Canada. Environment Canada - The greening of Canada: federal institutions and decisions

THE GREENING OF CANADA

Federal Institutions and Decisions

Environmental matters have become increasingly important in Canadian and world policy agendas. In this study, G. Bruce Doern and Thomas Conway trace the development of Canadian environment policy, giving an in-depth account of twenty years of environmental politics, politicians, institutions, and decisions as seen through the evolution of Ottawas lead policy agency, Environment Canada.

The Greening of Canada is an extensively researched look at the entire period from the early 1970s to the present and is the most complete and integrated analysis yet of federal environmental institutions and key decisions. From Great Lakes pollution to the Green Plan, from the Stockholm Conference to the post-Rio Earth Summit era, the authors deal with both domestic and international events and influences on Ottawas often abortive efforts to entrench a green agenda into national politics.

The book explores the crucial relationships of institutional and political power, directing attention at the DOE and its parade of ministers, intra-cabinet battles, federal-provincial relations, business relations and public opinion, and international and Canada-U.S. relations. It also examines important topics from acid-rain policy to the politics of establishing national parks, and from the Green Plan to the realities of environmental enforcement. Employing a framework cast as the double dynamic of environmental policy making, the authors show the growing struggle between the management of power among key institutions and the need to accommodate a biophysical realm characterized by increased uncertainty as well as scientific and technological controversy.

G. BRUCE DOERN is a professor in the School of Public Administration, Carleton University. He is the author and co-author of numerous books on Canadian politics and policy, including Faith and Fear: The Free Trade Story, with Brian Tomlin, and Canadian Public Policy: Ideas, Structure, Process, with Richard Phidd.

THOMAS CONWAY is a policy analyst and consultant in Ottawa. He has written extensively on environmental politics and regulation.

Federal Institutions and Decisions

G. Bruce Doern and Thomas Conway

University of Toronto Press Incorporated 1994
Toronto Buffalo London

ISBN 0-8020-0645-0 (cloth)
ISBN 0-8020-7599-1 (paper)

Printed on acid-free paper

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data

Doern, G. Bruce, 1942

The greening of Canada: federal institutions and decisions

Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8020-0645-0 (bound) ISBN 0-8020-7599-1 (pbk.)

1. Environmental policy Canada. 2. Canada.
Environment Canada. I. Conway, Thomas, 1957
II. Title.

HC120.E5D6 1995 363.70560971 C94-931926-0

University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council and the Ontario Arts Council.

TABLES

The research for this book was carried out primarily during the period from 1989 to 1992 and is based on several sources of information. First, the federal Department of the Environment (DOE) cooperated fully in giving the authors access to internal papers and archives. Although access did not extend to official Cabinet papers, many draft Cabinet documents were read, as were confidential departmental memoranda between ministers and senior officials.

A second vital information source for this analysis was more than 100 interviews carried out by the authors with ministers, officials, and experts in the DOE; in other federal and provincial agencies; and in business organizations, environmental groups, and international institutions. These interviews were carried out on the undertaking that there would be no direct attribution or quotation. The purpose of the interviews, as a complement to other research sources, was both to help reconstruct events and to obtain frank assessments of policy relationships and decisions. We are especially indebted to these many individuals who generously gave their time. Some of them also read all or portions of the manuscript.

The book also builds on a wide array of Canadian and comparative environmental and policy literature as well as published governmental and private-sector reports and studies, as cited in the notes and in the selected bibliography.

While this account of over two decades of Canadian federal environmental policy, politics, and organization is comprehensive, it obviously cannot claim to cover all aspects of the Canadian environmental story. Not only is there some inevitable arbitrariness in the selection of federal decisions for the policy case-studies we present, but there is also only limited reference made to the numerous purely provincial and local government policies in the environmental sphere. None the less, we have tried to find ways to ensure that this book will enable Canadians to better understand the wide range of political and policy problems that confront environmental-policy makers and citizens in this most vital of policy areas.

Special thanks are owed to many long-time employees of the DOE, for whom the departments history is also the heart of their own working lives. They have been remarkably candid about the shortcomings of the department and of Canadas environmental record. But they are also deeply committed to the need for environmental progress and proud of the successes that have been achieved. Above all, they know how long and arduous the remaining environmental journey is for Canadians, and for the planet.

Our indebtedness is especially great to Ken Clark, who helped immeasurably in the organization of the archives and files and in conveying his own experienced and perceptive views of environmental issues both in interviews and in written comments on early drafts. Bob Slater has also been a source of great overall support in encouraging us to undertake the work. Thanks are also due to Glen Toner, Mike Whittington, Katherine Graham, Richard Van Loon, Ken Ogilvie, and two anonymous readers chosen by the University of Toronto Press, whose constructive critical comments on all or parts of the manuscript have greatly helped to improve the final product. None of the above bears responsibility for any remaining inadequacies in the book.

Last, but certainly not least, we gratefully acknowledge the financial support given directly or indirectly to our research by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Carleton University, Environment Canada, the C.D. Howe Institute, and the Canadian Environmental Advisory Council.