Governments at Work: Canadian Parliamentary Federalism and Its Public Policy Effects

Agar Adamson is the author of Letters of Agar Adamson, 1914–19 and former chair of the Department of Political Science at Acadia University in Nova Scotia.

Many of the recent arguments over the Canadian Constitution have centred
on the question of Quebec’s place in the federation, in the Senate,
and in a charter of social rights. However, as Mark Sproule-Jones
illustrates in this book, that is but the surface of a far deeper pond.

In this innovative work, (the author describes it as a hybrid—a cross
between public policy development, Canadian constitutional politics, and
democratic theory), Sproule-Jones looks at “the rules” that operate
between the centre and the provinces—in other words, executive
federalism. His purpose is to examine how public policies are conceived
and, more important, how they are delivered by all three levels of
government.

Perhaps the most fascinating part of the book is Part 2, the policy
cases, in which the author examines three important areas: commercial
ships, pleasure boating, and water-quality management. True, his
laboratory a that polluted body of water, Hamilton Harbour, but it is a
part of Lake Ontario that exemplifies the problems of the Constitution
when it comes to the development of public policy. Sproule-Jones’s
discussion of the various problems involved in “water policy”
development and regulation illustrates just how deeply the Constitution
impacts upon our everyday life.

This well-documented work contains a good bibliography and the
understandable charts. It will be interesting to see if
Sproule-Jones’s hybrid take roots in the soil of Canadian political
studies. Certainly, he has succeeded in illustrating why reform is
required in the deeper recesses of Canadian federalism.