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The Portland Metropolitan region, a single economic and ecological region with a bifurcated state and local governance structure, provides an opportunity to compare governance models and state policy environments in a single region. Using stakeholder interviews and secondary sources, we examine the role of state government policy in shaping and supporting different regimes. We find that Portland exhibits a stable, “smart-growth” regime that we characterized as a metropolitan eco-regime whereas Vancouver is in a period of fragmentation without a stable metropolitan regime. This is best explained by the differing state-level regulatory contexts and the different forms of polycentricity influenced by state action. Differences in regime and governance structure result in differently drawn and expanded urban growth boundaries with subsequent differences in land-use outcomes. We conclude with observations about state-level action and subsequent forms of polycentricity to support metropolitan eco-regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, interest has grown in collaboration in public policy. Responding to the complex issues now playing out in cities, scholars are focusing on localized governance relations that blur boundaries between public, private, and community sectors. This article introduces discursive localism as a framework to understand better collaborative urban governance. It argues that ideas play a pivotal role in motivating collective action, channeling policy resources, and shaping governance relations. Although recent urban-focused accounts of collective action suggest a role for ideas, systematic attention to their normative-philosophical and cognitive-programmatic dimensions reveals how different policy discourses frame incentives and institutions for collaboration. Applying discursive localism to Toronto, Canada, the article describes change processes across three complex policy fields. Governance arrangements are argued to flow from the operative policy discourses, especially whether their normative and cognitive dimensions are integrated, dissociated, or fragmented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pivoting on the process of reserve replacement undertaken by key oil transnationals in Canada as a spatial fix for capital, the article considers how individual firms employ formal review processes to project their strategic interests. The proponent firm shapes, through its own participation, the regulatory terrain on which competitors will subsequently operate. In Alberta's tar sands, the oil industry's reserve replacement process serves as a spatial–temporal fix for capital, and the review process and tribunal acts as a complementary socio-ecological fix – restricting social/affective claims, including First Nations resistance, to an official tribunal setting. In seeking formal approval to replace declining oil and gas reserves with unconventionals, proponent firms claim investor security, while social movement opponents emphasize risk and insecurity arising from carbon-intensive, frontier extraction. In the case of the contested Shell Jackpine Mine Expansion Joint Review Panel, as in other environmental assessment processes in Alberta, the proponent firm and state representatives employ the oxymoronic term ‘resource sterilization’ to describe ecological protection. ‘Resource sterilization’ offers a discursive representation of how capital's spatio-temporal fix in unconventionals is facilitated through the terms of the formal review process, in which social claims are muted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with the rescaling of environmental governance, and with the social construction of environmental and governance scales in particular. With the aid of case-study data from Canada, it is argued that watersheds, as particular forms of rescaled environmental governance, have increased in popularity because of their status as boundary objects: that is, a common concept interpreted differently by different groups. The paper shows how particular features of the watershed approach-namely, their physical size and the shared discursive framings they employ ('stakeholder' and 'integration')- make the watershed concept both cohesive enough to travel among different epistemic communities, and plastic enough to be interpreted and used differently within them. As such, it is suggested that the trend of the uptake of the so-called 'watershed approach' reflects and is shaped by ideologies underpinned by three different, and occasionally competing, epistemic communities: the scientific, neoliberal, and grassroots communities. These arguments corroborate constructivist accounts of the political nature of boundary drawing, bring science into discussion on the relationship between neoliberalism and public participation, and contribute to environmental governance literatures by providing an alternative explanation for the uptake of watersheds in recent decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental and health issues top the political agendas of all levels of Canadian government. environmental groups are most concerned about climate change and reducing related anthropogenic greenhouse gases. Health advocates are concerned about Canada's growing rate of obesity and ensuing health problems. In this era of lifestyle politics, Anthony giddens suggests governments and community groups need to collaborate to address these issues. In Nova Scotia, however, the government's collaboration with off-highway vehicle groups to develop a trail system is under attack from an active transportation group, the Kieran Pathways Society. By identifying social, political, and economic discourses, this case demonstrates how lifestyles politics have not only supplanted emancipatory politics but also neglect ecocentric values. Thus, giddens' "Third Way" may not resolve today's environmental issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a summary of recent changes to the legal, regulatory and policy environment affecting generic pharmaceutical manufacturers operating in the Canadian market. It provides a top-line overview of the Canadian pharmaceutical market in terms of generic market share by dollar value and prescriptions filled, and growth in both of those key indicators. This paper describes changes brought into force in October 2006 to regulations of Canada's Patent Act that attempt to limit ‘evergreening’ tactics employed by brand-name drug manufacturers to delay market entry of competing generic products, changes to regulations of Canada's Food and Drugs Act that provide new brand-name pharmaceutical products with eight years of data exclusivity (plus six-month paediatric exclusivity) and the response of the Canadian Generic Pharmaceutical Association (CGPA) to these regulatory changes. This paper also outlines changes to pricing and reimbursement rules for generic pharmaceutical products that are being implemented in the two largest Canadian jurisdictions of Ontario and Québec.Journal of Generic Medicines (2008) 5, 167–174. doi:10.1057/jgm.2008.1; published online 5 February 2008 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Citizen Submissions on Enforcement Matters is administered by the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), a trilateral institution established by the governments of Canada, Mexico, and the United States as part of the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC). The CEC received 55 submissions from June 1995 to May 2006, although these remain to be substantially discussed in the literature. This study fills in some of the gaps through an analysis of the submission process from an actor- and results-based perspective. Two guiding questions form the basis for this article: What are some key demographic or geographical differences among ‘whistle-blowers’ and has the submission process achieved its goals? The conclusion is that key differences among submitters are due to such interlinked factors as gender, place, and issue, which should be more carefully considered by the CEC and other related institutions to enhance effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the role of environmental conditions and government policies in the genesis of proenvironmental behavior among Canadians. Construction and validation of the Environmental Satisfaction Scale (ESS); Measurement of individuals' satisfaction with local environmental conditions; Evaluation of psychometric properties.

Presents an abstract of the article `Impact of newsprint recycling policies on Canadian waste production and forests,' by Benoit Laplante and Martin K. Luckert published in the `Canadian Public Policy' magazine in 1994.