representation and Royal Commissions Jane Jenson

R esum e : Les commissions royales sont un endroit, parmi d ’autres, ou ont lieu l’analyse et l’apprentissage des politiques. Ces commissions sont 6galement des institutions qui foumissent une representation en ouvrant & des individus et & des groupes une tribune pour les debats et I’elaboration des politiques. En plus de tout cela, les commissions royales sont des institutions qui reprdsentent des idces. De telles activites ont engendre des consequences involontaires mais tres importantes, sous forme de tensions au sujet de la place et du role des commissaires, de la consultation et de la recherche. Ce chapitre soutient que les commissions royales ont un potentiel important en mati&re d ’innovation. II documente les efforts croissants de la part des commissions en mattere de recherches et il compare les modules d ’apprentissage. Le chapitre se termine par la suggestion que les commissions royales, tout comme d ’autres institutions de representation, sont appeiees a democratiser leurs modes d ’apprentissage. A b stract: Royal commissions are one of several places in which policy analysis and learning takes place. They are also institutions that provide representation by giving access to individuals and groups to a forum o f debate and policy-making. Even more than that, royal commissions are institutions that represent ideas. Such activities have generated unintended, but very important, consequences in the form o f tensions about the place for and role o f commissioners, consultation and research. This chapter argues that royal commissions possess considerable potential for innovation. It documents the mounting research efforts o f royal commissions and compares models o f learning. The chapter concludes with the suggestion that royal commissions, along with other institutions o f representation, are being called upon to democratize their ways of ___________ learning.

In recent decades, royal commissions have faced a wide— and ever widening— range of issues. They are one of several places in which policy analysis and learning might take place, and one that provides some room for public involvement in decision-making.' They are, therefore, institutions that provide representation by providing access for individuals and groups to a forum of debate and policy­ making. But more than that, royal commissions are also institutions

How Ottawa Spends

that represent ideas. They have often been locales for some of the major shifts in the ways that Canadians debate representations of themselves, their present and their futures.2 Such representations are crucial, not only to policy-making, but to politics in the largest sense because they set out the terms of who we are, where we have been and what we might become. Therefore, the forms of representation invoked by the act of commissioning ideas is the focus of this chapter. In recent years, major commissions have inquired into Cana­ da’s economic future, reproductive technologies, community iden­ tities, gender inequalities and electoral democracy. These issues obviously raise large questions, not only about the present and future, but even about our visions of the past. As policy bodies, royal commissions as they have developed in Canada are uniquely suited to addressing such questions.3 They have become institutions in which contending interpretations and visions can be and are debated. In exploring alternatives, such commissions establish and often frame debates, not only for themselves, but for governments and the public. And their impact on policy debates often lasts long after their reports are issued. They do this, moreover, using practices that are somewhat different from those of other institutions. Commissions are “inquiries” and, as such, their recommendations are based on an assessment by the commissioners, who obviously contribute their own world views, of information acquired from two basic sources: consultation with the public concerned by the issue and expert advice. Such procedures have generated unintended but very impor­ tant consequences in the form of tensions about the place for, and role of, commissioners, consultation and research (including the research staff hired by the commission). In part, such uncertainties exist because our royal commissions are alternative and contested sites in which ideas and actors seek representation. It is, therefore, useful to analyse the ideas and practices of royal commissions as representative bodies of a particular sort, in which expertise— especially social science research— has occupied a major position since World War II. Moreover, it is also reasonable to ask whether their status may be changing, as contestation over forms and institutions of democracy agitates Canadian politics— and royal commissions— at the end of this century. If royal commissions have been highly visible actors in the policy process at the federal level, especially in the last 50 years, they 40

Royal Commissions

have not been widely studied.4 Nor has the process by which they learn and the intellectual grounding for their analyses and recom­ mendations received a huge amount of attention. Nonetheless, there has been some controversy over their contribution to innovation in policy ideas. This chapter argues that royal commissions possess considerable potential for innovation and does so in three steps.5 First, it documents the mounting research efforts of royal commis­ sions. Second, it proposes a way to think about the institution of royal commissions within the policy process in Canada, by locating them with reference to their contribution to the politics of representation. Third, this chapter compares the place in the learning curve of the research efforts of several recent royal commissions.

A NEW-STYLE INSTITUTION: ROYAL COMMISSIONS AFTER ROWELL-SIROIS The royal commission as a source of policy advice is not new.6 At least since the nineteenth century, governments have used royal commissions to conduct inquiries into major questions of economic, social or political controversy and to provide policy recommenda­ tions based on such inquiry. In this chapter, I consider only a subset of commissions: those which have been highly visible policyformulating bodies addressing a broad issue. While there have been 17 commissions of inquiry or main task forces that have reported to the federal government since 1982, some o f them involving consid­ erable expenditure, I consider only those listed in Table 2 .1.7 Moreover, the chapter extends the label “royal commission” to cover two that were not quite “royal” but, nonetheless, shared some of the representational characteristics of the commissions discussed here: the Berger Inquiry into the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline and the Canadian Panel on Violence Against Women.8 Mandated to inquire into a policy issue (more or less specifi­ cally defined), royal commissions have traditionally used public hearings and legal expertise as the basis for developing their policy recommendations. In the middle of the twentieth century, however, royal commissions began to turn to “research,” especially social science research, to obtain relevant information about the policy realm under investigation. As such, they have become major supporters and funders of research.9 The Royal Commission on the Economic Union and Develop­ ment Prospects for Canada (the Macdonald Commission) published

41

How Ottawa Spends

72 volumes of research studies in both official languages. The Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing (RCERPF), with a somewhat more restricted mandate, published 23 volumes of research.10 Ambitious research programs, however, are not a product of the last decade. The Royal Commission on the Status of Women (RCSW), despite the impact which its 1970 report had in bringing both the issue and the facts of gender inequality to the attention of Canadians, commissioned only a relatively modest 40 studies. The Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism (B & B), which also profoundly influenced the direction of Canadian politics with its 1967 report, commissioned 150 separate studies. As J.E. Hodgetts tells us, by the late 1960s there had been a conversion of the “average” royal commission from a “specialized ad hoc judicial tribunal” into a “sizable temporary department staffed by social scientists representing every discipline.”11 One of the first actions of a royal commission is to appoint a research director and to organize a substantial staff. In doing so, it is carrying on the heritage of the Royal Commission on DominionProvincial Relations (the Rowell-Sirois Commission), which re­ ported in 1940 and is usually identified as the turning point in a conversion to social science research.12 The commissions’ increas­ ing emphasis on research is a reflection of the growing legitimacy that the social sciences had acquired in the inter-war years. To be convincing, arguments about social, economic and political phe­ nomena could not proceed simply from first principles or legal discourse. They required the support of “facts.” Nonetheless, as this chapter will argue, neither the role of such facts in the commission process nor their legitimacy in the face of competing sources of information is easily comprehended. The facts do not speak for themselves. There is no one best way to approach any problem. Most important, neither the intervenors at public hearings nor the research studies can present “the answer”; the commissioners (or the authors of the report) will provide an answer only after completion of a complicated political process. Despite some of the fact-finding trappings of an inquiry, the concern cannot be simply with right and wrong, as it would be in an investigative inquiry. Given the very reasons for their creation, policy-formulating royal commissions face complex problems, groups and individuals with conflicting claims, and competing data (whether derived from public hearings or from expert research studies). In addition, a commission is a “corporate body,” composed of individuals who 42

Royal Commissions

must, over the life of the inquiry, become “the commission.” This, too, generates complexity in the processing of information and decision-making. Not surprisingly, royal commissions have been controversial. The most frequent disputes have been over whether the benefits outweigh the costs.13 Recently, however, some commissions have excited more debate on other grounds that directly raise the questions of the place of research in the whole commission enterprise and, more precisely, how royal commissions go about developing their policy ideas. The Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies (the Baird Commission), which reported in November 1993 after spending more than $28 million over four years, was accused in mid­ inquiry of failing to undertake adequate social science research and, especially, of being too secretive and insufficiently scholarly in the conduct of its research program. The brouhaha led the Social Science Federation of Canada (SSFC) to establish its own commission of inquiry into royal commissions and their research. The SSFC introduced the resulting guidelines in the fall of 1993 in this way: In order to ensure that the research conducted or commissioned by royal commissions conforms to the norms of scientific inquiry, the SSFC task force on research at royal commissions proposes the following guidelines. These guidelines are relatively simple, and thus can be applied to various types of royal commissions, and can accommodate the educational mandate of royal commissions. The SSFC hopes that they will be instrumental in ensuring commonality of research practices and in guaranteeing scientific credibility.14

The SSFC also recommended that the Privy Council Office (PCO) distribute these guidelines to all future royal commissions as a companion to the PCO’s own publication, Commissions o f Inquiry: A Handbook on Operations. In this intervention by the SSFC, we see the extent to which social science research is assumed to be an essential aspect of any royal commission’s normal activity. Furthermore, there is a pre­ sumption that the primary criterion for any research is that it be “scientific” and that its credibility depends on its quality. An additional assumption is that the research will be published in order to fulfil the “educational mandate” of the royal commission. 43

How Ottawa Spends

While such guidelines might be useful, they do presume an overly straightforward relationship between royal commissions and their research, which renders invisible issues about the politics involved. Royal commissions, as institutions, are involved in both providing and shaping representation— of Canadians, of research and of certain ideas. For example, at least some recent discussions have pointed to the biases that may infuse research— no matter how scholarly— for royal commissions following from the choice of whom to consult.15 Putting it another way, only some research is represented in the commission’s political process. The issue is, however, even more complicated than one of presence. In his reflections on the Macdonald Commission, Richard Simeon argued that the research of some disciplines may be more powerful than that of others.16 A system of representation of both ideas and actors may be based on differential power positions. Royal commissions are also bodies of public consultation. As such, they open routes of representation to groups and individuals. An analysis of royal commissions and their ideas needs, thus, to consider this larger representational domain.

ROYAL COMMISSIONS: IDEAS, INSTITUTIONS AND REPRESENTATION In 1969, John Courtney wrote “in defence of royal commissions,” describing a shift in the post-Depression years in the style of commission and summarizing commissions’ role in representation: The trend, therefore, of recent royal commissions has been away from investigations of importance only to a limited number of people or a restricted geographic area toward those of significance to the Cana­ dian people as a whole. The changing pattern may be characterized as one away from “intensive” inquiries of only limited significance to one of “extensive” inquiries of national significance. The effect of the changing pattern has been to turn the royal commission of inquiry into an investigatory technique suitable for publicizing group sentiments on a national basis and for formulating national objectives. The modern royal commission has become, in effect, a vehicle by which individuals, groups, and governments are permitted to state their views on matters of concern to the nation as a whole.17

44

Royal Commissions

His observations became even more telling in subsequent years, which have given us the RCSW, the Macdonald Commission, the RCERPF, the Baird Commission and, most recently, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP). To be sure, each of these commissions has provided a platform for the expression of group interests, usually by conducting country­ wide hearings. But they have done more than that. Several royal commissions have been central institutions within the representa­ tional regime, developing, consolidating and promoting ideas about identities and interests, as well as about policy possibilities. Thus, they have not simply listened to the expression of interests by groups; they have also contributed to the way that we subsequently conceptualized our interests and collective identities, whether based on nation, class, gender or citizenship. This has often been the case, even if the specific recommendations of a commission were never implemented. Throughout the post-war years, commissions have provided definitions of the relevant political actors and who has a legitimate right to speak on the matter at hand. Indeed, early post-war commissions like the Massey Commission on the arts, the Fowler Commissions on broadcasting the O’Leary Commission on publi­ cation and the Hall Commission on health, all raised the same issues of collective identity which are also implicated in the work of the most recent commissions listed in Table 2.1. For example, Michael Oliver, Director of Research for the B & B Commission, insists that the Commission rejected the “naming” that its mandate (in speaking of two founding races) imposed and, instead, pioneered the use of the names “Francophone” and “Anglophone” to identify Canadians simply by linguistic preference, rather than by any other cultural marker.18 It can be said, in general, that several royal commissions discussed in detail in this chapter have made major contributions to the ways in which groups and interests are represented in political discourse.19 It is, therefore, worth taking some time to unpack this aspect of royal commissions— the when, what, why, who and how of their representational activities.

When The when of the creation of royal commissions of inquiry into national social, economic or political problems is the easiest to 45

How Ottawa Spends

identify. They are often created at moments when established intellectual and policy paradigms are being challenged or seem no longer to work, i.e. when governments face mounting challenges to “politics as usual.” If we think of a paradigm as an interpretive framework that orders differences, demonstrates connections across policy practices and provides the basis from which policy prescrip­ tions can be derived, we can easily understand that such paradigms may enter into crisis and no longer make sense.20 Something new may be required. It is clear that major royal commissions have been established to address macroeconomic policy at moments when established priorities have been subjected to fundamental questioning. The Rowell-Sirois and Macdonald commissions both straddled moments of economic turbulence: the Depression of the 1930s in the case of the first; the early 1980s, just after the worst recession since the 1930s, for the second. Both set out prescriptions for economic policy that resulted in major reorientations in direction.21 But economic turbulence is not the only situation that provokes resort to a royal commission; cultural crisis and social change have done the same. The B & B Commission, for example, was established when it became clear, because of the rapidly unfolding politics of the Quiet Revolution, that there was a crisis in the relations of Canada’s two major language groups. The RCSW was commissioned to develop responses to the accumulating changes in women’s economic and social conditions— and the inequalities visible in them— which had been generated in the post-war years by changes in the labour market, reproductive technologies and family patterns. Royal commissions, even those that do not appear, at first, to have been established as a response to a moment of paradigm questioning, are quite likely to come to describe themselves as responding to crisis, turbulence or uncertainty. The RCERPF, for example, was given a mandate that might have easily allowed it to stick to the nitty-gritty of elections and their financing without much drama or wide-ranging analysis. Nonetheless, it found itself living through the years of intense debate about democracy that followed the collapse of the Meech Lake Accord as well as post-1989 Europe. It soon began to present its work as fitting within that moment of political turbulence and chose to locate its report and recommenda­ tions as a response to what it described as the demands of Canadians for more democracy, in the context of worldwide political change

46

Royal Commissions

and mounting claims for democratization of the institutions of representation.22

What The what o f royal commissions is not unrelated to the time of their establishment. Located in the policy process at the advisory stage, the advice proffered by the kinds of royal commissions considered here is often a replacement paradigm. For example, the RCERPF was particularly critical of the traditional forms of brokerage politics (which the electorate also rejected in the 1993 federal election by redesigning the party system).23 Implementation of most of its recommended reforms— which for the moment seems unlikely— would constitute a paradigm shift in electoral politics quite compa­ rable to that housed in the Macdonald Commission’s recommenda­ tions for new policy thinking. The RCSW provides another example of a royal commission marking a paradigm shift. It went far in developing a classic liberal-feminist analysis about how to generate equality. The economic and social structures interfering with equal­ ity, as well as the power of cultural stereotypes, were identified. Affirmative action was recommended in certain circumstances, as well as numerous other measures to move women into the main­ stream of Canadian life. The RCSW’s recommendations constituted an agenda of reform for liberal feminists and the state for a period of more than two decades.24 Generation of new paradigms, and the ideas underpinning them, is crucial to the process of political representation, as royal commissions may proffer Canadians new ways to represent them­ selves to themselves. The RCERPF argued explicitly that, in recommending new kinds of electoral politics, it was proposing to modify such representations when it wrote: In one sense representation in governance identifies those represent­ ed, designates representatives and legitimizes institutional processes for securing agreements and resolving conflicts. In another and more fundamental sense, representative governance incorporates a soci­ ety’s definition of itself as a political community.25

Whether or not any commission is as explicit as was the RCERPF, it is nonetheless likely to be involved in setting down the terms of community. In doing so, royal commissions are not simply 47

How Ottawa Spends

conducting an inquiry or choosing policy. They may be involved in generating new representations of history, of the present community and of available futures that both educate and may very well empower. The vision of history upon which the B & B Commission built was embedded in its very mandate, although that vision was contested by the Commission itself. In English, it was instructed to recommend measures to ensure that Confederation would develop with the full equality of the two “races” that had founded it. But the Commission preferred the French reference to peuples and pro­ ceeded to write from a history of two founding peoples and of the resulting patterns of linguistic duality that constituted the Canadian nation.26 The RCAP, in contrast, saw a quite different history, which was equally formative of its work: The history of Aboriginal peoples formed the basis for many submis­ sions in the first round of hearings. People were anxious to correct misconceptions.... “We would remind all Canadians,” said one intervenor in Inuvik, Northwest Territories, “that the French and English did not come to an empty land and that the true founding nations have as much, if not more, a right to the protection of their language and culture.”27

Moreover, such representations may well be the product of their historical time. This possibility is evident by comparing the visions of Canadian society presented by two commissions working two decades apart and separated by the collapse of the post-war societal paradigm.28 In the late 1960s, the B & B Commission was explicit that its work addressed collective phenomena and that individuals lived within and were dependent on collectivities. Indeed, full individual equality could only be achieved when each cultural community had the means to realize itself, means which depended on the actions of both the private and public sectors. The Macdonald Commission had a very different perspective when it represented the harsh future of liberal individualism that would follow its recommended paradigm shift: Ultimately, and most weightily, the burden of that change must be borne by individuals. To move from the usual, the accustomed, the habitual into the untried, the new, the innovative has always been, at least in part, a painful experience. Government institutions and

48

Royal Commissions

policies can and should help to condition the shock. For all that, it remains a shock. And it must be borne.29

The power of these representations of past, present and future is more than simply words. Their power is in their capacity to present a new view of the world in paradigmatic form. Policy alternatives are seldom constituted completely de novo, and the legacies of past policy experiences are usually visible in the new directions. None­ theless, as Peter A. Hall tells us, “The lessons that history provides us with are always ambiguous. Why are some lessons learned from a given policy experience, rather than others?”30 The representation of the “lessons of history,” just as the recommendation of a new set of policy ideas, is a profoundly political act and is central to representation. This is so because definitions of interests may follow from ideas.31 Liora Salter’s work on the Berger Commission (which was not formally a royal commission, but shared many of the character­ istics of one) stresses this point as well. She points to the radical potential of a commission of inquiry that deliberately tried to reframe the issue in new ways. That commission, which investigated the proposal for a Mackenzie Valley pipeline, created new knowledge and, in the process, validated a way of thinking about the North that had been marginalized previously. Berger, his staff and many of the inquiry’s participants recognized the importance of language in the creation of political issues and their resolution.... Berger recognized what is often implicitly understood about inquiries. He recognized that the description of issues adopted by an inquiry foretells the types of proposals that will be evaluated in response to them.32

The Berger Commission discovered this language in the public hearings (a fact which underlines the importance of the hearings for commissions’ idea development). Describing a similar process by which interpretation of the problem shaped outcomes, Simeon recounts the way that, early in the life of the Macdonald Commission, the commissioners were seized by a sense of urgency and threat, and then developed a consensus that something new was needed. Most important, “the crisis was perceived as overwhelmingly economic.”33 Not surpris­ ingly, once the problem was defined that way, the solution sought 49

How Ottawa Spends

was in new economic policy, as proposed by the economists from whom the commission heard. Thus, the educational activities of commissions are dialecti­ cal. Commissions may be established by the government to inform the public that “this government [is] truly concerned, and that new policies are in the offing.”34 At the same time, however, some commissions may not only provoke new ways of thinking about and concepts for considering problems, but educate the public to that novelty, thereby contributing to the generation of new ideas, identities and demands.

Why Part of the reason why royal commissions can play this ideagenerating role comes from their institutional particularities. While being one of a range of policy advisory agencies, a royal commission has its own specific character. Bruce Doern describes its three typical characteristics as being public, ad hoc and investigatory, by which he means that it operates at a distance from the usual channels of bureaucratic information, it is discontinuous and it has no responsibility for enacting or implementing its recommendations.35 Despite being serviced by the government bureaucracy and subject to certain of its usual practices (especially with respect to finances and staffing), royal commissions cannot fall back on existing bureaucratic channels and practices for decision-making. Other observers have stressed the importance of the limited life of a royal commission. It does not have the established and routinized procedures that come with institutional memory and it has, there­ fore, relatively few of the decision-making legacies that characterize ongoing organizations.36 A royal commission must create itself in doing its job.37 Not hampered by red tape and the heavy hand o f past practice, commis­ sions are able to choose which lessons to take from history and to frame the issues, as well as the recommendations they make, in innovative ways. Here I am not suggesting that royal commissions are institutions that exist in order to present impartial studies and equitable solutions, although that argument is sometimes made. Rather, the claim is that relatively unhindered and independent debate about ideas characterizes such bodies and this helps to account for why they may be successful innovators.

50

Royal Commissions

Also increasing the potential for innovation by royal commis­ sions is the requirement that they produce a written, public report.38 One can fairly assume the commissioners and their staff hope their report will be read widely, discussed in depth and considered at length. There is a good deal of pressure, therefore, to produce a document that is accessible not only to policy-makers but also to the general public, that has a coherence in its argumentation and that begins from first principles. This goal— and expectations about what a royal commission report looks like— imposes a good deal of discipline on the commissioners and the authors of the report. The report-conceptualizing and report-writing stages are the realm of ideas, par excellence, as the commission struggles to balance the “incoherence” that may come from policy compromises among commissioners against the “drive for coherence” that comes from the production of any major piece of literature.39 An additional reason why royal commissions have played such a role in policy innovation in Canada has been the relatively minor capacity of other institutions of representation, especially the politi­ cal parties.40 Observers have long pointed to the traditional broker­ age parties’ lack of capacity to innovate or generate “creative politics.” New ideas have more often come from policy advisers, whether in the permanent bureaucracy or temporary bodies such as royal commissions. Thus, this argument differs from that sometimes made in the literature on royal commissions, which claims that governments appoint commissions to postpone debate or that the need for such inquiries arises because opposition parties, precipi­ tated into office, lack sufficient research resources to launch effective policy innovation.41 Rather, the argument is that the system of brokerage parties, as a whole, lacks the capacity for innovation.

Who In carrying out these representational tasks, royal commissions must also express who they are and whom they represent. They are institutions providing alternative routes to representation, which are neither the traditional electoral nor interest group channels. The commission carries the voices of some Canadians into the policy process, including those who otherwise have little access, just as they exclude some. Not all commissions are equally explicit that they serve as a route to representation.42 The RCERPF, however, opened its fourth volume by writing: 51

How Ottawa Spends

Democracy demands more than the occasional casting of a ballot. It requires citizenship participation in the processes that lead to public policy formulation; it is built upon open communication through which our aspirations and our needs are expressed and translated into action. A Royal Commission is one such avenue of communication.43

Of the commissions reviewed here, the RCAP has probably been the most aware of its location on a route to representation. Its elaborate process of public hearings in four rounds is designed to do more than elicit public input. With its post-hearing summaries and discussion papers, the Commission committed itself to generating dialogues among Aboriginal peoples and others. Moreover, the RCAP took upon itself the role of active participant in the constitu­ tional round of 1991-92, without waiting to produce its final recommendations before wading into the debate. As it has written of its first few months of existence: Throughout this period, the Commission operated in the context of vigorous public discussion on the role of Aboriginal people in the Canadian constitutional structure. The Commission issued a commen­ tary last winter [February 1992], just before the renewal of formal negotiations on constitutional reform, in which the right of Aboriginal self-government was addressed.44

If royal commissions are routes for representation, then contestation over whose voices should be represented on the commission, as well as in the report, are likely. A good part of the controversy over the practices of the Baird Commission involved the criticism that the concerns of the medical and scientific communities were being better represented than those of women, whose bodies were the intended terrain of such technologies. Objections were made, as well, to the choice of participants in the RCERPF’s first symposium, on the Active Participation of Women in Politics. Invitations went to women active in electoral and party politics, but none to those whose activism was most associated with social movements through, for example, the National Action Committee on the Status of Women (NAC).45 One of the most explicit controversies over representation erupted over membership on the Panel on Violence Against Women, appointed in August 1991.46 Controversy over its composition 52

Royal Commissions

dogged the Panel from the start. No immigrant or disabled women and only one woman of colour— who was regarded as elite rather than representative— were appointed, despite the fact that these groups suffer statistically higher rates of violence. Aboriginal women, who also considered themselves under-represented, suc­ ceeded in having an Aboriginal circle created alongside the Panel to supplement the input from the one Aboriginal woman who was a panel member. Eventually, NAC’s own roundtable on violence against women, organized in 1992, generated an ultimatum to the government to appoint additional panellists. When the demand was not met, NAC and most of the other women’s groups withdrew their support for the Panel. In this case, as Susan Phillips makes clear, the issue was more than simply increasing representativity by adding diversity. An additional controversy was over “what” to represent in the Panel’s hearing process. Were the hearings best devoted to bearing witness to individual women’s often horrifying testimony about their expe­ riences of violence? Or, should they be listening to the expert policy advice coming from service providers in the shelter movement or other groups which had over several years elaborated both a feminist analysis of, and concrete proposals for, dealing with violence against women? When the Panel decided to adopt a procedure of “national catharsis”— an outpouring of experiences, a la Spicer Commission (the Citizens’ Forum on Canada’s Future)— rather than to debate policy in the hearings, it effectively sidelined the groups that had specific, elaborated proposals and action plans to present. Once individuals’ voices became privileged, the process tended to render invisible the “thickness” of civil society in favour of a more individualized vision. Such circumstances reinforced the concerns about who and what the Panel represented. Once groups that might have spoken about women of colour, immigrant women and disabled women were denied an opportunity to debate policy, activists became even more adamant about the need to diversify the compo­ sition of the Panel. A well-developed critique of the representation provided by royal commissions was also addressed to the Macdonald Commis­ sion. In a condemnation of the work of that commission, Daniel Drache and Duncan Cameron stressed the fact that the membership of the Commission did not represent important constituencies concerned about the economic future of the country. Even more 53

How Ottawa Spends

damning, however, was their criticism that the Macdonald Commis­ sion simply went through the motions of listening to the views of the popular sector while the research agenda paid no attention to its programs and proposals, relying instead on academics who already shared the agenda being promoted by the business community.47 The Other Macdonald Report: The Consensus on Canada’s Future that the Macdonald Commission Left Out, as its subtitle clearly indicates, shares the perspective presented here that royal commissions are institutions that act as gatekeepers for both policy perspectives and persons. Nonetheless, not all commissions have been equally conservative or limiting in the access provided. Liora Salter’s discussion of the Berger Commission gives one counter-example. Thus, the gates may be more or less open, but they remain, nonetheless, gates.

How The lore-like literature on royal commissions speaks of the way that governments attempt to manage commissions by careful appoint­ ment of both the commissioners and staff. This observation leads to the last of the categories to be examined in this chapter— the how of royal commissions’ activities. From the beginning, we must dis­ agree with the notion that governments can successfully control their own creations. We have several recent examples of commissions that have taken on a life of their own and produced recommendations not at all to the liking— or the expectations— of the government that appointed them.48 Commissions have, instead, learned by doing. It is useful to examine the learning processes of royal commissions, because it is in this learning process that ideas and their elaborations take form.

LEARNING BY DOING Research currently consumes a substantial portion of the budget of any royal commission, and the publications resulting from the research studies are both voluminous and may have an even longer “shelf life” than does the report itself. It is important to note, however, that even if research is an essential element of royal commission activity, its place in the life of the commission is not immediately obvious. We can also observe that there is no direct relationship between the amount— or even the quality— of the re­ search and the influence of any commission’s final report. Was the 54

Royal Commissions

RCSW less influential than it might have been because it had one of the least elaborate research apparatuses in the history of recent major commissions?49 Did the Macdonald Commission make a crucial contribution to creating a new paradigm of macroeconomic policy because it published 72 research volumes? Posed this way, the question obviously evokes a response of “no.” Nor can we assume that the analysis of any commission follows from the research. On the one hand, Hodgetts has said, “Probably the royal commission remains as the most outstanding instrumentality for bringing knowledge to the service of public power in Canada.”50 On the other hand, as one description of the Macdonald Report states: Some sub-chapters apparently follow very closely the relevant com­ missioned research studies (although these are not always adequately acknowledged in the end notes). Other parts of the Report, however, are clearly striking out freely in directions, perhaps suggested in hearings, for which they have little research support. Consequently only some of the chapters appear to be the fruit of a large research effort or study experience by scholars, married to the pulse-taking and learning experience of the Commissioners.51

There was, moreover, a clear divergence between the research studies (which found state industrial strategies to be as effective as, or sometimes even more effective than, market-based approaches) and the recommendations, which eschewed such state strategies.52 It is obvious, then, that it is not simply a matter of putting research in the hands of commissioners. This leads us to basic questions about the research. Is the research meant to fill gaps in data? Guide the commissioners? Educate them? Serve as a general review of the research in a field? Educate other scholars or the public? How are the topics and researchers chosen? What are the requirements for adequate research: Peer evaluation or utility? Being original or synthetic? To answer these questions, it is helpful to return to a more general consideration of the operation of a policy-formulating royal commission. One purpose of the research might be to educate the commissioners, who are frequently not experts in the field but are appointedbecauseoftheirgeneral knowledge and intellectual capaci­ ties, as well as their political connections, regional provenance and

55

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associational links.53 Given this, commissioners must learn and they must be taught. Royal commissions, of course, are expected to learn— if not charged with learning— in several ways. First, all recent policyformulating commissions have held public hearings, often attempt­ ing to reach the most remote parts of the country in order to collect the views of citizens. The hearings usually precede, or at least parallel, the research activity. Final reports document the number of hearings held and in many cases the document is sprinkled with quotes from the intervenors, briefs presented, etc. For several commissions, these hearings have played much more than the symbolic role some analysts assign to them.54 They can simultane­ ously be moments of democratic representation, education of the public and education of the commissioners. Second, there has always been a tendency to create the commission itself as not only a knowledgeable body but one that represents different kinds of knowledge, and this tendency may be increasing. As the debate that shook the Panel on Violence Against Women showed, commissioners are considered to bring the lens of their own representative experience to the decision-making process, as well as to be a route into the commission for the constituency they represent. One consequence of both these factors is that alternative forms of data have legitimacy in the preparation of the final report. The mix among these three sources of information— research, public consultation and the world views the commissioners bring to their task— in the final report is left to the determination of the commission itself. How it learns and what it learns is, indeed, a central element of the commission’s practice, but there are no clear— or obvious— guidelines about how to do it. Several models exist. In thinking in terms of models, we see differences in the ways in which commissions process ideas and use information in order to learn. In his report— appended to the Final Report—Michael Oliver, the Research Director of the B & B Commission, identified a first model. He emphasized that the B & B Commission simply lacked a huge amount of basic information; many crucial aspects of Canadian society had never been analysed “by language,” that is, by observing differences and similarities among cultural groups. Therefore, the research as a data-gathering effort was essential to the Report. The result of this perspective on research is seen in the writing of the Report, which is liberally sprinkled with original data never before available and produced as a result of the Commission’s research 56

Royal Commissions

agenda. The RCSW faced a similar dearth of data and used its original research in the same way. Oliver also describes the research process as a constant dialogue between the researchers and the commissioners, where modifications in the research program some­ times followed from changes in the commissioners’ own views after hearings. The B & B Commission was also innovative in its use of research seminars in which academics presented their results to commissioners, who might then engage in dialogue with the re­ searchers.55 This could be thought of as a model for producing knowledge through interaction. A second, but closely related, model of learning comes from the RCERPF. In the same months that contracts for research were being signed and well before the results were in hand, the Chairper­ son was making public speeches that not only foreshadowed many recommendations, but provided the skeleton of the final form of the Commission’s report.56 This analytical framework also grounded the choice of topics and themes for the research seminars and the way in which research was contracted and set before the commission­ ers.57 Thus, the framework, developed after public hearings and in the earliest stages of the research process, shaped the ways in which ideas from research entered the learning process. There are several elements of these two variants of a knowl­ edge through interaction model that deserve attention. First, once a framework is solidly in place, much effort can be devoted to consensus-building to educate relevant constituencies about how to conceptualize the issues and develop workable solutions. Research seminars, for example, can become a dialogue in two directions— from researchers to commissioners and from the commission to interested constituencies. Second, the research staff assume a particularly important role because they function as policy advisers. As such, they operate as the bearers of ideas to the commission, but these are analysts who themselves are familiar with the particular needs of the commission as it constructs its recommendations. For example, in-house research staff involved in drafting the final report may also be called upon to conduct new research or find supporting data for the conclusions that are emerging from the decision-making processes of the commission. In this way, the data coming from the hearings and the commissioners’ world views encounter the research staff and the findings; the data not only respond to the commission, but give shape to its work.58

57

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The Macdonald Commission provides a third model— that o f knowledge passed over to a policy team, which assumes responsibil­ ity for co-ordinating the final report.59The result, according to many observers, was the relative lack of dialogue between the commis­ sioners and the research. The research program was designed in ways that deliberately isolated it from the commissioners and their learning processes. In his discussion of what he labels the “tensions” between researchers and commissioners, Alan Cairns describes a research process that was well under way before hearings were held. The research, therefore, was unlikely to respond to anything that the commissioners learned from the hearings. The elaborate procedures of peer review, explained as necessary because the decision to publish the research was taken early, meant that the research responded to the requirements of scholarly publication before it responded to the needs of the commissioners.60 As a result, the commissioners were often left to their own devices in the decision­ making process, under-tutored by the research findings which they often found indigestible and of little use.61 The RCAP may mark the invention of yet another model of relating research and other sources of information, although it has no doubt built on some of the lessons of the Berger Commission. In its learning process, the ideas of experts were placed on an equivalent footing with the experiential data presented by intervenors. Aborigi­ nal elders were granted expert status equal to that of scientists.62 Because Aboriginal communities consider themselves “studied to death,” but nonetheless lack a great deal of necessary information for managing their future, the RCAP has designed a research agenda that closely parallels its strong emphasis on hearings and dialogue across communities. Indeed, with the writing of its Ethical Guidelines fo r Research, the RCAP is beginning to break down many of the traditional assumptions about and practices relating to research, science and learning that have underpinned royal commission activities for over half a century. The guidelines insist that research located in Aboriginal communities be collaborative, involving both researchers and community members at all stages from planning to evaluation. In addition, all research results are reviewed by both the scholarly and Aboriginal communities. In other words, the research process itself is to be democratized, empowering many more than the official scientists in the creation of knowledge for the RCAP.63

58

Royal Commissions

CONCLUSION Reflecting on the kind of knowledge that the RCAP seeks to generate raises a broader question about learning and forms of knowledge. The Rowell-Sirois Commission ushered in more than an era of royal commissions dedicated to integrating expert-based knowledge. It was also located at the beginning of a post-war period in which knowledge was understood to be technological and political issues were assumed to be amenable to the application of expertise to a problem.64 In recent years, these core assumptions have crumbled in the face of economic and social problems that refuse to respond to traditional policy prescriptions. One result has been the blossoming of demands for, and experiments in, more democratic politics and policy-making.65 Being core institutions of representation for Canadian politics, it is hardly surprising that recent royal commissions are also beginning to be affected by mounting suspicions of expertise and by the discourse of democracy. First, there was the RCERPF which investigated the fundamental institutions of Canadian democracy— parties and elections— and found them wanting in many ways. Faced with a political moment when citizens were losing confidence in the party system and seeking more responsive forms of political action, the Commission presented a radical prescription for enhancing the representational capacity of the party system. Next, came the Baird Commission which was rocked throughout its life by the insistence that the issues raised by reproductive technologies were not and could not be satisfactorily addressed simply by expert, “scientific” studies by the medical community. Other types of information were demanded and other voices claimed access to the commission and “ownership” of the issue. And, because Aboriginal communities are so deeply suspicious about both existing liberal-democratic institu­ tions and past science, the RCAP has embarked on a research trajectory that explicitly redefines the traditional boundaries of knowledge. All three, in different ways, may signal a new era in which royal commissions, along with other institutions of represen­ tation, will be called upon to democratize their ways of learning.

59

Table 2.1 Major Policy-Formulating Royal Commissions since 1960

Name of Commission

Chairperson(s)

Appointment Date

Termination Date

Title of Report

Total Cost (millions of dollars)*

Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism

A. Davidson Dunton and Andr6 Laurendeau

July 1963

October 1967

Report of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism

9.0

Royal Commission on the Status of Women in Canada

Florence Bird

February 1967

September 1970

Report of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women in Canada

1.9

Royal Commission on the Economic Union and Development Prospects for Canada

Hon. Donald S. Macdonald

November 1982 April 1986

Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies

Dr. Patricia Baird October 1989

Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing

Pierre Lortie

Royal Commissions

November 1993

November 1989 February 1992

Report of the Royal Commission on the Economic Union and Development Prospects for Canada

24.4

Proceed With Care

29.5

Reforming Electoral Democracy

20.7

Table 2.1 Major Policy-Formulating Royal Commissions since 1960

cont’d

Appointment Date

Name of Commission

Chairperson(s)

Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples

Ren6 Dussault and September 1991 Georges Erasmus

Termination Date

Title of Report

Total Cost (millions of dollars)5*'

Not yet published

Not yet available

"Ouasi" Roval Commissions Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry

Justice Thomas Berger

March 1974

April 1977

Northern Frontier Northern Homeland

4.7

Canadian Panel on Violence Against Women

Patricia Marshall and Marthe Asselin Vaillancourt

August 1991

August 1993

Changing the Landscape: Ending Violence, Achieving Equality

10.0

Source:

Date on expenditures taken from the Public Accounts

* current dollars in year of termination.

How Ottawa Spends

NOTES The constructive comments of Peter Aucoin and F. Leslie Seidle on an earlier version of this chapter are appreciated. 1

2

3

4

5

62

Liora Salter and Debra Slaco, Public Inquiries in Canada (Ottawa: Science Council of Canada, background study #47, 1981), p. 21. Peter Aucoin, “Contributions of Commissions” in A. Paul Pross et al., eds., Commissions o f Inquiry (Toronto: Carswell, 1990), pp. 202-05 com­ pares royal commissions to other policy-making institutions. For a discussion of this dual aspect of representation, see Jane Jenson, “A Political Economy Approach to Interest Representation” in Alain-G. Gagnon and A. Brian Tanguay, eds., Democracy with Justice: Essays in Honour of K.Z. Paltiel (Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1992), pp. 239-43. For a detailed discussion of the emergence of the royal commission as a site of intellectual debate and policy framing, see Neil Bradford, Creation and Constraint: Economic Ideas and Politics in Canada (Unpublished PhD dissertation, Department of Political Science, Carleton University, 1994). Academic analysis of royal commissions as policy bodies enjoyed a high point in the 1960s, in response to what was seen as the “golden age” of royal commissions during the Diefenbaker and Pearson years. See V. Seymour Wilson, “The Role of Royal Commissions and Task Forces” in G. Bruce Doern and Peter Aucoin, The Structures of PolicyMaking in Canada (Toronto: Macmillan, 1971), p. 115. Afterwards they received much less attention, until the Macdonald Commission sparked renewed interest, generating inter alia, Pross et al., Commis­ sions of Inquiry. In thinking about royal commissions and their ideas I am indebted to the work of two colleagues in particular—Neil Bradford and Liora Salter. While they are frequently cited throughout this chapter, I also want explicitly to acknowledge here the extent to which my thinking in general has been shaped by theirs. In this chapter, I am adopting a position shared by, among others, Salter and Bradford, that royal commissions potentially and, in fact, often have a “radical” impact and are sources of innovation. Our stance distinguishes us from those like Wilson and Simeon, who have stressed the lack of radical potential in commissions. See Wilson’s description of commissions as “incrementalist” (“The Role of Royal Commissions,” p. 123) and Richard Simeon’s claim that, “perhaps the best that can be expected is that [royal commissions] collect, and then express, a shifting conventional wisdom, tilting it in one or other way, but working well within the bounds of the existing order,” “Inside the Macdonald Commission,” Studies in Political Economy, 22 (Spring

Royal Commissions

6

7

8

9

1987), pp. 169-70. Liora Salter, “The Two Contradictions in Public Inquiries” in Pross et al., Commissions of Inquiry, is an explicit response to Simeon. For another important argument about innovation and royal commissions, see Neil Bradford, “Ideas, Institutions, and Innovation: Economic Policy in Canada and Sweden” in Stephen Brooks and Alain-G. Gagnon, eds., Social Scientists, Policy Commu­ nities and the State (New York: Praeger, 1994). Some of the differences in perspective among these authors may follow from the particular royal commission that serves as their model. My analysis has obviously been shaped by what I see as the radical potential for reform of Canadian democracy in the Final Report of the Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing, which I have observed most closely (albeit from the outside, as a contract researcher, participant in several research symposia and member of the Research Advisory Committee). See Alexandra Dobrowolsky and Jane Jenson, “Reforming the Parties: Prescriptions for Democracy” in Susan D. Phillips, ed., How Ottawa Spends 1993-94: A More Demo­ cratic Canada ...? (Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1993), pp. 4381. In a systematic count of royal commissions, John Courtney found that between 1870 and 1966, the average annual resort to royal commissions per decade had ranged from 1.2 (1870-79) to 6.7 (1910-19). “In Defence of Royal Commissions,” Canadian Public Administration, 12, 2 (Summer 1969), pp. 198-212. The costs of the more narrowly focused commissions, not discussed here, ranged from quite inexpensive to very costly. For example, the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Marketing Practices for the Potato Industry in Eastern Canada spent $281,000 in seven months in 1984, while the Royal Commission on National Passenger Transpor­ tation spent $16.7 million from 1989 to 1992. I have excluded the Citizens’ Forum on Canada’s Future (the Spicer Commission) despite the attention that it attracted in the recent constitutional debates because, as a “ventilating” forum, it produced only findings and suggestions which were “far from a road-map for Canada’s future.” Leslie A. Pal and F. Leslie Seidle, “Constitutional Politics 1990-92: The Paradox of Participation” in Phillips, How Ottawa Spends, 1993-94, p. 151. With rising visibility as well as ballooning costs of research, another innovation occurred: research studies were published separately from the commission reports themselves. The Royal Commission on Gov­ ernment Organization (the Glassco Commission), which reported in 1963, was the first to follow this now widely accepted practice. J.E. Hodgetts, “Should Canada Be De-Commissioned? A Commoner’s View of Royal Commissions,” Queen’s Quarterly, 70 (Winter 1964), 63

How Ottawa Spends

10

11

12 13

14 15

16 17 18

19

64

pp. 484-86. In each case, most volumes contained several research studies. For example, the RCERPF commissioned over 100 separate studies. See Pierre Lortie, “Foreword” and Peter Aucoin, “Introduction,” pub­ lished in each volume of the research studies (published by Dundum Press, Toronto, 1991-92). J.E. Hodgetts, “Public Power and Ivory Power” in Trevor Lloyd and Jack McLeod, eds., Agenda 1970: Proposals for a Creative Politics (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1968), p. 273. A similar chronology is given in Fred Schindeler and C. Michael Lanphier, “Social Science Research and Participatory Democracy in Canada,” Canadian Public Administration, 12, 4 (Winter 1969), pp. 485-86. Hodgetts, “Should Canada Be De-Commissioned?” p. 483. Both Hodgetts, “Public Power and Ivory Power,” p. 277 and Schindeler and Lanphier, “Social Science Research,” p. 485, wonder whether taxpayers’ dollars are well spent on such research. It is not always easy, however, to determine how much of the cost of a royal commission is for research. See Marie-Claude Lortie, “Le budget nebuleux de la commission Baird,” La Presse [Montreal], December 9, 1993. Wilson, “The Role of Royal Commissions,” p. 114ff, assesses the cost-benefit debate in the 1960s. Social Science Federation of Canada, Research at Royal Commissions: Guidelines and Procedures (Ottawa, 1993), p. 5. This is a major criticism made by Daniel Drache and Duncan Cameron, “Introduction” in The Other Macdonald Report: The Consensus on Canada’s Future that the Macdonald Commission Left Out (Toronto: Lorimer, 1985), pp. x-xvi. See also Simeon, “Inside the Macdonald Commission,” p. 171. Simeon, “Inside the Macdonald Commission,” pp. 171-74. Courtney, “In Defence of Royal Commissions,” p. 200. Michael Oliver, “The Impact of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism on Constitutional Thought and Practice in Canada,” International Journal of Canadian Studies, 7-8 (Spring-Fall 1993), pp. 316-17. At the same time, however, Oliver points to the fact that the B & B Commission’s central notion of “equal partnership” did not take hold and organize subsequent discussions of relations between linguistic groups. It remained in the shadows of political discourse until partially resurrected as “asymmetrical federalism” or concepts of Quebec as a distinct society. This element of the argument is based on the notion that a universe of political discourse exists as an ideational space in which interests, as well as identities, take form. See Jane Jenson, “Gender and Reproduc­ tion: Or, Babies and the State” Studies in Political Economy, 20 (Summer 1986), pp. 9-45, and Jane Jenson, “Paradigms and Political

Royal Commissions

20

21 22

23

24

25 26 27 28

29

Discourse: Protective Legislation in France and the United States Before 1914,” Canadian Journal of Political Science, XXII, 2 (June 1989), pp. 235-58. For a similar discussion of the universe of political discourse, see Peter A. Hall, “Conclusion” in his The Political Power of Economic Ideas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 383ff. Ideas, such as the “equal partnership” of the B & B Commission may remain in the shadows, not fully realized, but rise to prominence later. This conceptualization of a paradigm is modelled on the approach of Thomas Kuhn as well as the notion of paradigm in the study of grammar. See Jenson, “Paradigms and Political Discourse,” pp. 23839, especially note 4. For somewhat similar discussions in the policy literature, see G. Bruce Doern and Richard W. Phidd, Canadian Public Policy: Ideas, Structure, Process, 2d ed. (Scarborough: Nelson, 1992), pp. 41-42, which draws on the work of Ronald Manzer and Peter A. Hall, “Policy Paradigms, Social Learning, and the State: The Case of Economic Policymaking in Britain,” Comparative Politics, 25 (April 1993), pp. 275-96. For a detailed analysis of these two commissions, see Bradford, Creation and Constraint. Canada, Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing, Reforming Electoral Democracy, vol. 1 (Ottawa: Supply and Services Canada, 1991), p. 1. For a discussion of the report of the RCERPF, including its “silence” about certain aspects of this representational crisis, see Dobrowolsky and Jenson, “Reforming the Parties.” Monique B6gin, “The Royal Commission on the Status of Women in Canada: Twenty Years Later” in Constance Backhouse and David H. Flaherty, eds., Challenging Times: The Women’s Movement in Canada and the United States (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s Uni­ versity Press, 1992), pp. 21-38. Canada, Reforming Electoral Democracy, vol, 1, p. 8. Oliver, “The Impact of the Royal Commission,” p. 316. Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, Public Hearings: Overview of the First Round (Ottawa, October 1992), p. 6. Canada, Report o f the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, vol. 1 (Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 1967), pp. 77-80. On the collapse of the post-war paradigm, see Jane Jenson, “Citizenship and Equity: Variations Across Time and In Space” in Janet Hiebert, ed., Political Ethics: A Canadian Perspective vol. 12 of the Research Studies of the RCERPF (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1992). Canada, Report of the Royal Commission on the Economic Union and Development Prospects for Canada, vol. 1, (Ottawa: Supply and Services Canada, 1985), p. xii. It is interesting to note the extent to 65

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which the RCERPF, which worked after Macdonald and with full awareness of the winds of neo-liberalism sweeping the country, did not adopt a single-mindedly individualist approach to representation. Not only were groups’ needs—women for example—taken into account, but the anti-statism of neo-liberal formulations was rejected. Dobrowolsky and Jenson, “Reforming the Parties,” pp. 60-61. Hall, “Conclusion,” p. 362. As Hall writes: “Keynesian ideas did not simply reflect group interests or material conditions. They had the power to change the perceptions a group had of its own interests, and they made possible new courses of action that changed the material world itself.” “Conclusion,” p. 369. Salter, “The Two Contradictions,” p. 180. Simeon, “Inside the Macdonald Commission,” p. 173. Wilson, “The Role of Royal Commissions,” p. 118. G. Bruce Doern, “The Role of Royal Commissions in the General Policy Process and in Federal-Provincial Relations,” Canadian Public Administration, 10, 4 (December 1967), pp. 417-18. As Alan Cairns says: “Each commission commences with a clean slate. There are no bureaucratic memories and no old hands to educate newcomers in the genre’s workings. Thus, each stage in the life of a royal commission is a new challenge, the response to which is not preplanned or predictable.” “Reflections on Commission Research” in Pross et al., Commissions of Inquiry, p. 90. Jane Jenson, “Learning by Doing: Decision-Making in Royal Commis­ sions” (Internal report to the RCAP, Ottawa, August 1992). Aucoin sees the public, written report and published research studies as one of the distinguishing characteristics of royal commissions, “The Contributions of Commissions,” p. 198. Coherence is not always, of course, the outcome. The Macdonald Commission Report was quite uneven in its quality, lacking even a complete Table of Contents. For a description, see Anthony Scott, “The Macdonald Report: The Reviews in Review,” Canadian Public Policy, XII, supplement (February 1986), pp. 2-3. In discussing innovation here, I am relying on the arguments made in Harold Clarke et al., Absent Mandate: Interpreting Change in Cana­ dian Elections, 2d ed. (Toronto: Gage, 1991), pp. 10-14. See, for example, Doern, “The Role of Royal Commissions,” p. 419. The 1960s literature stressed this point, in large part because the Diefenbaker government both mistrusted the bureaucracy and ap­ pointed many royal commissions. The argument has been less prevalent lately. Increasingly, however, this representational responsibility is being recognized, and commissions publish, as part of their reports, excerpts from their public consultations. See, for example, Canada, Reforming

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Electoral Democracy: What Canadians Told Us, vol. 4 (Ottawa: Supply and Services Canada, 1991). Even the Baird Commission, which provided only a few days for public hearings (November 11-29, 1990), published a summary of these presentations. See Royal Com­ mission on New Reproductive Technologies, The Public Hearings (Ottawa, 1991). Earlier commissions usually published only a list of those appearing before them and the briefs presented. Canada, Reforming Electoral Democracy, vol. 4, p. xi. Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, Framing the Issues: Discus­ sion Paper #1 (Ottawa, October 1992), p. 1. See Jane Arscott, ‘“A Job Well Begun ...’: Representation, Electoral Reform and Women’s Interests” in Frangois-Pierre Gingras, ed., Gender and Politics in Contemporary Canada (Toronto: Oxford, forthcoming). This discussion is drawn from Susan D. Phillips, “Political Strategies of the Canadian Women’s Movement: Who’s Listening? Who’s Speak­ ing?” (Ottawa: School of Public Administration, Carleton University, Discussion Paper Series, 1994). Drache and Cameron, eds., “Introduction,” pp. x-xvi. For a detailed examination of the rejection by the government—and other partisan decision-makers—of the medicine prescribed by the RCERPF, see Dobrowolsky and Jenson, “Reforming the Parties,” pp. 60-64. Even the Macdonald Commission seems to have “gotten out of hand.” Scott, in “The Reviews in Review,” pp. 1-2, states that the government intended the Commission to focus on the “economic union” part of its name, while the Commission itself chose to address “development prospects,” as well as the short-run questions of unem­ ployment and inflation. See also Wilson, “The Role of Royal Commis­ sions,” p. 119. David R. Cameron provides a detailed report on a task force that might have been a royal commission—the Task Force on Canadian Unity (the Pepin-Robarts Task Force)—and the way in which it became much more than its creators intended. “Not Spicer and Not the B & B: Reflections of an Insider on the Workings of the PepinRobarts Task Force on Canadian Unity,” International Journal of Canadian Studies, 7-8 (Spring-Fall 1993), pp. 334-35. Indeed, in contrast to its contemporaries and certainly later commis­ sions, the RCSW did not even have a research director. Its research was co-ordinated by the Secretary through the secretariat. Hodgetts, “Public Power and Ivory Power,” p. 271. Peter Aucoin shares this view, when he describes the work of policy-formulating commissions as “applied social science.” See “The Contribution of Commissions,” p. 198. Scott, “The Reviews in Review,” p. 2. Doern and Phidd, Canadian Public Policy, p. 260, document this gap. 67

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The Macdonald Commission—a large body with 13 members—had a number of experienced economists but only one person who might pass for a constitutional expert, despite the attention to constitutional matters that the government expected. Scott, “The Review of the Reviews,” p. 1. The RCERPF initially had at least two (of five) members—one of whom subsequently left the Commission—who were acknowledged to have been involved in party fund-raising. Nonethe­ less, at the time of his appointment, the Chairperson had no recogniz­ able expertise in the field. See Hugh Winsor, “Tory Members Domi­ nate Electoral Reform Panel,” The Globe and Mail [Toronto], Novem­ ber 16, 1989, p. A 14. Innis Christie and A. Paul Pross, “Introduction” in Pross et al., Commissions of Inquiry, p. 12, have a relatively minimalist under­ standing of the role of hearings. However, Salter and Aucoin, in the same volume, see the hearing process as more important. The contrasting practice was that of the Macdonald Commission, which commissioned “generic research,” primarily in an effort to obtain synthetic state-of-the-field or survey essays. Cairns, “Reflections on Commission Research,” p. 98. Dobrowolsky and Jenson, “Reforming the Parties,” p. 52 and espe­ cially note 22, p. 74. Numerous commentators have stressed the importance of an analytical framework in the work of a commission. The difficulties experienced by the Macdonald Commission indicate the costs of skipping this step. According to Alan Cairns, “for the first two-thirds of its existence there was a pervasive uncertainty about what would be the ultimate focus of attention of the Commissioners,” “Reflections on Commission Re­ search,” p. 90. It is important to note that the confusion was not about what the Commission would eventually recommend; it did not even know where to direct its attention. See also Simeon, who wrote of the same commission, “at least initially—and on some absolutely vital questions, such as free trade, almost until the end—everything seemed up for grabs.” “Inside the Macdonald Commission,” p. 169. Cameron describes this process quite clearly, although he is not describing a royal commission per se. “The research function ... was ... to collect and display relevant information, synthesize and represent significant findings and expert opinion in key areas, arrange for direct consultation with key people and present coherent policy alternatives to the Commissioners. Executing this mandate brought the research staff into fairly close contact with the hearing process.” “Reflections of an Insider,” p. 338. Even if the research staff actually wrote substantial chunks of the Report, they were not involved in co-ordinating the final document. They had little role in the dialogue—or the struggle for coherence—that

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writing the final report involves. Cairns concludes that the constraints imposed by the decision to publish the research “paradoxically” increased the autonomy of the commis­ sioners. Cairns, “Reflections on Commission Research,” p. 97. Obviously, this is not a sufficient explanation for commissioners’ autonomy from the research because the RCERPF followed similar procedures for peer review and publishing, yet did manage to engage the Commission in a dialogue with the research findings. One route by which this happened was through research seminars, both large and small. Another was that the research staff who drafted the Report attended all meetings of the Commission when text was under discus­ sion. Jenson, “Learning by Doing”; and Aucoin, “Introduction,” published in all the research studies. Cairns, “Reflections on Commission Research,” pp. 93-94. An addi­ tional indicator of the extent to which the Macdonald Commission was “de-linked” from the research is provided by the way research is used in the Report. First, “The Research Program,” the most elaborate of any royal commission to date, received no more than a paragraph of mention in the Preface to the Report. A comparison with the RCERPF or the B & B Commission, both of which displayed much more enthusiasm for their own research, is instructive. Second, the Macdonald Commission gave very few citations to its own research in the Report. See Scott, “The Reviews in Review,” pp. 1-2. Salter, “The Two Contradictions,” p. 179. The concern that Aboriginal peoples have been studied to death— without generating reliable knowledge—begins and informs the RCAP’s published Integrated Research Plan (Ottawa, July 1993). The Ethical Guidelines appear as Appendix B. Because the RCAP is still in mid­ inquiry, it is possible to discuss only the novelties in the research process. Its whole learning process, linking research, public hearings and commissioners’ roles awaits further analysis. For general discussions of the representational aspects of this resort to particular forms of technological knowledge, see Charles S. Maier, “Introduction,” in Maier, ed., Changing Boundaries of the Political: Essays on the Evolving Balance Between the State and Society, Public and Private in Europe (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 4 and 15. See also Jenson, “Citizenship and Equity,” pp. 212 and 215-17; and A. Paul Pross, Group Politics and Public Policy, 2d ed. (Toronto: Oxford, 1992), pp. 48-65. See Susan D. Phillips, “A More Democratic Canada ...?” in Phillips, How Ottawa Spends 1993-94, pp. 6-8.

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How Ottawa Bends: Plastic Words and the Politics of Social Morality Stephen B rooks

Resume : Au cours des demieres anndes, c’est dans le domaine de la morality sociale que se sont faites certaines innovations trfcs significatives en matiere de politiques. Cette Evolution est due en grande partie &1’influence de ce qu’Uwe Porksen appelle les “mots plastiques.” Le discours politique en matifcre de morality sociale a ete colonist par ces termes pseudo-scientifiques dont les connotations morales empechent un d£bat ouvert. Je soutiens que le vocabulaire employ^ par les administrateurs, les joumalistes et les politiciens pour d