Passing the Buck
Passing the Buck

Author: Kathryn Harrison

Publisher: UBC Press

Published: 2011-11-01

Total Pages: 251

ISBN-13: 0774841796

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Passing the Buck is the first in-depth study of the impact of federalism on Canadian environmental policy. The book takes a detailed look at the ongoing debate on the subject and traces the evolution of the role of the federal government in environmental policy and federal-provincial relations concerning the environment from the late 1960s to the early 1990s. The author challenges the widespread assumption that federal and provincial governments invariably compete to extend their jurisdiction. Using well-researched case studies and extensive research to support her argument, the author points out that the combination of limited public attention to the environment and strong opposition from potentially regulated interests yields significant political costs and limited political benefits. As a result, for the most part, the federal government has been content to leave environmental protection to the provinces. In effect, the federal system has allowed the federal government to pass the buck to the provinces and shirk the political challenge of environmental protection.

Community Besieged
Community Besieged

Author: Garth Stevenson

Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP

Published: 1999-06-17

Total Pages: 374

ISBN-13: 0773567755

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In Community Besieged Garth Stevenson describes the unusual circumstances that allowed English-speaking Quebecers to live in virtual isolation from their francophone neighbours for almost a century after Confederation. He describes their relations with Maurice Duplessis and the Union Nationale and their ambivalent response to the Quiet Revolution. New political issues - language policy, educational reform, sovereignty, and the constitution - undermined the old system of elite accommodation in Quebec, causing conflicts between anglophones and francophones and creating a new sense of anglophone identity that transcends religious differences. The changing relations of Quebec anglophones with the major political parties, as well as the role of newer entities such as Alliance Quebec and the Equality Party, are also examined. Stevenson concludes with a look at the future of anglophones in Quebec. Based in part on interviews with more than sixty English-speaking Quebecers who have played prominent parts in Quebec's political life, Community Besieged is a comprehensive and up-to-date description of the political life of this unique minority at both the federal and provincial level.

Decision at Midnight
Decision at Midnight

Author: Michael Hart

Publisher: UBC Press

Published: 2011-11-01

Total Pages: 474

ISBN-13: 0774842725

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On 2 January 1988, Canada and the United States signed what was then the most comprehensive free trade agreeement the world had ever seen. This book is the story of those FTA negotiations, the preparations for and conduct of the negotiations, as well as the ideas and issues behind them. From their unique perspective as participants, Michael Hart, Bill Dymond, and Colin Robertson capture the drama and the personalities involved in the long struggle to make a free trade deal. They describe the extensive consultations, the turf-fighting among insiders, the innate caution of both politicians and bureaucrats, and the need to cultivate powerful constituencies in order to overcome the inertia of conventional wisdom.