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Globalization has introduced insecurities to individuals and businesses. Countries are pressed to respond to these insecurities with more inclusive visions of globalization. One policy response is social procurement—public purchasing geared to create social value. Canada is embracing this response but faces barriers of its own making. Through the institutional bricolage of procurement trade rules, Canada has constrained its capacity to use social procurement. This is acutely felt by Crown corporations, which are increasingly under the scope of trade treaties. This article details this phenomenon through textual analysis of Canadian procurement trade rules and state enterprise attempts at social procurement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes key developments in the state‐owned enterprises (SOEs) sector in Canada and internationally. It argues that SOEs are important policy tools for states, especially in emerging markets, to develop and strengthen their national economies. It mentions central component of an overall expansion of state activities to shape markets to produce outcomes that meet the political goals of governments.

Abstract: Internationally, interest in and research on state‐owned enterprises (SOEs) have increased significantly, particularly in the developing world, where they play a vital role in national economies. The evolution of Canadian SOEs is, for the most part, largely absent from this literature. This article analyzes and evaluates the performance of three SOEs in the financial sector owned and operated by the federal government: Export Development Canada (EDC), the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) and Farm Credit Canada (FCC). The article seeks to evaluate the performance of these commercially oriented hybrid entities which are policy (and politically) sensitive to the needs of their single shareholder. There is evidence that these firms take on higher‐risk investments than their private sector counterparts, in addition to performing other politically significant policy roles. There is also evidence that, as publicly owned entities, they enjoy some significant advantages over other actors in the sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Various levels of government contract-out the provision of public services such as health and education to community organizations, which have traditionally received core funding for these services. In recent years, however, with the adoption of neoliberal policies and New Public Management ideals, Canadian federal and provincial governments have increasingly off-loaded the provision of social services to community organizations through a project-funding regime. Community organizations and their workers now find themselves facing new challenges created by this new funding regime. This article explores the ways in which the daily lives of these workers have been organized and influenced by project-funding regime procedures and rules, which benefit the state but create hardships for workers. This analysis draws on staff interviews and focus group data collected from three community organizations in three provinces across Canada. The qualitative analytic approach includes both a thematic analysis and the identification of practices that benefit the institution but complicate worker activities, as identified by the Psycho-Social Ethnography of the Common-Place method, which borrows from Institutional Ethnography. Through the analysis of procedures of increased accountability, short-term funding, hiring on contract, use of information and communication technologies, and forced partnerships, the authors delineate the ways in which a neoliberalized ruling system benefits and manages staff activities while complicating the lives of the workers. Recommendations and responses to this situation are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]