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Agriculture has historically been a critical and sensitive area in the Canadian economy. Grace Skogstad presents a detailed study of how agricultural policy has been made in recent years at the federal provincial levels. Three initiatives serve as the focus: income stabilization - a sphere in which the two levels share jurisdiction and responsibility; marketing of commodities - in which federal and provincial governments designate a national agency and provincial boards to act as their agents and the transportation of western grain - a federal responsibility. The transportation of western grain, traditionally subsided through the mechanism of the Crow's Nest rates, has been the cause of frequent controversy in Canadian politics. Skogstad provides an in-depth analysis of the long and painful process of 'revising the Crow' that preoccupied so many politicians and farmers through much of the 1970s and 1980s. From her three case studies emerges a well-defined analysis of the processes of policy-making and roles of the various participants. Skogstad illustrates the origins of federal-provincial as well as interprovincial disagreements. She considers the incentives which can lead governmental units toward a co-operative solution to their differences, and questions whether federalism has contributed the problem of framing a coherent agricultural policy

AbstractThis article examines the state of the English-language peer-reviewed literature published over the 2011–2021 period whose objective is to describe and explain processes of development of Canadian public policies and their consequences. It first presents a profile of the surveyed literature's attention to different policy sectors, elements of public policy, and its chosen methodologies to study them. It then examines the empirical and theoretical contributions of the literature to uncovering the constitutive actors and their interactions in policy processes in policy domains of Canadian jurisdictions; the logics of chosen policy instruments and their distributive effects; and the interactions among Canada's structural, institutional and ideational features and policy actors' motivations and behaviour with processes of policy innovation, continuity and change. A foremost contribution of Canadian policy studies to comparative policy studies is to demonstrate the causal impacts of the interaction of institutional, structural and ideational/cultural factors on processes of policy development.

The regulation of genetically modified organisms in the EU has become embroiled in a tension between agency and fiduciary principles of delegated authority and the alternate understandings of political accountability they imply. Fiduciary principles have gained the upper hand in a regulatory process expected to legitimize GMO risk regulation by respecting agency principles of delegated authority. Amidst continuing scientific debate and uncertainty about the environmental safety of GM crops, the EU's precautionary political culture of risk regulation adds to the controversy of relying on non-majoritarian bodies to regulate GMO risks. Albeit contentious, the fiduciary model of regulation is compatible with the external accountability commitments of EU member states not only to EU law but also to fellow WTO signatories. The incentives, and indeed imperatives, to embrace fiduciary principles of authoritative decision-making explain why the European Commission is exercising its legal authority to authorize some GMOs on the advice of its scientific advisors but without the support of a qualified majority of member states.

This article traces the evolution of agriculture from a staples to a mature staples sector in the post-staples Canadian economy. It examines the situation of agricultural producers in the domestic and international political economy and traces the factors which have led to its structural transformation. Public policies are deeply implicated in this transformation, and accordingly, the changing patterns of relations between state actors and the agri-food sector are given attention. Four periods of structural transition and patterns of state-sector relationships are identified. The first, expansionist phase, extended from the late nineteenth to the 1930s when agricultural commodities were integral to the development of the Canadian economy and political community. The second period, from the 1930s to the end of the Second World War, marked an interregnum when agriculture merited attention not simply because of its service to broader national goals, but also because of recognition of structural disadvantages faced by thousands of individual commodity producers in a market economy. The third period, from the end of the Second World War through to the early 1980s, witnessed significant structural and policy changes in the sector in quest of rendering the sector more productive and profitable. The transition to a mature staples sector was supported by state intervention in agricultural markets and a financial safety net for producers. In the current fourth phase, since the early 1980s, changes in the international political economy, domestic fiscal deficits, and ideological shifts have precipitated a new competitiveness model. Strategies that are market-oriented and give incentives to adding value to raw commodities are in vogue.

This article examines the contemporary basis of legitimate governance in Canada by identifying and documenting four different bases of political authority: state-centred, market-based, expert and popular authority. The co-existence of these competing bases of authority, traced to cultural shifts and developments associated with globalization, creates conflicting domestic and international norms of procedural and substantive legitimacy. The article argues that effective and legitimate governing in Canada requires greater incorporation of elements of popular authority, and reform, not abandonment, of state-centred authority.