POL214Y1 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Public Administration, Neoliberalism, Cooperative Federalism
26 Oct 2019
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POL214Y1
Midterm Notes
Canadian Federalism: Performance, Effectiveness, and
Legitimacy
Author: Herman Bakvis and Grace Skogstad
pp. 2-19
• Federalism: a combination of shared rule, through provincial governments, on matters involving
regionally distinctive identities, within a balanced structure designed to ensure that neither order
of government is subordinate to the other.
• Some observes claim that federal ‘balance’ is lopsided, skewed by a tendency to either
centralization or decentralization; others, that effective policy-making is hampered by either
intergovernmental conflict or elite collusion
• This text investigates the state of contemporary Canadian federalism
• Including three questions:
1. How are the institutions of Canadian federalism performing?
2. How do existing patterns of intergovernmental relations help or hinder effective
policy-making?
3. And how do Canadians evaluate the legitimacy of the institutions, processes, and
outcomes of intergovernmental relations?
Investigations that follows has 3 dimensions: descriptive, evaluative, and explanatory.
• Institutions and processes of federalism be seen as both responding to and shaped by:
1. Structural cleavages in Canadian society, of which the most important historically have been
ethno-linguistic and territorial differences in identities, values, and material/economic base;
2. The interests and ideas of authoritative political leaders in provincial and national capitals;
and,
3. Extra-federal institutions including, most prominently, the Constitution and the parliamentary
system
Performance: Institutions and Processes
• Institutions are first, the constitutional division of powers between the two orders of government,
along with the process of judicial review to which this division is subject;
• Section institutions of intrastate federalism provide for representation of constituent units within
the central government and management of conflicts between the 2 orders of government;
• Third, institutions and processes of interstate federalism through which the 2 orders relate directly
to one another
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• Throughout book 3 criteria are used to asses the performance: the consistency of governing
arrangements with federal principle; the ‘workability’ of the institutions in question, both
informal; and the capacity of federal institutions to produce results in the forms of agreements.
Consistency with Federal Principles
• Foremost principle of federalism: its jurisdiction powers may be altered only in conformity with
constitutional provisions, never through unilateral action by the other order of government
• The 2nd principle of federalism follows from the first and is the purpose that federal systems are
created to serve: to provide a balance between unity and diversity
• The federal balance is a function of both the pattern of intergovernmental relations (interstate
federalism) and the representation of constituent units in the central government (interstate
federalism)
“Workability”
• Governments need to interact with each other in order to address mutual problems and manage
interdependencies; they need to communicate with one another in order to make adjustments in
their respective roles
Capacity to produce results
• Producing results means reaching agreement on issues
• A crucial test of their performance is their ability to manage intergovernmental conflict.
• To perform well a federal system must respect federal principles, sustain the balance between
unity and diversity, provide a setting for discussion and negotiation between governments, and
facilitate agreement, or at least understanding.
Models of Canadian Federalism
• Classical form of federalism: the ‘watertight compartments’ model in which each order of
government has exclusive authority in its sphere of jurisdiction, and no attempt made to consult
or co-ordinate activities with the other order.
• The 1867 Act assigned almost all subject matters to either the federal or the provincial order of
government, giving that order the exclusive authority both to make laws in that area and to
implement them.
• 3 areas of shared or concurrent jurisdiction: immigration and agriculture have been shared
jurisdictions since 1867, and pensions joined them in the mid-twentieth century.
• The federal system created in 1867 is situated near the left-hand end of continuum.
• Central government has various instruments it could use in areas of provincial jurisdiction:
o power to appoint lieutenant-governors with right to reserve provincial legislation,
o declaratory power that allowed the federal government to take over provincial
undertakings in national interest,
o power of the governor general to disallow provincial legislation.
• ‘Consultation’ model of intergovernmental relations means that government exchange
information and views before acting independently, leaving other to order its own arrangements.
• Period of federal dominance, during WW2 started an era of ‘co-operative federalism’ in 1950s
lasting early in 1960s.
• Co-operative federalism coexisted with competitive federalism
