Econ 881 / MPA 844
A BAKER’S DOZEN SIGNPOSTS IN
CANADA’S POST-WAR POLICY EVOLUTION:
REFLECTIONS OF A MARKET POPULIST
by
Thomas J Courchene
(tom.courchene@queensu.ca)
Jarislowsky-Deutsch Professor
Department of Economics and
School of Policy Studies
Queen’s University
and
Senior Scholar, IRPP
2012
(Source: Paper with same title, available from author)
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INTRODUCTION
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Goal: To focus on the key policy turning points (Signposts)
in the Canada’s post-war socio-economic evolution.
The intention was to limit the signposts to 10. But this
turned out to be too few in order to cover the key
developments so I ended up with thirteen and even then
some signposts have more than one component.
Obviously, others would have chosen differently.
Would be useful in my view if this was carried over to
other areas, e.g., 10 key signposts in monetary policy, in
tax policy, in social policy, in public administration, and so
on.
Focusing on the 10 key turning points in a selected policy
area in lieu of writing an exam might be an option that
would appeal to some of you.
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Signpost #1: Post-War Embedded Liberalism and
American Supremacy
John Ruggie’s “Compromise of Embedded Liberalism”
Process of internationalization and economic
liberalization was cushioned by the rise of the welfare
state. Indeed, the most open economies (e.g., Nordic
countries) had the most pervasive social envelopes
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New international Order (World Bank, IMF, GATT on economic side
and UN, NATO etc. on political and security side
Move toward currency convertibility and greater capital mobility
US becomes uncontested world superpowereconomically, financially, militarily and “morally”
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Because US exited WWII with its infrastructure intact, it became
workshop to the world. Since US workers had more capital to work
with, this led to rise of the US middle class, even for lesser educated
workers. All gone now (see Signpost #9B)
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Signpost #1: Post-War Embedded Liberalism and
American Supremacy; continued
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This hugely benefits Canada
Exports to US mushroomed, helped by Autopact, FTA, etc
Allowed us to punch above our weight, and advance areas
of mutual interest
Got into G7, and developed middle power role
But most importantly it did not prevent us from marching
to our own social policy drummer. (Signpost #3)
And we did not follow US into Vietnam or Iraq
All in all, post-war embedded liberalism served to provide
substance to Sir Wilfrid Laurier’s assertion that the 20th
century would belong to Canada
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SIGNPOST #2: Quebec’s Personal Income Tax
(QPIT)
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Arguably, is the key factor that led to our decentralized federation
Ottawa attempted to transfer money directly to Universities (early 50s)
Quebec said no – set up Tremblay Commission. Led to creation of
QPIT (with a tax collection system) in 1954-55 with 15% tax rate.
Ottawa afraid other provinces would follow suit. Hence provided an
abatement to the provinces of federal tax revenues on a derivation
basis, i.e., on what was raised in the province. Abatement =10% of
federal PIT revenues, 9% of CIT and 50% of succession duties
But this meant that some provinces got more per capita than others.
Therefore, Ottawa establishes our equalization program in 1957,
equalizes these three revenue sources to the average of the top two
provinces, only Ontario is not a recipient.
Prior to this era, if provinces want a new program, need to transfer the
power to Ottawa – amendments give Ottawa OAS & EI. But after 1957,
Ottawa used tax point transfers to allow provinces to develop welfare,
PSE and Health programs. Without equalization, the poorer provinces
would never have allowed the existing degree of tax decentralization
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Signpost #3: JFK’s New Frontier, LBJ’s Great
Society, Pearson’s Social Canada Transformation
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JFK embraced the Keynesian revolution. Cut PIT top rate
from 90% to 72 %. Laffer curve result, revenues go up
LBJ: Launched programs in health, education, civil rights,
Medicare, Medicaid, urbanization, poverty, etc.
Social scientists flocked to Washington. Came back with
papers on a wide range of policy areas and no place to
publish. Led to flood of specialty economics journals and
launched economics as an imperialist social science.
Pearson Era – 1963-68. Led to CPP/QPP, 1966 Medicare
Act (and the 5 CHA principles), GIS, Canada Student Loan
plan, Occupational Training Act, comprehensive
equalization program, regional development, housing,
Architect was Tom Kent who organized the 1960 Kingston
Conference which created the Pearson Liberals’ platform.
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Signpost #3: JFK’s New Frontier, LBJ’s Great
Society, Pearson’s Social Transformation, cont.
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Kent’s comment on an earlier version of this paper was
that the political key to the Pearson era was the election of
the Jean Lesage’s federalist Liberal Gov’t in Quebec and
the launch of la révolution tranquille.
Lesage was a minister in the Louis St. Laurent Liberal
federal government prior to becoming head of the Quebec
Liberal Party in 1958. Allowed him to work with Ottawa
Kent retired to Kingston and became an Adjunct Professor
in the School of Policy Studies
He remained a very active and influential commentator on
Canadian public policy until to his death in November of
2011.
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SIGNPOST #4: The Parti Québécois, The Bloc
Québécois and Quebec Separatism
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Charles de Gaulle and “vive le Québec libre” (1957)
René Lévesque takes power 1976. Enacts Bill 101 (French as official
language and the language of work); 1980 referendum; Lévesque
refuses to be part of Charter and Patriation in 1982;
Meech Lake Accord 1987, fails in 1990; Bouchard leaves Mulroney
cabinet to form Bloc Québécois (1990); Launch of the 1990-91
Bélanger- Campeau Commission on the future of Quebec (personal
note; When I appeared as a witness before the B-C Committee, I
stated: For Quebecers, Quebec will always be their nation and Canada
will always be their state, whereas for the rest of us Canada is viewed
as the locus of both nation and state.)
1996 Calgary Declaration endorses Quebec specificity; Annual
Premiers conference (2004) suggests passing Pharmacare up to
Ottawa, except for Quebec which would keep its own program. In the
2004 10 year fiscal arrangements agreement, Ottawa allowed Quebec
more control over Health cash transfers to Quebec than to ROC.
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SIGNPOST #4: The Parti Québécois, The Bloc
Québécois and Quebec Separatism, continued
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The culmination of all of this was the 2006 House of Commons
unanimous declaration that “the Québécois form a nation within a
united Canada.”
With the sudden collapse this year of both the PQ and the BQ it seems
clear that Quebecers are no longer supporting parties whose primary
rationale is to create their own state.
This is a truly remarkable result, especially to those of us who worked
long and hard to keep Quebec within the Canadian family
My conclusion: This is in large measure due to the fact that the rest of
Canada accommodated Quebec in ways that allowed Quebecers to
create their own nation within the Canadian state.
Arguably, Canadians have proved themselves to be masters of the art
of federalism. But the challenge may not yet be over.
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SIGNPOST #5: Patriation and the Charter:
Empowering Citizens and First Peoples
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Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms includes fundamental
rights (democratic, equality, mobility, legal) and aboriginal rights
(recognized Métis peoples and constitutionalized the existing and
future treaties, e.g., Land Claims Agreements).
Charter has become as defining feature of Canada – the language of
rights is a Canadian language not a provincial language
Constitution states (s.91(24)) the Ottawa is responsible for “Indians
and Land Reserved for Indians”. But Ottawa has interpreted this as
“Indians on Land reserved for Indians.”
In my view, the Challenge is to ensure that the collective rights of First
Nations does not undermine individual FN citizens’ ability to have the
same rights as other Canadian citizens.
Gordon Gibson has a new book that, from its title appears to be
embracing this vision. A New Look at Canadian Indian Policy:
Respect the Collective – Promote the Individual (Fraser Institute)
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SIGNPOST #6: Immigration and Multiculturalism
A: Immigration
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We are a land of immigrants (abstracting from our First Peoples)
initially from Europe and more recently from Asia and Latin America
Immigration is a concurrent power with federal paramountcy.
With the Cullen Couture Agreement in 1978, Quebec enacted its own
immigration policy and point system. ROC left Ottawa in charge, but
now have a Provincial Nominee Program in most provinces.
Ontario: Should have argued for accepting foreign graduates of its
universities. Australia now does this
Immigrants are not doing as well as they used to. However, second
generation Canadians are better educated than those whose parents
were born in Canada.
Future labour force growth has to come from immigration
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SIGNPOST #6: Immigration and Multiculturalism: II
B: Multiculturalism
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1969 Bi and Bi Report; led to 1971 multicultural policy
Charter: s.27 states “this Charter shall be interpreted in a manner
consistent with the preservation and enhancement of the multicultural
heritage of Canadians.
1988 Canada Multicultural Act
We have always integrated immigrants via the labour force and
rewarded them on their individual skills, unlike continental Europe –
civli law vs. common law, or communitarian vs individualist capitalism
As text notes, multiculturalism must be based on section 15 (1) of the
Charter reads “Every individual is equal before and under the law and
has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law
without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based
on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, sex, age or mental or
physical disability.”
Last paragraph of the paper is a good summary
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SIGNPOST #7: THE TRANSFORMATION OF CANADIAN
ECONOMIC SPACE: THE FTA AND NAFTA
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Before the beginning FTA (1989) all provinces except ON and NL
exported more to the rest of Canada than to the US. By 2001 (7 years
after NAFTA) all provinces except MB exported more to the US -- in
aggregate terms about double, 38% to US and 20% to ROC.
Hence, Canada became more and more an east-west series of northsouth economies and less and less a single east-west economy. Issue
became (or should have become) one of how to overlay an east-west
transfer system on a progressively N-S economic system.
But the newer reality is that of the hollowing out of the US (to China)
and a challenge to Canada to diversify its export markets.
NAFTA and Foreign Direct Investment: . Prior to the agreements, US
companies utilized foreign direct investment to leapfrog the high
Canadian tariff to establish Canadian subsidiaries to sell only in the
Canadian market. One result was that US foreign ownership became a
political issue in some Canadian quarters. This is the very opposite of
the current reality where we encourage foreign investment in order
service NAFTA economic space. (more on this in Signpost #12
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SIGNPOST #8: The Informatics Era (IE): Transformative
Technology and Transformative Ideology
A:Transformative Technology: Internet & Social Networking
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There is a new general purpose technology (GPT), based on the
Internet, that is in turn the basis of the Network, the ubiquitous
organizational of the IE. Networks underpin both social networking
(Arab Spring) and global supply chains.
IE privileges human capital in the same way as the Industrial
Revolution privileged physical and financial capital. As Lester Thurow
noted: If capital is borrowable, raw materials are buyable and
technology is copyable, what are you left with if you want to run a
high-wage economy? Only skills, there isn’t anything else!
B: Transformative Ideology
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Reagan and Thatcher moved to “recapitalize capitalism”. Reagan
reduce the top federal PIT rate from 70% to 28%.
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A new orthodoxy was established throughout the world … unfettered
capitalist globalization, spearheaded by the liberalization of financial
markets. Result: capitalism recovered its dynamism and increased
growth and profits.
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SIGNPOST #9: The Informatics Era and the
Transformation of Global Economic Space
A: Rise of China as the Global Workshop
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About 1.5 billion new workers entered the global labour force. Wages
fell dramatically. Led to off-shoring and outsourcing. China invited
global firms to produce there. Reduced import tariffs on all inputs.
Huge advantage. Required foreigners to partner with a domestic firm
and to share technology.
China pegged its Yuan to the US dollar, which provided security to
companies in terms of maintaining global competitiveness (since an
appreciation of the Yuan would saddle China with huge losses and,
therefore seemed unlikely).
China became the largest exporter, surpassing Germany and is the
second largest economy (will pass the US soon), has 3 of the 4 largest
banks and 3 of the 5 largest companies. However, its per capita
income in 2008 was $US 3,500 compared with $46,000 for the US.
Recently, has been an agreement between China and Japan to book
their trade in yen or yuan: the beginning of a rival global currency?
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SIGNPOST #9: The Informatics Era and the
Transformation of Global Economic Space:II
B: the Decline of the American Empire
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“America is an empire enthralled with its own power and unaware that
it is fading” (Ouroussoff, 2005)
Overextended on debt and deficits; massive offshoring and the
collapse of the middle class; US is the most unequal society of the
industrialized world; the financial collapse led to Wall Street turmoil
and the decimation of the housing market, and the recession.
US is becoming more beholden to China financially while China is
becoming less dependent on the US economically.
US political system is paralyzing, dysfunctional and too subject to
gerrymandering, and the Citizens United court case allows unlimited
electoral spending,
Tom Friedman’s perception of the problem: “[America let its] five
basic pillars of growth erode since the end of the cold war –
education, infrastructure, immigration of high-I.Q. innovators and
entrepreneurs, rules to incentivize risk-taking and start-ups, and
government-funded research to spur science and technology.”
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SIGNPOST #10: MONETARY, FISCAL AMD FINANCIAL
SUSTAINABILITY: THE MAPLE LEAF MIRACLES
A: The Bank of Canada and Inflation Targeting
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Bank moved from money supply targeting to income targeting and
finally (in 1991) to Inflation targeting
Target Rate is 2% within a band of 1% - 3%. If inflation moves outside
this range, the Bank will take action (via short-term interest rates) to
bring in inflation back in target within an 18-24 month framework.
Very successful, helped bring inflation and interest rates down
quickly in the 1990s that in turn helped tame the deficit (see section B)
Bank has significant credibility at home and abroad, has been an
innovator in terms of how to go about inflation targeting
Our Governors have been first rate.
A feather in the Bank’s hat is the appointment of Governor Mark
Carney as the head of the international Financial Stability Board
Confession: The above would be the near-unanimous view of the
economics and financial community. However, my view is the
unrestricted exchange rate flexibility is leading to inappropriately wide
swings in the exchange rate. (see Signpost #12B).
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SIGNPOST #10: MONETARY, FISCAL AMD FINANCIAL
SUSTAINABILITY: THE MAPLE LEAF MIRACLES: II
B: Taming the Federal Deficit: Canada as the Fiscal Virtuoso of the G7
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After 17 consecutive deficits, Ottawa ran a surplus in 1997-98. How?
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Paul Martin in his 1995 budget set targets (4%, then 3%, then 2%, then
1% and then budget balance) that would be achieved come “hell or
high water”
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Adopted a 3-year planning horizon, called on private sector for
forecasts, added prudence to the estimates, created the CHST and
then cut it by one-third (about $6 billion), took $5 to $6 billion annually
from the surplus of EI program, cut program spending by 10%.
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Helped by drop in inflation and interest rates (decrease debt
servicing), by depreciation of the $C, by the US hi-tech boom,
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Then Martin prefunded the CPP/QPP by increasing the premium rate
from 5.6% to 9.9% and the CPP is now financially secure for decades.
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Used the resulting surpluses to reduce tax rates and to increase
health and social spending.
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All in all, an achievement that was the envy of all of our trading
partners
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SIGNPOST #10: MONETARY, FISCAL AMD FINANCIAL
SUSTAINABILITY: THE MAPLE LEAF MIRACLES: III
C: Avoiding Financial Collapse: A Regulatory Success
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Canada’s securities industry is provincially regulated (unique in
world). In the mid-1980s the provinces, led by Quebec and followed
quickly by Ontario, threw open the existing restrictive ownership
rules. Ottawa expressed concern, since opening up the ownership of
the industry was to be a bargaining chip in the ongoing FTA
negotiations. Ontario agreed to limit ownership to Canadians for a
year prior to allowing foreign owners.
Result: Canada’s chartered banks had a field day – BNS acquired
Scotia McLeod, RBC (Dominion Securities), CIBC (Wood Gundy), BMO
(Nesbitt Burns), Banque Nationale (Lévesque Beaubien), with TD Bank
establishing its own securities firm that eventually morphed into
TDWaterhouse. i.e., the banks took over most of the sector.
In the same time frame OSFI (Office of the Superintendent of Financial
Institutions) was created. Although securities firms were provincially
regulated, OSFI ensured that their operations did not pose financial
problems for the banks.
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SIGNPOST #10: MONETARY, FISCAL AMD FINANCIAL
SUSTAINABILITY: THE MAPLE LEAF MIRACLES: IIII
C: Avoiding Financial Collapse: A Regulatory Success (cont.)
 In effect, Canada’s securities industry operated within a
banking framework, unlike the hedge-fund US framework
(i.e., our companies faced higher capital ratios than in the
US). Indeed, Citibank abandoned its bank charter to
become Citicorp in order to fall under the lightly regulated
hedge-fund sector, much to its financial regret
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While the Canadian banks did suffer losses as a result of
their activities in the asset-backed commercial paper
(ABCP) market, they escaped the utter financial carnage
that befell the US and many European countries.
 The result is that Canada arguably has the most healthy
monetary, fiscal and financial sectors anywhere.
 Plaudits all around to Canada’s macro managers!
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SIGNPOST #11: The Rise of the West: From the
Reform Party to a Conservative Majority
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Preston Manning launched the populist, conservative Reform Party in
1987. Obtained 52 seats in 1993 election to become the effective
opposition (official opposition was the Bloc Québécois). Reform
became the official opposition after 1997 election with 60 seats.
Reform never won a seat east of Manitoba. Morphed into the Canadian
Reform Conservative Alliance. Lost in 2000 election. Under the “unite
the right” it merged with the Progressive Conservatives in 2003 to
form the Conservative Party. Stephen Harper becomes leader in 2004.
Holds Paul Martin to a minority in 2004 election. Harper becomes
Prime Minister with a minority victory in 2006, repeated in 2008, and
finally wins a majority in the 2011 election. The West is in!
This is new territory for federal politics – a right-of-centre governing
party with a left-of-centre official opposition with the centrist Liberals
largely out of the picture.
Harper embraces “open federalism”, a policy designed to respect the
1867 constitutional division of powers, which in turn means that
Ottawa will be focusing its attention on those areas that fall under
federal jurisdiction, and stay out of provincial jurisdiction.
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SIGNPOST #11: The Rise of the West: From the
Reform Party to a Conservative Majority; II
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Further In this context, the Globe and Mail’s John Ibbitson (2011) has
proffered an intriguing “open federalism” interpretation of recent
events. On the social policy front, Ottawa’s announcement -- that the
federal-provincial cash transfers beyond 2017 will be indexed to GDP
growth with a 3% minimum and that the provinces will be left on their
own to rework Medicare with few or no strings attached so as to live
within this cash envelope -- represents an open-federalism-type,
hands-off approach to areas under provincial jurisdiction.
The quid quo pro, à la Ibbitson, would be for Ottawa to increase its
role in terms of s.91 powers, and especially over the macro-economic
and economic-union levers. The obvious candidate here, and a key
federal priority, was to be the creation of a single national securities
agency. The recent Supreme Court decision stopped Ottawa dead in
its tracks, but it is a safe bet that we have not seen the last of this.
Further problem for open federalism is that under the new IE era,
many areas under provincial jurisdiction are now in the national
interest – early childhood development, human capital, global city
regions, etc. Open Federalism should not ignore this.
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SIGNPOST #12: Resources and the Transformation
of Provincial Economic and Fiscal Geography
A: The 1970s Energy Price Shocks And The National Energy Program
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First energy price shock, 1973-74, second 1979-80 (Iran-Iraq war).
Triggers the 1980 National Energy Program (NEP). The combination of
additional taxes, of incentives to shift exploration from provincial
lands to Canada lands, of two “nationalization” provisions (one to
give Ottawa the right to a 25% interest in all petroleum developments
on Canada lands and the other a Canadian Ownership Charge in order
to increase public ownership of the energy sector) represented an
unprecedented frontal attack on the energy patch that became
permanently etched in the psyche of Alberta and Albertans
Arguably leads to s.92A of the Constitution Act, 1982. This gives the
provinces the right to legislate exclusively in relation to the
exploration, development and management of, as well as the right to
raise money by and mode or system of taxation on, non-renewable
natural resources and forestry and the generation of electrical energy.
To my knowledge no other federation has anywhere near such a
powerful province-rights provision. Huge implication for GHG policies
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SIGNPOST #12: Resources and the Transformation of
Provincial Economic and Fiscal Geography
B: Resources, the Floating Loonie and the Dutch Disease
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Dutch Disease: named because the revenues from Holland’s energy
exports so appreciated its currency that it clobbered manufacturing
From Figure 1, from roughly $20 per barrel in 1998 the price of oil
soared to over $100 early in the 2000s (and even spiked briefly to $150
per barrel in 2008). In roughly the same time frame the loonie
appreciated from under 70 cents to roughly 105 cents in the middle of
the first decade of the 2000s, for an appreciation of about 50%.
The appreciation also led to the collapse of manufacturing as well as
triggering a resource boom, one consequence of the latter is that the
per capita revenues of the energy/resource intensive provinces have
ended up being several thousand dollars larger, after equalization,
than those of the other provinces. If this persists, the likely result will
be superior public goods and/or tax havens in the resource-rich
provinces.
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FIGURE 1 (from 2008 Federal Budget)
The Loonie and the Dutch Disease
SIGNPOST #12: Resources and the Transformation of
Provincial Economic and Fiscal Geography
B: Resources, the Floating Loonie and the Dutch Disease: II
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With respect to the fiscal disparities, my proposal is to “revenue test”
the federal-provincial cash transfers (CHT and CST) by, say, reducing
a province’s cash transfers by 20 cents for each dollar that the
province’s total revenues (defined as own-source revenues plus
equalization) exceeded some threshold, e.g., say 115% of the all
province per capita average, with the resulting federal savings put
through this process again until the original CHT/CST total has been
exhausted.
While this use of the CHT and CST transfers as an over-arching
equalization formula is not likely to find policy favour, it should be
noted that these transfers have until recently been “income-tested”
with a one-for-one clawback if a province’s per capita personal
income tax revenues associated with the CHT/CST formula exceed the
per capita equalized value of these PIT revenues.
But revenue testing is far more appropriate than income testing if the
goal to reduce interprovincial fiscal differentials
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SIGNPOST #12: Resources and the Transformation of
Provincial Economic and Fiscal Geography
B: Resources, the Floating Loonie and the Dutch Disease: III
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On the Dutch Disease side, the fundamental problem is that the
Canadian currency area is too small to accommodate a resource
superpower and a global manufacturing centre.
In terms of ameliorating the operations of the Dutch Disease, the
remedies run the gamut from i) increasing the size of the currency
area (via fixed exchange rates, perhaps en route to a Canada-US
monetary union), ii) altering inflation targeting to incorporate
exchange-rate priorities, iii) following the recent Swiss approach of
putting a limit on how much the Canadian dollar can appreciate vis-àvis the US dollar, and iv) following Norway’s approach in encouraging
(provincial) sovereign wealth funds that would invest the bulk of
resource rents in international capital markets.
While none of these alternatives is likely to find support among my
fellow economists, failure to address the issue may well lead to
political roadblocks on the ability of the resource provinces to pursue
their resource-based development plans.
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SIGNPOST #13: Arctic Exposure: Melting Ice, Resources, Geo
Politics, Sovereignty and Northern Peoples
Melting Ice: Opens up Europe-to-Asia routes; creates survival problems
for northern wildlife. Burning or melting tundra may double the
amount of GHGs in the atmosphere
Resources: Arctic has an estimated 13 percent of the world’s oil and 30
percent of the world’s gas.
Geo-Politics: Arctic is becoming a complex geo-political arena with
competing national claims over land, water, seabed as well as
resources of all types. Even the Chinese have one ice-breaker in the
Arctic, with another on the way. And enveloping all of the above is the
issue of arctic sovereignty. Environmental disasters are more likely
Sovereignty and Northern Peoples: Canada’s claim to sovereignty over
what we argue are “internal Arctic waters” owes a great deal to Inuit
occupancy and stewardship over the centuries. They are the “use it”
in the “use it or lose it” version of sovereignty. But at a more
fundamental level, as Canadian citizens they merit our commitment to
ensure their future well being and that of their communities.
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SIGNPOST #13: Arctic Exposure: Melting Ice, Resources, Geo
Politics, Sovereignty and Northern Peoples: II
Economic Issues: For a recent year equalization payments amounted to
$18,000 per capita for Yukon, close to $19,000 for NWT and a
whopping $30,000 for Nunavut, whereas the largest per capita
provincial equalization payment is well under $3,000. Are the
territories mere wards of the state? NO, because if they had the same
rights to resource revenues as do the provinces, then they would be
able to increase their revenues to a level that for some would easily
exceed their equalization payments.
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There is one emerging problem that has the potential for stymieing
northern development, namely that there are at roughly 25
constitutionalized entities in the north (the 14 Yukon First Nations
agreements, several more in the NWT, the four Inuit Land Claims
Agreements and the three territories). This is a recipe for the
economic balkanization of the north. Small wonder that the Mackenzie
Valley Pipeline may fall by the wayside – there are way too many
players holding vetoes. What is needed is some version of an internal
northern economic union that would allow freer movement of goods,
labour and capital across these northern jurisdictions.
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CONCLUSION
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The above signposts represent my choices for the key
turning points in the evolution of Canadian public policy.
Some of them are no longer in play and have become part
of our policy history. Others, like the last few, are driving
our current and even our future policy challenges and
choices. The obviously subjective nature of this exercise
means that some of the signposts would make everyone’s
list while others would not. Indeed, having undertaken this
exercise, one now tends to worry more about those that
were left out than those that were included. Nonetheless,
what stands out from all this (and would also stand out
from others’ selections) is just how fascinating Canadian
public policy can be and, indeed, has been. This will be
true in the future as well since it is our collective fate to
continue to live in interesting times.
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SIGNPOST #6: Immigration and Multiculturalism: II
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