Reviews/Comptes rendus
Pulling Against Gravity: Economic
Development in New Brunswick During the
McKenna Years
by Donald Savoie. Montreal: The Institute for Research on Public Policy, 2001. Pp. i, 197. $19.95
During his years in power, New Brunswick Premier
Frank McKenna gained national stature by creating
“The McKenna Miracle” — a dynamic, wellrecognized provincial economic development policy.
That New Brunswick and its premier could even gain
national fame was an anomaly. For New Brunswick,
like other Atlantic Canada provinces, has long been
seen as a sleepy under-developed economy — a province with low incomes, high unemployment rates
and persistent out-migration. Up until McKenna,
Atlantic Canadian provincial governments did not
really undertake province-building policies. They
contented themselves with receiving federal transfers and allocating such monies, department by department, for small-scale program maintenance.
Pulling Against Gravity is an important book in
two major ways. First, Donald Savoie describes the
history of federal economic development policy as
it relates to the Atlantic region. He puts forward the
thesis that federal policy has worked historically
against the interests of Atlantic Canadians (chs. 2
and 3). John A. MacDonald’s National Policy; the
centring of war-making manufacturing (during the
two world wars) in Quebec and Ontario; the current
federal information technology initiative — all of
these have entailed bureaucratic centralization in Ottawa and increased federal money for Quebec and
Ontario. The United States centred its space program in Texas and California. Our country put its
space program in Montreal.
From the 1940s on, the federal government undertook a series of studies and programs to assist
Atlantic Canada. Whatever the trendy bureaucracy
created, be it DREE, DRIE, MSERD, ACOA, or the
ever-present pork-barrel announcements, Atlantic
Canadians became used to having their federal government create economic policy for them. Atlantic
119
Canadians became supplicants. Their role in Canada’s federation has been to ask humbly for federal
dollars, and to be thankful for those dollars coming
their way.
Second, Savoie documents the McKenna miracle (chs. 4, 5, and 6). I will not describe the revolution here, except to direct those interested to Savoie’s
book. McKenna promoted fiscal responsibility (he
passed a balanced-budget law); he undertook his
well-known call-centre initiative; he actively travelled to meet with corporate leaders and to hardsell his province; he built the Fredericton-toMoncton four-lane highway. Savoie spends a considerable portion of the book presenting statistics
to show that the province’s economy grew quickly
during the McKenna years. Considered the poor
brother to Nova Scotia, by 1997 New Brunswick
boasted a higher per capita gross domestic product
and a lower unemployment rate.
I could nitpick as to minor flaws. Savoie, an authority on ACOA, fails to mention the friction between that overrated agency and McKenna’s own
Economic Development and Tourism department.
Savoie omits discussing at any length McKenna’s
goal of attracting higher level information technology industry, above that of call centres. McKenna
saw that as a second-stage initiative after call centres, but he left office before his policy bore fruit.
A strength of Pulling Against Gravity is Savoie’s
knowledge of Canada’s political economy. The author describes McKenna’s accomplishments against
a backdrop of ultra-centralized federal power. Ottawa developed its historic disproportionate share
of power through increased tax and spending, and
through its Westminister parliamentary system that
tolerates little regional advocacy. Savoie passionately calls for an elected Senate — a body that could
speak for periphery provinces.
Consequently, Savoie successfully integrates New
Brunswick’s (and Atlantic Canada’s) economic dependency into Canada’s failure to reform its federal
CANADIAN PUBLIC POLICY – ANALYSE DE POLITIQUES,
VOL . XXIX, NO. 1 2003
120 Reviews/Comptes rendus
government. Overcentralized federal power, in his
eyes, translates into poor regional economic policy.
One could extend his argument toward researching the
relationship of federal overcentralization to other
poorly managed policy areas. Such research would be
as welcome as Pulling Against Gravity.
DAVID MURRELL, Department of Economics, University of New Brunswick
CANADIAN PUBLIC POLICY – ANALYSE DE POLITIQUES,
VOL . XXIX , NO . 1 2003
Reviews/Comptes rendus
The Review of Economic Performance and
Social Progress, the Longest Decade: Canada in
the 1990s
edited by Keith Banting, Andrew Sharpe and France
St-Hilaire. Ottawa and Montreal: Centre for the
Study of Living Standards and the Institute for Research on Public Policy (distributed by McGill-Queen’s
University Press), 2001. Pp. xiii, 313. $24.95.
The Review of Economic Performance and Social
Progress is a new periodical jointly published by
two of Canada’s leading public policy research organizations, the Centre for the Study of Living
Standards (CSLS) and the Institute for Research on
Public Policy (IRPP). If the inaugural issue is a harbinger of future offerings this publication deserves
a place on the required reading list of all in the political, public service, academic, and media communities interested in Canadian public policy.
As signalled by its title, the purpose of the new
periodical is to review economic performance and
social progress. The emphasis on social progress is
the most important and innovative feature of the new
publication. Although a better Canada and a better
world are objectives of all participants in the public
policy process and in public policy debates, the complex and contested concept of social progress is
rarely addressed explicitly. This is an understandable but hardly satisfactory state of affairs.
In part, the absence of explicit work on social
progress arises from the inherent difficulty in defining, let alone measuring, social progress. Applied
public policy analysts and interested observers are
reluctant to enter territory that philosophers, political theorists, and welfare economists have debated
for generations without producing anything even remotely resembling consensus. In part, social
progress is not explicitly addressed because many
participants in public policy debate — especially
academics, public servants, and the media — attempt
to retain an appearance of objectivity. Economists
for example, are comfortable discussing traditional
measures of economic performance such as per
121
capita gross domestic product, productivity, employment, inflation, and changes in the distribution of
income but prefer leaving final judgements about
whether the movement of these performance indicators represent social progress to the individual
readers or to elected representatives.
Nevertheless, rational discussion of the concept
of social progress is not only possible but extremely
valuable. Amartya Sen’s influential work, Development as Freedom, attempts to make this case and
his case is quite convincing. In many ways the new
periodical can be seen as a response to Sen’s plea
for more rational and coherent social evaluation.
Although this project cannot generate a simple formula or algorithm which indisputably identifies social progress, a serious and explicit search for
definitions and measures of social progress contributes to democratic discourse in a way that must be
considered progressive.
The topic of the inaugural issue is economic performance and social progress in Canada during the
1990s, and the CSLS and the IRPP assembled an
outstanding group of policy analysts to conduct the
review. The introductory overview by Keith Banting, Andrew Sharpe and France St-Hilaire deserves
to be read by all readers of this journal. It is an excellent self-contained review of the issues and
should induce anyone interested in either social
progress or in Canadian economic history in the
1990s to read the remainder of the volume.
Contributors include Lars Osberg who explicitly
addresses the problems of defining and measuring
social progress; John Helliwell reviews the literature on linkages between social capital, economic
performance, and well-being; Frank Graves discusses changing Canadian views of progress; Pierre
Fortin and Paul Jenkins and Brian O’Reilly (Bank
of Canada) review monetary policy; Don Drummond
and Jim Stanford discuss fiscal policy; Daniel
Schwanen addresses trade liberalization and inequality; Ken Battle considers income security; Lars
Osberg and Andrew Sharpe attempt to measure so-
CANADIAN PUBLIC POLICY – ANALYSE DE POLITIQUES,
VOL . XXIX, NO. 1 2003
122 Reviews/Comptes rendus
cial progress; Andrew Heisz, Andrew Jackson, and
Garnett Picott examine distributional changes; Miles
Corak talks about children; and Kathleen Day and
Quentin Grafton analyze the environment. Each contribution is impressive in its own right.
If future issues can maintain the high standards
created here, this will be an extremely important
publication.
FRANK STRAIN, Department of Economics, Mount
Allison University
CANADIAN PUBLIC POLICY – ANALYSE DE POLITIQUES,
VOL . XXIX , NO . 1 2003
Reviews/Comptes rendus
Evolution, Revolution, Amalgamation:
Restructuring in Three Ontario Municipalities
by Thomas R. Hollick and David Siegel. London:
Department of Political Science, University of Western Ontario, 2001. Pp. iii, 354. $25.00
This volume is the tenth in the occasional series of
local government case studies published by the Local Government Program in the Department of Political Science at the University of Western Ontario.
The communities discussed in this insightful little book are the medium-sized cities of Kingston
and Chatham (and their neighbouring municipalities) and the amalgamated municipality now known
as Central Elgin, which lies adjacent to another
smaller Ontario city, St. Thomas.
Hollick and Siegel have, in a sense, identified
some of the “faces in the crowd”; the Toronto amalgamation figured prominently in the media but was,
in fact, only one of more than 150 such amalgamations across Ontario after 1996. In the initial background chapter, Evolution, Revolution,
Amalgamation masterfully recounts that complex
and tumultuous process that altered the Ontario municipal system irrevocably. However, we also need
to understand how the hard-nosed, but essentially
abstract, set of reforms known as the Common Sense
Revolution looks “on the ground.”
The book’s priority is an analysis of what Hollick
and Siegel call the “decision-making” and “transition” phases of municipal amalgamation, that is the
process that led to the restructuring and the developments from the decision to restructure through to
the start date for the new municipality. The former
is the more-or-less public story which is primarily
addressed in a chronological and, at times, anecdotal fashion, but which is supplemented with an effective set of assessments. The investigation of the
transition phase includes sections on fundamental
123
— but sometimes unappreciated — matters such as
the organizational model selected for transition to
the new municipality, human resources issues and
the communications strategy to bring staff and the
public into the process. Their goal is to “identify
the good, better and best practices” within the transition processes so that future transitions will be
smoother and more effective.
The presentation of the human side of the decision-making process is particularly valuable because
our understanding of these amalgamations cannot
be limited to appraisals of impersonal or mechanistic public policies, but needs to incorporate the bickering, bargaining, and, at times, great passion which
inevitably accompany “moving from the old to the
new.” In other words, these have become human stories. The fact that provincial policy was shaped by
a set of assumptions (restructuring simply means
fewer politicians, fewer municipalities and lower
taxes) and a powerful legislative tool, but provided
no real direction to local people about how to
achieve the profound changes demanded of them
underlines the depth of the challenge facing such
communities.
Hollick ands Siegel carefully and insightfully
demonstrate how and why particular arrangements
were crafted and launched. This contribution to the
study of municipal government in Canada is important and more than outweighs any minor flaws which
might be detected.
The question of whether the Common Sense
Revolution is dead or merely “on hold” does not diminish the relevance of this book. As Hollick and
Siegel suggest, they have provided a baseline from
which to measure the impact of amalgamation further down the road, with or without more transitions.
ROBERT J. WILLIAMS, Department of Political Science, University of Waterloo
CANADIAN PUBLIC POLICY – ANALYSE DE POLITIQUES,
VOL . XXIX, NO. 1 2003
124 Reviews/Comptes rendus
Toward a North American Community:
Lessons from the Old World for the New
by Robert A. Pastor and C. Fred Bergsten. Institute
for International Economics, 2001. Pp. 207.
US$28.00
Robert Pastor has written a book that provides an
introduction to many of the issues surrounding economic integration in Europe and North America, but
makes a clear call for needed reforms in the North
American Free Trade Association (NAFTA). Pastor
especially emphasizes the institutional weakness of
NAFTA and argues for reforms that would
strengthen them as well as deepen the economic relationship of NAFTA countries. Particular emphasis is put on the example of the European Union
and its structural and “cohesion” policies. The volume also contains a good deal of interesting economic data on the three NAFTA countries.
Pastor’s analysis of Canada’s interests and concerns is relatively weak. It catches little of the internal political logic that drove Canada’s position
at various stages in the debate. The book is much
stronger and more detailed in its treatment of the
United States and Mexico. He tends to be very optimistic about what can be done politically in reforming NAFTA. He concentrates on six inadequacies
of NAFTA. They are first, many strong domestic interests have violated its provisions “because of
NAFTA’s weakness” (pp. 83-84). Second, the reduction in trade barriers facilitated illegal trade in drugs
and other goods. Third, NAFTA members have made
little progress on labour and environmental issues.
Fourth, NAFTA has not addressed problems of regional inequalities generated by the process of integration. Fifth, NAFTA has accentuated domestic
differences over issues like gun control that many
might see as unrelated to trade. Finally, NAFTA does
not encourage the three governments to develop area
policies or a common agenda, but rather to concen-
CANADIAN PUBLIC POLICY – ANALYSE DE POLITIQUES,
trate on defending their own interests. NAFTA is
really only “the sum of two bilateral relationships”
rather than a community (p. 99). Pastor’s volume
also has interesting things to say about the MexicanAmerican labour issues, trucking, transportation
infrastructure, energy, and resource development.
One theme he develops is that the public is ahead
of the leaders in the three countries in its willingness to accept change. Pastor sees value convergence
among the three NAFTA countries and that “the
people” are “way ahead” of their leaders (p. 163).
While the public opinion surveys he refers to may
indicate this difference, his position ignores the fact
that special interests have long thwarted majority
views on many issues. This optimism would be more
understandable from an economist talking about
politics than from a professor of international
relations.
This book is an interesting and fairly comprehensive study of its topic, the future of NAFTA and the
desirability of the emergence of a North American
community. It proposes the establishment of a
number of new institutions that would give the
NAFTA agreement more of a profile. Ironically his
approach, which calls for new institutions, is very
uninstitutional in its approach. Pastor provides little evidence that would convince a North American
analyst that what he thinks should happen, will happen. In fact, one might argue that a widening of
NAFTA through a Free Trade Agreement of the
Americas will only occur if the Latin American
countries are on their economic knees and politically willing to accept US terms. Now that the US
government has trade promotion authority, it will
be interesting to see what happens.
K ENNETH WOODSIDE , Department of Political Science, University of Guelph
VOL . XXIX , NO . 1 2003