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In Canada many public projects, programs, and services perform well, and many are very successful. However, these cases are consistently underexposed and commonly understudied in the public realm which, for various reasons, tends to focus on policy mistakes and learning from failures rather than successes. In fact, studies of public policy successes, as such, are rare not just in Canada, but the world over, although this has started to change. The aims of the book are to see, describe, acknowledge, and promote learning from past and present instances of highly effective and highly valued public policy-making. These aims are accomplished through detailed examination of selected case studies of policy success in different eras, governments, and policy domains in Canada.

Twenty-five years ago, the Canadian federal government launched an ambitious program review. Facing an unprecedented deficit and a ballooning debt, the newly elected Liberal government was committed to restoring fiscal discipline quickly and permanently. The outcome was impressive. Departmental operating budgets were cuts by 20 per cent on average and the federal budget came back to balance in just three years. This chapter tells the story behind this success. The 1994–1996 Program Review was developed around a clear proposition, strongly supported by political leaders, and implemented by a team of skilled and seasoned public servants. It was applauded by many stakeholders in Canada and received international recognition. However, the cuts made were highly uneven across departments and programs, with many citizens and nonprofit and for-profit organizations losing access to public services, and the nature of fiscal federalism evolved significantly to the dismay of many provinces and territories. This chapter shows that while the Program Review was an overall success, not all conditions for a ‘great policy success’ were met. Finally, the exceptional circumstances in which the review was conceived and carried out have not been fully appreciated, which explains why later governments have been unable to replicate its success.

This chapter reviews the volume’s 22 case studies of successful policies across Canada, which tracked policy histories and assessed policy outcomes over time. It seeks to generate broader lessons and themes for conceptualizing and explaining policy success. It begins by providing a summary of the success ratings arising from the case studies and considers the usefulness of the multidimensional PPPE (programmatic, process, political, endurance) framework for developing and analysing such case studies. Second, it draws on the cases to identify factors across policy domains—some common, some particular, some contingent—which contribute to the different dimensions of policy success. Third, we step back from the case studies to consider the complex influence of macro-institutions in Canada (e.g. federalism, executive-dominated parliamentary government, and the judiciary) in influencing policy success. Finally, based on lessons from the Canadian cases, future lines of research to strengthen our understanding of policy success are suggested.

En 2015, le Parti libéral du Canada a remporté une victoire éclatante, que très peu d’observateurs auraient pu prédire quelques mois auparavant. Le succès du Parti libéral repose en partie sur un programme électoral ambitieux. Les libéraux ont notamment promis d’être un gouvernement transparent et ouvert s’ils sont élus. Plusieurs de ces promesses concernaient directement des questions de transparence budgétaire. L’objectif de cet article est d’analyser la vision sous-jacente à ces promesses ainsi qu’à leurs réalisations. Comme nous le démontrerons, les libéraux de Justin Trudeau ont principalement agi en fonction de considérations partisanes plutôt que pour véritablement réformer le processus budgétaire. In 2015, the Liberal Party of Canada won a resounding victory, which very few observers could have predicted a few months earlier. The success of the Liberal Party rests in part on an ambitious electoral platform. In particular, the Liberals promised to be a transparent and open government if elected. Several of these promises directly concerned budget transparency issues. The objective of this article is to analyze the vision underlying these promises as well as their implementation. As we will demonstrate, Justin Trudeau's Liberals have acted primarily on partisan considerations rather than actually reforming the budget process.

Canada can be characterised as a mixed economy as it promotes both free-market mechanisms and state intervention to allocate resources. This chapter will present the main features of economic and fiscal policies in Canada. It will start with a description of the main Canadian economic policies, and then explain why the Canadian state intervenes using a gender/sexuality lens. The discussion will focus on examining the classis functions of the modern state (allocation, redistribution, stabilisation), market failures (externalities and public goods) and the choice of policy instruments. The chapter will conclude with a discussion on gender budgeting and gender-based analysis.

Les reformes fiscales sont rarement populaires aupres des electeurs. Par le passe, bon nombre de gouvernements qui ont entrepris des reformes fiscales ont du en payer le prix (baisse significative de popularite, contestations populaires, revoltes fiscales, defaites electorales). L’objectif de cette etude est d’analyser pourquoi la meme reforme fiscale a connu un sort tres different dans deux provinces canadiennes. En 2009, les gouvernements de l’Ontario et de la Colombie-Britannique annoncent quasi simultanement qu’ils remplacent leur taxe de vente actuelle par une taxe de vente sur la valeur ajoutee (TVA). En comparant les debats et les evenements suscites par cette reforme dans chacune des deux provinces, nous constatons que les deux gouvernements ont du faire face a un fort mouvement de contestation. Ces mouvements ont meme ete appuyes par des individus et des groupes qui auraient normalement du soutenir la reforme fiscale proposee. Grâce a la presence de mecanismes de consultations populaires particuliers, les electeurs de la Colombie-Britannique ont meme reussi a forcer le gouvernement a abolir sa nouvelle taxe. Ce cas nous apprend que les gouvernements ne peuvent tout simplement pas ignorer l’aversion naturelle d’un grand nombre de contribuables a l’impot ainsi que la propension des groupes d’opposition a tirer avantage de cette aversion par tous les moyens mis a leur disposition. Le bien-fonde d’une reforme fiscale ne suffit pas a lui seul a convaincre la population de sa pertinence.

This study examines the influence of the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services in the budgetary process in the Canadian province of British Columbia. The mandate of this committee is to conduct pre-budget consultations every year to seek the opinion of the population on the content of the next provincial budget. Many have recommended increasing use of legislative committees to bring back relevance to parliamentary institutions in Canada. It is believed that legislative committees provide an environment that is less conducive to partisan confrontations and can help in building the policy expertise of parliamentarians. Using interviews with committee members and a survey among participants in pre-budget consultations, this was found to be the case. The main finding points to the potential of legislative committees in performing a representative function because they can put forward the views of the public as part of the budgetary process.

Behaviour disorders are frequent in children with an intellectual disability, regardless of the underlying etiology. They are often disabling, and can create problems in everyday life and can mask, or reveal, an organic or psychiatric illness. Such behaviours are often chronic and more than one may be present in the same individual. This is further complicated by the fact that parents often do not seek help for the problem, perhaps believing that it is due to the child's disability and cannot be treated. The present review describes some general concepts dealing with the management of behaviour disorders commonly seen in children and youth with an intellectual disability, and gives a high level overview of behaviours commonly problematic in this patient population including sleep disturbances, agitated and aggressive behaviours, and self-injury behaviour. In general, while pharmacological treatment is possible, behavioural intervention is a more effective and better tolerated form of treatment.Les troubles de comportement sont fréquents chez les enfants ayant une déficience intellectuelle, quelle que soit leur étiologie sous-jacente. Ils sont souvent invalidants, peuvent créer des problèmes dans la vie quotidienne et masquer ou révéler une maladie organique ou psychiatrique. Ces comportements sont souvent chroniques et peuvent être multiples chez la même personne. Ils sont compliqués davantage par le fait que, souvent, les parents ne demandent pas d’aide, croyant peut-être qu’ils sont causés par la déficience de l’enfant et qu’ils ne peuvent pas être traités. La présente analyse décrit certains concepts généraux sur la prise en charge des troubles de comportement souvent observés chez les enfants et les adolescents ayant une déficience intellectuelle et donne un survol des troubles de comportement souvent problématiques au sein de cette population de patients, y compris les troubles du sommeil, les comportements agités et agressifs et l’automutilation. En général, le traitement pharmacologique est possible, mais l’intervention comportementale est plus efficace et mieux tolérée.

Sommaire : La fonction publique quebecoise sera aux prises avec un probleme de retention de main-d'œuvre dans les prochaines annees. De nombreux fonctionnaires prendront leur retraite et le nombre de jeunes personnes en âge d'integrer le marche du travail ne sera sans doute pas suffisant pour combler tous ces departs. A la demande du Secretariat du Conseil du Tresor, nous avons effectue un sondage aupres de jeunes fonctionnaires afin de savoir s'ils desiraient quitter la fonction publique au cours des prochaines annees et pourquoi. Cette etude presente les resultats de ce sondage. Nous avons constate que plusieurs elements relatifs aux conditions de travail sont insatisfaisants. Par ailleurs, nous avons aussi constate qu'un bon nombre de jeunes fonctionnaires s'identifient aux objectifs poursuivis par le secteur public. Le gouvernement peut certainement tirer avantage de cette situation, afin de se positionner comme employeur de choix.

This paper looks at the determinants of public revenues. We conducted a cross-sectional time series empirical analysis to explain revenue variations observed in the ten Canadian provinces over the period 1967-2003. We tested whether party ideology, elections, globalization, the demographic structure of the population, the public debt, federal transfers and the tax burden influenced the size of provincial revenues. The findings support several hypotheses. Our results also show that the influence of some factors was not stable during the entire period.

It is widely believed that government ideology and electoral constraints are two major factors that influence the level of public expenditures. However, Frey and Schneider argue that the effects of the two phenomena are not simultaneous. Only when a government is popular can it pursue ideological goals, and when popularity is low, energies must be redirected toward gaining support from voters to win the next election. Data draw from the Canadian provincial case are used to test empirically this hypothesis. The findings support the Frey and Schneider explanation.

This study tested if the economic voting hypothesis can explain voters' support for provincial governments. Using pooled time-series data from six provinces, a popularity function was developed and tested. Findings indicate that economic conditions have an effect on provincial government popularity. Voters attribute different responsibilities, however, to different political parties. Left-wing incumbent parties are held to be accountable for unemployment, while centrist and right-wing ruling parties are accountable for public deficits. Results also show that provincial government popularity depreciates over time and is correlated to the federal government's own popularity. Resume. Cette etude a pour objectif de verifier si l'hypothese du vote economique peut expliquer la popularite des gouvernements provinciaux aupres des electeurs. Ainsi, une fonction de popularite est presentee, puis testee a l'aide de series chronologiques provenant de six provinces canadiennes. Les resultats empiriques obtenus indiquent que la situation economique exerce une influence sur la popularite des gouvernements provinciaux. Toutefois, les electeurs attribuent differentes responsabilites a differents partis politiques. Ainsi, ils tiennent les partis de gauche responsables de la situation de l'emploi et les partis de centre et de droite responsables des deficits publics. De plus, les resultats demontrent que la popularite des gouvernements provinciaux se deprecie avec le temps et est correlee a la popularite du gouvernement federal.

Gilles de la Tourette syndrome (TS) and chronic tic disorder (CT) are often associated with a variety of behavioral comorbidities including attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), obsessive-compulsive behavior (OCB), oppositional-defiant disorder (ODD) and temper outbursts. ODD is often associated with ADHD but its links to other symptoms of TS/CT is not as clear. This study examined whether the various symptoms of ODD were differentially linked to the various comorbidities in TS. A clinical sample of 135 children diagnosed with TS was evaluated through parent questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. Regressions and structural equation modeling confirmed that ODD is multidimensional in a TS/CT sample and showed that OCB was associated with the irritability symptoms of ODD whereas ADHD was associated with the Headstrong symptoms of ODD. Results suggest that increased attention to the different facets of ODD may help improve our understanding of emotional symptoms in TS/CT.

To test the association between Tourette syndrome (TS) and genetic variants in genomic loci MEIS1, MAP2K5/LBXCOR1, and BTBD9, for which genome-wide association studies in restless legs syndrome and periodic limb movements during sleep revealed common risk variants.Case-control association study.Movement disorder clinic in Montreal. Subjects We typed 14 single-nucleotide polymorphisms spanning the 3 genomic loci in 298 TS trios, 322 TS cases (including 298 probands from the cohort of TS trios), and 290 control subjects.Clinical diagnosis of TS, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and attention-deficit disorder.The study provided 3 single-nucleotide polymorphisms within BTBD9 associated with TS (chi(2) = 8.02 [P = .005] for rs9357271), with the risk alleles for restless legs syndrome and periodic limb movements during sleep overrepresented in the TS cohort. We stratified our group of patients with TS according to presence or absence of obsessive-compulsive disorder and/or attention-deficit disorder and found that variants in BTBD9 were strongly associated with TS without obsessive-compulsive disorder (chi(2) = 12.95 [P.001] for rs9357271). Furthermore, allele frequency of rs9357271 inversely correlated with severity of obsessive-compulsive disorder as measured by the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale score.Variants in BTBD9 that predispose to restless legs syndrome and periodic limb movements during sleep are also associated with TS, particularly TS without obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Notre these est a l’effet que pour mesurer correctement la croissance des depenses publiques, il faut distin-guer trois dimensions de la croissance : celle qui resulte d’une augmentation de l’activite gouvernementale,la croissance reelle, celle qui resulte des couts plus eleves dans le secteur public, l’effet prix, et enfin cellequi resulte de l’effet combine de la croissance reelle et de l’effet prix, la croissance nominale, qui corres-pond au changement dans le ratio des depenses gouvernementales sur le PIB. A l’aide de donnees sur lesdepenses des gouvernements provinciaux, nous montrons qu’il n’y a eu aucune croissance reelle du gouver-nement dans trois provinces de 1971 a 1995 et qu’il y a eu un effet prix substantiel dans la croissance desgouvernements provinciaux de toutes les provinces.In this paper, we argue that, when measuring government growth, we should distinguish among three growthphenomena: growth resulting from the broader scope of government activity, referred to as real growth;growth that results from higher costs of providing government goods and services, referred to as deflatoreffect; and growth in the simple ratio of government expenditure to gross domestic product (GDP), nominalgrowth, which is due to the combined impact of real growth and deflator effect. Using data on provincialgovernment spending, we show that, over the 1971-95 period, there has been no real growth in three provin-ces and that there has been a substantial deflator effect on provincial government growth in all ten provinces.