118 Reviews/Comptes rendus
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BOOKS REVIEWED
Michael Asch (ed.) Aboriginal and Treaty Rights
in Canada: Essays on Law, Equality, and Respect
for Difference reviewed by Tony Hall 127
Keith G. Banting and Robin Boadway (eds.)
Reform of Retirement Income Policy: International
and Canadian Perspectives reviewed by James
Pesando 125
Jonathan Boston, John Martin, June Pallot, and
Pat Walsh Public Management: The New Zealand
Model reviewed by R.W. Phidd 120
John L. Hiemstra Worldviews on the Air: The Struggle to Create a Pluralist Broadcasting System in The
Netherlands reviewed by John D. Jackson 129
M. Patricia Marchak Racism, Sexism, and the
University: The Political Science Affair at the University of British Columbia reviewed by Charlene
M. Gannage 122
J.M. Mintz and James E. Pesando Putting Consumers First: Reforming the Canadian Financial
Services Industry reviewed by Reuven Brenner 119
Jeffrey J. Schott (ed.) The World Trading System:
Challenges Ahead reviewed by Michael Hart 123
Gene Swimmer (ed.) How Ottawa Spends 1997-98
Seeing Red: A Liberal Report Card reviewed by
Michael Walker 126
Allan Everett Marble Surgeons, Smallpox, and the
Poor: A History of Medicine and Social Conditions
in Nova Scotia, 1749-1799 reviewed by Jerome H.
Barkow 128
CANADIAN P UBLIC P OLICY – ANALYSE DE POLITIQUES,
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Putting Consumers First: Reforming the
Canadian Financial Services Industry
by J.M. Mintz and James E. Pesando. Toronto: C.D.
Howe Institute, 1996. Pp. xiii, 104. $14.95.
The three essays in this volume were written in anticipation of the 1997 legislative review of regulations of the financial industry. Two essays have a
very broad scope, one dealing with competition,
profitability, and concentration in the Canadian
banking sector, and the second with technological
changes affecting this sector. The third deals with
the narrow issue of redesigning the Canadian payments system through which financial institutions
clear transactions with each other.
The first study, written by Laurence Booth, uses
standard measures to examine whether or not there
is evidence of excessive profits in the banking sector. According to Booth, from the three measures
that he uses — profits, deviations from marginal cost
pricing, and market valuation — he cannot infer
exercise of market power. I do not find any of these
exercises convincing for a number of reasons. For
example, accounting profits cannot tell us much
about the issue. If companies have market power,
they can spend more on splendiferous headquarters
and other perks. The top management can also indulge itself in ego-massaging, but not very profitable, acquisitions. Such spending increases costs while
preventing any detection of above-normal profits.
My casual observation is that, yes, the Canadian
banks do have market power and are not very efficient. The evidence is that each time a US competitor tries to come to Canada, all the banks are up in
arms and run to Ottawa for protection. A true test of
competition would be to compare the banks’ stock
prices when there is an increased threat of entry of
American banks and when the threat disappears. If
stock prices go down with the threat of increased
entry of new financial institutions to Canada, banks
today do have excess profits, regardless of what accountants or economists (mis)measure. If the stocks
hardly move with variations in threats of entry, they
119
do not have excess profits. Maybe Mr. Booth can
complement his study by carrying out this test. The
lesson from it would be that if, indeed, Canadian
banking stocks go down significantly with the threat
of entry, Ottawa — if its goal is to protect Canadian
consumers — should not protect the banks.
The essay by John Evans is far too general to be
of use for rewriting legislation. He recommends that
the new regulatory structure provide “quality assurance” to consumers in an electronic world. Everyone agrees with that. The $1,000,000 question (U.S.
dollar, not Canadian “dolaretto”) is, how do you do
that?
People want faster and more convenient transactions. But they also want anonymity and privacy,
and the two do not necessarily go together. So “quality assurance” is too vague a term to guide any
policymaker. Also, banking executives do not have
a very clear idea what consumers want. That is why
they have lost so much money on experiments that
failed. And if they do not know what “quality services” people want, and how much they are ready to
pay for them, how is a regulator to know how to
regulate them?
Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve chairman,
put the dilemma perfectly in a recent speech:
There is a significant need for flexibility in allowing these technologies to adapt and grow in
response to pressures in the marketplace. There
is also need to avoid building formal or burdensome regulatory systems on the shifting sands of
project proposals. I am especially concerned that
we do not attempt to impede unduly our newest
innovation, electronic money, or more generally,
our increasingly broad electronic payments system. To develop new forms of payment, the private sector will need the flexibility of experiment,
without broad interference by the government.
The third essay, by Neil Quigley, deals with the
Canadian Payments System, the one Greenspan
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120 Reviews/Comptes rendus
alludes to in his speech. He recommends transferring the responsibilities for clearing and settlement
from the Canadian Payment Association (CPA) to
the central bank. The CPA has mandated this function by the Canadian Payments Association Act of
1980. His recommendation sounds reasonable, since
the distinction between financial institutions is
blurred, and there is no reason to award certain privileges to institutions based on their names rather than
on what they are actually doing. Since the Central
Bank is the lender of last resort (unless, in case of
separation, parts of Canada may become basket
cases, and fall under IMF control), the recommendation to allow it to supervise the payment system
makes sense, though I would have liked to learn
more about how this system works in Germany or
the UK before venturing into more precise
recommendations.
REUVEN BRENNER, Faculty of Management, McGill
University
Public Management: The New Zealand Model
by Jonathan Boston, John Martin, June Pallot, and
Pat Walsh. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Pp. x, 406.
The four authors of this book suggest that there has
been a revolution in public management. They assert: “Since the early to mid-1980s, the quest for
smarter as well as smaller government has led numerous countries to embark upon public sector reforms” (p. 2). This endorsement has taken place in
the United Kingdom and in Australia, among other
countries. They also assert that “New Zealand’s
model of public management — the product of an
extraordinary succession of governmental reforms
commencing in the mid-1980s — has, without
doubt, been the most widely acclaimed and celebrated” (p. 2). Consequently, many scholars and
practitioners of public administration have visited
the country to evaluate the results of the reforms.
The book is a rather complex one. Its eighteen
chapters are divided into eight parts: The RevoluCANADIAN P UBLIC P OLICY – ANALYSE DE POLITIQUES,
tion in Public Management, The Structure of New
Zealand’s Public Sector, Management at the Centre, Management Beyond the Centre, Human Resource Management, Financial Management, Responsible Management, and Conclusions. The book
covers some of the most sophisticated issues in the
theory and practice of public management to be addressed in 2000 and beyond. The more complex issues dealt with include the public management of
multiculturalism, the design of delivery mechanisms, the role of local government, the management of employment relations, negotiating employment contracts, equal employment opportunities, the
management of financial and human resources, accountability, and ethical issues in public management. The management of these rather complex issues raises difficult questions such as “whether and
if so how, a country’s political, legal, administrative, and other institutions should reflect the range
of cultures represented in that society” (p. 142).
The reform features of the New Zealand model
are said to broadly conform to the ideas, principles,
and practices of either “managerialism” or the “new
public management.” The authors claim, nevertheless, that the reforms were based on a range of theoretical traditions, political imperatives, and pragmatic judgements by ministers within the country.
Accordingly, managerialism was only one of the
intellectual ingredients of the revolution (p. 3). The
authors note, nevertheless, “that the reforms were
part of a carefully crafted, integrated, and mutually
reinforcing reform agenda outlined in a Treasury
briefing paper in 1987 entitled Government
Management.
The objectives of the new model of public management as outlined in the document, just mentioned, were: (i) to improve allocative and productive efficiency; (ii) to achieve the effectiveness of
governmental programs; (iii) to improve the accountability of public sector institutions and the
accountability of the executive to parliament; (iv)
to reduce the level of government expenditures and
the size of the core public sector; (v) to minimize
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the opportunities for the non-transparent use of public
power; (vi) to improve the quality of the goods and
services produced by public agencies; and (vii) to make
the public services more accessible and responsive to
consumers, as well as more culturally sensitive.
In addition, the new philosophy encompassed
multidimensional features such as the following: the
government should be involved in residual activities; commercial style activities should be structured
along business lines; the goals of public sector organizations should be explicitly stated; political and
managerial style activities should be distinguished;
the bidding for public projects should be open; programs should be close to the users; and preferences
should be given to governmental structures that
minimize costs. Overall, the New Zealand reforms
were designed to improve the country’s economic
performance and end almost three decades of relative decline.
It is interesting to note that while the management
reforms have been dramatic and far-reaching, several
perennial tensions and dilemmas of contemporary governance have remained (p. 7). From this perspective,
the book is consistent with the long tradition of
scholarly writing on administrative reforms in the
public sector which are manifested in the writings
of analysts such as Gerald Caiden, among others.
The book points to some complex problem areas in
public policymaking, for example, the community
basis of management in education, health, and social welfare. These areas involve complex relations
between the centre and local levels (pp. 162-82).
The book demonstrates that public sector management takes place in a political environment.
Thus, the system of government in New Zealand
operates within the constitutional framework of 1986
which lays out the responsibilities of the sovereign,
the executive, the legislature, and the judiciary
(p. 43). The cabinet system of government is based
on collective and individual ministerial responsibility. As is the case in the United Kingdom, in Canada,
and in other Commonwealth countries, the public
121
service has operated within a conflict cooperation
nexus revealing tensions between the competing
pressures for political control over the unelected
bureaucracy and the desire for a non-political public service. These institutional characteristics must
be placed in their historical context. There has been
an evolution from the 1950s to the 1980s. There are
strong institutional traditions which should be mentioned. It is noted, nevertheless, that there have been
continued pressures for reform. This book is concerned with the difficulties inherent in institutional
reform and its effects on public management.
The study of public administration is really concerned with the design of the appropriate institutional framework for governing. Accordingly, public sector reform is, to a considerable extent, concerned with the choice of organizational forms. In
the century or so prior to the mid-1980s, the structure of New Zealand’s bureaucracy evolved in a more
or less ad hoc fashion. Most machinery of government changes were the result of either new policy
initiatives, changing societal needs, or political
manoeuvrings. They were not the product of either
concerted efficiency drives or the application of
grand bureaucratic designs (p. 77). In contrast, the
state sector reforms between the mid-1980s and the
mid-1990s radically reshaped the landscape. They
were motivated by concerted initiatives. By the mid1990s, 26 new departments were created and 23
departments were abolished or privatized. The
number of departments increased from 34 to 39, and
most significant, the functions of the departments
changed drastically. It is important to note also that
the reforms were Treasury led (p. 80). The most recent changes in the public sector were driven by fiscal imperatives. The pace of change has accelerated
and there are more complex issues affecting a variety of public and private sector organizations that
defy the more simple reform objectives outlined at
the centre of government (pp. 350-366).
It is worth pointing out to those not familiar with
the study of public administration that the reforms,
mentioned above, conceal some very complex public
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administration issues, which are likely to resurface
in the future. They include the existence of competing design management principles such as sectoral
versus functional, vertical versus horizontal, and
policy versus operations characteristic in the performance of institutional roles (pp. 69-95).
With regard to public personnel management, it is
suggested that the most recent reforms have led to rapid
turnover of senior personnel, a greater emphasis on
performance measurement featuring performance review, performance agreements, and improved central
political direction which have significantly changed
the system of public personnel management (p. 108).
It has led to a more flexible and less stable environment.
Other areas of public management, traditionally
labelled common services and encompassing activities such as purchasing and the acquisition of advice, have also changed (pp. 121-40). In essence,
the changes in public management are system wide.
Understandably, the authors are more cautious in
predicting the longer term effects of the changes
related to certain very difficult areas of public
administration. This approach is evident in their discussion of the following issues: (i) public management in a bicultural society; (ii) the centre and
periphery, the continuing game; (iii) managing
employment relationship; (iv) accountability and the
collective interests; (v) the role of the audit office;
(vi) responsible management, ethos, and ethics; and
(vii) administrative review and redress.
The authors conclude that “the machinery of government changes also make plain that there is no
one right model or ideal way to design public bureaucracies.” Likewise, they reinforce the long-held
view that “the quest for a unified or general theory
of institutional choice is misconceived. Each structural arrangement has its own particular advantages
and disadvantages, and in many cases the arguments
are finely balanced” (p. 355).
CANADIAN P UBLIC P OLICY – ANALYSE DE POLITIQUES,
Furthermore, major problem areas that defy
simple solutions remain: the centralizationdecentralization issue, the difficulty of establishing
effective human resources management, and the
clarification of political and managerial accountability issues in the theory and practice of public administration (pp. 162-295).
The book confirms that there has been a major
conservative oriented shift in the theory and practice of public sector management with the endorsement of public choice theories. It suggests that the
reforms must be assessed over time. Overall, the
book emphasizes that institutional analysis is a very
complex field to be conducted with caution. It provides useful guidelines for evaluating the changes
taking place in contemporary public sector management in a global setting. It should be required reading for those who study and practice public
management in Canada.
R.W. PHIDD, Department of Political Science, University of Guelph
Racism, Sexism, and the University: The
Political Science Affair at the University of
British Columbia
by M. Patricia Marchak. Montreal and Kingston:
McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1996. Pp. 171.
$14.95
This is an emotionally gripping book, despite the
author’s attempts to remain “disengaged” and “objective.” Sociologist Patricia Marchak examines the
circumstances leading to the president’s suspension
of graduate admissions to the political science department at the University of British Columbia
(UBC), following a report of an inquiry conducted
by Vancouver lawyer, Joan McEwen, published in
1995. As dean of arts, Marchak played an official
role in the commissioning of McEwen’s inquiry, yet
Marchak takes issue with the report’s findings.
Marchak contends that “due process was not followed” by McEwen in the latter’s upholding of
charges of pervasive racism and sexism following a
VOL. XXIV , NO. 1 1998
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confidential complaint made in the summer of 1992
by graduate students against the political science
department at UBC.
On the one hand, the students who charged the
department with pervasive racism and sexism are
portrayed with sympathy but as being misguided.
The major protagonists who sided with the students
include the university president and the dean of the
Faculty of Graduate Studies. On the other hand, is
the department head who represented most of the
faculty in the department. Those members of the
university faculty who remained aloof or refused to
take the concerns raised by students seriously are
singled out for criticism by Marchak.
Marchak’s story needed to be told: (i) to clear
the public record; (ii) to clarify the facts of an inquiry that some thought was “seriously flawed”; and
(iii) to put into context the turmoil of universities,
created, in part, by serious cuts to postsecondary
education. With a keen sense of legal acumen,
Marchak takes the reader step by step through the
so-called “McEwen Report,” the media’s portrayal
of events, and the aftermath of the president’s decision. She cites statistics about graduate admissions,
withdrawals, grades, and financial support and provides arguments, based on the testimony of faculty,
that dismiss some of the worst allegations of faculty abuse of power. Marchak allays fears that gender harassment involved physical abuse or rape and
outlines the eventual procedures adopted by the university for dealing with student grievances.
The author presents a sociological context for her
discussion of changes in postsecondary education
at the university level. She harkens back to a vision
of the university (possibly idealized) based on pluralism and liberal enquiry for knowledge’s sake.
According to Marchak, the department under siege
at UBC failed to bridge the generations both
pedagogically and through the curriculum: “One
senses, reading the seemingly trite complaints, that
the students were implying that they found their
teachers to be smug, overbearing, out-of-date, and
123
unimaginative” (p. 141). Marchak concedes that
some faculty may be intellectually narrow, immersed
as they are, in American political science training.
The professoriate does not include “neo-Marxists,”
“neo-Gramscians,” or post-modernists; neither
“more critical perspectives” nor “non-Western”
views of power and the state are taught in the curriculum. Similarly, external evaluators of the department cited gender imbalance and the lack of feminist political theory to be serious flaws.
While Marchak draws attention to the sociological context of postsecondary education, it is also
important to put into perspective the politics of student unrest. Marchak recognizes the economic hardships that female graduate students experience but
downplays the importance of identity politics and
of the new social movements. Curiously absent from
her discussion of “social and cultural contexts” is
the political crisis facing Canada at the time. During the academic year 1991-92, students witnessed
Canadian participation in the war against Iraq and a
year earlier, the military intervention against the
Mohawk people of Kanesatake and Kahnawake. It
is not surprising, then, that political tensions were
heightened on most university campuses. One cannot help but question whether underfunding to universities continues to be used as a convenient excuse
for failing to provide students with relevant curriculum, inclusive programs, and the mentors that students have so urgently requested.
CHARLENE M. GANNAGE, Department of Sociology
and Anthropology, University of Windsor
The World Trading System: Challenges Ahead
edited by Jeffrey J. Schott. Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics, 1996. Pp. xiii, 329.
What a difference 50 years makes. Fifty years ago
on 30 October 1947, eight countries signed the Protocol of Provisional Application committing themselves to bring a bold new experiment in multilateral trade cooperation, the General Agreement on
Tariffs and Trade (GATT), into force on 1 January
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1948. Only a few noticed. To be sure there was a
lively, but very limited, debate on the pros and cons
of the new agreement followed by only a few scholarly publications. It took almost 20 years before the
agreement attracted sufficient scholarly interest to
produce what is now considered the standard literature on the GATT. On 15 April 1994, some 125 countries signed the Protocol bringing GATT’s Uruguay
Round of multilateral trade negotiations to a successful conclusion and giving birth to the World
Trade Organization (WTO). Within months, not only
did scholars produce some solid scholarly appreciations of the WTO, but an equally respectable literature has poured forth considering the “challenges
ahead.”
Jeffrey Schott does a solid job both in introducing the themes to be explored in an opening essay
and in drawing the messages together in a closing
essay on the way ahead.
Jeff Schott’s latest edited volume, The World
Trading System: Challenges Ahead, comprises an
excellent example of the latter. It provides a rich
compendium of articles reviewing the state of play
in the evolution of the rules governing global trade
relations. The compendium of papers gathered together in this volume were first presented at a conference in Washington in June 1996, focused on the
upcoming first ministerial meeting of the WTO in
Singapore later in December. Only a few of the papers, however, keep to such a short time horizon.
Most of the authors provide a clear summary of their
main research interests and expertise, often summarizing longer, book-length studies recently completed or in progress.
Robert Lawrence provides a sensible, balanced
assessment of the tension between multilateral and
regional approaches to liberalization and rule-making, subtly tracing both the constructive and destructive aspects of regionalism and debunking the recent hysteria among multilateral purists like Jagdish
Bhagwati and Anne Krueger.
The book is a little reminiscent of one of the institute’s first publications, Trade Policy in the 1980s,
edited by William Cline. It brought together a group
of trade policy luminaries in advance of GATT’s
1982 ministerial meeting and asked them to look
ahead to the issues that would dominate the trade
agenda for the next decade. The luminaries of 1982
are not the same as those of 1996. With the exception of the University of Michigan’s John Jackson
and the institute’s own Fred Bergsten and Gary
Hufbauer, there is very little overlap. The luminaries of 1996 are also a much more international cast.
CANADIAN P UBLIC P OLICY – ANALYSE DE POLITIQUES,
Gary Hufbauer reports on a multi-country project
to capture the state of protection after more than
five decades of efforts to reduce and eliminate protection within a framework of agreed rules and procedures. He has both some good news and some bad
news: progress has been significant, particularly in
trade among industrialized countries, but there remain many stubborn pockets of protection, providing much scope for continued liberalization and rulemaking.
Chapters by Daniel Esty and Richard Freeman
provide provocative but well thought through discussions of two of the most difficult issues on the
trade agenda: the nexus between trade rules and protection of the environment and the promotion of labour rights.
Chapters by I.M. Destler, Martin Wolf, and Soogil
Young discuss the political economy of trade in the
United States, the European Union, and East Asia
respectively. A willingness to make the tough
choices that are the essence of real leadership are
wholly absent in all three capitals. The cumulative
picture that emerges is that, at least for the forseeable
future, there will be more talk than action in realizing the agenda described in the rest of the book.
John Jackson provides a good overview of what
makes dispute settlement under the WTO much more
robust than under the GATT and the extent to which
some of the changes have not been fully assimilated
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125
in the thinking of some national governments, particularly in the United States.
we are and where we are likely to be heading, with
some useful suggestions for how to get there.
Murray Smith’s chapter is a scattergun appreciation of various facets of the accession process, particularly as it applies to the process of bringing
China and Russia fully into the global trading
system.
All the contributors are paid up members of the
fraternity of like-minded analysts who believe that
international economic transactions should be governed by a liberalizing set of global rules. Not all
analysts share this perspective. What distinguishes
this school of analysis, of course, is that its values
are widely shared among policymakers in both government and industry and its prescriptions are thus
likely to be taken seriously. It is a perspective I share
and it should not surprise, therefore, that generally
I find this book a solid contribution to the discussion of the emerging global trade policy agenda. It
is also why this book will not be much used in university policy courses. Not that it should not be. I
believe it provides a thoughtful overview of the issues. But those who teach policy, particularly in
Canadian universities, prefer a different set of values and assumptions and will thus avoid exposing
their students to this kind of material. Too bad.
Consistent with the book’s overall theme, Richard Snape and Malcolm Bosworth emphasize the
deficiencies of the General Agreement on Trade and
Services and thus the work still ahead to meet the
goal of a more liberal and predictable trading environment for trade in services.
Monte Graham’s chapter on investment provides
a good overview of the rationale for a multilateral
investment regime and the reasons why the OECD
negotiations on a Multilateral Investment Agreement
(MAI) may be a mistake. The MAI involves the
wrong countries in the wrong forum; it is not multilateral but plurilateral. Graham sets out the issues a
multilateral agreement would engage and why such
an agreement should be integrated into the WTO
framework, noting, inter alia, the critical importance
of the WTO’s dispute settlement regime.
The chapter by Patrick Messerlin reviews once
again what could be done over the next ten years to
ensure progress toward a WTO that promotes competition, that is, how to ensure that the required political safety valve that allows further liberalization
is found in safeguards rather than antidumping
provisions.
Fred Bergsten’s concluding chapter, “Globalizing Free Trade,” is a rehash of the Bergsten thesis
first presented in his APEC vision document. It fails
to provide much of an intellectual or political
economy base for the next round of negotiations. It
is not wrong as vision but is misleading as a prognostication of likely developments. On the other
hand, Jeff Schott’s concluding chapter, “Setting the
Course,” delineates a pragmatic assessment of where
M ICHAEL H ART , School of International Affairs,
Carleton University
Reform of Retirement Income Policy:
International and Canadian Perspectives
edited by Keith G. Banting and Robin Boadway.
Kingston: School of Policy Studies, Queen’s University, 1997. Pp. xii, 342.
This book, co-edited by a political scientist and an
economist, provides a multidisciplinary and an international perspective on a timely and important
issue: the restructuring of Canada’s retirement income system in response to the aging of our population and continued fiscal restraint on the part of
the federal government.
In February 1997, the federal government — after obtaining an agreement with most of the provinces — tabled its proposed reforms to the Canada
Pension Plan (CPP). The key proposal is a sharp and
rapid increase in the contribution rate, designed to
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126 Reviews/Comptes rendus
increase the degree of funding and to reduce what
is perceived to be an unfair burden on the young.
The federal government also introduced, in its March
1996 budget, a proposed Seniors Benefit, which
would replace Old Age Security (OAS) and the
Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS). Relative to
the status quo, the Seniors Benefit would concentrate benefits in the hands of low-income seniors.
Against this backdrop, Banting and Boadway
provide an excellent introduction and overview to
the policy debate. Estelle James from the World
Bank and Andrew Dilnot from the United Kingdom
provide the international perspective. James reviews
the World Bank’s concerns regarding pay-as-yougo public pensions in countries with aging
populations, and its preference for a funded and privately managed component of a public retirement
system. Dilnot reviews recent experience in Europe,
especially in the United Kingdom, and documents
the trend towards increased reliance on the private
sector in the provision of retirement incomes.
Essays by Canadian contributors follow. Michael
Wolfson and Brian Murphy assess the impact of an
aging population on the sustainability of Canada’s
public pension programs; Newman Lam, James Cult,
and Michael Prince review the history and prospects
for the CPP; Ken Battle evaluates an alternative to
OAS/GIS which, in fact, closely resembles the proposed Seniors Benefit; and Jack Mintz and Thomas
Wilson review tax policy issues, with attention to
the tax treatment of RRSPs and RPPs.
The politics of reform, again with an international
flavour, is then assessed in separate essays by John
Myles and Jill Quadagno and by Paul Pierson. The
final two essays, by Thomas Courchene and Monica
Townson, offer normative commentary on the evolution of Canada’s retirement system.
Overall, the quality of the essays is high. The
authors differ in their preference for public as distinct from private solutions to the income needs of
the elderly, and the overall tone of the discussion is
CANADIAN P UBLIC P OLICY – ANALYSE DE POLITIQUES,
quite balanced. I particularly liked the comments
on the Dilnot paper by Robin Boadway, which focus on the rationale for public intervention in the
provision of retirement income, and the MintzWilson paper on tax policy. Other readers may have
different preferences, but all should agree that this
volume of timely essays merits attention from those
seeking to understand — or to contribute — to this
important policy debate.
JAMES PESANDO, Department of Economics, University of Toronto
How Ottawa Spends 1997-98
Seeing Red: A Liberal Report Card
edited by Gene Swimmer. Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1997. Pp. x, 344.
I am certain that this book will make the Liberal
government feel considerable cheer. Written as it is
for the most part by people who apparently share
the aspirations of those within the Liberal Party who
are on the left of the economic and social policy
spectrum, it constitutes a critique from the mild left
of the kind that the Fraser Institute has provided
from a market perspective. The government will feel
very pleased with the review since, taken in conjunction with the critique offered by the Fraser Institute, it will justifiably regard itself as taking a
middle of the road policy stance with regard to most
of the major issues discussed.
As distinct from the Fraser Institute treatment of
the same subject, however, the government may well
feel that with this book it has been stoned to death
by a hail of popcorn since the critique is, for the
most part, half-hearted and without the sort of gusto
that a true critic would bring to the task. Not by any
means to suggest that this is a monolithic book —
any book containing 12 essays by a total of 17 authors would be expected to have a certain heterogeneity and How Ottawa Spends is no exception. The
well-balanced treatment of the internal trade agreement as “the beginning of a new federal assertiveness” is matched by an assessment of the
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government’s international trade policy under the
heading, “Anything for a buck.”
There is a good survey of the fiscal policies of
the federal government together with an appendix
containing charts and graphs, a handy collection of
data regarding the government’s conduct. The graphs
are regrettably marred by the fact that the multicoloured screens in the chart program do not reproduce well in black and white.
The assessments give grudging approval of the
government’s integrity which has “been a great deal
better than the Mulroney governments.” The government gets low marks for abandoning a centrally
directed social housing policy, for giving up to parents the control over child care rather than preserving a role for the state as a provider of these services. One of the weak points in the book is shallow
treatment of the situation with regard to retirement
policy. While there is an entire chapter dealing with
the issue of the seniors’ benefit and the CPP, in fact
the latter receives only one and a half pages of discussion, an extraordinary light touch for a program
change which will feature the largest tax grab in
Canadian history.
Of course environmental policy is not green
enough, culture is not stoutly enough defended and,
“most increases in targeting unemployment insurance have been off-set by overall reductions in benefit coverage, generosity, and progressivity.” It is
perhaps indicative of the mindset of the reviewers
that labour market policy deals almost entirely with
transfer programs and there is no mention made, for
example, of the Liberal’s intent to make fundamental changes to the Canada Labour Code, changes
which fortunately died on the order paper.
Perhaps, from the point of view of the reader, the
handiest feature of this book is the brief abstracts
of each of the papers with which the interested
reader could compare this review. The most important deficiency of the book is the fact that too much
effort is expended in discerning the politics of the
127
particular policies assessed and documenting what
was being said in the community about them and
too little time is spent establishing a positive analysis as a basis for the normative critique.
MICHAEL WALKER, The Fraser Institute
Aboriginal and Treaty Rights in Canada:
Essays on Law, Equality, and Respect for
Difference
edited by Michael Asch. Vancouver: University of
British Columbia Press, 1997. Pp. xv, 284. $65.00.
The volume takes its name from the key phrase in
section 35 of the document entrenched in 1982 as
Canada’s “supreme law.” Back in the early 1990s,
when the country was still reverberating with the
aftermath of the Mohawk Warrior’s stand at Oka and
Elijah Harper’s blockade of the Meech Lake accord
in Manitoba, there was a large and engaged audience for this kind of text. Now at the end of the decade, the Supreme Court seems to have pre-empted the
more militant expression of Aboriginal and treaty rights
with its historic ruling on the Delgamuukw case. And
the authors like these brought together by anthropologist Michael Asch are largely back to lecturing one
another in relative obscurity on the constitutional character of Aboriginal and treaty rights in Canada.
Like its editor and virtually all of its authors, this
is a book whose agenda is clear, consistent, and relatively straightforward. What is presented are largely
state-of-the-art legal arguments aimed at persuading future interpreters of section 35 that it has broad
meaning and deep roots in the history of Canada.
For proponents of the “Asch School” the present
significance of this expansive interpretation is that
section 35 should be afforded importance in constructing the institutional shape of the country’s future. I happen to share the consensus achieved
among the book’s contributors, over half of whom
are law professors or lawyer wannabees with long
experience as advocates for Aboriginal clients. In
spite of seeing all sorts of compelling argumentation for causes with which I agree, however — and
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VOL . XXIV, NO . 1 1998
128 Reviews/Comptes rendus
I have in mind here particularly the important commentary by Asch and Norman Zlotkin on the appalling implications of retaining notions of extinguishment as a basis for negotiating modern-day
treaties — I look in vain for internal controversies
posing antagonistic positions on well-framed issues.
It seems to me, for instance, that lawyer Bruce
Clark, an old-time scholar of Aboriginal and treaty
rights who shot to media fame with his unorthodox
defence of the self-declared defenders of the
Shuswap Nation at Gustafsen Lake in 1995, has presented ideas and accusations which severely challenge the approaches and methods of that part of
the legal establishment who tend to see themselves
as careful ambassadors of their Aboriginal clients’
interests. For Asch and peers simply to have ignored
Clark’s challenge to the central operations of what
might be perceived as an Aboriginal rights industry, strikes me as unadventurous at best, censorship
at worst. Similarly, I would have appreciated seeing some representation from the brain trust of what
to my Red Tory sensibilities are the powers of darkness, namely those ultra-liberals in and around the
Reform Party who think of themselves as arch conservatives. The obvious suspect here is Professor
Flanagan at the University of Calgary who quit his
job as policy adviser to Preston Manning once his
boss had demonstrated his unwillingness to take a
really hard line against Aboriginal rights.
Only one article really takes on the divisions
within Indian Country. University of Manitoba Native Studies Professor Emma LaRocque looks at how
the search for “culturally appropriate” means of
administering justice to Aboriginal rapists, child
molesters, and wife beaters has gone astray. In her
view the new vogue for healing circles and the like
has produced results where horrific offenses are too
often smoothed over and where patriarchy in new
forms continues to treat the violation of women
lightly. LaRocque argues, moreover, that the biases
really displayed are those of “contemporary, white,
leftist/liberal, Christian and even New Age notions
CANADIAN P UBLIC P OLICY – ANALYSE DE POLITIQUES,
of ‘healing,’ ‘forgiveness,’ and offender ‘rehabilitation’.” While her own analysis lacks any recognition that patterns of domestic violence do not always follow the prescribed script linking gender and
victimhood, there is much illumination to be found
in this Métis author’s thoughtful commentary on the
evolution of Aboriginal justice systems within the
context of oversimplified dichotomies between individual and collective rights.
This collection of articles will give readers some
very elaborate explanations of the largely unrealized
extent of Aboriginal and treaty rights in Canada. We
learn less, however, about how Aboriginal peoples
themselves might deal with power relationships
among themselves in the corporate and individual
exercise of their rights and responsibilities.
TONY HALL, Department of Native American Studies, University of Lethbridge
Surgeons, Smallpox, and the Poor: A History of
Medicine and Social Conditions in Nova Scotia,
1749-1799
by Allan Everett Marble. Montreal and Kingston:
McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1993. Pp. xvi,
356. $19.95.
I read Surgeons, Smallpox, and the Poor in the hope
of finding facts with which to intrigue my students,
and was successful. We learn that today’s Nova
Scotian problems of “downloading” of responsibilities but not funds from higher to lower levels of
government were also problems during the second
half of the eighteenth century. The economic hardship caused by the closing of military bases is an
equally familiar theme in today’s Nova Scotia
(though contemporary closures owe more to the
ending of the Cold War than to that of the American
Revolution). Marble’s frequent mention of the inadequate funding of services for the poor and the ill
brings to mind, alas, clichés about things never
changing.
VOL. XXIV , NO. 1 1998
Reviews/Comptes rendus
But, in fact, they do. As the title suggests, smallpox loomed large, during this period. Military, and
other vessels, would often arrive with major proportions of their crew and passengers seriously ill
with the disease, with recurring epidemics the result. Marble even suggests it may be that, but for
the 1775-76 Nova Scotia smallpox epidemic, the
Americans might have gone ahead with a planned
invasion of Halifax. Just as malaria prevented the
European colonization of most of subsaharan Africa, perhaps smallpox prevented the inclusion of
Nova Scotia in the United States of America. Physicians and others did eventually do some inoculating against smallpox, no doubt saving some lives.
This is a book of details, reflecting its sources in
ships’ manifests and passenger lists, troop and ship
movements, budgetary accounts and appropriations,
court records, legislative debates and bills introduced and laws enacted, records of the Poor House,
newspaper advertisements, and some letters. Those
individuals anywhere listed as physicians or surgeons are named in this book. No doubt, this completeness will save future scholars much archival
work.
The author only occasionally moves very far from
his data: we get no grand view of social conditions
per se, though the poor diet, clothing, and housing
of the poor are occasionally commented on, as are
the frequently deplorable conditions of the hospitals and poor houses. We can come to our own conclusions about the population’s health status when
we learn of the high demand for wet nurses because
poor health prevented so many women from nursing their own children. We also learn about patent
medicines advertised, though without discussion of
their possible effects, presumably because, in most
cases, it is not clear what their ingredients were.
Marble has not chosen to discuss the issue of
whether physicians and surgeons, and their remedies
and procedures, did as much, or more, harm than
good in this age before either anesthesia or the no-
129
tion of a sterile field, in which bleeding, emetics,
and laxatives were seen as cure-alls. Most health
care, even today, is home care, but the topic is not
within Marble’s purview. One suspects that there
were herbalists and perhaps “wise women,” and that
such practitioners may in fact have been more important than the “professionals,” who were often
part-time themselves, as Marble makes clear. With
the exception of midwives these are not mentioned
here. There is scant mention of Nova Scotia’s Native peoples, and the population estimate he provides
(p. 13) of 1,000 Aboriginals as of 1749 seems much
too low in the light of Virginia Miller’s work.1
Surgeons, Smallpox, and the Poor belongs on the
shelf of anyone interested in the early history of
professional medicine in Canada. It obviously represents an immense effort of research into primary
sources, and scrupulously presents both detail and
general historical context. It is a good book for dipping into, from time to time.
NOTE
1
See Virginia P. Miller (1982), “The Decline of Nova
Scotia Micmac Population,” Culture 2(3):107-20.
JEROME H. BARKOW, Department of Sociology and
Social Anthropology, Dalhousie University
Worldviews on the Air: The Struggle to Create
a Pluralist Broadcasting System in The
Netherlands
by John L. Hiemstra, 1997. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Pp. viii, 174.
Worldviews on the Air is a case study of the formation of a unique broadcasting system in The Netherlands. The system is unique in its accommodation
to the major religious and political institutions that
constitute Dutch society. Dutch media policy encouraged citizens to create associations dedicated
to broadcasting particular social, cultural, or spiritual tendencies over the air. Such associations were
guaranteed airtime if they could attract the number
C ANADIAN P UBLIC P OLICY – ANALYSE DE POLITIQUES,
VOL . XXIV, NO . 1 1998
130 Reviews/Comptes rendus
of members required by law to constitute a broadcast organization. Thus, as the author notes, “in 1990
eight large broadcast organizations were operating,
representing socialist, liberal, Protestant, Catholic,
evangelical, avant-garde nihilist, pop culture, and
commercial worldviews. Every large broadcaster
was required by law to produce the full range of
entertainment, public affairs, and cultural programming but could interpret the topics in the light of its
own worldview” (pp. 3-4). Furthermore, the policy
gave periodic program time to “small, special interest broadcasters representing political parties, educational organizations, churches and other groups.
A portion of the overall air time was given to a common broadcaster (NOS) to cover general concerns
such as news and sports, and to produce a variety of
special types of programming” (p. 4).
A Canadian reader is likely to be struck by the
multicultural character of the Dutch system. Canada
is not the only state searching for multicultural solutions to meet the diverse beliefs, interests and origins of its population. Indeed, the Dutch solution,
at least insofar as broadcasting is concerned, seems
to meet its policy requirements without the folkloric
rhetoric of multiculturalism, with which we are so
familiar. The Dutch broadcast organizations, including commercial interests, command reasonable time
and near full programming on state-owned
transmitters.
The publication informs the reader in some detail about media policies and practices in Holland,
though this is not its principal objective. The author’s principal objective is to demonstrate that a
particular “worldview” — that of neo-Calvinism —
shaped this rather peculiar policy. In his words, the
book is an historical case study describing how “human actors appropriated new broadcasting technologies, developed new organizations (and) negotiated
the outlines of a broadcasting policy” (p. 6).
lated “anti-revolutionary” political movement from
the perspective of one Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920,
a prominent Calvinist, leader of the Anti-Revolutionary Party, member of parliament and prime minister from 1901 to 1905). This is followed with a
review of educational policy as it emerged from neoCalvinism. Reference is to a constitutional amendment in 1917 entrenching a form of school organization congruent with the “pillarization” (a concept
not uncommon in Dutch social science which captures the essence of structural pluralism) of Dutch
society. This examination of the school struggle sets
the stage for an analysis of the struggle over the
shape broadcasting policy was to take between 1919
and 1930. Part II begins with a look at the imprint
of the school struggles on broadcasting. In the political encounters over schools, the issue was one of
a neutral, secular system versus a system based on
religious orientation (a familiar Canadian experience). In the case of broadcasting, the issue was
where to place the emphasis: on a neutral public
broadcaster, private commercial broadcasting, or
private broadcasters organized around major religious and political interests based on membership.
Following the policy choices made in education, the
latter won the day, thus supporting the author’s
proposition regarding the congruence between dominant world views and public policy.
It is this proposition of congruence which may
interest those involved with public policy. How often does policy evaluation acknowledge and critique
the fundamental philosophical positions underlying
policy in communications, education, etc.? Not too
often I would guess. In posing this question the book
makes a contribution. However, it does suffer from
the not unexpected literary problems associated with
an unedited doctoral dissertation. It is terribly
pedantic.
JOHN D. JACKSON, Concordia Centre for Broadcasting Studies
The first chapter outlines the distinguishing features of the neo-Calvinist “worldview” and its re-
CANADIAN P UBLIC P OLICY – ANALYSE DE POLITIQUES,
VOL. XXIV , NO. 1 1998
Reviews/Comptes rendus
NEW BOOKS
Pat Armstrong and Hugh Armstrong. Wasting
Away: The Undermining of Canadian Health Care.
Don Mills, ON: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Pp.vi,245. $19.95.
Arthur J. Cordell, T. Ran Ide, Luc Soete and
Karin Kamp. The New Wealth of Nations: Taxing
Cyberspace. Toronto: Between the Lines, 1997.
Pp.x,101, $14.95.
Thomas J. Courchene and Edwin H. Neave (eds.).
Reforming the Canadian Financial Sector: Canada
in Global Perspective. Kingston: John Deutsch Institute for the Study of Economic Policy, 1997.
Pp.vi,317. $18.95.
Patrick C. Fafard and Douglas M. Brown (eds.).
Canada: The State of the Federation 1996. Kingston: Institute of Intergovernmental Relations, 1996.
Pp.vii,276.
Ruth T. Gross, Donna Spiker and Christine W.
Haynes (eds.). Helping Low Birth Weight, Premature Babies: The Infant Health and Development
Program. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press,
1997. Pp.xxxviii,635. $75.00.
Kathryn Harrison. Passing the Buck: Federalism
and Canadian Environmental Policy. Vancouver:
UBC Press, 1996. Pp.x,238. $29.95.
M.A. Hines. The Develoment and Finance of Global Private Power. Westport, CT: Quorum Books,
1997. Pp.vii,251. $65.00.
Liesbet Hooghe (ed.). Cohesion Policy and European Integration: Building Multi-Level Governance.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Pp.xiv,458. $86.00.
Institute for Intergovernmental Relations. Assessing ACCESS: Towards a New Social Union (Proceedings of the Symposium on the Courchene Proposal). Kingston: Institute of Intergovernmental
Relations, Queen’s University, 1997. Pp.vi,112.
Gail Kellough. Aborting Law: A Exploration of the
131
Politics of Motherhood and Medicine. Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 1996. Pp.x,340. $19.95.
Erhun Kula. Time Discounting and Future Generations: The Harmful Effects of an Untrue Economic
Theory. Westport, CT: Quorum Books, 1997.
Pp.xvi,199.
Brian K. Maclean and Lars Osberg (eds.). The
Unemployment Crisis: All for Nought? Montreal and
Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1996.
Pp.xix,254. $22.95.
P.A. McNutt. The Economics of Public Choice.
Brookfield: Edward Elgard Publishers, 1996.
Pp.xv,252.
Kristen Renwick Monroe (ed.). Contemporary
Empirical Political Theory. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1997. Pp.329.
Gregor Murray, Marie-Laure Morin and Isabel
Da Costa (eds.). L’Etat des Relations Professionnelles:
Traditions et perspectives de recherche. Sainte-Foy,
PQ: Les Presses de l’Université Laval, 1996.
Pp.xv,615.
Louis W. Pauly. Who Elected the Bankers? Surveillance and Control in the World Economy. Ithaca,
NY: Cornell University Press, 1997. Pp.xiv,184.
$25.00.
Theodore Rosenof. Economics in the Long Run:
New Deal Theorists and Their Legacies, 1933-1993.
Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina
Press, 1997. Pp.ix,223. $69.75.
Eldon, Soifer (ed.). Ethical Issues: Perspectives for
Canadians. Peterborough: Broadview Press, 1997.
Pp.xxiii,720. $33.95.
Raymond Tatalovich. The Politics of Abortion in
the United States and Canada: A Comparative Study.
Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe Inc., 1997. Pp.xii,265.
$21.95.
Alex Wellington, Allan Greenbaum and Wesley
Cragg (eds.). Canadian Issues in Environmental
Ethics. Peterborough: Broadview Press, 1997.
Pp.x,405. $24.95.
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VOL . XXIV, NO . 1 1998