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This paper examines news media coverage of hydraulic fracturing in Canada over a five-year period in five newspapers. Hydraulic fracturing, or 'fracking,' has reenergized the North American oil and gas market. This technology has increased economic growth, but it also comes with unknown and uncertain environmental and public health risks. Regulation of the fracking industry varies globally. In Canada there are three provinces that engage in large volume fracking and four provinces that have placed a moratorium on fracking. This paper demonstrates that the Canadian fracking story is about five frames: water pollution, economic benefits, uncertain risks, moratoriums, and energy independence. There is a difference between coverage in the two national newspapers as well as a difference in national and provincial coverage. In Nova Scotia, where fracking is banned, the media focuses primarily on environmental issues and benefits to the local economy. In Saskatchewan, where fracking for oil is an essential part of the economy, the media focuses on economic benefits and downplays other frames. Overall, across the five papers, the media coverage is highly selective and focuses on particular stories about the economy or the environment, but not both. Quelle est la chronique de la fracturation hydraulique au Canada? Cet article fait état de la couverture médiatique liée à la fracturation hydraulique au Canada par cinq journaux sur une période de cinq ans. La fracturation hydraulique a revitalisé le marché nord-américain des hydrocarbures. Cette technologie favorise la croissance économique, mais comporte également des risques écologiques et sanitaires inconnus et incertains. La réglementation régissant l'industrie de la fracturation varie selon les pays. À l'échelle canadienne, trois provinces ont réalisé d'importantes opérations de fracturation et quatre provinces ont imposé un moratoire à la fracturation hydraulique. Cet article montre que le cadrage médiatique de la fracturation hydraulique repose sur cinq thématiques : la pollution hydrique, les retombées économiques, l'incertitude liée aux risques, les moratoires et la souveraineté énergétique. Le cadrage médiatique varie entre les deux journaux nationaux ainsi qu'entre les médias nationaux et provinciaux. En Nouvelle-Écosse, où la fracturation est interdite, les médias mettent l'accent sur les questions environnementales et les retombées pour l'économie locale. En Saskatchewan, où la fracturation pour extraire du pétrole joue un rôle économique primordial, les médias se concentrent sur les retombées économiques et minorent l'importance des autres thématiques. Dans l'ensemble, les cinq journaux appliquent un filtre sélectif dans le traitement du sujet et publient des reportages spécifiques portant sur l'économie ou sur l'environnement, mais pas les deux. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canada, the U.S., and Australia have recently experienced an increased regional dispersion of entering immigrants. American research suggests that a mixture of economic push factors (away from states like California) and pull factors (toward states with growth of low-wage jobs) and changing government policies and regulations contributed to the development of the New Gateways. Very few studies have been conducted to determine why the regional dispersion of entering immigrants occurred in Canada. This paper assesses the extent to which changes in immigration selection programs, notably, the Provincial Nominee Programs, contributed to the regional dispersion of entering immigrants. Using data from immigrant landing records, this study shows that different factors accounted for changes in the share of immigrants settling in different destinations. Changes in immigration selection programs played the primary role in the increasing numbers going to Saskatchewan and Manitoba, although improving economic conditions may have played an indirect role. Shifts in immigrant source regions were an important factor in the decrease in immigration to Toronto and in the increase to Montréal. Economic conditions likely played a significant role in the changes in the shares of new immigrants going to Toronto, Montréal, Calgary, and Edmonton. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2005, the Ontario government passed the Places to Grow Act and the Greenbelt Act, both major changes in land use policy designed to preserve greenspaces and combat urban sprawl in the Greater Golden Horseshoe, Canada's largest conurbation. This article examines the actors, actor beliefs, and inter-actor alliances in the southern Ontario land use policy subsystem from the perspective of the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF). Specifically, this paper undertakes an empirical examination of the ACF's Belief Homophily Hypothesis, which holds that inter-actor alliances form on the basis of shared policy-relevant beliefs, creating advocacy coalitions. The analysis finds strong evidence of three advocacy coalitions in the policy subsystem-an agricultural coalition, an environmentalist coalition, and a developers' coalition-as predicted by the hypothesis. However, it also finds equally strong evidence of a cross-coalition coordination network of peak organizations, something not predicted by the Belief Homophily Hypothesis, and in need of explanation within the ACF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses attention on two types of businesses, Crown corporations and co-operatives, that have long been associated with attempted solutions to regional economic developmental problems in Canada. The paper argues that co-operatives and Crown corporations can be viewed as coping mechanisms that attempt to make up for shortcomings in Canada's market-based economic system. Consistent with this perspective, the case study of co-operatives and Crown corporations finds that, taken as a single group, these firms are more spatially dispersed than their privately held and publicly traded counterparts at both the Canadian national level and the regional level in Saskatchewan. The study also shows that, taken separately, Crown corporations are highly concentrated within Saskatchewan, while co-operatives are dispersed across the province. A possible explanation for this behaviour, warranting further research, is that Crown corporations in Saskatchewan encourage development provincially by linking with global and national business networks in their respective industries, while co-operatives in Saskatchewan largely focus on facilitating economic development opportunities at a local level across the many smaller town- and city-centred regions of the province. The paper discusses the meaning of these and other findings for regional economic development efforts in Saskatchewan and Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Countries with similar levels of economic development often implement different education ICT policies. Much of the existing research attributes such differences to economic and political factors. In this paper, we examine the development of ICT policy and implementation in the two parts of Ireland and in two Canadian provinces and find that historical, social and cultural differences also play an important role in the way ICT policies develop. In particular, we see differing historical perceptions of the role of the state and church in education playing a more important role than has hitherto been recognized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines trends in local economic development policies in Canadian and U.S. cities over the past fifteen years. Using data drawn from surveys conducted at four points in time -- 1990, 1994, 2001, and 2005 -- the study provides a longitudinal assessment of change versus stability in overall approach toward economic development. Findings indicate that Canadian and U.S. cities have followed relatively similar trajectories in the extent to which they use particular economic development policies. Overall, the most common economic development policies in both nations have been and continue to be very similar: infrastructure investment generally, land development, basic promotion, and the use of special events to attract and retain businesses and residents and to promote the community. Thus, there is a visible pattern of the "least of differences" among cities in Michigan and Ontario in their development strategies and approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors present the case of five Canadian peripheral regions, which they argue are destined to decline. The explanation of the reasons why future decline (in absolute population and employment numbers) is inevitable constitutes the article’s central focus. The authors suggest that regional decline will become an increasingly common occurrence in nations at the end of the demographic transition whose economic geographies display centre-periphery relationships. Such broad structural trends cannot be easily altered by public policy. The authors reflect on the implications of regional decline for the formulation of local economic development strategies. Local economic development strategies should not, they argue, be advanced as a means of arresting population and employment decline. To suggest that the regions studied in this article will decline because of a lack of social capital or insufficient number of local entrepreneurs, is not only misleading but may also be counterproductive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]