Canadian Public Administration-Administration Publique Du Canada最新文献

In 1970, freshwater pollution concerns led to the introduction of the Clean Water Act (CWA), which signaled the federal government's shift towards cooperative federalism in the shared constitutional space of water governance. A unilateral environmental federalism approach supported the enactment of the CWA and reinforced the new two-prong regulatory strategy (i.e., CWA and the Fisheries Act) to manage water pollution. This article explores the historical enactment of the CWA through the lens of federalism and the views of parliamentarians. The legislative debates reveal how different modes of federalism play out in the legislation, beyond the dominant theme of cooperative federalism.

Artificial intelligence (AI) could be at the heart of a fourth revolution by significantly changing professional identity, relationships between individuals and resource management. To help public administration practitioners and researchers cope with changes anticipated by AI, this research note maps existing conceptual approaches on the opportunities and challenges of AI in public administration and proposes a conceptual framework and initiatives that can inform and support effective, public interest-oriented technology policymaking. This research note outlines a potential research agenda, with multi-level opportunities and challenges, to accelerate this critical work.

The Government of Canada has recently faced intense parliamentary and public scrutiny of the role played by private contractors in its information technology (IT) projects, most notably in the case of the ArriveCAN application. With these ongoing investigations as its backdrop, this article analyzes patterns in federal government IT procurement between 2017 and 2022, drawing on a comprehensive analysis of the federal contracting open dataset. We reveal that the federal government betrays accepted best practice in modern government IT procurement on several key dimensions, including on contract values and lengths; on the diversity of suppliers; on the source of IT expertise; and in the management of intellectual property. We argue that the Canadian approach to IT procurement is an historically overlooked but crucial driver of its failing digital reform efforts. We conclude by turning to IT procurement policy reforms gaining traction outside Canada that may help the Government of Canada improve how it buys and deploys IT going forward—a task we argue is essential if the government wants to avoid future IT contracting scandals and deliver on its long-standing promise of digital era modernization.

Despite their centrality to the success of government business, we know very little about political staff, including their contributions to the policy process, the ways in which they contribute to government decision-making or their career trajectories. This research note examines the experience that political staff bring to their positions and where they find employment after leaving ministerial offices, using archived staff directories across four governments (NDP, Liberal and two Progressive Conservative administrations) in Ontario, Canada and cross-referencing names using LinkedIn. In total, we explore career progression of 1,153 political staff who have employment information publicly available on LinkedIn. Many take these roles having remarkably diverse backgrounds, including finance, law, academia, business and, even, other roles in the public service. Upon leaving political service, some choose to join the non-partisan ranks of public servants. Many leaving government head towards government relations firms to use their skills and experience to advance their careers. Most of these experiences are consistent across all three political parties that have held office in Ontario.

The rise of evidence-based policymaking highlights the importance of evidence and how it is defined and utilized. It also uncovers the gaps in evidence and where lived experience stands to benefit policymaking. The rising level of encampments, homelessness, and housing unaffordability in Canada emphasize the need to consider how and where lived experiences of homelessness are included. This article interrogates the inclusion of lived experiences of homelessness in three specific domains: research, policy, and advocacy. Our findings from systematic reviews of each area reveal an evidence-policy gap in homelessness policy and governance. Across all three domains, scholars and practitioners alike often fail to explicitly include lived experience to inform their efforts. Enhanced coordination and policy learning across and between the domains can offer a pathway to measurably improve policy effectiveness.

In 1997, Canada reformed its system of voter registration, adopting a permanent voters list. Existing accounts fail to adequately account for the political dynamics motivating the Chrétien government's decision to adopt a register. After decades of development in policy circles, a register was championed by policy entrepreneurs as a solution to growing problems with the enumeration system. Drawing on data from the parliamentary record, and the first-hand experience of an Elections Canada official, this article argues that the pivotal factor in winning political support for the adoption of a register was the shortened electoral calendar it enabled.

Municipalities are often considered to be places of innovation. However, certain issues, such as 5G, suggest that the municipal level of government is hampered by challenges. In this article, we present the results of a survey of 220 respondents from 54 different municipalities of various sizes, alongside a media press review. We show that 5G is indicative of the challenges pertaining to multi-level governance, the presence of a significant information deficit as well as the clout of the private sector in public planning. These findings call on us to examine municipal governance and the relevance of creating intermunicipal cooperation.

While older adults and family carers have important contributions to make to social and civic life in Canada, meaningful opportunities for engaging in democratic governance are often limited. Using the province of Manitoba as a case study, we ask how relevant advisory councils and committees have been designed and constituted; how have they operated in practice; and what explains their span of influence and effectiveness. Interviews with older adults and family carers show that they want to be involved, that they believe that advisory committees/councils can be effective mechanisms for engagement, and that they think these entities can impact decision-makers, especially in the health sector.

This study examines person/organization and person/supervisor fit of public administration professionals in the context of hybrid work. A three-phase study was conducted among 411 public professionals in Quebec. Results show that person/organization and person/supervisor fit have declined over time, and that satisfaction with hybrid work played a role in this decline. Person/organization fit affects intention to stay with the public organization. These results show the importance for public organizations to take employees' needs, values and expectations into account to increase satisfaction with the hybrid work experience and foster the retention of public service employees in a post-pandemic era.