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 Preface    vii

This book introduces the basic issues in the study of public policy in Canada. Six of
its 12 chapters are devoted to the examination of particular policy fields. This approach
reflects my belief that public policy is best introduced through the study of what govern-
ments actually do and the consequences of their actions. To this end, the text surveys
a range of policy fields, from fiscal policy to the environment. The selection will not
satisfy all tastes, but instructors can easily supplement this book with additional read-
ings on any matters that they believe require a fuller treatment.
Professors in Canada have a number of options when it comes to public policy text-
books. This book examines public policy from both a theoretical and practical stand-
point. In addition to examining specific policy fields, each chapter attempts to bring
real-world policy-making into consideration. Each chapter provides a break-out box
that provides a specific policy issue or event that highlight’s the message of the text. In
some cases I present specific government policy or reports; in other cases, I use news
stories to highlight the relevance of public policy to our daily lives. In addition to the
information boxes, each chapter provides some questions for discussion and further
reflection for students. Other features of the book include end-of-chapter definitions of
the key terms used and a list of websites to aid in the examination of public policy issues.
Although the principal emphasis of this seventh edition is on policy fields, the more
general matters that must be a part of any introduction to public policy are addressed
in Part I. Chapter 1 examines some of the fundamental concepts in the study of public
policy. Chapter 2 is devoted to theoretical frameworks used to explain policy, in par-
ticular, the pluralist, public choice, and class analysis models. Chapter 3 analyzes the
context of policy-making, focusing on the ways in which core values, Canada’s ties to
the United States, regional divisions, and especially globalization affect policy-making.
This edition marks the introduction of a new chapter, Chapter 4, on agenda setting and
policy formation. Policy implementation—the stage of the policy process that reminds
us of Murphy’s Law (“If anything can go wrong it will”)—is the subject of Chapter 5.
Policy evaluation is described in Chapter 6 looking at how the government approaches
evaluation and examines how this work is undertaken.
In Part II of this seventh edition, the chapters on macroeconomic policy, social
policy, health care, family policy, Indigenous policy, and environmental policy have all
been updated.
It has again been a pleasure working with Oxford University Press. This edition
has seen changes on the editorial as well as the authorial front. Lauren Wing moved the
book from review through development, and Wendy Yano undertook the painstaking
job of editing the text. Even so, all mistakes or errors remain mine.

Lydia Miljan
Kingsville, Ontario
February 2017
 Part I
Understanding Public Policy
 Chapter 1

Basic Concepts in the Study

of Public Policy

Introduction
Canadians are used to thinking of their country as the world’s best. Indeed, p ­ oliticians—
or at least those in power—regularly boast that this is so, and as evidence they point to
the fact that Canada frequently ranks in the top five of the United Nations Human
Development Index. Canadians swelled with pride after hosting the Winter Olympics
in Vancouver, where Canadian athletes broke the record for the most gold medals won
at home.
Of course, it is flattering to anyone’s ego to hear that he or she is the best. Can-
adians can hardly be blamed if, after being told countless times that they are the envy
of the world, many accept the claim at face value. But is complacent pride justified? It
depends on whom you ask. A Quebec separatist would answer no. So too would many
in ­Canada’s Indigenous community. Union leaders are likely to complain that working
people have seen their rights diminished in many provinces and their incomes and job
security eroded across the country. Many environmentalists worry that, after several
years of declining commitment on the part of government, it will take a significant
effort just to slow the pace of environmental degradation. Spokespersons for the femin-
ist movement argue that complacency is far from justified when so much remains to be
done to eliminate gender inequality. And anti-poverty activists insist that the extent of
poverty in Canada is reason for shame, not pride.
Canada has so often been described as a society of whiners that many will dismiss
criticisms such as these as the predictable bellyaching of special interest groups and pro-
fessional malcontents. Moreover, it must be admitted that by any comparative standard
rooted in the real world—as opposed to some utopia—Canada is a pretty good place to
live. In economic terms, Canada probably fared the best of any industrialized nation
during the 2008–9 recession.1 Not only was the recession short-lived in Canada (offi-
cially lasting only two quarters), it was less intense than in many other countries that
faced enormous contractions in their housing sectors and sustained almost catastrophic
losses in employment.
 Chapter 1 Basic Concepts in the Study of Public Policy 3

Canada is not perfect, however, and those who dare to question the “best-country-
in-the-world” boast should not be written off as ill-mannered party-poopers. Consider
the following:

• As of 2012, Canadians earn on average about 84 per cent of what Americans

do. Since the early 1980s Canada’s productivity and real income growth have
lagged behind the United States’ by an average of 1 percentage point a year. This
means that the income gap between Canada and the United States is double
what it was in 1984. Real per capita incomes in Canada are $7,000 below those
in the United States.2
• Despite the cutbacks of the early 1990s and consistent surpluses from 1997
to 2008, the federal government is carrying a debt of more than $692 billion,
much of which is owed to foreigners. The debts of provinces and municipalities
add another $592 billion to this total. Debt-servicing costs for all Canadian
governments is $60.8 billion a year—the equivalent to the total spending on
public education for the country.3
• Canadians requiring some form of elective surgery—hip replacement or cata-
ract removal, for example—frequently have to wait several months. In some
communities it can take a year or longer to see certain specialists. Although
governments have begun to address this problem, much remains to be done if
wait times are to be reduced to clinically acceptable levels.
• On a per capita basis, Canada is one of the world’s top spenders on education.
The results of that investment are mixed: In 2003, an international comparison
of students’ scores on math, science, and reading tests showed improvement
over the 1999 scores. In 2009, Canada was ranked sixth in the areas of reading,
mathematics, and science, well above many other Western nations. However,
in 2012, Canadian students saw a slight reduction in its score in mathematics,
reading, and science. While Canada is still above the Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development (OECD) average, its ranks has slipped to 13th.4

Like every other country, Canada has problems. That these problems are minor
alongside those of Bangladesh or Afghanistan does not make them any less urgent for
those whose lives they affect. Public policies are the actions taken by governments and
their agents to that end, and they are the subject of this book.

What Is Public Policy?

One of the most frequently cited definitions of public policy is that given by American
political scientist Thomas Dye. According to Dye, public policy is “whatever govern-
ments choose to do or not to do.”5 Policy, then, involves conscious choices that lead to
deliberate action—the passage of a law, the spending of money, an official speech or ges-
ture, or some other observable act—or inaction. No one would disagree that a concrete
act like the passage of a law counts as policy. But can inaction reasonably be described as
policy? The answer depends on the circumstances in which the failure to act takes place
4   Part I Understanding Public Policy

and whether the situation that action would have addressed is regarded as problematic.
In some respects we must distinguish between a failure to act and a choice not to act.
Consider, for example, the case of toxic chemicals. For decades carcinogenic poly-
chlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) were used, stored, and disposed of with little care for
safety. There was no public policy on the handling of these deadly chemicals until it was
realized that there was reason for concern. Clearly, this was an example of government
failure to act as opposed to a choice not to act. When the public became aware of the
cancer-causing properties of PCBs, their use, transportation, and elimination became
policy issues. Government inaction before then obviously had health consequences for
those who were exposed to PCBs and allowed for the accumulation of stockpiles of PCBs,
which are regarded today as the most widely known and feared of toxic chemicals. But
this was not deliberate inaction. There was no public policy on PCBs, just as there was
no policy on the production and handling of many other industrial chemicals, because
there was no significant public awareness that a problem existed. It makes no sense to
speak of policy when an issue has not yet been formulated in problematic terms. Once it
has, however, inaction by policy-makers becomes a deliberate policy choice.
In the case of PCBs, the risks to human health are not disputed, and once they
became known to the public and policy-makers the question was not whether a prob-
lem requiring government action actually existed, but what measures were appro-
priate to deal with it. It often happens, however, that there is no agreement on the
need for government action. Consider the case of income differences between male-
and female-dominated occupations. Until a few decades ago it was considered quite
normal that secretaries, receptionists, nurses, and child-care workers were generally
paid less than men working in occupations demanding fewer skills, qualifications, and
responsibilities. Such disparities were understood to be simply the product of voluntary
occupational choices and the laws of supply and demand at work in labour markets. But
as feminist theory developed during the 1960s and 1970s, inequalities in the workplace
became contested terrain. Differences that previously had been either overlooked or
explained away as normal and inevitable were interpreted by feminist critics as evidence
of systemic discrimination and gender bias in labour markets. These critics proposed
that governments step in and close the earnings gap by introducing pay equity poli-
cies that would require employers to pay employees in female-dominated occupations
wages equal to those earned in male-dominated occupations characterized by similar
skill requirements, qualifications, and responsibilities. Across North America, many
governments have enacted such policies for their public-sector workforces; a few have
extended these policies to cover private-sector employers.
In this case, unlike that of PCBs, no consensus exists that the problem is one that war-
rants government intervention. Nevertheless, the widespread awareness of gender-based
pay differences, and the controversy surrounding them, marks a significant change from
the situation a few decades ago. Today, when a government resists demands to adopt or
extend pay equity policies, its resistance must be viewed as a deliberate choice. This was not
the case in the days before the gender gap in remuneration was conceptualized as a problem.
Conscious choice, therefore, must be a part of any definition of public policy. But is
policy necessarily what policy-makers say it is? In other words, if we want to determine
 Chapter 1 Basic Concepts in the Study of Public Policy 5

what public policy is on some issue, should we direct our attention to official govern-
ment pronouncements, or to the actual record of what has and has not been achieved?
In politics, as in life generally, no statement should be taken at face value. Vagueness
and ambiguity are often deliberate and are always part of the recipe for political longev-
ity in democratic political systems. To determine what actually constitutes public policy
in some field we need to look carefully at both official claims and concrete actions, and
we must remember that actions often speak louder than words.
At the same time it is important to keep in mind that even a government’s more
sincere efforts can misfire; sometimes policy fails to achieve the intended goal, and may
even aggravate the situation it was intended to improve. Consider rent-control poli-
cies. C­ ritics have long argued that, in practice, such policies hurt the lower-income
groups they are intended to benefit because they discourage developers and invest-
ors from building new rental accommodations for the low end of the market. With
rent control, housing is kept affordable by government regulations that limit what a
landlord can charge. Without the possibility of charging more, however, there is no
incentive to invest in new housing. In addition, landlords soon find it too costly to main-
tain their buildings properly. As a consequence, the supply of housing units does not
keep pace with demand, and low-income earners may not be able to find a place to
live. In a market not limited by government regulations, the dwindling of supply would
result in price increases, which in turn would lead property developers and investors
to create more housing. As more housing became available, prices would be adjusted
to suit both low- and high-income earners. In a rent-control situation, however, the
dwindling supply does not lead to rent increases. As a consequence, buildings are not
kept in good repair, and tenants must either make improvements on their own or live in
run-down accommodation. Under these circumstances, are we justified in saying that
government housing policy favours the less affluent?
Even more common than policy misfires are cases in which government action
simply fails to accomplish its intended goals. In fact, a program, law, or regulation hardly
ever “solves” a problem in the sense of eliminating the conditions that inspired demands
for action in the first place. When a problem does disappear, the reason often has less
to do with government action than with changing societal conditions—­including the
emergence of new problems that push old ones below the surface of public conscious-
ness. We have mentioned the case of official pronouncements that do not coincide with
the observable actions of government, or that bear little resemblance to the facts of
whatever situation they ostensibly address. When this happens (and it frequently does),
we should not jump to the cynical conclusion that policy is just “sound and fury signi-
fying nothing.” Gestures, symbols, and words are important components of the political
process. They are often valued in their own right, and their capacity both to reconcile
and to divide should not be underestimated.
Since the ill-fated Meech Lake Accord (1987), which proposed the constitutional
recognition of Quebec as a “distinct society,” the question of whether and how Quebec’s
distinctive character should be recognized has been a source of division in Canadian
politics. This division resurfaced around the failed Charlottetown Accord (1992) and re-
mained a subject of debate, prompting Ottawa and some of the provincial governments
6   Part I Understanding Public Policy

to continue searching for a constitutional formula that would satisfy French-speaking

Quebecers’ demands for recognition without offending the majority of Canadians who
insisted on a single Canada and equal status for all provinces and citizens. The problem
was not so much that non-Quebecers believed constitutional recognition of Quebec as
a distinct society would have material consequences for which the rest of Canada would
have to pay. Rather, they rejected the idea of distinct-society status for Quebec and the
recognition of this special status in the Constitution. As in the material world, satis-
fying the aspirations of one group may mean denying those of another in the realm of
what Raymond Breton calls the “symbolic order”.
The question of Quebec’s constitutional status became a subject of policy debate
in the months leading up to the 2006 federal Liberal leadership contest. Michael ­Ignatieff,
the front-runner, had thought that the party needed to decide on a policy to deal with
the challenges coming from the separatist Bloc Québécois, and told the media that in
his view “Quebec is a nation.” The issue threatened to divide the Liberal Party when the
Bloc served notice that it would submit for debate a motion stating that “­Quebecers form
a nation.”6 Before that debate could take place, however, Conservative Prime Minister
Stephen Harper amended the motion, proposing instead “that this House recognize
that the Québécois form a nation within a united Canada.”7 This new motion passed,
and Quebecers were given a form of symbolic recognition without any constitutional
change. While the question of Quebec’s nationhood is far from closed, this episode
showed some desire on the part of parliamentarians to provide the symbolic recognition
that had been lacking in the past. Yet, symbolic recognition can go only so far. Both the
federal Conservatives and Liberals were severely rebuked by the Quebec electorate in the
2011 election, with the NDP picking up the vast majority of seats. That the Liberals were
able to secure 40 seats in the 2015 campaign shows the volatility of the electorate and
the challenge for the new government to keep Quebec in confederation. Some of that
pressure had been seen in early decisions of the government to continue to subsidize
Bombardier (see Box 1.1).

The Agenda and Discourse of Public Policy

There is also a more general sense in which the symbols, gestures, and words manipu-
lated by policy-makers are important. They constitute the political agenda, defining
what is relevant in public life, how issues are understood, whose views should be taken
seriously, and what sort of “solutions” are tenable. A statement by a political leader, a
law, or the media’s coverage of a situation, event, or policy demand all serve to affirm
the relevance of a problem and the values and conflicts associated with it. Political issues
and policy problems are not inevitable and inherent; rather, they are constructed out of
the conflicting values and terminologies that different groups put forward when they are
competing for something that cannot be shared to satisfy all of them fully. These issues
and problems are “constructed” in the sense that they do not exist apart from the words
and symbols used to describe them. Whether we even recognize them as political issues
and policy problems, and what comes to mind when they are presented to our atten-
tion, depends on the particular forces that shape the political agenda in a given society.
 Chapter 1 Basic Concepts in the Study of Public Policy 7

These forces change over time, and so, therefore, does the political agenda. As A ­ merican
political scientist Murray Edelman observes, “conditions accepted as inevitable or un-
problematic may come to be seen as problems; and damaging conditions may not be
defined as political issues at all.”8 Once we accept that the political agenda is not an
inevitable product of social and economic conditions, we are confronted with the ques-
tion of why some of these conditions come to be formulated as problems and others do
not. To answer that question we need to look at the various agents of cultural l­ earning—
family, schools, mass media, the workplace—that together generate the ideological par-
ameters of our society. To understand the practical importance of cultural learning,
consider the following examples:

• In liberal democratic societies like Canada and the United States, we (most of
us, anyway) are taught that achievement and opportunities are relatively open
to those with ability and a willingness to work hard. Consequently, most of us
are not seriously troubled by the fact that the bottom 20 per cent of Canada’s
population accounts for about half of 1 per cent of the country’s wealth, while
the richest 20 per cent controls some 70 per cent of the wealth.9 In a different
ideological setting, however, such inequality might be perceived as a problem.
• Similarly, until a couple of decades ago the existence of extensive and profound
differences in the career opportunities, incomes, and social roles of men and
women were not generally seen to be a problem. As cultural attitudes have
changed, the unequal social conditions of males and females have become a
prominent item on the political agendas of virtually all industrialized dem-
ocracies. Gender politics and the policy debates that surround issues such
as abortion, pay equity, affirmative action for women, pornography, publicly
subsidized daycare, and sexual harassment are constructed out of the argu-
ments, claims, and demands for action put forward by women’s organizations
and their spokespersons, and the counterarguments, claims, and demands of
others who feel compelled to respond to their definition of the problem. The
same can be said of any policy issue. What emerges from such exchanges is a
policy discourse—an unfolding tapestry of words and symbols that structures
thinking and action—constructed out of the multiple definitions (or denials)
of the problem.

The capacity to influence this discourse is more than half the battle, as every group,
organization, and individual with any political acumen knows. Hence, the first line of
attack is often through the mass media. Governments have a distinct advantage in the
struggle to shape the contours of policy discourse. Not only do they have virtually guar-
anteed access to the public through mass media coverage of official statements, press
conferences, and other orchestrated efforts to communicate a particular message (and
influence public opinion), but they also are able to tell their story through paid advertise-
ments (the federal government has for years been the largest advertiser in Canada) and
through government information services directed at households and organizations. This
advantage may be reduced in the future as the traditional blurring of the lines between
8   Part I Understanding Public Policy

the political party that forms the government and the government itself comes under
increasing scrutiny. In January 2006, Ontario adopted new legislation that prevents the
use of government advertising to promote the partisan interests of the political party in
power. The Government Advertising Act, 2004, requires that all paid government ad-
vertising go through the auditor general’s office to ensure that individual members of
provincial parliament (MPPs) or cabinet ministers are not promoted in government ads
and that those ads cannot be used to criticize other groups or political parties.

Box 1.1 Bombardier’s Been a Sound Partner

for Canadian Governments and Taxpayers
Sylvain Lévesque

Sylvain Lévesque is vice-president of corporate strategy at Bombardier Inc.

If you want to spark an animated discussion around Canadian dinner tables these
days, all you have to do is raise the topic of government investment in Bombardier.
Few subjects are more polarizing than government funding for private enterprise.
That’s because most people fall squarely on one side or the other of the ideological
divide on this issue.
As a member of Bombardier’s leadership team, I am completely at ease with this
debate. In truth, I encourage it. The only caveat? Let’s stick to the facts.
Bombardier, like many technology and aerospace companies in Canada, has
benefited from government investment and we’re grateful for the support. It has
helped Bombardier become one of the world’s largest train and airplane manufac-
turers. Many Canadians share my pride in knowing that our sons, daughters, and
neighbours build the products that connect the world in commerce and make global
travel more efficient.
Unfortunately, when the debate turns to the numbers (How much has already
been invested in Bombardier and what has been returned to taxpayers?), too much
misinformation has been injected into the conversation. So, let’s set the record straight.
Following the acquisitions of Canadair (1986) and de Havilland (1992), ­Bombardier
received a total investment of $586 million, excluding the C Series, from the federal,
Quebec, and Ontario governments. This investment supported the development of
innovative new aircraft, mainly the CRJ regional jets, the Global Express business jet,
and the Q400 turboprop aircraft. Thanks to the success of these programs, Bombar-
dier has returned $733 million, 125 per cent of the original investment, to its govern-
ment investors. This number will continue to grow as Bombardier delivers additional
aircraft into service in coming years.
We anticipate a similar repayment profile on the $467 million the governments
have invested in the C Series, with payments beginning later this year when the air-
craft enters into service.
 Chapter 1 Basic Concepts in the Study of Public Policy 9

The wisdom of additional C Series investment is currently the subject of much

heated debate. An important yet often overlooked aspect of this debate is the more
than $16 billion of tax payments generated since the initial Canadair investment. This
includes corporate, property, dividend, and employee taxes.
Combining the direct program repayments and taxes paid, Bombardier has been
the source of almost $17 billion in government revenue, a very favourable return for
the total $1 billion combined investments including the C Series. The return is even
greater when you include the billions of dollars of taxes paid by the thousands of
Canadian suppliers who support our activities.
Another fact often lost in the debate is that 93 per cent of Bombardier’s consoli-
dated revenue, and therefore its government tax payments, are generated outside
Canada. In other words, Bombardier injects significant foreign money into the C
­ anadian
economy, which creates jobs and helps to fund government spending programs.
Again, we welcome debate on future government investment. When having this
debate, however, let’s be honest about the economic impact of past investments on the
Canadian economy. In this case, the facts speak for themselves. Over the past three dec-
ades, Bombardier has proven to be a sound partner for governments and taxpayers alike.

Source: Sylvain Lévesque, Vice president of corporate strategy of Bombardier Inc.— Levesque,
“Bombardier’s Been a Sound Partner for Canadian Governments and Taxpayers,” Globe
and Mail, 12 April 2016, www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/rob-commentary/
bombardiers-been-a-sound-partner-for-canadian-governments-and-taxpayers/article29587501

The messages that governments communicate, particularly when they touch on

controversial issues, are often greeted with cynicism by the media and the public. But
they receive a hearing all the same. One reason for this is the official authority of their
source. Even if a governmental message is not considered credible, the government’s
capacity to influence the outcome of an issue means that the information it disseminates
is not likely to be ignored. Cynicism, vocal opposition, and unsympathetic media cover-
age are not enough to close off the channels that the government can use to influence
policy discourse. The 1989 introduction of the widely unpopular goods and services tax
(GST) was followed by an extensive campaign of paid advertising and information, sent
directly to businesses and households, intended to increase public acceptance of the GST.
Only a couple of years earlier Ottawa had spent tens of millions of dollars on brochures
and other information distributed to households “explaining” the benefits that the Free
Trade Agreement (FTA) with the United States would bring to Canada. The federal gov-
ernment spent $27 million to promote the economic action plan prior to the 2011 federal
election campaign.10 More recently Health Canada spent $1 million on an advertising
campaign to prevent the illicit use of marijuana, and the Public Health Agency of Canada
spent additional $3.5 million on vaccination awareness.11 It is never easy to determine
exactly what impact these policy advocacy campaigns have on public opinion. But the
very fact that such campaigns are conducted means that the information and arguments
they convey automatically become part of the policy discourse on an issue.
10   Part I Understanding Public Policy

Despite the formidable information and financial resources at their disposal, gov-
ernments are a long way from being able to control either the policy agenda or the policy
discourse that develops around a particular issue. Indeed, much of the time govern-
ments are on the defensive, reacting to the claims, demands, and interpretations put for-
ward by opposition political parties, societal groups, and the media. Whose “problems”
reach the political agenda, and whose arguments, interpretations, and proposals are
taken seriously in the policy-making process, is largely determined by the social power
of those advancing them. In fact, the capacity to influence policy discourse would seem
to be one barometer by which the power of different interests can be measured.
On the other hand, governments can also use the demands of societal groups
to help them put forward policies and positions to the public. The emergence of the
­National Action Committee on the Status of Women (NAC), for instance, can be traced
directly to government funding programs. In the 1970s, Pierre Trudeau’s Liberal gov-
ernment wanted to pursue the agenda of a “just society”. One policy plank of the just
society was the equality of women. But Canadian women at the time had not organized
into a cohesive lobby. Therefore, Ottawa helped to create and fund the NAC , which used
the resources provided by the federal government to lobby that same government for
women’s equality and eventually led the fight to ensure that women were specifically
enumerated in the 1982 Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This is a classic example of
how a government can establish and sustain a lobby group for the specific purpose of
lending credibility to its own policy agenda by creating a favourable climate of public
opinion.
This kind of manipulation notwithstanding, politics in the capitalist democracies
is open-ended enough that ideas and reforms clearly not favoured by the powerful have
often been woven into the fabric of policy discourse and institutionalized through public
policies. One would be hard-pressed to explain the policy successes of the women’s
movement, and the acceptance of arguments associated with gender-based differences
in such matters as employment and pay, from the standpoint of ­dominant-class interests.
Or consider the entry of Indigenous people, people from visible minorities, and people
with disabilities into modern political discourse. Even though these groups operate far
from the centres of social and economic power, they have been able to influence the pol-
itical agenda and the actions of governments. Moreover, some policy issues can reach
the public agenda without the backing of powerful social and economic interests. For
example, therapies for treating the mentally ill or approaches for dealing with criminals
and victims are policy domains in which scientific expertise may carry greater weight
than usual because the issues involved do not capture the sustained attention of the
public. We should not assume, therefore, an automatic and perfect correspondence be-
tween the pecking order of social and economic interests in society and the ideas that
make it onto the political agenda and find expression in state actions.
Policy discourse is not, however, a free-for-all in which every voice has an equal
opportunity to be heard. It has become popular to speak of systemic bias, a term
intended to capture the selectiveness of the policy system. Some points of view, it is
claimed, never get articulated, and some policy outcomes are virtually precluded by
the biases inherent in the cultural and institutional fabric of society. At one level this
 Chapter 1 Basic Concepts in the Study of Public Policy 11

is obviously true. For demographic, historical, and political reasons, language has a
prominence in Canadian politics that it does not have in the United States. Conversely,
individual rights and freedoms occupy a more significant place in American polit-
ical discourse than they do in Canada and most other capitalist democracies. Thus, in
saying that any political system has particular biases we have not said much—or at least
nothing very profound. The more interesting question is what these biases reveal about
the sources and distribution of power and the capacity of different social and economic
interests to influence the actions of government.

The Pattern of Public Policy

What governments do, how they do it, and what consequences arise are aspects of public
policy that have changed dramatically over time. They reflect the scope, means, and dis-
tributional dimensions of public policy. Together, they provide the basis for comparing
the pattern of public policy and the role of the state in different societies, and for chart-
ing and understanding the course of historical change within a society.

1. The Scope of Public Policy

We know that governments do more today than they did in the past. They pass more
laws and regulations on a wider range of subjects than before, they spend a larger share
of national income, they tax in more ways and at higher levels, and they employ more
people to operate the machinery of government. The scope of their activities ranges
from municipal bylaws requiring dog owners to “stoop and scoop” when walking their
pooch to laws affecting the more vital aspects of our lives.
Back in 1900, the Public Accounts of Canada listed only a couple of dozen separ-
ate departments and agencies of government. A century later, the federal public ad-
ministration consists of 402 departments and agencies that are subject to the Financial
­Administration Act.12 To appreciate the scale of government agencies and programs,
Figure 1.1 provides an overview of the various agencies and departments. At Con-
federation, total government expenditure in Canada accounted for a little more than
5 per cent of gross national expenditure (GNE). Today, government spending comes to
about 45 per cent of GNE . The chief functions of Western governments in the nineteenth
century were maintaining social order, ensuring defence, and facilitating economic de-
velopment through measures ranging from railroad subsidies to tariffs. By comparison,
governments today are involved in a bewildering range of functions that include all of
the traditional ones plus education, health care, income support for various segments
of the population, broadcasting, and much more. Until the early twentieth century,
about three-quarters of government spending was on goods and services—what public
finance economists call exhaustive expenditures. Today, however, 30 per cent of total
government spending involves transfer payments to individuals, families, and organiz-
ations.13 This is money that the government handles, but does not itself spend on goods
and services. The growth in transfer payments as a share of total government spending
reflects the increasing importance of the government’s redistributive role in society.
12   Part I Understanding Public Policy

The redistributive function of the state is the battleground on which the ideological
forces of the left and the right have slugged it out since the nineteenth century. Although
it is popular today to argue that debates between the left and the right have lost their rel-
evance, this is simply not true. If the “left” is understood to prefer collectivist solutions
to social and economic problems and to believe that individuals achieve dignity from
the communal associations that give their lives meaning, while the “right” is under-
stood to prefer market solutions and to believe that personal dignity depends on one’s
own efforts, which tend to be undermined by collectivist policies, then the left-versus-
right debate is still very much alive. In recent years, the concern shown by governments
of virtually all partisan hues toward public-sector deficits and debt and the conversion
of most governments to trade liberalism have contributed to the erroneous belief that
collectivist (i.e., left-wing) ideology is in eclipse. But the facts—from hard measures of
the government’s presence in society, such as the share of national income it spends or
the portion of personal income it takes in taxes, to softer measures of state intrusiveness,
such as the range of activities that governments regulate—do not support the claim that
the collectivist model of the state has gone down in defeat.
On the contrary, it is probably fair to say that the essential premise of the collectivist
ethos is widely and uncritically accepted by both the elite and the general populations
in Canada and other advanced industrial democracies. This premise is that communal
goals, such as redistributing wealth, promoting economic growth, and protecting the
weak, should be—in fact, can only be—pursued through the state. There are, quite
naturally, differences over the precise character of these goals and how best to achieve
them. But the belief that the clock can be turned back to the “night watchman” state
of capitalist democracy’s youth has little more than a marginal following even in the
United States, the most liberal (in the classical sense of emphasizing market and indi-
vidual freedoms) of liberal democracies.
The appropriate scope of government activities is largely a matter of personal pref-
erence. Take something as mundane as the random stopping of automobiles by police
to check for impaired drivers. Some people object to this practice on the grounds that it
violates the individual’s freedom—not the freedom to drive while intoxicated, but the
freedom from arbitrary detention by the state. Others (probably most Canadians) are
willing to tolerate the possibility that innocent people will be pulled over by the police,
and perhaps even asked to take a breathalyzer test, as a reasonable infringement on in-
dividual freedom that contributes to public safety.
There is no one correct answer to the question of whether random spot checks of
motorists are a good thing, just as there is no one correct answer to the question of
whether a state that spends 45 per cent of national income is better or worse than one
that spends 35 per cent. The answers to such questions depend on the context of the
respondent. Someone who believes that the primary duty of government is the pro-
motion of social justice will certainly have a different idea of the appropriate scope of
government activities than someone who believes that government’s primary duty is the
protection of individual property rights. Where matters become really complicated is in
cases where people agree on the goals but disagree on the means for achieving them. If
the question of means is essentially a technical one, surely we might expect it to have a
 Public sector

Government business
Government enterprises

Federal Canada and Provincial and First Nations and

Local Federal government
government Quebec territorial other Aboriginal
government business enterprises
Pension Plans government government1

General General General General

Canada government
government government government Non-
Pension Financial
financial
Ministries and Plan Ministries and Municipalities and First Nations and
departments, departments, other local public other Aboriginal
non-autonomous non-autonomous administrations, government,
Quebec Provincial and territorial
funds and funds and non-autonomous non-autonomous
Pension government business
organizations organizations funds and funds and

Chapter 1 Basic Concepts in the Study of Public Policy

Plan enterprises
organizations organizations1
Autonomous funds Autonomous funds
and organizations and organizations Autonomous funds Autonomous funds
and organizations and organizations1
Non- Financial
Federal Provincial financial
non-autonomous non-autonomous Universities and
pension plans pension plans colleges
Universities1
Universities and Local government
colleges Colleges, business
vocational and enterprises
Universities2 trade institutions1
Colleges,
vocational and School boards2 School boards1
trade institutions2 Non-
Health and financial
Health and social service
social service institutions
institutions
1. Data are not available. Health and social First Nations and other
Health boards1,2 service institutions1 Aboriginal government
2. Except institutions that are embedded business enterprises1
Social service Social service
in the federal or provincial and territorial organizations and organizations and
public accounts or local government community boards1,2 community boards1
audited financial statements.
Other health and Other health and Non-
Financial
social service social service financial
organizations1,2 organizations1

13
Figure 1.1 Public Sector Flow Chart
Source: Statistics Canada, <http://www.statcan.gc.ca/nea-cen/about-apropos/govtfinps-spfinpubliques-eng.pdf>
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