Vol.
27 No. 3 September 2001
Brenda
L. Murphy and Richard G. Kuhn
Setting the Terms of Reference in Environmental Assessments:
Canadian Nuclear Fuel Waste Management
Although
ostensibly a technical issue, the environmental assessment of
the proposed concept to dispose of nuclear fuel waste (NFW) deep
in igneous rock of the Canadian Shield, caused considerable debate
regarding the social, ethical, and political dimensions of the
issue.
Among
other things, those embroiled in the debate, including government,
industry and non-governmental organizations disagreed about how to
define the problem of NFW management. However, since the current procedure
for setting the terms of reference involves only limited public consultation,
the full range of alternative definitions was not considered. We deconstruct
the negotiations that led to the setting of the terms of reference.
Throughout the environmental assessment hearing process, and subsequent
to its completion in 1998, the terms of reference were a source of
controversy and conflict amongst stakeholders. At the end of the process,
the final Environmental Assessment Panel report transcended the scope
of the terms of reference and provided both technical and social definitions
of the safety and acceptability of the NFW disposal concept. The ramifications
of this report will reverberate in all future assessments of complex
technological and major resource management projects.
G.
Cornelis van Kooten and Grant Hauer
Global Climate Change: Canadian Policy and the Role of Terrestrial
Ecosystems
This
paper provides an overview of Canadian climate change policy. It is
argued that voluntary action will contribute little to climate change
mitigation and that forest management strategies can, at most, contribute
some 7.5 percent of Canada's required Kyoto CO2-emissions reduction
target. To do so requires tree-planting subsidies, which are inefficient
locally and globally. In the arena of land-use change and forest strategies,
Kyoto's Clean Development Mechanism offers a more efficient alternative
to domestic strategies.
Manuel
Crespo
Tendances actuelles des politiques publiques à l'égard
de l'enseignement supérieur: une analyse comparative
This
paper analyzes current trends in public policy in higher education
in the United States, Canada, and some countries of the European Union.
These policies reflect the transformation of public management; some
of them respond to the current demands of globalization and the informational
age. This analysis shows the expanding role of the state in the governance
of higher education; concern for the accessibility and diversification
of the services offered; a progressive financial disengagement of
the state; the setting up of performance indicators; the internationalization
of institutions and informational restructuring. These trends can
be found, in varying degrees, in higher education systems on both
sides of the Atlantic.
Ron
Kneebone and John Leach
The Accumulation of Public Debt in Canada
Pierre
Fortin's analysis of the causes of the increase in Canada's debt-to-output
ratio is reconsidered. We find that the analysis hinges upon a number
of supplementary decisions, and that reasonable choices give rise
to results strikingly different from those obtained by Fortin. We
also extend Fortin's analysis to examine the causes of debt accumulation
by level of government. This exercise shows that the causes of debt
accumulation are very different at the federal and subnational levels.
Livio
Di Matteo and Rosanna Di Matteo
Public Homecare Expenditures in Canada
An
examination of Canadian provincial government homecare expenditures
finds wide differences in real per capita public homecare expenditures.
The key determinants of real per capita provincial public homecare
expenditures are real provincial per capita income, variables representing
the proportion of the provincial population aged 65 and older, real
per capita federal health transfers and the proportion of provincial
GDP devoted to health expenditures. Public homecare expenditures are
income elastic and sensitive to the growth of the elderly population
and are projected to increase substantially by 2005. The evidence
suggests that increasing federal transfers to the provinces would
not be the most effective means to boost public homecare expenditures
given different provincial homecare program responses.
Lori
J. Curtis
Lone Motherhood and Health Status
This
study focuses on the health status of women with children, particularly
lone mothers, the beneficiaries of many policies. Data from the 1994
Statistics Canada's National Population Health Survey indicate that
lone mothers have, on average, consistently lower unconditional health
status than married mothers. However, lone mothers also have, on average,
lower levels of health inputs. Once age, income, education, lifestyle
factors, family size, and other recognized determinants of health
are controlled for, lone mothers are at least no worse off than married
mothers when it comes to health status. This evidence points toward
promoting policies directed at increasing the education, income and
lifestyle factors of lone mothers if we wish to improve their health
status.
Judith
A. McDonald and Robert J. Thornton
Comparable Worth in Academe: Professors at Ontario Universities
In
1988 a comparable-worth pay policy was implemented in Ontario, Canada,
with the passage of the Pay Equity Act. The Ontario policy is unique
in the scope and nature of its involvement in pay determination: it
is proactive rather than complaints-based and it covers employees
in both the private and public sectors. In this paper we relate the
experiences of Ontario faculty under the Act, drawing upon information
from a survey we conducted. We then use pay data from the Council
of Ontario Universities and Statistics Canada to perform several counterfactual
experiments. We find that while the Act had no direct effects, indirectly
it may have brought about a slight reduction in the female-male pay
gap that exists among Ontario professors especially in the latter
part of the 1990s.
