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Canadian Digital Government Using information technologies and the Internet to improve communication and service delivery are key processes of government modernization in North America, Europe and parts of Asia. In response to shifting political, economic and social demands, governments around the globe have designed online policy agendas. Canadian e-government is well established, currently providing secure access, electronic service delivery, and integrated information coordinated across government departments and agencies with evaluation conducted through standardized benchmarking tools. While state-sponsored online initiatives supplement internal and external communications among governments, decision-makers, interest groups, citizens, clients, partners, and sectors, these strategies also create political and administrative pressures to adapt to new democratic processes that promote legitimacy and accountability. However, this has not required a significant reorganization of the state, but rather a reevaluation of how services are best delivered to citizens and a shift toward using the Web to promote accountability and trust. Other yes

Governing in an information-rich environment necessitates a redistribution of power and new approaches to policy learning. The key basis for this organizational repositioning is the accommodation of information. For the first time in human history mass amounts of information may be collected, stored, and searched using networked technologies. While informational assets are a critical commodity in the policymaking process, the extraordinary increase in the creation and dissemination of information has triggered sectoral instability and political turbulence. This storm of information affects both the internal and external organization of state institutions and public administration strategies. This project provides an exploration into virtual policy spaces, and the communities of actors and institutions that reside on the Canadian policy Web. The national policy Web is a supplemental informational space used for the communication of policy ideas and the exchange of policy resources (information and advice), hosting various collections of actors and institutions engaged in complex interdependencies. This study asks a number of questions concerning policy communities’ uses of the Web, hypothesizing that virtual policy networks reproduce the communication habits of their real-world counterparts. The role of the state on the national policy Web is also considered in detail, assuming that the institutional structures of a virtual state provide the requisite enablers for electronic policymaking and Web governance. The findings presented here reveal that policymaking on the Web is neither inherently democratic nor necessarily more participatory. Using a sample of fifty virtual policy networks and analyzing the national policy Web using network analysis this project describes the virtual state in Canada, measures the federal government’s use of informational policy instruments, and maps formal relations among networked policy actors. This re search provides evidence that the Canadian policy Web hosts a number of virtual networks that exchange and communicate through hypertext, and that the Canadian government uses the virtual state to manage these communications and direct flows of information.

A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Public Policy, University of Regina. v, 153 p. The role mainstream media plays in public policy agenda-setting is discussed in a number of books and papers, and takes up considerable space in the agenda-setting literature. This study examines the role mainstream media played in both shaping and sharing narratives about Indigenous peoples. It looks at the frequency with which the media discussed specific stories and policy alternatives, the venues it connected these policies to, and how frequently each was shared. It also identifies key policy actors and how each capitalized on the windows of opportunity media created to advocate for their policy alternatives to move from the public and media agendas to the government agenda. This study uses two case studies, the push for a National Inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls and the acquittal of Gerald Stanley, to examine the media’s role in the policy process. The cases are dramatically different, but in each historical and contemporary narratives can be clearly identified. The affect these have on policy narratives and storytelling in the media then leads to distinct policy alternatives winning out in specific venues. Finally, the study uses Indigenous data-gathering methods in combination with public policy theory to consider how truth is shared in stories, how this affects the narratives that inform the process, and how this in turn leads to changes in policy decisions. It then concludes with a conversation about the role the media plays in the public policy process, and therefore the process of reconciliation in Canada, through the lens of Elders, Knowledge Keepers, journalists, policymakers, and Indigenous people who are part of this overall process. If we are to achieve any meaningful sense of reconciliation in this country, these are the kinds of conversations we will need to have in order to inform that process. Student yes

A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Public Policy, University of Regina. viii, 128 p. A defining feature of the post-contact policymaking era between Western colonial governments and Indigenous communities was the creation of the so-called “Indian problem” as an actual phrase used within colonial governments (Satzewich 1997; Episkenew 2009; Erasmus 2003). More than a phrase though, the “Indian problem: was the misidentification of an issue that defined the relationship between Indigenous people and the colonial government from that point forward and it is the basic premise of all the paternalistic policies Indigenous people are still subject to in Canada, such as the Indian Act (1985). Though often referred to, the concept of the “Indian problem” has yet to be properly unpacked from a theoretical policy perspective. For the purposes of this study, the phrase “Western policymaking process” is used to denote the present-day policymaking process that evolved over time from the historical experience of European nations expanding into and colonizing Indigenous territories. The phrase encompasses more than a political history, but a policy tradition whereby colonial governments implemented their own forms of policymaking, such as the British during the colonization of Indigenous territories in the parts of the world now known as Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the United States. This policymaking process fails to create effective policies for closing the education, income and health gaps between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in these countries. The resulting policy failures have led scholars to call for an examination of the policy process that looks at “systemic and foundational rather than attitudinal and incidental” solutions (Maaka and Fleras 2005). In this new era of espoused reconciliation, we see that both Indigenous communities and the colonial government are calling for the same thing – a new relationship. How do we capitalize on this emerging rhetorical opening? Why do policies and programs continue to fall short of truly improving Indigenous health, education and socio-economic outcomes? It is within this new intellectual space that the disconnect starts to become clearer – we may have begun to change the rhetoric but the way policies and programs continue to be delivered has remained largely unchanged. This paper unpacks the concept of the “Indian problem” utilizing western colonial policy theories to explain its permeance and endurance in modern day policies that continue to negatively impact Indigenous people. The western colonial policymaking model is also examined at its ontological, epistemological, and methodological levels via an Indigenous lens to expose its inherent limitations when applied in Indigenous contexts. An Indigenous research methodology is used to gather knowledge (collect data), make meaning (data analysis) and share stories (results) collected from ten participants affiliated with two Indigenous community partners – the All Nations Healing Hospital in Fort Qu’Appelle, Saskatchewan and Papa Ola Lokahi, a health service/advocacy organization with locations throughout the Hawaiian Islands. Through a combination of “talking story” sessions, archival research, and a review of Indigenous methodologies, an Indigenous policymaking model is articulated from its ontological and epistemological roots to its methodological approach. This model is presented as an experiential, multi-media art installation featuring the Indigenous policymaking model painted on a moose hide. Student yes

A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Public Policy, University of Regina. iv, 194 p. Literature on socio-technical transitions acknowledge that negative risk perception is important to socio-technical transitions. However, beyond acknowledging risk as a potential barrier to the deployment of innovative technologies, this study points out that the acceptance or rejection of innovative technologies due to their associated risks can be a predictor of the socio-technical transition pathway that will be followed. This dissertation uses socio-technical transitions in the electric power generation sector of Saskatchewan as a case study. It finds that existing literature in the field of energy systems transitions fail to fully map the relationship between risk analysis and socio-technical transition pathways. This, the dissertation argues could be a function of the multidimensional and multidisciplinary nature of the concept of risk. This dissertation applies the risk governance framework to understand the multidimensional nature of risk and then map the findings on the multilevel perspective through which it showed how the outcome of citizen’s risk analysis may result in several transition pathways. The analysis in this dissertation is based on data collected from six citizen’s juries held in Saskatchewan in 2017. Through the discussions from these citizen’s jury sessions, this study identified how citizens apply heuristic devices as they analyse their perceived risks in two baseload power generation sources, carbon capture and storage (CCS) and small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs). This dissertation finds that in Saskatchewan, familiarity, experiential knowledge of a technology based on a history of usage and consumption, rather than cost or technical risk, are the strongest factors influencing people’s perception and attitude toward the risk in innovative technologies in the energy sector. These factors are most potent when CCS and SMRs are compared directly. But when compared as part of a portfolio of options including renewable resources such as solar and wind, citizens seem to balance the risks they associate with SMRs with the gains from having renewable resources as part of the grid. Hence, there is a chance that Saskatchewan can advance its energy system transition through either a reproduction, substitution, or a transformation pathway. Clearly, this study not only maps the way risk analysis influence transition pathways, it also provides insight into the difference in the tools experts deploy in analysing risks compared to those that unspecialized citizens use. Through the use of expert witnesses in the citizen’s jury sessions, this dissertation challenges the knowledge deficit model of citizen engagement as it revealed that citizens are more likely to develop confirmation biases when they are exposed to new information that deviates from their previous understanding of a phenomenon based on their lived experience, especially when they do not have full trust in the information sources. Student yes

A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Public Policy, University of Regina. xii, 242 p. The information deficit model attempts to explain the difference in attitudes that are held between experts and the lay public towards the use and application of matters of science. This model suggests that a paucity of scientific understanding and knowledge can lead to skepticism regarding a particular matter of science, and rejection of its use in a societal context. For example, in the case of radiation, non-experts view nuclear power plants and nuclear waste as riskier than do scientific experts on radiation, while the opposite is true when radiation is being applied in a medical context. The information deficit model is critiqued by opponents who point out that by focusing on the difference in knowledge between experts and non-experts, other elements that shape attitudes are not considered (such as ideology, political affiliations, religion, and valuebased identities). Direct testing of the information deficit model through application of an experimental approach is a gap in the existing literature. This research addressed this gap by performing a test of the information deficit model used a controlled experimental method. Random digit dialing was used to query 500 residents of Saskatchewan on their attitudes and knowledge about radiation. Subsequently, 80 of those individuals were separated into an education group (n = 43) and control group (n = 37). The education group received an education booklet and viewed educational videos on radiation. Both groups were then queried again on their attitudes and knowledge on radiation using the same questionnaire. A regression model of the responses from all 500 participants indicated a significant relationship between knowledge about radiation and attitudes towards radiation. Within the experimental treatment, the education group saw a significant increase in radiation knowledge along with an increase in overall radiation attitudes and specific radiation attitudes pertaining to nuclear power and societal approaches to radiation. This resulted in a lower risk assessment for some aspects of radiation among the education group, including nuclear power plants. When medical radiation was considered, the education group had a significantly higher attitude following the educational intervention when initial attitudes were low, and a significantly lower postintervention attitude when the initial attitude was the highest possible score. In a similar vein, CT scans were rated as riskier by education participants than the control group following the intervention. Pearson’s correlation indicated that, within the education group, the change in knowledge scores was correlated with a change in radiation attitude scores, with the exception of medical radiation. While not precluding the role of other factors, the results here indicate a role for knowledge in the formation of attitudes towards radiation. This understanding allows for a more robust prediction towards how the general public may participate in public policy processes, such as deliberative engagement. Student yes