A critical examination of the federal government policy agenda in the context of Canada's opposition power structure and the global debt crisis.

The 2013-14 edition of How Ottawa Spends critically examines national politics, priorities, and policies with a close lens on Stephen Harper's Conservative party during the middle of their first term as a majority. Contributors from across Canada examine the federal government and its not uncommon mid-term problems but also its considerable agenda of long term plans, both set in the midst of national economic fragility and a global fiscal and debt crisis. Individual chapters examine several related political, policy, and spending realms including the Budget Action Plan, the ten year Canada Health Transfer Plan, the Canada Pension Plan, and Old Age Security reforms. The contributors also consider austerity related public sector downsizing and strategic spending reviews, national energy, and related environmental strategies, and the growing Harper practice of "one-off" federalism.

The 2014-15 edition of How Ottawa Spends critically examines national politics and related fiscal, economic, and social priorities and policies, with an emphasis on the now long-running Harper-linked Senate scandal and the serious challenges to Harper's leadership and controlling style of attack politics. Contributors from across Canada examine the Conservative government agenda both in terms of its macroeconomic fiscal policy and electoral success since 2006 and also as it plans for a 2015 electoral victory with the aid of a healthy surplus budgetary war chest. Individual chapters examine several closely linked political, policy, and spending realms including the growing strength and nature of the Justin Trudeau-led Liberal Party challenge, the 2014 Harper Economic Action Plan, the demise of federal environmental policy under Harper’s responsible resource development strategy, the Conservative’s crime and punishment agenda, the growing evidence regarding the federal government’s muzzling of scientists and evidence in federal policy formation, and the now five-year story of the Harper creation, treatment, and role of the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

Fresh takes on the recession and the federal minority government.

Canada’s thirteen provinces and territories are significant actors in Canadian society, directly shaping cultural, political, and economic domains. Regions also play a key role in creating diversity within innovative activity. The role of provinces and territories in setting science, technology, and innovation policy is, however, notably underexplored. Ideas, Institutions, and Interests examines each province and territory to offer real-world insights into the complexity and opportunities of regionally differentiated innovation policy in a pan-continental system. Contributing scholars detail the distinctive ways in which provinces and territories articulate ideas and interests through their institutions, programs, and policies. Many of the contributing authors have engaged first-hand with either micro- or macro-level policy innovation and are innovation leaders in their own right, providing invaluable perspectives on the topic. Exploring the vital role of provinces in the last thirty years of science, technology, and innovation policy development and implementation, Ideas, Institutions, and Interests is an insightful book that places innovation policy in the context of multilevel governance.

Canadian Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy presents new critical analysis about related developments in the field such as significantly changed concepts of peer review, merit review, the emergence of big data in the digital age, and the rise of an economy and society dominated by the internet and information. The authors scrutinize the different ways in which federal and provincial policies have impacted both levels of government, including how such policies impact on Canada’s natural resources. They also study key government departments and agencies involved with science, technology, and innovation to show how these organizations function increasingly in networks and partnerships, as Canada seeks to keep up and lead in a highly competitive global system. The book also looks at numerous realms of technology across Canada in universities, business, and government and various efforts to analyze biotechnology, genomics, and the Internet, as well as earlier technologies such as nuclear reactors, and satellite technology. The authors assess whether a science-and-technology-centred innovation economy and society has been established in Canada – one that achieves a balance between commercial and social objectives, including the delivery of public goods and supporting values related to redistribution, fairness, and community and citizen empowerment. Probing the nature of science advice across prime ministerial eras, including recent concerns over the Harper government’s claimed muzzling of scientists in an age of attack politics, Canadian Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy provides essential information for academics and practitioners in business and government in this crucial and complex field.

In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crunch, a pending era of budgetary austerity looms over Canada. Canadian Public Budgeting in the Age of Crises provides a roadmap through the difficult fiscal decisions that have characterized contemporary federal politics across four decades. The authors provide an accessible and comprehensive overview of the constraints that have affected budgetary outcomes in the recent past and that will affect the near future, with analysis spanning micro, macro, social, environmental, and intergenerational domains. They examine the current Harper government's Conservative era, but also look at public budgeting under Chrétien, Mulroney, and Trudeau. Set in the crucial context of macroeconomic policy shifts and in a global comparative context, Canadian Public Budgeting in the Age of Crises broadens and deepens our understanding of government spending, borrowing, and taxing. Budgetary domains - complex realms of fiscal content, choice, and governance - are introduced and balanced against an analysis of these domains with pertinent and up-to-date discussions on institutional influences, dominant actors, and shifting power imbalances.