Reviews/Comptes rendus
Social and Labour Market Aspects of North
American Linkages
edited by Richard G. Harris and Thomas Lemieux.
Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2005, pp. xvi,
643.
When the book review editor asked me if I was interested in reviewing this volume, I immediately and
enthusiastically agreed to do it. When this 600-plus
page tome arrived in the mail, my enthusiasm waned.
Since I had a 12-hour trans-Pacific flight ahead of
me, I knew that being sequestered in such a way
was the only way in which I would be able to complete this task. It turns out that my worries were
unfounded.
The major theme in this volume relates to the
integrity of the 49th parallel, or “border effects.”
These are just beginning to be explored by researchers, and economists in particular, at least insofar as
they relate to human migration and domestic labour
market and social institutions. This is undoubtedly
because border effects are an aggregation of many
variables that are quantifiable (e.g., direct border
crossing costs) as well as others that are not (e.g.,
rather fuzzy concepts as social capital, tastes, and
culture). Still, the border is important in repelling
the forces of globalization so that Canadian social
and labour market policies do not converge to those
in other regions (mainly the US).
Despite the fear that increased economic integration has resulted in weaker domestic social and labour market policy, there is little evidence presented
in this volume to support it: the Canadian distribution of income has not widened as it has in the US,
nor have a variety of Canadian social programs converged, although many labour market regulations
have changed in Canada over the past 15 years as
they more closely resemble those of the United
States. But to attribute this convergence (the socalled and much-feared “race-to-the-bottom”) to
increased economic integration may not be reasonable. In Canada, there was a major recession at the
beginning of the 1990s, unemployment remained
233
high throughout most of the decade, and the Canadian dollar and resource prices remained low. Governments across the country were cutting back on
education, health care, and redesigning social programs to both improve efficiency and to slay the
deficit dragon. These all had internal motivations and
were not simply due to the forces of globalization.
To wit, the income distribution did not widen as
it did in the United States, partially because of factors such as the real minimum wage and the unionization rate which did not converge to the levels in
the United States, and also because returns to higher
education (relative to those of high-school graduates) did not increase as dramatically in Canada
(most likely the result of an increase in the supply
of Canadian postsecondary graduates). These factors, together with the increased ease of migrating
to the US, however, did conspire to increase migration from Canada to the United States. This is hardly
surprising. What is startling is that the emigration
was not much larger than it was. Standard economic
models of migration would have predicted significantly larger southward flows. The fact that this did
not occur, and that social and labour market policies did not rapidly converge to levels in the US,
attests to the importance of these border effects.
One of the most striking implications to come
out of this volume is how little we knew about the
social impacts of increased integration before we
entered into the two free trade agreements. Although
most economists agreed that free trade would have
a positive impact on the material well-being of the
country, it was mainly social activists and labour
unions that expressed reservations over the social
impacts of these agreements, especially regarding
the FTA. The fear was that the stronger Canadian
social safety net would be eroded as companies adjusted to the new competitive environment in North
America, and Canada, being the junior partner in
the deal, would be forced to adopt American-style
policies to remain competitive. The evidence presented in this volume casts doubt on this race-tothe-bottom hypothesis.
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234 Reviews/Comptes rendus
Although the Canadian economy managed to
weather the volatility of the 1990s, there is still fear
that increased globalization will continue to exert
negative pressure on the Canadian economy. Assessing the social and labour market implications of increased economic integration from the vantage point
of early-2006 remains a difficult task, although this
volume certainly contributes much to our knowledge. The new millennium has brought relatively
solid economic performance in Canada, the Canadian dollar is much stronger, and most governments’
fiscal positions have strengthened. Furthermore, as
a number of contributors note, the tendency toward
increased integration has stopped (indeed may be
reversing) following the events of 9/11. In other
words, many of the conditions that caused researchers earlier in this decade to worry about mass migration to the US and the convergence of policies
have been reversed. For example, recent data from
the Office of Immigration Statistics shows that the
number of free trade agreement admittances have
fallen since the beginning of the decade. This is reflected in the March Supplement to the Current
Population Survey which reveals that the number
of Canadian-born in the US peaked in 2001 (although these numbers are subject to a large sampling error). Just as with the 1990s, the difficulty
remains in determining the relative importance of
the domestic economic factors and US immigration
policy which has tightened the borders since 9/11.
As the editors note in their introduction: “the
economic and social consequences of 15 years of
North American integration have been relatively
modest.... the studies assembled in this volume sug-
CANADIAN PUBLIC POLICY – ANALYSE DE
gest that if further integration cannot solve Canada’s productivity problem, it will not turn Canada
into a U.S.A. of the North either” (p. 20). Today,
the US policy is border security uber alas and this
has certainly impeded the potential for increased economic integration in North America. This gives both
researchers and policymakers time to further study
the social and labour-market implications of further
increasing economic integration between the two
countries. The lessons of the European Union, which
is much more integrated than North America, may
be of use to us here. Furthermore, political and social differences between Canada and the US suggest that the border is becoming wider, not narrower.
That Canadians continue to be preoccupied with the
potential negative impacts of increased integration
seems to be driven more by national psyche than
any logical conclusions based on reasoned economic
analysis. This book contributes to the latter while
(hopefully) diminishing the importance of the
former.
This volume is beautifully edited with one paper
flowing seamlessly into the next. As is often the case
in these types of collections, some papers are
stronger than others. In the case of the weaker papers, the discussants’ comments and insights make
up for these deficiencies. The papers will be of interest to anyone concerned with the issues presented
in this worthwhile volume. And there is no need to
be trapped on a long flight to read it!
R ICHARD E. MUELLER , Department of Economics,
University of Lethbridge
POLITIQUES , VOL . XXXII , NO. 2 2006
Reviews/Comptes rendus
If I Had a Hammer: Retraining that Really
Works
by Margaret Hillyard Little. Vancouver: UBC Press,
2005.
If I Had a Hammer provides a thorough review of
women’s retraining policy, a richly detailed and
impassioned ethnographic account, and clear set of
recommendations for funding and designing culturally relevant employment programs for low-income
native women. I highly recommend this book for
those involved in program delivery, for policymakers, and for academics interested in culturally
oriented research. Margaret Hillyard Little, an antipoverty activist and academic at Queen’s University, studied a unique three-year women’s carpentry
apprenticeship program located in Regina, Saskatchewan. The Women’s Work and Training Program
(WWTP) began in 1997 and provided training to 64
women, most of whom were poor, single mothers of
native ancestry. For her study, Little interviewed 30
of the 64 participants and all of the staff. She also
observed throughout the length of the program.
Funded by the provincial and federal governments,
WWTP was initiated by women carpenters who not
only developed the program, but created the Regina
Women’s Construction Co-operative, recognizing
that women participants in trades programs needed
safe and supportive work sites in order to practice
and expand on their carpentry skills. Other features
of the WWTP included all-women instructors and
three different intakes so that at any given time, more
senior women were mentoring less experienced
trainees. Aboriginal events such as sweat lodges
were also part of the program and one staff member, the life skills coach, was native. It was the first
time for many participants to work across Aboriginal and white cultures. This project had many successes, but also faced powerful challenges due to
the women’s experiences with violence, poverty, addictions, sexism, and racism.
Little begins her book with a thorough review of
welfare and employment training policy and the lack
of solid support for poor women. “Poor single moth-
235
ers constitute one of the first groups to receive government aid, they remain one of the last to receive
publicly funded retraining” (p. 8). Review of previous programs and their evaluations illustrates how
systemic sexism, racism and classism persist, and
how neoliberal policies and programs are grounded
in an orientation that denies their relevance. The
second chapter describes the program structure and
the participants. Chapter three outlines the enormous
barriers these women face due to poverty, violence,
racism, colonial exploitation, addictions and prostitution. Little provides important detailed information of these “colossal” barriers and notes that
“everyday they dramatically alter their life course
by simply participating” (p. 37).
In chapter four, Little delves deeply into racism
and other program challenges including addiction
and the program’s viability, staffing, and funding.
We learn that Regina has the highest native population of any city in Canada (8 percent). Little also
reminds us of Canada’s racist past and the present
racism experienced daily by Aboriginal peoples.
This colonial legacy and racism were also present
in the program. There were significant cultural differences between native and white women, although
these differences were often denied by white participants. There were also racial struggles between
the Aboriginal participants who came from different cultural groups, and from on and off reserve.
Racism was also experienced on the worksite.
In chapter five, Little discusses the program’s
achievements. While none of the women received
their carpentry journey papers, several are well on
their way and one of the participants is the first
Aboriginal woman in Canada to pass the Level 4
provincial exam. The majority were working and no
longer on welfare. As Little states “the women in
this book defy the current attack on the poor that
describes them as lazy, dependent, and unworthy of
help … [with] single mothers being increasingly
demonized” (p. 2). The participants’ carpentry skills
grew substantially, as did their learning skills, life
skills, and cooperative business skills. Much was
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236 Reviews/Comptes rendus
learned about equity issues and how the structure
of the program was firmly grounded in white values which conflicted with the Aboriginal women’s
world views and needs. There are lessons to be
learned from this program’s successes and challenges. In the final chapter, Little outlines program
features that address the specific needs of lowincome and native women. She returns to concerns
raised in the book’s introduction and challenges
current workfare policies and programs which reinforce and often deepen poverty. She concludes that
quality child care and high-quality culturally
CANADIAN PUBLIC POLICY – ANALYSE DE
respectful training that leads to financially secure
paid employment are the key to policies and programs that work. The book makes a major contribution by grounding these recommendations in solid
in-depth research, drawing particular attention to the
need for a culturally relevant curriculum. What is
frustrating is that many of Little’s arguments have
been around for decades. The political will to support these programs is clearly lacking.
S HAUNA B UTTERWICK , Department of Educational
Studies, University of British Columbia.
POLITIQUES , VOL . XXXII , NO. 2 2006
Reviews/Comptes rendus
Civic Capitalism: The State of Childhood.
by John O’Neill. Toronto: University of Toronto
Press, 2004.
There is much promise in John O’Neill’s Civic Capitalism: The State of Childhood. Lamenting that inequality may be depleting human capital reserves,
O’Neill implores his reader to reconsider what
Canada and other affluent democracies mean by
capital accumulation to better account for the value
of social investments in health, education, and other
measures that combat social exclusion (p. 13). He
warns that citizenship in English democracies risks
evolving into a positional good (p. 93), valuable to
some because others lack the material resources
needed to take full advantage of its status. His solution is to re-invoke the logic of T.H. Marshall,
Tawney and Rawls in order to re-state the case for
the welfare state, rescuing it from what he perceives
as left-liberal, third-way concessions to neoliberal
logic.
Influenced by life-course epidemiological evidence (e.g., Keating and Hertzman 1999), O’Neill
starts from the premise that returns on public investment are greatest when they target children’s
nutrition, language, and care. He therefore argues
in favour of empowering our youngest citizens with
meaningful rights to autonomy in place of liberal
tendencies that treat children as passive subjects in
their family, class, and nation-state. There is much
work to be done on this front, he urges, since “our
programs for subsidizing parents, housing, health,
counselling and child care … have become the testing ground for thinning the ‘social’ in Canadian social policies” (p. 81).
Unfortunately, O’Neill’s execution in his latest
book does not live up to its promise. His twist on
Rawls’ difference principle is to presume with insufficient qualification that all children are uniformly the least advantaged in society: “the poorest
of the poor … because their parents are themselves
young people who are less employed and less favoured by government transfers than are other popu-
237
lation groups” (p. 23). This presumption is bold and
merits far more empirical defence than O’Neill offers, particularly in light of the income and wealth
differences between adults that he criticizes.
Beyond the presumption’s empirical inaccuracy,
however, is a more troubling conceptual danger.
O’Neill’s depiction of children as society’s most
vulnerable resembles policy discourse that divorces
the well-being of young people from that of their
guardians. O’Neill is attuned to this danger in other
contexts when he charges that Canada’s child benefits were changed in the 1990s to show concern
for deserving children, while distracting attention
from their attachment to (allegedly undeserving)
poor parents (p. 24). But despite this observation,
O’Neill does not adequately consider how his own
conceptual framework risks reinforcing the same
fissure between child and parent.
The homogenizing lens that O’Neill brings to
childhood is consistent with his tendency to discount
the multiple, intersecting group memberships with
which citizens identify. Notwithstanding many rhetorical flourishes about the intersection of gender,
race, and class issues, including his conclusion that
the welfare state needs to take “into account gender
and multicultural diversity” (p. 102), O’Neill’s
manuscript is largely about class politics. He sees
the world as haves versus have-nots in terms of income, wealth, and other material resources. The result is that his book fails to engage with the best of
what contemporary social science can offer by addressing the power differentials that track people’s
multiple identity characteristics. While the charitable reader will observe that the politics of recognition frustrate O’Neill because they may crowd out a
common citizenship identity, his vision of a united
civic ethos largely neglects the foundational work
of Iris Marion Young (1989) and the vast literature
motivated by her critique of false universalism. This
literature warns that even the most well-meaning
expectation that individuals adopt in public a
citizenry perspective that is blind to group
differences may actually impose a viewpoint that
CANADIAN PUBLIC POLICY – ANALYSE DE POLITIQUES,
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238 Reviews/Comptes rendus
privileges the assumptions and interests of the more
powerful.
Although Civic Capitalism is long on theoretical critique, it is very short on concrete proposals
for policy change. O’Neill reminds us that equal
access to education matters; so do social rights. But
these are not novel, nor specific, policy insights.
The absence of any detailed proposals for child care
or early learning is conspicuous in its absence in a
book that claims to be about the state of childhood.
Civic Capitalism therefore falls into a category of
citizenship literature that Norman and Kymlicka
(2003) regret offers little prescription other than the
platitude that society would function better if people in it were more considerate. This timidity is
somewhat surprising from O’Neill given his history
at the Laidlaw Institute, which successfully bridges
the academy to the broader community in order to
make scholarship meaningful for policy decisionmaking.
Not only do normative theorists have much to
offer to pragmatic policy debate, they have an obligation to do so, as I have argued elsewhere (Kershaw
2005). But theorists cannot make an adequate con-
CANADIAN PUBLIC POLICY – ANALYSE DE
tribution while neglecting empirical data, as O’Neill
is wont to do in Civic Capitalism. Readers of Canadian Public Policy, used to evidence-based analyses that speak directly to contemporary policy
issues, will thus be frustrated with his latest manuscript.
REFERENCES
Keating, D.P. and C. Hertzman, eds. 1999. Developmental Health and the Wealth of Nations: Social, Biological, and Educational Dynamics. New York: The
Guilford Press.
Kershaw, P. 2005. Carefair: Rethinking the Responsibilities and Rights of Citizenship. Vancouver: University
of British Columbia Press.
Norman, W. and W. Kymlicka. 2003. “Citizenship,” in A
Companion to Applied Ethics, ed. R.G.Frey and C.H.
Wellman. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Young, I.M. 1989. “Polity and Group Difference: A Critique of the Ideal of Universal Citizenship,” Ethics
99:250-74.
PAUL K ERSHAW, Faculty of Graduate Studies, University of British Columbia and Director of the Social Care and Social Citizenship Research Network
at the Human Early Learning Partnership
POLITIQUES , VOL . XXXII , NO. 2 2006
Reviews/Comptes rendus
Globalization Unplugged: Sovereignty and the
Canadian State in the Twenty-First Century
by Peter Urmetzer. Toronto: University of Toronto
Press, 2005.
What is globalization? Globalization has been
praised and blamed for many different outcomes,
defined in almost uncountable ways, and used to
describe a truly vast number of phenomena. In this
book, Peter Urmetzer sets out to describe what globalization is not. Using detailed historical data, this
book takes an intriguing look at whether such things
as rising volumes of trade, increased foreign ownership, and erosion of the welfare state are truly new
(and verifiable) events which can be attributed to
“globalization.” Focusing on the Canadian context,
Globalization Unplugged poses pertinent questions
and raises distinctive ideas.
Arching through the book is the idea that globalization is neither new, nor responsible for most
of what is ascribed to it. Rather, globalization is a
new word for a much older progression, one that
Urmetzer traces theoretically back to the writings
of Marx and Engels and empirically further still. He
suggests that many outcomes currently attributed to
global forces are either non-existent, or are in fact a
result of domestic conditions. Further, the book
concludes that much of what underlies the globalization debate is actually the age-old struggle between capital and labour in the division of resources.
The book’s strength lies in the interesting questions it asks. Starting in the second chapter with a
challenge to the idea that globalization is a “new”
concept, Urmetzer separates the origins of the popular usage of the word “globalization” (recent) from
the origins of some of the outcomes and ideas often
attributed to globalization (not so recent). Pointing
out that its usage in language is now so broad as to
be almost meaningless, Urmetzer goes on to highlight three factors which are fairly consistently attributed to globalization: increased cross-border
movements, an acceleration of the globalization
process following the Second World War, and a
239
weakening of the individual nation-state. Much of
the remainder of the book is devoted to testing the
empirical validity of these factors.
Using a series of graphs and data from 1870 to
2003, Urmetzer argues that Canadian imports and
exports as a percentage of GDP do not demonstrate
the post-World War II spike in cross-border movements suggested by the globalization thesis. Indeed,
a larger share of Canadian GDP was exported during the First World War than in 2003. In addition,
since the vast majority of trade flows are between
Canada and the United States (and this share is growing), the book concludes that Canada’s trade is far
from “global” — it is at best continental. With imports from lower-income nations, totalling only 5.5
percent of Canadian GDP (though growing) it also
suggests the feared shift in production from Canada to
lower-income countries is not readily apparent. The
book further concludes that foreign ownership is still
very minimal in Canada, with most economic activity
remaining domestic.
In one of the book’s most engaging investigations,
the seventh chapter examines the relationship between globalization and the nation-state. Confronting the criticism that the call of global
competitiveness undermines ability of governments
to pursue social agendas, Urmetzer examines
whether public spending, and spending on welfare
state initiatives in particular, has declined. He finds
that spending on education, health, and social services as a percentage of GDP in Canada has steadily
increased since 1933. While this chapter concludes
that globalization has not produced a substantial threat
to the welfare state, it also suggests this is not for lack
of trying on the part of the political right.
The book unravels to some degree where it makes
broad economic policy prescriptions based on brief
descriptions and anecdotal evidence. Examples include: little evidence is given that fiscal probity and
low inflation are the fastest way to economic growth
(p. 108), pensions should be nationalized (p. 154),
and there is little evidence that trade and economic
CANADIAN PUBLIC POLICY – ANALYSE DE POLITIQUES,
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240 Reviews/Comptes rendus
growth are related (p. 195). Detailed, careful statistical studies considering multiple countries and extensive time horizons exist for each of these points.1
Summarizing this wealth of empirical analysis (with
a variety of results) as “little evidence” does these
topics a disservice. Calls for the regulation of currency transactions suffer from a similar lack of rigour.
This book succeeds in calling into question the
idea that globalization is all-powerful and
unstoppable. By questioning many of the assumptions and conjectures of the globalization debate, it
gives readers pause to think. However, the book
struggles to answer many of the questions it raises,
effectively grouping all the attributes previously
lumped into “globalization” into the equally vague
“unbridled domestic capitalism.”
NOTE
vs. private pensions, see Banks and Emmerson (2000) and
Valdes-Prieto (1999).
REFERENCES
Banks, J. and C. Emmerson. 2000. “Public and Private
Pension Spending: Principles, Practice and the Need
for Reform,” Fiscal Studies 21(1):1-63.
Burdekin, R., T. Goodwin, S. Salamun and T. Willett. 1994
“The Effects of Inflation on Economic Growth in Industrial and Developing Countries: Is There a Difference?” Applied Economic Letters 1(10):175-77
Irwin, D. 2005. “Trade and Development: A Review of
the Debate.” Background Paper Prepared for UN Millennium Project International Task Force on Trade.
Judson, R. and A. Orphanides. 1999. “Inflation, Volatility and Growth,” International Finance 2(1):117-38.
Trefler, D. 2004. “The Long and Short of the Canada-US
Free Trade Agreement,” American Economics Review
94(4):870-95.
Valdes-Prieto, S., ed. 1999. The Economics of Pensions:
Principles, Policies, and International Experience.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
1
Literally hundreds of statistical analyses exist concerning
these topics. On trade and growth see, for example, Trefler
(2004) and Irwin (2005). On inflation and growth, see Judson
and Orphanides (1999), Burdekin et al. (1994). On public
CANADIAN PUBLIC POLICY – ANALYSE DE
J EN B AGGS , Faculty of Business, University of
Victoria
POLITIQUES , VOL . XXXII , NO. 2 2006