Policy Options

There’s no single explanation for what’s going on in today’s China: the sustained rapid growth, the massive investment — public, private, foreign and domestic — a burgeoning middle class,...

There is the story of the old college graduate in economics who went back to his alma mater to visit his son, who was following in his footsteps. The...

POLICY OPTIONS: Mr. Speaker, thanks for doing this. Our thematic for this month, fixing Parliament, assumes that it is to some extent broken. So what is your sense of...

The latest Nanos-Policy Options poll shows that Canadians are more likely to be dissatisfied than satisfied with the effectiveness of the House of Commons. Five years ago, minority government...

The winter-spring parliamentary session that paused in mid-June for the summer break was remarkable for its intense partisanship, minimal progress on the government’s legislative agenda and loud controversies over...

In the last federal election, 59 percent of Canadians turned out to vote, the lowest turnout since Confederation. The fact that more than four out of ten voters stayed...

Tu causes, tu causes, c’est tout ce que tu sais faire Le perroquet Laverdure dans Zazie dans le métro de Raymond Queneau Si, comme disait Montaigne, là où il y...

Canadians are never satisfied with the performance of Parliament, but the reasons for dissatisfaction vary from time to time. It may be hard to remember now, but only a...

Nearly five years ago, a Canadian election turned on Stephen Harper’s promise that his Conservatives would bring accountability and transparency back to Canadian democracy. Parliament would once again be...

Following a spring sitting that will be remembered more for insults than for insights, few people would challenge the idea that our Parliament is broken. Political pundits, parliamentologists and...

A group of backbench MPs were milling around the corridors of Parliament this spring grumbling about the lack of respect they got as backbenchers, the overweening power of the...

The purpose of this article is to address a fundamental contradiction between today’s policy and service environment and the Westminster model of democratic governance and accountability. Simply put, the...

«Tous pourris », voilà l’accusation qu’on lance à la classe politique. Faire de la politique, c’est mentir, tricher et tromper. Le cocktail de reproches est tel que les parlements...

L’une des critiques les plus fréquentes que l’on entend présentement à propos du fonctionnement du parlementarisme est qu’il laisse une place excessive à la partisannerie. Quoi faire pour rendre...

The 1969 power contract between Hydro-Quebec and the Churchill Falls Labrador Corporation (CFLCo) has been a matter of enduring resentment in Newfoundland and Labrador. The contract concerns the development...

As a resource-producing region, Canada has become extraordinarily wealthy on the back of international trade. Just prior to the Great Recession of 2008-09, Canada sold a record $483.6 billion...

The Canada Excellence Research Chairs (CERC)  awards announced earlier this year represent a strategic public policy initiative that is certain to bring exceptional research and innovation dividends to Canada....

The world economy is now, thankfully, in recovery after the Great Recession. But what sort of global recovery will it be? Where are the shoals and safe harbours? As...

Dans un texte publié en 1999 dans la revue Techniques d’enquête et qu’il faudrait relire attentivement aujourd’hui à la lumière des événements des dernières semaines, l’ancien statisticien en chef du Canada,...

A sign of a good book, especially one that stretches to more than 500 pages, is that you don’t want it to end. John Boyko has achieved that distinction...

I am writing this review from “the Bay of God’s Mercy” on the northern extremity of Banks Island in the western Arctic. We are almost one thousand kilometres above...

Au début de l’été, le Parti québécois était nettement en tête dans les sondages avec un peu plus de 40p.100 des intentions de vote, contre environ 30 p. 100...