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In this paper, the authors discuss the importance of replication and reproduction studies to building an evidence base in policing research. This evidence base, they note, is important to the task of informing sound policy and practice in policing and in relation to community safety efforts more generally. Despite the recognized value of such work, a scoping analysis of peer-reviewed Canadian policing research published over the past 10 years reveals that very few researchers engage in research aimed at replicating other studies. Potential remedies are suggested in the paper's conclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on research exploring the contribution to social policy of social economy organizations (SEOs) in Atlantic Canada. Of particular interest is whether SEOs and government are engaged in what we have termed 'reciprocal relationships,' through inclusive, cross-sector alliances linked to improved policy planning and decision-making. Initial findings suggest that reciprocity of relationships between government and SEOs to enhance policy solutions and service provision is not yet fully realized and that SEOs remain structurally marginalized in the design and implementation of policy. The paper points to investment in appropriate support mechanisms to make government-SEO alliances meaningful and more durable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

RCMP executives and the Canadian government promoted community justice forums (family group conferences) in the late 1990s. They did so because CJFs offered a process consistent with the national community-policing strategy. When this strategy changed, executives cut their support for the program. This paper argues that this “rise” and “fall” was a function of the program's theoretical and procedural alignment with shifting strategies of national governance. This raises a question about the role of restorative forums in Canadian governance. If such programs remain desirable, multi-agency forums (police, public schools, child welfare, immigration) may well align with the nascent governmental framework of public safety interoperability. The paper also considers another possibility: non-state local peacemaking forums. The conclusion discusses potential benefits and limits of these possibilities. It also offers general theoretical observations on the role of alignment in governmental programming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares the public indebtedness of the Canadian provinces and the US states (including a share of the federal debt) over the 2000–2007 period. It presents rankings of the most indebted subnational jurisdictions based on five public debt concepts. Among the provinces, Quebec (with the lowest average rank) and Alberta (with the highest average rank) display the most stable position across the rankings. All other provinces show important fluctuations in their position in the rankings. Hence, allocating the federal debt to subnational states and the specific debt concept being considered significantly influence the rankings, quite spectacularly in some instances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In-depth interviews with government officials are a critical research method for the study of government. Historical and institutional factors, and particularly the informal internal dynamics that influence policy, require a depth of understanding that is often best investigated through such interview methods. At the federal level in Canada we see many trends that point to the increasing centralization and control of government information. There has been political interference in Access to Information Requests; the outcomes of scientific research have been suppressed; and media access to politicians has become highly constrained. This led us to ask whether tightening controls on information have also affected access to research interviews with government officials. This paper explores this issue by interviewing both academics and public servants in the Canadian federal government. We ask is there evidence of a tightening grip on access to governmental research interviews and, if so, is this affecting how and what we research? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at the changing nature of regulation making with a special emphasis on the role that economists should play. It focuses specifically on the processes used to develop regulations. It argues that the traditional process for regulation making is breaking down and that the quality of regulation will decline if processes do not adapt to the changing environment. In addition to their traditional work of comparing regulatory instruments and calculating their benefits and costs, economists can play an important role by serving as strategists to help the public interest win in the strategic game of regulation making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Complex environment and resource policy issues such as wind energy planning can benefit greatly from public input but may also be challenging for the public to understand. This paper examines informational barriers to public engagement with policy, using a case study of wind energy planning in Saskatchewan, Canada. A document review showed four types of barriers to effective policy-public communication in the case study: non-intuitive information, misreported information, obsolete information, and absent information. We provide some intuitive solutions for these difficulties but also suggest that they may be strongly rooted in the inherent political incentives of policy-makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper exploits the fact that a confluence of events in the mid-1990s caused Canadian provincial governments to re-examine the design of their social-assistance programs. Three provinces in particular- Alberta, British Columbia, and Ontario-chose to introduce substantial changes to the administrative procedures by which applicants applied to gain, and maintain, access to social assistance. We identify the relative contributions of economic influences, cuts to social-assistance benefits, and new administrative procedures on the fraction of the population eligible for social assistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Like all member parties of the Communist International (Comintern), the Communist Party of Canada (CPC) embarked on a dramatic change of political direction — the Popular Front Against Fascism — after the Seventh (and last) Comintern Congress in summer 1935. Declaring that Fascism was now an imminent and equal threat to the Soviet Union, the democratic world and progressive civilization, shelved its aspiration to lead the advanced sections of the proletariat in direct revolutionary struggle for socialism and set out to broaden its appeal among the "people," a category embracing every Canadian except those in or closely aligned with the small stratum of finance capitalists, who, communists argued, formed the core of Canadian Fascism. Attempting, with some success, to reinvent itself as reformist, constitutionalist and "Canadian," it demonstrated the possibilities for a Canadian party of the left willing to combine parliamentary and extra-parliamentary methods. Between 1935-39, it more than doubled in size, gained for the first time a small but significant bourgeois membership, and saw its ideas begin to percolate into national debate. This paper nevertheless argues that the Popular Front re-making of the CPC was primarily driven by Soviet rather than Canadian needs, compromised the party's socialist objectives and failed to alter fundamentally the party's Stalinist character. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]