Policy Dialogue

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Browsing Policy Dialogue by Author "Bell, Patricia"

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    SIPP Policy Dialogue Number 14 Winter 2007
    (Saskatchewan Institute of Public Policy, 2007) Bell, Patricia; Whyte, John D.; Axworthy, Chris; Smith, David E.; Burch, Fred; Penikett, Tony; Marshall, Jim; Charlebois, Sylvain; Langenbacher, Wolfgang; Paul, Linda; Poitras, Derek; Furtan, Hartley
    It would seem a federal election is in the air. While in their early days, the federal Conservatives approached the task of governing from a fairly rigid, even ideological, perspective, their governing style has become increasingly politically astute and responsive as they have become more experienced at governing. Now, with an election pending, we are not only seeing campaign-style advertisements designed to weaken any momentum the Liberals may have generated from their leadership, but we see a government that at first seemed ideologically antienvironment providing $1.5B for responses to climate change. As the editorial cartoon on our website this month suggests, everyone in the House of Commons seems to have turned green these days!
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    SIPP Policy Dialogue Number 18 Spring 2008
    (Saskatchewan Institute of Public Policy, 2008) MacIvor, Heather; Bell, Patricia; Norman, Ken; Whyte, John D.; Ward, Lee; Marchildon, Gregory P.; Marshall, Jim; Conway, John; Rocan, Claude; Martens, Patricia J.; Kluger, Joseph; Hedlund, Dave
    Last issue, I reflected a little on the meaning of the word “dialogue.” Trying to define the word “policy” much less reflecting on its deeper meanings and nuances is much more difficult in part because almost every policy practitioner has his or her own intuitive or common sense definition of the word. Scholars have hardly helped matters. I have seen entire books on public policy in which the authors do not once attempt to define what they mean by policy. This can cause serious problems in conversations about what constitutes effective public policy. We end up arguing in circles hardly realizing that our definitions of “policy” are at least partially incompatible. The stakes are high for those charged with the responsibility to initiate and implement public policy today. They are also high for those of us in the business of judging the past, keeping in mind that we ultimately assess governments on their public policy legacies – that is, what individual administrations have bequeathed to subsequent generations.