Policy Capacity for Climate Change in Canada's Transportation Sector

Policy Capacity for Climate Change in Canada’sTransportation Sector

Joshua NewmanDepartment of Political Science, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada

Anthony PerlUrban Studies and Department of Political Science, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver,BC, Canada

Adam WellsteadDepartment of Social Sciences, Michigan Technological University, Houghton, MI, USA

Kathleen McNuttJohnson-Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy, University of Regina, Regina, SK,Canada

Abstract

When pursuing change, legacies of policy goals and instruments from an established paradigm oftenpresent constraints on fully embracing a newer paradigm, resulting in the layering of new policy goalsand instruments on top of the existing base. In this article, we investigate the effect of layered paradigmson policy capacity at three different levels of policy making in the Canadian transportation sector. Usinganalysis of government publications and budget data, virtual policy network analysis, quantitativeanalysis of data from a survey of Canadian policy analysts, and direct interviews with policy managersin two provinces, we demonstrate how this layering of legacy goals (and consequent policy incapacity) isoccurring at the macro, meso, and micro levels of policy making. We conclude that the layering of a newpolicy paradigm for climate change on top of the established paradigm for transportation developmentconstrains policy capacity in this subsystem.

KEY WORDS: policy capacity, climate change, transportation, virtual policy networks, policy layering

Introduction

Recently, there has been a renewed interest in examining the concept of policycapacity—that is, the ability of a civil service to create and communicate advice to itspolitical executive—and its function in the policy cycle. In some circles (e.g.,Edwards, 2009; Howlett, 2009), policy capacity is being thought of as an essentialcomponent in the policy cycle and strong policy capacity a necessary condition forsuccessful policy output.

If capacity (and especially, sufficient capacity) is an important element of policymaking, then understanding the factors that influence the character of policycapacity would seem to be of special relevance to the subject. In this article, weinvestigate the effect of layered policy paradigms on policy capacity at three dif-ferent levels of policy making in the Canadian transportation sector. We concludethat the layering of a new policy paradigm for climate change on top of theestablished paradigm for transportation constrains policy capacity where the twoareas intersect. This happens at each of the macro, meso, and micro levels ofpolicy making.

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Review of Policy Research, Volume 30, Number 1 (2013) 10.1111/ropr.12001© 2013 by The Policy Studies Organization. All rights reserved.

Earlier academic work on policy capacity was mainly concerned with definitionand evaluation. Schneider and Ingram (1990), as well as Press (1998), made sub-stantial efforts in constructing a conceptual framework for evaluating policy capac-ity. Some notable studies in Canada were undertaken to appraise the policycapacity of the Canadian federal and provincial governments (Anderson, 1996;Provincial Auditor for Manitoba, 2001; Rasmussen, 1999). Most of this evaluationis qualitative in nature, and empirical qualitative measurements of policy capacityhave been proposed that could allow for comparison between evaluations (e.g.,Thissen & Twaalfhoven, 2001). This would seem to be a useful invention, espe-cially because studies comparing policy capacity in two or more organizations arelikely to begin to appear as the field advances (see Howlett and Oliphant, 2010, foran example of comparative policy capacity evaluation). In addition, Polidano(2000) has suggested a framework that might be used to create a quantitativeindex for policy capacity. Quantitative evaluation of policy capacity has also begunto appear (e.g., Howlett & Newman, 2010; Wellstead & Stedman, 2010; Wellstead,Stedman, & Howlett, 2011).

More recently, studies have progressed from a focus on evaluation to the deeperexamination of factors that can influence policy capacity. Much of this work con-cerns the effect of structural or procedural changes on a bureaucracy’s policycapacity. In this vein, studies have been conducted on the effects of employingconsultants in Canadian governments (Bakvis, 2000; Perl & White, 2002), theadoption of the New Public Management reforms to the Australian federal civilservice (Edwards, 2009), the use of evidence-based policy strategies in Canada(Howlett, 2009), and the Policy Management Review system of evaluating policyadvice in Australia (Di Francesco, 2000). In addition, there has been at least onestudy analyzing the effect on policy capacity of a large-scale change in the structureof a government: Cheung (2004) investigates the impact of the end of colonial rulein Hong Kong on that country’s ability to develop and communicate public policy.

This study seeks to expand on this research by examining the effect on policycapacity of the interaction of two different policy subsystems. This is an importantconcern for government departments that are increasingly obliged to deal withcross-cutting issues like climate change, which manifests itself as policy problems inmultiple issue areas. In Canada, many departments at various levels of governmenthave had to incorporate climate change adaptation and mitigation goals into theirpolicy agenda in recent years, including ministries of environment, naturalresources, fisheries, agriculture, and transportation.

Policy advice is not created or delivered in a vacuum; civil servants who developpolicy options do so under a prevailing culture that influences the perception ofpolicy problems and the selection of preferred instruments that can be used to solvethem (Howlett, Ramesh, & Perl, 2009, p. 137). We refer to these influences herecollectively as a policy paradigm. When a new policy agenda overlaps with anexisting one, there is the potential for two different paradigms to interact, andsubsequently to affect policy capacity at that junction. In Canada, the decades-oldpolicy paradigm that exists in transportation is being challenged with the exigenciesof a new policy paradigm, that of climate change.

Transportation is certainly among the oldest policy areas that Canadian govern-ments have had to consider, and in fact it was and continues to be central to the plot

20 Joshua Newman, Anthony Perl, Adam Wellstead, and Kathleen McNutt

in the Canadian confederation story.1 Climate change, for all the attention it hasreceived in recent years, is a relatively new policy area, especially in Canada.2 Thegoals and ambitions of these two policy areas—such as expanding the road networkfor transportation and encouraging alternative energy sources for climatechange—are at first glance very disparate, and they operate under significantlydivergent policy paradigms.

While integration of policy paradigms is often desired, in most cases there issome resistance. In these cases, legacies of policy goals and instruments of theestablished paradigm present conflicts for the demands of the new paradigm,resulting in the layering of new goals and instruments on top of the existing base(Rayner & Howlett, 2009, p. 100). We contend that the requirements of the newpolicy paradigm of climate change may be layered on top of the established policyparadigm of transportation in Canada, and that this may have an impact on thequality of policy capacity in this area in that it can constrain the ability of publicservants working in transportation to create and communicate policy advice to theirpolitical executives. Using analysis of government publications and budget data,virtual policy network (VPN) analysis, analysis of data from an online survey ofCanadian policy analysts, and direct interviews with policy managers in two prov-inces, we show how this policy layering and consequent policy incapacity is occur-ring at the macro, meso, and micro levels of policy making.

Policy Capacity and Its Relevance

“Policy capacity” or “policy analytical capacity” attempts to describe the linkbetween policy development at the bureaucratic level and policy decisions taken byelected and appointed government officials. In the simplest example of the heuris-tic policy cycle, politicians establish a policy goal, and then rely on their civilservants—permanent employees of the state who are largely unaffected by elections,lobbying, and public pressure—to investigate options for achieving the politicians’goals. These civil servants then forward the results of their work to the politicalexecutive to consider for policy implementation. This is of course an extremelyreductionist perspective on the policy cycle,3 but in fact many civil servants continueto see their role in this fashion, as will become evident from some of the interviewresponses given for the present study. By any measurement, therefore, the ability tocreate and communicate policy advice is a critical link in the policy chain.

As Howlett and Wellstead (2011, p. 615) point out, in practice, policy analysts canno longer be seen simply as technical experts who use specialized techniques tosolve specific policy problems. They are now more frequently generalists whoengage in a variety of activities that are crucial to the policy process. Interviewrespondents in the present study reported engaging with industry stakeholdersthrough working groups to acquire feedback and garner support for policy options,as well as communicating with counterparts in other provinces and in U.S. states toadvance cooperation in interjurisdictional agreements—both nontraditional rolesfor policy analysts.4 In part, this is because of structural changes to hiring andtraining practices for civil servants (Edwards, 2009). In addition, it is likely that thevariety of tasks performed by policy analysts was not properly understood in thepast, and only more recently has the complex nature of their role in the policy

Policy Capacity for Climate Change 21

process come to light (Howlett & Wellstead, 2011). In any case, this complexity anddiversity of the policy analyst’s role imply a critical importance for analysis withinthe policy process. The capacity to develop and deliver useful policy advice istherefore essential.

In the past, “policy capacity” has sometimes been used to refer to a state’s abilityto govern, in the context of the recent propensity of some governments to favoralternative service delivery mechanisms, austerity measures, and styles of publicadministration that mimic private sector corporations (e.g., Bakvis, 2000; Peters,1996). However, a more precise term for this might be “state capacity,” “governingcapacity,” or even “governance capacity.” Policy capacity, by contrast, reflects theability of civil servants to produce useful advice and to effectively communicate thatadvice to government decision makers. Earlier writers have used different orinexact terminology: Polidano (2000) uses the term “public sector capacity,” DiFrancesco (2000) refers to “policy advice,” and Thissen and Twaalfhoven (2001)refer to “policy analytic activity.” However, these authors have the same generalintent as is pursued in subsequent literature that has converged on the term “policycapacity,” and this is the terminology that will be applied here.

Some aspects of policy capacity will necessarily be subjective, as they rely on theattitudes of the government employees or politicians involved in policy making andon their opinions as to how well the system is functioning. This could include, forexample, assessments of the quality of communication between government depart-ments or between civil servants and political executives. In light of this, interviewswith government policy analysts, who are directly involved in policy developmentand planning, are a good way to collect detailed information concerning how theysee their own ability to create and communicate policy advice. Other aspects, suchas information concerning how many employees are kept on a policy group’s staff,how much on average an employee is paid, and their average level of education, aremore objective and can be determined directly.

Several authors (Anderson, 1996, p. 472; Howlett & Oliphant, 2010, pp. 20–21;Institute on Governance, 2010, p. 9; Provincial Auditor for Manitoba, 2001, p. 16;Riddell, 1998, p. 5) discuss factors that might be considered components of policycapacity, including training and experience of personnel, innovative leadership,horizontal and vertical channels of communication, IT, and other physicalresources. The evaluation of these components of policy capacity will be somewhatsubjective, but the understanding here is that a certain standard in these compo-nents is required for truly effective policy capacity. There has been some empiricalresearch to advance this claim (e.g., Provincial Auditor for Manitoba, 2001; Ras-mussen, 1999).

Many scholars agree that measuring policy capacity is most effective when it isfocused on policy inputs and not policy outputs. The provincial auditor of Manitobawrote in a 2001 report on policy capacity: “It is important to clarify at the outsetthat our review examines capacity; it does not in any way assess or question themerit of government policies” (Provincial Auditor for Manitoba, 2001, p. 4). Inaddition, the interview respondents from this Manitoba report as well as inter-viewees from other studies (e.g., Rasmussen, 1999) saw policy inputs as mostpertinent when attempting to calibrate the degree of policy capacity. Howlett (2009,p. 162) makes the distinction between “policy capacity,” which covers the whole


gamut of policy making from formulation to implementation, and “policy analyticalcapacity,” which focuses in on the part of the policy cycle where planning, research,advising, and decision making are being pursued (and not implementation orany kind of street-level bureaucracy). For the most part, when we talk aboutpolicy capacity, we are referring to analytical capacity (i.e., formulation and notimplementation).

The recent policy goals of climate action and the established goals oftransportation—as well as the prospective policy instruments of climate action andthe established instruments of transportation—thus far lack a compatible fit, result-ing in a tendency toward policy layering (Kern & Howlett, 2009). Layered policiescreate a particular administrative constraint in which newer policy instruments andgoals are incompatible with older instruments and goals that may already be in usein a policy area. This presents a significant challenge in Canada and especially at theprovincial level, where governments have elevated climate action to a more promi-nent position on their policy agenda.

Policy Layering and the Transportation and Climate Change PolicyParadigms in Canada

Policy Layering

The nexus of climate change and transportation is the result of the collision of twodifferent policy areas—policy areas that may or may not have compatible goals, butthat, in Canada at any rate, call for employing conflicting policy instruments. In thepublic policy literature, very little attention is given to explanations of policy driversin situations where layered policy paradigms co-exist. Because climate change is across-cutting issue that affects such diverse industries as forestry, residential wastemanagement, and cement production among others, it is unlikely that newerclimate change goals and policy instruments will align smoothly with the establishedgoals and instruments that exist in transportation.

Kern and Howlett (2009) posit two dimensions along which colliding policy issueareas can be examined: goals and instruments, both of which can be either alignedor not aligned.5 Therefore, there are four possible states of existence when twopolicy domains (such as transportation and climate change) come into contact:“replacement,” in which the goals in the two policy areas are aligned, and the policyinstruments in the two areas are also aligned; “conversion,” in which goals in thetwo policy areas are aligned but the instruments are not; “drift,” where instrumentsare aligned between the different policy domains but the goals are not; and lastly,“layering,” where neither goals nor instruments are aligned.

The intersection of transportation and climate change policy is likely to fall underthe category of policy “layering.” The main goal of transportation policy is to movepeople and goods, for various reasons, which is not usually considered in policymaking. The main goal for climate change mitigation policy is to reduce (or at thevery least, stabilize) carbon emissions. These two goals are inherently incompatible,as illustrated by the most straightforward strategy for reducing emissions, whichwould be to limit mobility.6 Climate change adaptation policy may not requirereducing carbon emissions, although it would require massive reinvestment in


infrastructure (for alternative energy source fuelling stations, for example) whichwould be extraordinarily difficult under the prevailing transportation policy para-digm, as will be further explained next. In addition, while climate change adapta-tion may provide fruitful policy direction in the global South, governments inCanada have ostensibly prioritized mitigation as a policy objective. And as will alsobe elaborated next, the policy instruments in the two areas are considerably differ-ent in their logic of appropriate authority: Climate action relies on some new formof government action, whereas the currently prevailing transportation policy para-digm calls for limiting government intervention to the extent possible.

In a layered situation, attempts to use instruments from the environmentalpolicy subsystem that is newly engaged with transportation, such as in regulatingtailpipe emissions standards, could be expected to engender resistance from truck-ing or railroad actors within the transport subsystem that have embraced theparadigm of government deregulation. Such differences are institutionalized,meaning that they are hard-wired into the organizational structures, formal rolesand responsibilities, and/or the organizational culture of most actors within thetransport policy subsystem.

Earlier, we defined policy capacity as the ability of civil servants to create andcommunicate quality policy advice to elected officials. The capacity of policy advi-sors working on climate action initiatives in the transportation sector will beconstrained as a result of conflict produced by the layering of climate change goalsover the existing transport policy instruments. This makes for what we have labeledan “institutionalized inhibition” in climate mitigation and adaptation within thesubsystem—meaning that the policy capacity of subsystem actors to implementpolicy is constrained in ways that are resistant to informal adaptation, and cannot beapplied formally without addressing paradigmatic tensions.

Transportation and Climate Change Paradigms in Canada

The policy paradigm guiding the transportation sector in Canada was dramaticallyaltered following the release of the 1985 federal government white paper “Freedomto Move: A Framework for Transportation Reform” (Mazankowski, 1985). Thisreport, which became the basis for the 1987 National Transportation Act, establishedthat competition in an open market between private carriers should be the federalgovernment’s top priority in transportation policy. This represented a major breakfrom the previous 120 years of federal transportation policy, under which publicfinancial support of infrastructure development, public enterprise, subsidies forprivate carriers, and strict economic regulation of the industry were the preferredpolicy instruments (Gratwick, 2001, p. 2).

The “Freedom to Move” white paper was unequivocal in promoting deregula-tion of the transportation sector, especially trucking and rail. There were repeatedreferences to a need to reduce regulation and encourage competition in transpor-tation, to removing barriers of entry to the marketplace, and to doing away withmonopolistic practices—even where Crown Corporations were concerned. Thereport called for new legislation to take down regulatory obstacles to competitionin the transportation marketplace, replacing the traditional public interest asexpressed through a “public convenience and necessity” test for market entry with


a more competitive orientation, in the form of a “fit, willing and able” test. Inessence, the 1985 report and the subsequent 1987 Act heralded Canada’s shift froman era in which government intervention was a frequent mode of policy implemen-tation, to one in which the government initiative in the transport sector was muchreduced.

These principles of deregulation and open market competition have solidifiedinto an institutionalized federal transportation policy paradigm. The current trans-portation legislation, now called the Canada Transportation Act, retains both thelanguage of the 1987 Act and the spirit of the 1985 white paper. For instance,section 5 of the current Act declares that the objectives of federal transportationpolicy “are most likely to be achieved when . . . competition and market forces, bothwithin and among the various modes of transportation, are the prime agents inproviding viable and effective transportation services.” For the past 25 years,increased market competition and decreased government regulation have becomethe core principles of federal-level policy in transportation. This is evidenced by thesale of crown corporations in the sector, including Air Canada and CanadianNational Railways; the commercialization of major airports; and the use of public–private partnerships (P3s) in developing new infrastructure, such as in the con-struction and operation of the Confederation Bridge link between Prince EdwardIsland and New Brunswick. Evidence of the entrenchment of this policy paradigmcan be found in its continuation after successive changes of prime minister andparties in power.

Following Ottawa’s lead, most Canadian provinces have extended the marketpolicy paradigm in their own areas of jurisdiction over the transport sector. Theirapproach during this time has been to increase market autonomy and decreasegovernment intervention. Materially, this has manifested itself in the sale of pro-vincial Crown assets, such as BC Rail in British Columbia (BC); commercializationof provincially owned infrastructure, such as BC Ferries or Highway 104 in NovaScotia; increasing use of P3s for infrastructure development, including the Sea-to-Sky Highway connecting Vancouver with Whistler in BC, Ontario’s Highway 407north of Toronto, and the Autoroute 25 connector between Montreal and Laval inQuébec; private operation of public transit, such as in North York’s Viva Transitsystem or Vancouver’s Canada Line; and Ontario’s outsourcing of some majoradministrative duties, such as the GO Transit fare system maintenance and provin-cial driver examination services (Ontario, 2006). Changes to the language used inpublic documents reflect this shifting policy paradigm, as they increasingly talkabout “value for money” and refer to their target audience as customers rather thancitizens (see for example, British Columbia, 1996, p. 4; Wright, 2001, p. 2).

This current transportation policy paradigm has been institutionalized, throughfinancial agreements and regulatory precedents, into a well-established frameworkthat orients future policy choices. Transportation policy options in Canada aredeveloped to advance goals of improving market competition, increasing privatecarrier revenues, and decreasing government intervention. This is apparent incurrent practice, such as BC’s implementation of its Gateway Program, whichinvolves roadway expansion to support the growth of port commerce. In addition,our interview subjects were unanimous in their acceptance of the transport sector’smarket-oriented policy paradigm, suggesting a fully entrenched paradigm that


even senior officials do not question. As one interview subject put it, “the provincialgovernment’s number one goal is moving people and goods around to facilitateeconomic growth and development. This is the ‘economic imperative.’ ”

Compared with transportation, climate change is a relatively recent policyconcern. Canada ratified the Kyoto Protocol in 2002 (but in 2011 it became the first,and so far only, country to withdraw).7 Between 2002 and 2007, provincial govern-ments made virtually no advances on the climate change file (Rabe, 2007). Asrecently as 2006, seven out of ten provinces did not have a meaningful plan toaddress climate change (Marshall, 2006, p. 4). However, since then, climate policieshave leaped onto the political agenda in nearly every province. By 2008, the DavidSuzuki Foundation reported that all provinces, except for Alberta, had enactedmeaningful climate policies (Marshall, 2008, p. 10). And by 2009, every provincehad a greenhouse gas emission reduction target (Snoddon & Wigle, 2009,p. 5)—although some were, and continue to be, stricter than others.

Climate action requires government intervention. Between 2002 and 2006, whilecarbon emissions were rising, provincial governments largely maintained a hands-off attitude toward climate policy (Marshall, 2006, p. 3). In other words, withoutgovernment intervention of any kind, the private sector was unable or unwilling toreduce greenhouse gas emissions and address climate change on its own. Globally,this has been analogous to the weaker climate change mitigation and adaptationresults of developing nations, who do not have the financial or other resources toenforce climate policy (Bodansky, 2010). Successful climate change strategies willrequire further government action (Ontario, 2007).

This presents a challenge for policy makers who deal with climate change strat-egies in the transportation sector. On the one hand, the established policy paradigmin transportation is one of lower government intervention, minimal regulation, freemarket competition, private sector autonomy, and alternative service delivery. Onthe other hand, without government intervention to enforce emissions limits, sub-sidize the launch of alternative energy technologies, and regulate fuel standards,climate action appears sharply constrained. Policy makers must somehow reconcilethe demands of climate change policy with the institutionalized paradigm thatprioritizes market-deferential policy instruments in the transportation sector. Thismay yet prove difficult in an environment where effective regulation of the trans-portation industry has been dramatically reduced, where Crown assets have beendivested, and where key segments of new road infrastructure are under privatemanagement. In a further constraining step, transportation deregulation inCanada has led to harmonization with American transport policies (Madar, 2000,p. 9), which would make an aggressive climate change program nearly impossiblewithout the collaboration of U.S. state and federal governments.

The layering of climate change policy goals and instruments on top of transpor-tation goals and instruments is occurring at three distinct levels of policy making. Atthe macro level, policy networks are affected by the incompatible paradigms oftransportation and climate policy, affecting how these networks communicate withone another. At the meso level, changing mandates and resources are misaligned, asa result of the layered demands of climate change on the established paradigm oftransportation. At the micro level, the demands of climate policy can have an impacton the activities of civil servants who work in transportation. The combined effect of


policy layering at these three levels constrains overall policy capacity at the inter-section of climate change and transportation subsystems.

At the Macro Level: Organizational Networks

At the macro level of policy making are found the linkages between the variousorganizations and government departments that orient a policy subsystem. Theseconnections and their influence on policy development are referred to as policynetworks and they have been the subject of a great deal of scholarship, especially inrecent years (see Koppenjan, Kars, & van der Voort, 2009; Sandström & Carlsson,2008, for example). In Canada, numerous actors contribute to agenda setting andpolicy development in a given area, including the national government, 13 provin-cial and territorial governments, cities and municipalities, business and industryorganizations, advocacy groups, First Nations, academics, and many others. Thisresults in a tremendous unstructured collaborative effort to provide informationand influence policy across each policy network. As government policy analysts areboth a part of and interacting within policy networks, changes to the composition orfunctionality of a network can have implications for policy capacity.

Although a single policy network is often a complex structure in its own right,when two policy subsystems intersect, the connections between actors becomeeven more intricate. Climate change is a transverse issue that intersects with avariety of governments and ministries from energy to environment to transpor-tation; the increased prominence of climate change on the policy agenda ensuresthat a given policy subsystem such as transportation, which already contains adense network of communication between a diverse set of actors, will have theadded burden of integrating with a climate policy network. For example, somegovernments (such as BC) have legislated carbon-neutral goals for governmentoperations.8 One consequence of this requirement is that it compels all govern-ment departments to consider climate change adaptation policies at some level. Asnoted earlier, communication between organizations is one of the essential com-ponents of policy capacity. If, as our data suggest, the structure of the Canadiantransportation policy network has changed in recent years, this can have impli-cations for interorganizational communication, as the severing or realignment oflinks between actors can create impediments for policy capacity. This constraintcan be observed in the configuration of VPNs that have evolved around climatechange and transportation.

VPNs are Web-enabled policy networks whose political organizational formshave been re-created online. Structurally, VPNs are composed of hyperlink con-nections (ties) between institutional Web sites (nodes) (McNutt, 2010). VPNs tend tobe issue specific: Online connections are organized around a particular policy area,with one actor linking their Web site to another network actor’s online content. Aswith any policy network, the sharing of resources and information is a key networkactivity, with structural position determining both access and influence (VanWaarden, 1992, p. 31). In a Web-based environment, hyperlinking is a strategicdecision reflecting “a communicative choice made by the designer” (Jackson, 1997,p. 9). VPNs tend to mimic offline policy networks with many of the same relationalties replicated online. For example, a provincial department of transportation or


Transport Canada will often act as a hub of communication among real-world actorsin the transportation sector, including Crown corporations and private firms;online, many agencies and corporations will link to these government Web sites. Ingeneral, similar relational patterns often emerge with key offline actors also beingkey online actors (McNutt, 2012).

In this section, we analyze two structural properties of the Canadiantransportation/climate change VPN: density and nodality. Density is a structuralmeasure focused on levels of network integration and, in the case of VPNs, thevolume of information in each network. VPNs with higher levels of network density(strong ties) possess higher levels of informational interdependencies suggestingestablished policy regimes, while VPNs with lower density levels (weak ties) arecharacterized by competing interests and contestation over problem definition andpreferred solutions. Density is calculated by dividing the entire population ofpotential ties (n(n - 1) where n = all nodes) by the actual population of unidirec-tional links (m/n(m), where m = set of all edges or links). Nodality is an informativemeasure that determines which actors have the most relative influence. In thecontext of VPN analysis, Web sites that are nodal or centralized have a greaterimpact on policy development as these Web sites have more access to networkresources. Nodality is calculated as the number of inbound links received by themost popular (i.e., linked-to) Web site divided by the sum of all inbound linksreceived by all nodes ((k(max))/Sm, where k(max) = the number of in-links at the nodein the network with the highest in-degree and Sm = the aggregate sum of allinbound links). By evaluating the density and nodality of a VPN at two differentpoints in time, it is possible to make inferences concerning changes that may beoccurring to the offline policy network.

For this study, we considered a VPN that lies at the intersection between trans-portation and climate change, as will be explained below. VPN analysis is especiallyappropriate here, as the actors involved in the intersection of the Canadian trans-portation and climate change policy networks may include international actors,which would make a more traditional network analysis prohibitively time consum-ing. Furthermore, and perhaps more pertinently, as channels of communicationbetween network actors are predominantly online, VPNs are able to encapsulate thesocial networking aspect of communication within the policy network (McNutt &Pal, 2011; McNutt & Wellstead, 2010).

Data collection in this project was achieved using IssueCrawler, an innovative Webanalysis package designed to map issue spaces (Rogers, 2006). IssueCrawler uses analgorithm to crawl through the Web’s link structure, extracting topic-specific hyper-links from Web pages hosting content on a particular subject. To locate a network,the researcher enters a set of Web addresses (uniform resource locators, or URLs)as seeds into IssueCrawler, which then extracts hyperlinks and maps the VPN. In thisproject, the top 15 returned Canadian9 Web addresses from a Google search fortransportation + climate change + Canada were used as URL seeds for the VPNanalysis. The data were initially collected in April and May 2010 and then again 1year later.

Previous research on the effects of climate change policy on VPNs in varioussectors has shown that in Canada, although the federal government is typicallynodal, levels of density and nodality differ considerably across policy areas (McNutt,


2008, 2010). In addition, density and nodality are independent from each other,resulting in four possible configurations: stable density and increasing nodality,in which case there is a structured network with a prominent policy leader andsatisfactory policy capacity; decreasing density and increasing nodality, which wouldrepresent a very focused network with superior policy capacity; stable density andstable or decreasing nodality, which would indicate that the network’s central actorsare losing their prominence, and that therefore additional capacity is required; anddecreasing density in association with stable or decreasing nodality, in which casethe network is decentralizing and more policy capacity will be necessary to attaineffective outcomes. This is illustrated in Table 1.

Table 2 presents the results of the Web crawl as compiled by IssueCrawler.The results suggest that density is increasing, while nodality is decreasing. In

other words, information in the VPN at the junction between transportation andclimate change is becoming more concentrated among fewer actors, with lesscentral policy leadership—positioning it in the lower-left quadrant in Table 1, whichindicates that policy capacity levels are falling. This is consistent with the expectedresults of policy layering at the macro level of political activity, where frictionbetween different policy paradigms restricts the interaction of subsystem networkactors who contribute to agenda setting and policy development.

At the Meso Level: Mandates and Resources

The previous section considered interactions of political subsystems through policynetworks, which we have situated within the macro level of policy making. Indi-vidual government departments operate at the meso level. At this level, policycapacity is dependent on both the scope of activity of a ministry or agency and theresources available to it. As both mandates and resources are administered by thepolitical executive and not by departments or agencies, the mandates applied togovernment departments and the resources that are at their disposal can rise or

Table 1. Network Configurations

Density

Stable or increasing Decreasing

Nodality Increasing Stable—May require little additionalorganizational capacity

Enhanced—May have capacitysurplus

Stable or decreasing Require additional capacity Require additional capacity

Adapted from Craft and Howlett (2012).

Table 2. Transportation/Climate Change VPN

2010 VPN 2011 VPN

Number of actors 66 47Total number of interlinkages 719 536Nodality 0.11 0.09Density 0.17 0.25Government of Canada (% of inbound links) 5 4Transport Canada (% of inbound links) 3 1

VPN, virtual policy network.


decline outside of a particular department’s control, and often independently ofone another. This leaves four possible positions for a government ministry facedwith these challenges (see Table 3).

The term mandate is not currently a technical expression in the academic litera-ture that deals with policy capacity. Where “mandate” is used, it is loosely referredto in its standard dictionary definition, as the areas in which a particular ministry ordepartment is operating. We use mandate rather than jurisdiction here because“mandate” implies that a government department is being allowed or directed topursue a particular policy path by a higher authority (i.e., the cabinet or executive,legislation, or popular will), rather than viewing a government department or evenits associated cabinet minister as being able to write its own rules or to set its ownpolicy direction. This is an important distinction, as recognizing that a givenministry may not be ultimately in control of its policy direction is crucial for acomplete understanding of the tension between mandates and resources. Govern-ment departments cannot unilaterally adjust their policy decisions to match theiravailable resources.

In Canada, political executives (and especially, first ministers) control overallpolicy direction for the entire government (Mallory, 1984; Savoie, 1999; Ward,1987). In addition, the Canadian parliamentary tradition of cabinet secrecy andcabinet unity ensures that the individual authors of major policy direction remainhidden. The policy “mandate” of a particular ministry can be understood as thedirection given to it by its associated executive, whether that be through thecollective decision of cabinet or the sole authority of the prime minister orpremier. This is the scope, scale, and domain of activities in which a ministry isdirected to operate. We therefore take the perspective that a ministry’s mandateis a set of instructions that any one minister or ministerial official cannot alterunilaterally.

Climate change has become an issue that has made it onto the political agendain nearly every Canadian jurisdiction: As of 2009, all ten provinces and thefederal government had official greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets(Snoddon & Wigle, 2009, p. 5).10 In addition, some Canadian municipalities havebeen active in this policy area as well (see City of Vancouver, 2012). However, inthis section we focus on BC and Ontario, because they are the only two jurisdic-tions in Canada that have enacted climate change legislation, produce oil and gas,and have a proven willingness to collaborate internationally on a carbon emissionstrading system. It could be argued that these are the two jurisdictions that havetaken the most initiative to date in legislated actions to address climate change in

Table 3. Meso-Level Configurations

Resources

Increasing Stable or decreasing

Mandates Increasing Challenging environment met byaugmented policy analytical capacity

Likely ineffective policy capacity characterizedby short-term fire-fighting

Stable ordecreasing

Enhanced policy capacity to meetlong-term challenges

Weak policy analytical capacity contributing topropensity for policy failures

Adapted from Craft and Howlett (2012).


Canada,11 and are therefore the two best cases for the analysis of how a proactiveclimate change adaptation strategy will affect policy capacity in departments oftransportation.

BC’s and Ontario’s transportation policy mandates have changed over the past10 to 15 years. In a broad sense, both provinces’ transportation ministries are stillprincipally occupied with the same policy domains that they have consistentlypursued for the last 50 years: highways, the trucking industry, public transit, railadministration, inland waterways, and rural airports (and in BC, especially in thelast 40 years, coastal ferries and driver insurance). However, both BC’s and Ontar-io’s provincial ministries of transportation have experienced significant changes inhow they approach policy formulation and implementation in these areas. For onething, the nationwide shift to deregulation and increased market competition intransportation, as described previously, can be seen as a major change in policymandate, requiring a reorientation of ministry priorities and resources. Morerecently, legislative enactments establishing new climate change goals in both BCand Ontario have placed increasing responsibilities on these provinces’ ministriesof transportation in what must necessarily be viewed as a major change in policymandate.

In BC, “climate change” was first mentioned in the Ministry of Transportation’sAnnual Report for fiscal year 1998–1999 as one of the “key areas affecting theministry” on matters related to the environment (British Columbia, 1999, p. 7).However, by 2006–2007, climate change adaptation and mitigation had become amajor policy priority for the BC provincial government, and this is reflected in allannual reports and service plans that have been published since then. The Ministryof Transportation of Ontario has not published annual reports since 2003–2004,although the same emphasis on climate change adaptation and mitigation prioritiescan be seen in the publication of numerous climate-related policy documents since2008, all of which place a heavy emphasis on transportation policy domains (see forexample Ontario, 2009). At the executive level, climate change (and especiallyclimate change issues in the transportation policy domains) has appeared in all ofthe Throne Speeches of both the BC and Ontario governments since 2007. It isevident that the provincial executives in these two jurisdictions wish it to be knownthat climate change initiatives are now important policy considerations in manyareas, including transportation. This represents a major expansion in policymandate for these two provinces’ transportation departments, which must nowadjust to this adjustment in policy direction by incorporating climate changerequirements in their operations.

But do the ministries of transportation of BC and Ontario have the resourcesto meet the policy requirements of their new climate change mandates? Resourcescan refer to financial capital, but they can also mean quantity and experience ofpersonnel. For the purposes of analyzing policy capacity, the most importantresource is the quantity and experience of policy staff within the Ministry ofTransportation. A reasonable metric for this resource could therefore be thedollars spent on policy-related staff salaries, as this will take into account thenumber of staff, as well as their levels of education, experience, and responsibility(as better trained, more experienced, more important policy personnel will likelybe paid higher salaries). Table 4 presents policy salary data for BC and Ontario,


as compiled directly from the Consolidated Revenue Fund reports from the pro-vincial Ministries of Finance.12 Figure 1 displays these data as a bar chart, wherethe trends can be more easily seen. In order to eliminate the effects of inflation,the amount of money spent on policy-related salaries within the ministry of trans-portation was divided by the total spent on all salaries for the entire ministry foreach year, and these numbers are expressed as percentages. Data that are com-parable between the two provinces are available as far back as the 2002/2003 fiscalyear.

There are some trends that emerge from these data, although they are notuniform across the two cases. Spending on policy-related salaries in the BC Ministryof Transportation was stable from 2002 to 2005, then increased in the financialboom of 2004–2007, then decreased in the recession years of 2008–2009 and2009–2010. Conversely, in Ontario, spending on policy salaries dropped through-out the boom of 2004–2007 and rose in the recession of 2008–2009. In BC, totalpolicy salaries in the Ministry of Transportation have declined in each of the three

Table 4. Ministry of Transportation Policy Salaries as a Percentage ofMinistry of Transportation Total Salaries

British Columbia (%) Ontario (%)

2002/2003 0.49 3.682003/2004 0.63 4.922004/2005 0.71 5.642005/2006 0.72 4.812006/2007 1.08 4.792007/2008 1.31 4.002008/2009 1.07 4.282009/2010 0.94 4.49

Figure 1. Provincial Transportation Policy Salaries as a Percentage of Total Ministry of Transportation Salaries,2003–2010


years since climate change was introduced to the political agenda. In Ontario, totaltransportation policy salaries have risen in each of these years.

In relation to policy mandates, a more interesting picture emerges over a longertimescale than the trends noted previously. Between fiscal years 2002/2003 and2006/2007, climate change was not on the political agenda in either Ontario or BC,and those provinces’ ministries of transportation were operating under a stablepolicy mandate—or even one that had been slightly reduced, as deregulation,increased market competition, sales of Crown assets, and a retrenchment of gov-ernment intervention in the industry all became goals for transportation policy.During this time, spending on policy-related salaries within these two Ministries ofTransportation fluctuated as expected: increasing and decreasing according tobusiness and electoral cycles, with identifiable short-term trends emerging but withno clear overarching long-term direction. From 2007/2008 onwards, climatechange had become (and continues to be) a major policy priority for these twoprovinces, with some emphasis on the relationship between climate issues and thetransportation sector. If transportation policy capacity were to match the demandsof the expanding mandates required by climate action, policy salaries in the Min-istries of Transportation should be expected to have risen since 2007/2008.

This is not, however, exactly what has happened. Despite the advancement ofclimate change as a provincial priority, spending on policy-related salaries in the BCMinistry of Transportation fell every year since its high point in 2007/2008. Thisindicates that the economic climate in those years may have been a more importantdriver of policy capacity resources than the expanding mandate of climate change.In Ontario, policy salary spending in the Ministry of Transportation increased inthe years since climate change was first introduced as a policy priority—but only asa marginal increase, as its current level of 4.5 percent of total Ministry of Trans-portation salaries is still lower than it was for several years and considerably lessthan the peak of 5.6 percent that it reached in 2004–2005. Furthermore, thedisparity between the trends in the two provinces leads us to believe that a very realexpanded climate action mandate has not been a sufficient motivator to reallocateresources to increase policy capacity.

In short, policy resources in the Ministries of Transportation of BC and Ontariohave not matched these ministries’ expanding mandates in recent years. Despitesignificant political emphasis on the importance of climate action, these two pro-vincial governments have not increased the resources that would be required foreffective policy capacity in this area. This could be an indication that the estab-lished policy paradigm in the transportation sector is too inflexible to adapt to thedemands of the newer climate change policy regime that has been layered on topof it.

At the Micro Level: Policy Analyst Activity

Quantitative Data on Policy Analyst Activity: Evidence that Transportation PolicyWorkers Are Engaging with Climate Change

At the micro level, thousands of individual policy analysts working at the nationaland subnational level across Canada are engaged in activities that contribute to


policy development. Recent survey-based quantitative analyses have provided somegreater detail on what these individuals do and how their work contributes to policycapacity (see Howlett, 2009; Howlett & Newman, 2010; Howlett & Wellstead, 2011;Wellstead et al., 2011).

One of the central assumptions of this study is that policy units at all levels ofgovernment have recently become required to engage with the demands of anincreasingly popular climate change adaptation and mitigation program. This canadd a layer of policy problems and associated strategies to the already complex setof policy issues that most departments grapple with on a daily basis. At the macrolevel of activity, as shown previously, this has manifested itself as changes to thestructure and composition of the policy network that spans both transportation andclimate change subsystems. At the meso level, climate action programs handeddown by political executives have increased the burden on departments of trans-portation to incorporate climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies intotheir programs and activities.

In this section, we assess how climate change adaptation and mitigationprograms affect the typical work activities of policy analysts employed by transpor-tation departments across Canada. Specifically, we are interested to know if policyanalysts in transportation departments are in fact affected by the demands ofclimate action policy, as has been shown to happen at the macro and meso levels ofactivity. To this end, we analyzed data from a survey of policy analysts in a varietyof government departments (including transportation) and used comparison ofmeans independent-sample t-tests to compare the results of the various sectors.

An online survey was delivered by e-mail to 1,469 policy analysts working innine provincial and three territorial governments,13 with 636 working responsesfor a final response rate of 43.3 percent. In addition to the transportation sector,respondents were employed in the financial, infrastructure, and natural resources/environment sectors. Mailing lists for the surveys were compiled from publiclyavailable sources, such as online government telephone directories, using keywordsearches for terms such as “policy analyst” appearing in job titles or descriptions.The population was specifically those policy workers in climate change-orientedpolicy units or sections. In some cases, additional names were added to lists fromhard copy sources, including government organization manuals. In some cases,lists of additional names were provided by provincial or territorial public servicecommissions.

Survey questions addressed the following: the nature and frequency of the tasksundertaken by professional policy workers in government, the range and frequencyof the techniques they used in their work, their concern about climate change, theextent and frequency of their interactions with other policy actors, and theirattitudes toward and views of various aspects of climate change and policy-makingprocesses. In addition, the survey included questions addressing education, previ-ous work, and on-the-job training experiences. It also contained standard questionsrelating to age, gender, and socioeconomic status. The questionnaire was adminis-tered through an online survey software package called Zoomerang, and the resultswere analyzed in SPSS 20.0 (IBM, Armonk, NY USA).

An analysis of the results of the survey showed that: (1) transportation policyanalysts were just as likely to be professionally engaged in key climate change


policy tasks as policy analysts in other areas, including sectors directly linked toenvironment and natural resources; (2) transportation policy analysts were just aslikely as other policy analysts to be occupied with complex, long-term, and large-scale issues; and (3) transportation policy analysts were just as likely to interactwith stakeholder groups and nongovernmental actors as policy analysts in otherareas.14 There was no statistically significant difference between the responses oftransportation policy analysts and those of policy analysts in other sectors—including environment and natural resources—on these three criteria. Curiously,transportation policy analysts turned out to be statistically less likely to be per-sonally concerned about climate change than those working in environmental ornatural resource sectors.

The survey results show that transportation policy analysts do indeed feel thatthey are engaged in climate change-related issues in their day-to-day work and withthe demands on their time and abilities that result from having to incorporateclimate action into their work. This indicates that climate adaptation and mitigationpolicy is just as much a concern for transportation departments as it is for depart-ments that are directly involved with climate issues, like ministries of the environ-ment or forest resources. Furthermore, transportation policy analysts are involvedwith complex, long-term, large-scale problems, as well as interaction with stake-holder groups and other nongovernmental actors—both of which are activities thatare associated with the long time frame, large scope, and expanding policy networksof climate change. The fact that transportation policy analysts show less personalconcern for climate change than policy analysts in environmental sectors only servesto reinforce the aforementioned results; policy employees in transportation are, infact, being required to engage professionally with climate policy, despite theirpersonal feelings concerning the topic.

In short, climate change adaptation and mitigation policy have affected depart-ments of transportation in Canada by requiring them to devote some share of theirpolicy capacity to climate action. In a layered policy environment, these policyanalysts would be inclined to engage environmental issues from the establishedmarket-based paradigm, which is embedded in the transportation policy network.In other words, transportation bureaucrats may engage industry and their coun-terparts in other departments on climate change, but when they do so they areconstrained by their established policy paradigm, which was never negated. This isconfirmed by our interview data, which are analyzed in further detail in the nextsection.

Interview Data: Conflicting Policy Paradigms

We conducted semi-structured interviews with seven mid-level and senior policymanagers within the BC and Ontario provincial governments. All interview subjectswork on climate change adaptation and mitigation in the transportation sector,although some of them are employed by the department of transportation andothers are employed by the department of the environment. This small sample sizeis representative of the fact that in both of these jurisdictions, only a relatively smallnumber of individuals are dedicated to supporting policy formulation at the inter-section of the transportation and climate change subsystems. Direct quotations are


not attributed to particular individuals, nor are position titles identified, in order topreserve the anonymity that was requested by our interviewees.

Interview subjects were asked to evaluate policy capacity in their departmentsand ministries, and to describe any changes in policy capacity that they haveobserved over time. They were asked questions concerning challenges in creatingclimate change policy for transportation, and concerning the effect of politicalpriorities on policy advice. They were also asked for their assessment of policytrends in transportation over the past decade and to comment on what effect thismight have on climate action. Nearly all of our interview subjects volunteered atleast some relevant information that was not directly queried. While their policyand political orientations may have varied, our interview respondents were largelyin agreement concerning the topics we discussed, suggesting a significant degree ofconsensus. This is especially pertinent in light of the fact that our subjects representdifferent ministries in two different provincial governments.

Considering Policy Capacity—Our interview subjects saw themselves mainly as profes-sional policy analysts. They described their role as that of researching and present-ing policy options to elected leaders, rather than serving as decision makersthemselves. In their view, politicians provide a policy direction and then ask civilservants to investigate the means and financial feasibility of making that direction areality—including weighing parallel options for achieving the same goal, how muchthese options would cost, the benefits and drawbacks of each, and so on. The civilservants prepare a menu of policy options and then communicate that back togovernment leaders, who then decide which option to choose—if any—at theircomplete discretion. Once a decision has been made, the initiative returns to thebureaucrats who work on advising the government on how best to implement thatpolicy decision.

This Weberian understanding of the chain of command has important impli-cations for our assessment of policy capacity. A majority of our respondentswere quite unequivocal that political initiative was the most important influenceon policy capacity. Several pointed out that BC’s Climate Action Secretariat wasable to accomplish more, had more fiscal resources, and more attention fromother departments when it reported directly to the Office of the Premier.15 Thisimplies a deferential attitude toward resolving many political conflicts, such asthose that can arise between goals and instruments in policy making. In otherwords, when it comes to making difficult choices between contending policy para-digms, policy analysts generally do what elected leaders demand of them, andrequire political leadership to validate policy decisions. This mode of operationwould tend to limit opportunities to alter entrenched policy paradigms, andwould make it harder to advance initiatives in a layered policy context such asthat found when climate action is added to the transportation subsystem’s policyagenda.

Policy Inhibitions—All of the interview subjects acknowledged that the most widelyused instruments for dealing with climate change in the jurisdictions that haveshown considerable success such as Sweden (Sarasini, 2009), including increasedregulation, enforcement of emissions standards, and strong stimuli to reduced


dependence on fossil fuels, present a serious challenge to policy makers in thecurrent transportation policy paradigm, which emphasizes deregulation andmarket autonomy. In addition, many respondents identified expanding roadwayinfrastructure as a transportation policy that is clearly at odds with the goals ofclimate change mitigation. However, the vast majority of respondents claimed thatultimately, climate policy and transportation goals could be compatible. Theymostly suggested that the answer lies with climate policies that make use ofmarket mechanisms—such as carbon trading regimes. In fact, carbon pricingmechanisms, including carbon trading and carbon taxes, were cited by all respon-dents as the best policy option for advancing climate action in transportation.Some respondents went further and identified ways that climate policies couldbe “sold” to the private sector: by engaging them in sectoral working groupsthat build their input into future policy development, by slowly phasing inpolicies that would prove to be costly to business otherwise, and by offsettingfinancial costs arising from new climate-related regulation by reducing regula-tions in other areas of transportation or even other sectors entirely outside thetransport sector.

What this indicates to us is that the marketized transportation policy paradigm isso well entrenched that all efforts to mitigate or to adapt to climate change musteither be reframed to accommodate transport’s policy goals or be backed by thekind of political leadership that our respondents identified as being necessary toreprioritize policy goals. Until such political leadership determines otherwise, themost effective climate change policy instruments are those that incorporate thepreferred policy goals of the transport sector: marketization, increased privatesector competition, deregulation, and so on. As one interview subject commented,“We don’t use the heavy hand of regulation much anymore.”

Conclusion

In this study, we examined the effect of layered policy paradigms on policy devel-opment at the macro, meso, and micro levels of activity. We found that at eachlevel, the newer climate change policy paradigm was layered on top of the estab-lished transportation policy paradigm, resulting in significant constraints forpolicy capacity where the two paradigms intersect. At the macro level, this isdemonstrated by a decentralization of the transportation/climate change policynetwork, resulting in a situation where policy capacity is in decline. At the mesolevel, departmental resources for policy capacity in transportation were not beingsufficiently allocated in proportion to an expanded mandate for climate changeadaptation and mitigation. And at the micro level, although our survey resultsindicate that transportation policy analysts are indeed engaging with climatechange issues, our first-person interviews with policy managers in transportationsuggest that the exigencies of the climate change policy paradigm may conflictwith the established approaches of the transportation policy paradigm, resultingin reduced policy capacity.

Climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies will likely become more andmore important in the future, as the effects of anthropogenic greenhouse gasemissions begin to have a greater impact on daily life. In the transportation sector,


as in other sectors, increased policy capacity will be required to provide the adviceand bureaucratic support to politicians seeking to produce viable climate actionstrategies. Policy layering in this area, if unchecked, could lead to the reducedcapacity of the public sector to provide suitable policy options for climate changeadaptation and mitigation. One goal for future research in this area could be touncover solutions to help counter the institutionalized inhibition created by theselayered policy goals linked to disparate paradigms.

Notes

1 Both the maritime provinces and British Columbia (BC) were brought into confederation on thepromise that they would be quickly connected to the rest of the country by rail (Dyck, 2008, pp.51–52).

2 As will be discussed next, apart from ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, there was little official Canadianpolicy on climate change until 2007.

3 See Howlett et al. (2009) for a detailed analysis of the five stages of the policy cycle. For a much morenuanced treatment of the activities of policy analysts, see Howlett and Wellstead (2011).

4 And incidentally, both of these are activities that were suggested by Howlett and Wellstead (2011) asexamples of emerging roles for generalist policy workers.

5 Kern & Howlett (2009) use the terms “coherent/incoherent” for policy goals and “consistent/inconsistent” for policy instruments. This allows them to present a clearer two-by-two matrix of thepossible states of interaction (pp. 395–396).

6 Even a mode of transportation that is 100 percent electric will have some significant carbon footprint:The manufacturing of vehicles, steel for rails, concrete and pavement all produce greenhouse gasemissions.

7 Statuses of parties to the Kyoto Protocol are available on the Web site of the United NationsFramework Convention on Climate Change at http://www.unfccc.int/kyoto_protocol/status_of_ratification/items/2613.php.

8 The Greenhouse Gas Reduction Targets Act, for example, which came into force in 2008, requires all BCgovernment departments to eliminate or offset their carbon emissions. More information is availablefrom the BC Ministry of Environment at http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/cas/mitigation/ggrta/offsets_reg.html.

9 Only URLs originating in Canada were used as seeds so as to ensure that the output from IssueCrawlerwould reflect a Canadian VPN.

10 Of the three territories, only the Northwest Territories has specific emissions targets; but these targetsactually call for increasing emissions until 2020, and then a return to 2005 emissions by 2030(Northwest Territories, 2011, p. 24).

11 Québec could actually be considered a national leader in climate change efforts, but it has no fossilfuel industry (yet—see Moore, 2011, for a report on Québec’s internal debate on shale gas exploi-tation), which changes the context of its achievements. Manitoba has very ambitious climate actiontargets, but has not legislated the ability to impose carbon trading on its private sector. Saskatchewanhas an impressive greenhouse gas management act that has been passed by the provincial legislaturebut has been suspended indefinitely; they also have shown resistance to interjurisdictional coopera-tion on carbon trading, as evidenced by their reluctance to join the now-defunct Western ClimateInitiative (WCI) (see Olewiler, 2008, for details on the WCI).

12 BC’s Consolidated Revenue Fund data are available from the Office of the Comptroller General athttp://www.fin.gov.bc.ca/ocg/pa/10_11/Pa10_11.htm (accessed September 28, 2012). Ontario’s dataare available at http://www.fin.gov.on.ca/en/budget/paccts/2010/ (accessed September 28, 2012). TheConsolidated Revenue Fund is the account that tracks the total of all monies coming into thegovernment through all forms of revenue and all the funds that leave the government through allexpenditures in a given year.

13 E-mail addresses for employees of the government of Québec are not available to the public, soQuébec could not be included in this study.

14 For a full statistical overview, see Wellstead and Stedman (2012).15 The Climate Action Secretariat is currently a part of the BC Ministry of Environment.


About the Authors

Joshua Newman is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Political Science, Simon FraserUniversity.

Anthony Perl is Professor of Urban Studies and Political Science Simon Fraser University.

Adam Wellstead is Assistant Professor of Environmental and Energy Policy in the Depart-ment of Social Sciences at Michigan Technological University.

Kathleen McNutt is Associate Professor in the Johnson-Shoyama Graduate School of PublicPolicy and a faculty associate in the Department of Political Science at the University ofRegina.

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