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With limited phosphorus (P) supplies, increasing P demand, and issues with P runoff and pollution, developing an ability to reuse the large amounts of residual P stored in agricultural soils is increasingly important. In this study, we investigated the potential for residual soil P to maintain crop yields while reducing P applications and losses in Canada. Using a P cycling model coupled with a soil P dynamics model, we analyzed soil P dynamics over 110 years across Canada's provinces. We found that using soil residual P may reduce mineral P demand as large as 132 Gg P year−1 (29%) in Canada, with the highest potential for reducing P applications in the Atlantic provinces, Quebec, Ontario, and British Columbia. Using residual soil P would result in a 21% increase in Canada's cropland P use efficiency. We expected that the Atlantic provinces and Quebec would have the greatest runoff P loss reduction with use of residual soil P, with the average P loss rate decreasing from 4.24 and 1.69 kg ha−1 to 3.45 and 1.38 kg ha−1, respectively. Ontario, Manitoba, and British Columbia would experience relatively lower reductions in P loss through use of residual soil P, with the average runoff P loss rate decreasing from 0.44, 0.36, and 4.33 kg ha−1 to 0.19, 0.26, and 4.14 kg ha−1, respectively. Our study highlights the importance of considering residual soil P as a valuable resource and its potential for reducing P pollution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Have public enterprises become obsolete policy instruments? Should they be privatized or can their governance be radically transformed so that they could still be used as policy instruments? The world around them has changed and forced governments to move. After a discussion on the arguments in favour of privatization, this article suggests an analysis of three cases in the Canadian province of Quebec. Considering the pressures linked to the liberalization of trade resulting from NAFTA, this article suggests that the governance of public enterprises can be transformed and adapted and that consequently, it is not useful or necessary to privatize them. There is in reality a lot of room in the public enterprise governance to reform them, room that has been neglected over the last decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Canada, the provinces do not automatically enforce the international treaties that are concluded by the federal government. The situation became more complicated in 2002 when the Quebec government unanimously adopted legislation that forces ratification by Quebec's National Assembly of any federal treaty that concerns Quebec's areas of jurisdiction. By this legislation, the Quebec National Assembly becomes the first parliament modelled on the British type of parliament to be so closely associated with the central government's process of making international commitments. Given this unstable situation, which has a significant impact on the ability to conclude new free trade agreements, for example, it is useful to examine how things work in other federations in order to propose ways to enhance the sharing of roles in matters of international relations in Canada. The federations being studied are Germany, Belgium, Spain, and Switzerland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The situation of Québec has always been considered unique amongst the 10 Canadian provinces and in the case of regional and urban planning there is no exception to this rule. Thus, in 1979, Québec was the last province to adopt a planning law after 20 years of previous attempts. Québec is often portrayed as a special case. It is too easy to explain the situation in Québec by making reference to its particular cultural context, to the detriment of other equally important factors such as the historical context, class relationships and political control over planning. The paper emphasizes on specific conditions within which social relationships are established and to underline the ongoing dialectic which brings together national and international trends, on the one hand and on the other, the internal dynamics of a society, the aim being to set out the conditions within which social practices and policies occur. Changes in Québec society from 1950-60 occurred within narrow limits circumscribed by the state. Following a Keynasian approach, the central state took responsibility for economic development and division of powers of intervention amongst institutions involving sharing out of spheres of influence between local and national factions of the bourgeoisie. Urban planning did not escape this trend leading to a vertical distribution of government responsibilities.