Reviews/Comptes rendus
Navigating a New World: Canada’s Global
Future
by Lloyd Axworthy. Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf
Canada, 2003. Pp. 464.
Lloyd Axworthy, a politician of 27 years who served
as minister of foreign affairs under the Chrétien
government covers an impressive range of topics of
interest to the Canadian foreign policy aficionado.
He provides a Canadian policymaker perspective on
today’s grand global challenges, while vividly upholding the underlying human story in the foreground.
The book’s 17 chapters each provide Axworthy’s
views on issues such as Canada’s foreign policy
machinery, Canada-US relations, the Ottawa treaty
on anti-personnel landmines, genocide, the International Criminal Court, disarmament, the Kyoto Protocol, the United Nations, and so forth. Three
interrelated themes unify the diverse subject matter
and provide the basis for Axworthy’s many policy
prescriptions. These will be very familiar indeed to
those even loosely acquainted with his stint at the
Department of Foreign Affairs and International
Trade.
Foremost amongst these is Axworthy’s staunch
support of multilateralism. In his eyes, multilateralism is beneficial both intrinsically and for
Canada as a middle power specifically. Axworthy is
critical of the United Nations system as it now
stands: “[UNEP’s] lack of ideas, relevance and direction … to imagine it having any serious influence over nation-states or corporations … is just
wishful thinking” (p. 417). While proposing several
blueprints for reform — including the abolishment
of the veto in the security council and the creation
of a directly elected people’s assembly — he is decidedly pessimistic about their prospects for implementation in the near term. For example, in the case
of a stalemate at the UN which prevents action on a
certain issue, Axworthy, employing a logic eerily,
if unintentionally, similar to that of the US in the
Iraq war, recommends assembling a coalition-of-the-
231
willing of sorts. For example, the Ottawa treaty
process, which Axworthy sees as a model process,
was launched outside the aegis of the UN framework precisely because the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons review produced a
highly watered-down document owing to the objections of a few recalcitrant members.
Another overarching theme is the immense importance that Axworthy attaches to maintaining and
promoting Canadian foreign policy independence.
In the first instance, this is paramount due to what
he views as substantive differences between American and Canadian values (as they are manifested in
foreign policy at any rate). Canada must buttress its
ability to diverge from American preferences on issues such as ballistic missile defence, Kyoto, Iraq
or the International Criminal Court. Axworthy is
highly critical of the apparent acquiescence to US
demands on missile defence by the Canadian government, a development which he interprets as “the
price of atonement for Canadian apostasy in the Iraq
war” (p. 82).
Keeping an independent foreign policy capability is also crucial if Canada is going to maintain and
expand its potential to exercise influence through
the use of what Joseph Nye terms “soft power.”
Axworthy feels that Canada has a unique role to play
in fostering a universal rules-based system respectful of human rights: Canada is free from any “big
power” pretensions, it enjoys an international reputation as an honest broker, its multicultural binational system can serve as a model for others, it
retains significant expertise in conflict-resolution
and development, and it has a solid diplomatic presence around the globe. Axworthy strongly urges
Canada and Canadians to embrace this role and to
provide the diplomatic corps, the development agencies and the defence forces with the resources to
excel in it.
Finally, the concept of human security is consistently extolled as a superlative alternative to what
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232 Reviews/Comptes rendus
he sees as the predominating military security paradigm. Indeed, much of Axworthy’s vehement
criticism of American unilateralism, especially under the current Bush administration, stems from his
conception of security. For example, while supporting the campaign in Afghanistan, he derides the US’s
decision to build alliances with warlords, thereby
forsaking any chances of forging a true democracy.
His view of security is also evident in that roughly
equal portions of the book are devoted to describing encounters with various world leaders and stories of individual tragedies and triumphs in far-flung
places.
CANADIAN PUBLIC POLICY – ANALYSE DE POLITIQUES,
Navigating a New World is both a lucid account
of the momentous challenges facing this generation
and a call to action. Unfortunately, Axworthy is preciously brief on how to generate much of the change
he advocates, that is, on how to move from the ideal
to the real. While one may certainly disagree with
Axworthy’s political views and interpretations, it is
difficult to disagree with the overall thrust of his
argument that we must start paying more attention
to the human faces behind our foreign policy.
RAN GOEL is a recent MSc graduate of the International Relations Department at the London School
of Economics and Political Science, United Kingdom
VOL . XXX, NO . 2 2004
Reviews/Comptes rendus
Eric J. Hanson’s Financial History of Alberta,
1905–1950
edited by Paul Boothe and Heather Edwards.
Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2003. Pp. xxiv,
431.
Eric Hanson, a founder of the Alberta economics
profession, took leave from a lecturer position at
the University of Alberta to take his PhD at Clark
University in Worchester, Massachusetts and produced an 800-page doctoral thesis in 1952 entitled
A Financial History of Alberta, 1905–1950. In 1990,
his thesis was found by Paul Boothe at the University of Alberta library while Boothe was doing research on Alberta government spending and the
book’s enormous value as a source of data and as a
chronicle of Alberta’s history became apparent. The
result was the editing of the thesis into this readable and informative account of Alberta’s historical
and sometimes hysterical financial past.
Hanson chronologically surveys the institutional,
economic, and public development of the province
and its public sector from a financial perspective,
including the railway scandal, the rise of Social
Credit, and the province’s debt default in the Great
Depression. Many of the themes that pervade the
analysis still ring true today: fluctuating resource
sector revenues, the dependence on external markets, in-migration, boom and bust, incessant demands for infrastructure and abundant public
services accompanied by low taxes. The book is a
work in economics, economic history and fiscal federalism and includes numerous detailed tables on
Alberta public finance. In many respects, this book
is not only an insight into Alberta’s past but also a
glimpse of a bygone era in the economics profession. It would be difficult to see an economics graduate student today undertaking a similar type of
project for, say, Ontario’s public finances from 1867
to 1950. Hanson combined a genuine curiosity for
the past and an interest in his region with what, for
the time, were new techniques in economic analysis; for example, the application of national income
accounting. The first chapter is indeed “Innisian”
233
in scope with its methodical description of the geography and environment of Alberta. Hanson also
had an appreciation for the broader determinants of
public policy and civil society as evidenced by his
remark that “democracy cannot progress unless there
is a growth in the number of participating and informed citizens.”
Hanson’s chronicle illuminates how, at the beginning of the twentieth-century western boom,
Albertans saw the role of their government as an
entrepreneur and infrastructure builder. During the
settlement boom, the public demanded that their
fiscally cautious government provide the framework
for the future by government ownership of the telephone system, agricultural settlement policies, and
highway and railway construction. Alberta expended
lavish resources on what the public came to regard
as the necessary accoutrements of state that would
serve as monuments to provincial status. Indeed,
Hanson concludes that the province of Alberta was
formed prematurely from a public finance perspective and that the drive for provincial status was the
work of a small coterie of ambitious province builders who were irked by the borrowing restrictions on
territorial government.
By 1921, economic development expenditure
accounted for nearly 60 percent of the provincial
budget. In general, a supply-side philosophy to economic development was applied as the government
provided development expenditures that would service settlers and ultimately increase the productivity
of the Alberta economy. This philosophy was even
utilized by municipal governments. Edmonton, for
example, “paved streets, laid out street railway
tracks, installed sewers, and many other improvements in outlying sections of the city in anticipation of population growth that did not materialize
for many years.” Indeed, as Hanson sees it, it was
not government spending per se that was the problem, but spending that did not take into account the
principles of economic analysis. Rather than extending expensive railway and phone lines into sparsely
populated regions of the province, the province
CANADIAN PUBLIC POLICY – ANALYSE DE POLITIQUES,
VOL. XXX , NO. 2 2004
234 Reviews/Comptes rendus
would have been better served if, at the margin, those
expenditures were made to improve transportation
and social services in already well-settled areas.
At the same time, there was a general failure to
develop the necessary tax structure to support the
ambitions of the general public. The inability to
develop an adequate revenue structure was not aided
by the fact that the unstable prosperity of the pre1920 period was followed by two decades of stagnation. The result was the growth of deficits and
ultimately a massive debt that led to the debt default of 1936. The total provincial debt of Alberta
grew from zero at the dawn of provincial status in
1905 to reach $116 million by 1921 and then via
the miracle of compound interest proceeded to reach
a peak of $202 million by 1935. By 1921, the per
capita provincial debt of Alberta was the highest of
the four western provinces, while by 1933 the debt
exceeded the value of provincial income. By the time
the debt problem came to be realized and accepted,
the interest on the demon debt had taken a life of its
own and coupled with the economic downturn of
the Great Depression, the result was fiscal disaster.
The road to debt, like the road to hell, is often
paved with good intentions and in the case of Alberta, the provincial government “was expected to
perform functions clearly beyond its fiscal capacity” and one might add, also beyond people’s willingness to pay given their aversion to tax increases.
According to Hanson, blame cannot be levied on
federal control of natural resource revenues until the
resource transfer of 1930 because provincial control would have yielded the same outcome as what
CANADIAN PUBLIC POLICY – ANALYSE DE POLITIQUES,
was achieved under federal jurisdiction. The federal government had not derived much revenue from
the sale of lands because it wished to promote settlement and the provincial government would not
have behaved much differently during the provincebuilding phase.
The Alberta fiscal experience prior to World War
II tells us much about current attitudes in Alberta
when it comes to public sector finance and the articulated preference for a smaller role for government in the economy. The fiscal conservatism in
Alberta no doubt has its seeds in the experience of
the Depression and the debt-default crisis that was
imprinted on the collective memory of Albertans.
The current provincial obsession with becoming
Canada’s first debt-free province is in many respects
a form of public atonement for the fiscal stains of
its past. It is a fascinating contrast with Saskatchewan where the experience of the Great Depression
spawned a different set of attitudes and the embracing of a more interventionist role for government in
the economy during the postwar era. As well,
Hanson’s book presents policy parallels to our own
time. Whereas in early twentieth-century Alberta,
the public expected the provincial government to
perform functions beyond its fiscal capacity, today
that is the role being replayed in municipalities
across Canada. It remains to be seen how municipalities will cope with the demands for infrastructure
and services of twenty-first-century urbanized life with
a fiscal base rooted in the nineteenth century.
L I V I O D I M AT T E O , Department of Economics,
Lakehead University
VOL . XXX, NO . 2 2004
Reviews/Comptes rendus
From Love Canal to Environmental Justice:
The Politics of Hazardous Waste on the
Canada-US Border
by Thomas H. Fletcher. Peterborough: Broadview
Press, 2003. Pp. 222.
Thomas H. Fletcher contributes substantially to debates concerning hazardous waste management, facility siting, and environmental justice. Through ten
case studies he provides fodder for the ongoing debate about what forms of environmental injustice
exist, why they exist, and what might be done to
prevent and redress justice problems. The book will
be of use to practitioners involved in facility siting
(including community groups), those interested in
waste minimization policy, as well as academics
interested in broader theoretical issues surrounding
environmental impact assessment, and environmental justice.
Fletcher argues that in Canada and the United
States, hazardous waste-management policy is inappropriately focused on facility-siting issues (the
“cradle-to-grave” approach) rather than “waste”
minimization issues (the “cradle-to-reincarnation”
approach). He asserts that by paying more legislative attention to waste minimization and diversion,
fewer environmental justice issues should arise.
Though the main theoretical touchstone for this work
is the environmental justice literature, Fletcher
draws together a broad array of theory, including the
risk society, industrial ecology, and the geographical politics of scale. What is unique about Fletcher’s
work is that while much of the environmental justice literature pays attention to distributive and spatial equity by studying the cross-sectional spatial
patterns of racial minorities and low-income groups
in relation to hazardous waste, he focuses on the
siting processes themselves in their local community context. That is, rather than quantify the overall pattern of people and waste, he centres on the
decisions and structures that lead to those patterns.
By reviewing various government documents, environmental assessment reports, and interviewing lo-
235
cal actors participating in state/provincially controlled siting processes, Fletcher addresses other important aspects of environmental justice, including
procedural equity and intergenerational equity.
These are comparatively neglected areas of environmental justice research.
The review and interpretations of the siting processes are the strengths of this book. The author reviews ten hazardous waste-siting processes; two in
Ontario (Laidlaw in Sarnia and OWMC in the
Niagara area), six in Detroit, and two in Niagara
Falls, New York. The comparative review provides
a wealth of useful insights into how and why certain facility types and locations are chosen over
others. For example, community opposition groups
will see how and why past opposition groups have
been effective, while facility proponents and environmental assessment review boards may better
understand how to improve the equitability of facility siting within the confines of existing legislation.
In terms of comparing Canada and the US,
Fletcher concludes that there are more similarities
than differences between the two countries when it
comes to hazardous waste management. In itself, this
finding makes the book an interesting read, since
he argues that two seemingly disparate approaches
— one driven by private industry within a “legally
formalistic” federal framework (US) and, the other
run “publicly” by the province — can both result in
a similar emphasis on “capacity assurance” (increasing space for end-of-stream waste disposal). Though
important differences are discussed, they are not
described in as much detail as I had hoped. For example, the only two “successful” (approved) facilities were in Detroit, where local opposition groups
are only allowed to play a relatively small role in
the formal environmental assessment process, partially due to the fact that they do not receive
intervener funding, as they would if they were in
Ontario (and most of the rest of Canada). Though
the findings are based solely on Michigan, Ontario,
and New York examples, the findings are likely to
CANADIAN PUBLIC POLICY – ANALYSE DE POLITIQUES,
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236 Reviews/Comptes rendus
resonate substantially with policies and facility-siting scenarios in other states and provinces in these
two countries.
One of the surprising findings for Fletcher is the
relative lack of equity concerns expressed by community groups in the Detroit cases; the cases which
also seem to represent the most serious breaches of
distributional social justice (race and income). His
explanation for this apparent lack of community
action is that the environmental justice movement
was only starting to gain serious momentum at the
time (1980s). Given the focus of the book, it would
have been helpful if other potential explanations
were explored. One plausible explanation is that the
opposition groups chose to champion the issue(s)
that they felt had the best chance of thwarting the
facility. That is, opposition groups quickly become
quite savvy about their local facility-siting process,
and the assessment boards in particular, and they
may prefer to centre on the sorts of issues (e.g.,
hydrogeology) that they know have been used to
block applications in the past. As Fletcher himself
points out, opposition has grown in sophistication,
resulting in increasing success at stopping facility
applications. If an issue like hydrogeology is championed, however, then this does not necessarily mean
that broader issues of equity are unimportant to these
groups. Another, broader, political economic explanation of the finding that equity concerns are not
raised in the places with potentially the most serious inequities, is that the most disenfranchised communities simply may not have the resources to
organize opposition to facilities. Unfortunately,
when employment and making ends meet are con-
CANADIAN PUBLIC POLICY – ANALYSE DE POLITIQUES,
stant life struggles, environmental equity is likely
low on the overall list of life priorities. This raises
questions about relying on locals alone to be advocates for environmental justice.
Similarly, I would have liked to see more discussion about the relationships between different forms
of environmental equity. For example, a process that
satisfies the principle of spatial equity may be at
odds with one that is also meant to satisfy the principle of social justice. In fact, this scenario is likely
given that urban industrial areas in North America
typically house high proportions of the poor and
minority populations. Fletcher does not entirely
neglect the idea that satisfying multiple forms of
equity simultaneously may be difficult. For example, he provides details on how the rural community of West Lincoln, Ontario, forwarded claims that
the OWMC facility would be more fairly located
nearer to an urban centre like Toronto or Niagara
Falls. Though this would satisfy the criterion of spatial equity (locating waste near the source), such a
location would frustrate efforts to satisfy the principle of cumulative equity (the burden of multiple
hazardous industrial pollution sources in urban areas). Thus, Fletcher hints at potential difficulties
with applying pedantic principles to actual siting
scenarios — not all criteria may be satisfied simultaneously. This reinforces the need for early open
dialogue on which issues are important for communities on various scales.
JAMIE BAXTER, Department of Geography, University of Western Ontario
VOL . XXX, NO . 2 2004
Reviews/Comptes rendus
The Day B.C. Quit Canada: A Novel
by John A. Haskett and Michael J.Haskett. Kaleden
BC: Durango Publishing Corp., 2004. Pp. 282.
Most of us read about proposed and actual policymaking in books through academic presses, scholarly
journals, government reports, and media outlets such
as magazines and newspapers. Much of this work fits
within boundaries that most of us consider to be “realistic” or “practical,” policy discussions in the sense
that the policies being discussed are in place or, we
believe that there is a high probability they could be
put in place. Sometimes, the boundaries of these discussions get pushed to subjects that draw responses of
incredulity from policy communities such as: Should
Alberta leave the Canada Pension Plan or should Alberta and Saskatchewan merge? The risk of pushing
these boundaries too far is that the policy community
will disregard any work that they believe too futile,
unrealistic or the work of a “crank.” It is in this context that I took an interest in this novel by John Haskett
and Michael Haskett which although a novel, presents
an interesting thought experiment into how and why a
western province would choose to leave Confederation. This novel represents the policy equivalent of science fiction, or to the extent that it explores forbidden
dimensions of the policy debate over federalism in
Canada, perhaps it is akin to “policy porn.”
The premise of this novel is that after over a century of neglect and insult from Ottawa, a ruling cabal within the BC government decides that the
province has had enough of being part of Canada
and having its economic potential restrained. The
ultimate insult that puts BC over the edge is Ottawa’s announcement that Quebec will receive and
administer a $950 million annual grant toward urban renewal initiatives, while the other nine provinces will have their urban renewal money
administered by Ottawa. When a major gold discovery valued at $1 billion occurs on Crown Land, BC
has the financial resources to pursue secession. The
premier of BC, Norman U.T. Trent (who in the novel
is portrayed as a pudgy teetotaler and “regular guy”
who worked for a living before going into politics
237
and made a lot of money in logging before high taxes
made his businesses unprofitable) and his attorney
general, Wes Anderson (a loyal political ally to the
premier and handsome hard-core womanizer), decide to initiate a plan to take the province out of
Confederation on 20 July 2006, the 135 anniversary
of BC entering Confederation.
Perhaps one of the more interesting premises
around this secession scenario is that it must be led
by only a small number of insiders who know what
is best for the people of their province. In the novel,
this results in a number of policy changes in BC
that appear to be unnecessary, are done with little
consultation with the public, and are rammed
through the legislature by the government using its
majority power. So within a short period of time,
Premier N.U.T. Trent and Attorney General
Anderson have orchestrated the move of the provincial capital from Victoria to Vancouver (Vancouver is easier to defend against military aggression);
established a Provincial Police Force to replace the
RCMP and provide military services for BC; received a large federal grant for the purposes of improving Vancouver’s port and building defence
structures around the port; monopolized all of BC’s
ferry services and converted BC’s ferry system into
a navy; set up a currency under the guise of minting
“commemorative gold coins”; received a promise
from the US president that the US will recognize
BC as an independent republic (but not a Dominion
as they originally plan) in return for free access for
the US to transport nuclear weapons along a to-be
paved highway to Alaska, and through some erratic
behaviour (unilateral claim on all of BC’s coastal
waters; unilaterally annexing the Yukon; commissioning a new history of BC for BC schools), escalated tensions with Ottawa. All the while this is
occurring, people can see what is happening, but
the outrageousness of the changes lead people to
dismiss BC’s possible secession as a bad joke.
The novel presents an interesting depiction of the
benefits of secession. BC creates its own stable currency to be operated according to a gold standard
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(fiat currency is not ideal for a new state seeking
legitimacy), and fixed in value against the US dollar at a rate that will guarantee booming exports for
the province. The Republic of Britcol has access to
direct communication with the president of the
United States (which ironically, prior to secession,
the premier of BC has in the novel as well). BC will
set up its own pension plan operated as a true savings
plan as opposed to the pay-as-you-go basis of the
CPP. A flat tax at a low rate will be instituted and
this low tax economy will be possible due to the
large revenues generated by taxes on products
shipped through the Port of Vancouver and because
so much of the federal taxes previously collected
went to Quebec and wasteful Ottawa initiatives. The
French language radio services in BC would be shut
down and the French-speaking special interests and
“commies” would be asked to leave the republic.
BC’s success with secession will trigger a domino
effect and Alberta and possibly even Saskatchewan,
would seek to join the Republic of Britcol.
What the novel is vague about are the costs of
secession. Without wanting to give too much away,
the authors suggest that the costs would not be large
so long as Ottawa did not choose to use military
force to keep BC in Confederation. Having the US
prepared to recognize Britcol as a sovereign state
and express the willingness to use its forces in the
Britcol area to protect its “friend” is clearly an important part of this scenario.
Readers of this novel will not find it to be particularly “politically correct” and in many respects,
it is this aspect of the writing that provides a window on how “western separatists” see Canada. In
some cases, “tongue-in-cheek” humor is used, such
as referring to bureaucrats as “bureaucraps.” In other
cases there are scenes used to ridicule some stereotypes. For example, members of the media are depicted as shallow and stupid and as using any
opportunity to grope women. A member of the BC
government in the novel is a pompous former professor with no practical ideas, who is so pathetic
that his wife once fell asleep on him in the middle
of intercourse.
I was struck by the contempt that the authors have
for French language policies and political interests,
although there is a clear distinction in the novel that
complaints about official bilingualism and Ottawa’s
favouritism shown to Quebec have nothing to do
with attitudes of westerners toward individuals in
Canada who live in Quebec and/or speak French.
When Trent and Anderson meet with the US president to advise him of their plans, it would appear
that their hatred of official bilingualism in Canada
is the raison d’être for western secession, and as
such, it would be the equivalent to the tea tax that
helped trigger the American Revolution. They refer
to the “bilingualism fraud” pushed through by the
“World War II draft dodger” Pierre Trudeau. The
authors speaking through their protagonist make
their case that 13 percent of Canadians rely on
French as a primary language, and only oneseventeenth of 1 percent rely on French in western
Canada. “To mollify that very small but extremely
noisy minority,” western Canadians have to put up
with the costs of official bilingualism. “Phony bilingualism” as the reason for secession suggests that
considerable ignorance, or perhaps just naiveté,
about Canada characterizes western separatists. The
reason the authors see official bilingualism as a currently unnecessary policy is because of its success
over the last 30 years. The proportion of unilingual
French-speakers in Canada has fallen by as much
as half since 1971, largely due to the rise of bilingual Canadians who represent almost one-fifth of
Canada’s current population. It is also interesting
to note that studies of whether the burden of British
taxation on the American colonies justified secession find that the burden was not large and hence,
secession must have primarily been to benefit private interests in the colonies. My guess is that a similar analysis done for official bilingualism would
show that official bilingualism has not proven to be
as costly as the authors would have readers, if not
the fictional president of the United States, believe.
Overall, I found this novel to be a fascinating read
as it provides a thought experiment on an extreme
form of policy change that many Canadians do not
consider to be a serious possibility. One of the lessons that I take away from this novel is that Canadians should not underestimate the plain folk of the
west who “tell it like it is,” and who are this country’s true visionaries… if you think that the gold
standard and mercantilism are policies for the future. This novel warns the reader that what appear
to be political “mistakes,” or bizarre behaviour, are
not symptoms of feeble-minded provincial leaders
but really part of a clever plan. Premiers getting together to talk about coordination as the premiers of
Alberta and BC have been doing recently may really be about secession. Similarly, Alberta’s
investigation of withdrawing from the Canada Pension Plan to set up its own Alberta Pension Plan, its
interest in flat taxes, its exploration of establishing
a provincial police force and other “firewall” policies to protect against federal government intrusions,
would seem to be concrete steps toward secession.
Alberta is on the verge of its centennial, it has oil
wealth and the National Energy Program, and more
recently ratification of the Kyoto Accord, would
seem be the necessary insults to initiate secession.
So you can dismiss this novel as unrealistic and pure
fantasy about the future of the western provinces,
but this is exactly what happens in the novel.
J.C. H ERBERT E MERY , Department of Economics,
University of Calgary