Provincial and Territorial Politics in Canada and Beyond

J07 - Evidence Based Policy and Federal-Provincial Politics

Date: May 30 | Time: 03:15pm to 04:45pm | Location: Classroom - CL 408 Room ID:15751

Chair/Président/Présidente : Geneviève Tellier (University of Ottawa)

Discussant/Commentateur/Commentatrice : Geneviève Tellier (University of Ottawa)

Public Policy and Citizen Interests: Attitude Alignment or Misalignment on Provincial Health Care: Joanna Everitt (University of New Brunswick - Saint John), Joseph Sanford (Dalhousie University)
Abstract: The quality of health care services remains one of citizens’ most important areas of concern during recent provincial and federal election campaigns. It is also one of government’s greatest fiscal challenges when managing public budgets and different governments often take different approaches to dealing with this issue. This paper draws on responses to the Comparative Provincial Election Study Project to explore the attitudes of different groups of voters towards key questions about the provision of health care services in the provinces. In doing so it focuses on levels of heath care spending, the public/private provision of services and the previous governments’ management record in the improving the quality of health care during their term in office. This analysis helps to provide better insight into the values and expectations that different voters bring to election campaigns and the degree to which questions of health care quality drive vote choices across the country.

Is Canada Seeing Like a State, or Does Federalism Cause Blindness?: Inger Weibust (Carleton University)
Abstract: Measurement of citizens and, later on, social and economic trends have long been hallmarks of the modern state, beginning with census collection. Yet for major policy areas such as welfare, skills training, occupational safety and environmental protection, it is very difficult to answer even simple questions for Canada as a whole. For example, how many people collected welfare in Canada in 2016? This paper will explore the existence of national datasets for key policy areas and present hypotheses about the problems for which national data collection do and do not exist, using a case study approach. First, do externalities or public goods provision explain the pattern? Workplace deaths are not collected nationally but they do not constitute an interprovincial externality. Second, does the absence of national datasets occur predominantly in policy areas of primary or exclusive provincial jurisdiction? Third, is international reporting/benchmarking a driver for creating national datasets? This is the case for primary education, where the provinces have cooperated for decades to participate in international institutions, such as the OECD’s PISA educational tests (Wallner). The existence of comparable data, aggregated at the national level has implications for evidence based policy making and policy learning. How can we which determine which provinces have the best practices if we are unable to compare outcomes?

Independent Councils and Support for Transfer Reform: Survey Evidence from Canada: Kyle Hanniman (Queen's University), Elizabeth Goodyear-Grant (Queen's University)
Abstract: Many believe that Canada’s federal-provincial transfer system is in fundamental need of reform. Effective reform is difficult to achieve, however, because it generally benefits some provinces at the expense of others. One way to address this problem is to create an independent council capable of monitoring and evaluating Canada’s transfer arrangements. Such a body might increase the odds of effective reform by increasing support for reform among prospective losers. It is not clear, however, whether an independent council can convince voters to internalize national standards of efficiency and fairness, especially when those standards conflict with their material interests. We will test this possibility with a series of web-based survey experiments. We will present voting-aged residents in selected provinces with a proposal to reform the equalization system; explain that the reform will primarily benefit other provinces; and see whether the interjection of a hypothetical council (our primary treatment) can increase support among the proposal’s losers.