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This article discusses findings from a study of a 22-year campaign to change special education assessment policy in Ontario by the advocacy organization People for Education (P4E) and explains how dominant discourses enabled the government to leave the issue unresolved. Based on a rhetorical analysis of 58 documents, the article identifies strategies used by P4E to persuade Ontario's government and citizens to view students' uneven access to educational assessments as a problem. Further, since this problem differently impacts children by class and geographical location, it perpetuates inequities. Despite using strategies deemed effective in other change efforts, arguments mobilized by P4E have not been persuasive in a neoliberal context that champions responsibilized individualism, meritocracy, human capital development, and reduced funding of public services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Robert Baldwin is given a special place in the study of local government in Ontario. The Baldwin Act of 1849 is considered the foundation of responsible local government in Canada West, as Ontario was called at the time. This legislation served as a model for municipal legislation in other provinces, and its legacy has lived on into the twenty-first century. This article discusses Robert Baldwin, the role he played in governing generally in the 1840s, the circumstances of the passage of the Baldwin Act in 1849, and the content of the legislation. The conclusion is a reconsideration of the role that Baldwin played in the development of responsible local government in Ontario. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Household food insecurity (HFI), lack of access to food because of financial constraint, is a persistent and growing problem in Canada. Framing theorists Donald Schön and Martin Rein explain that in ‘intractable policy controversies’, policy issues that are particularly stubborn or resistant to change, the frames policy actors apply permit them to talk past each other without resolution. This paper examines how HFI is framed in Canadian legislative sessions and how the framing process renders the problem ‘intractable’. We assembled verbatim extracts from the legislative session records of the Canadian federal government and the provinces of British Columbia, Nova Scotia, and Ontario from 1995 to 2012. Our framing analysis found that legislators’ use of symbolic devices illuminated a foundational dispute around partisan claims of moral authority. HFI has thus become so imbued with irreconcilable conflict that rival parties have co-constructed it as an intractable policy problem resulting in scant policy solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article begins with an examination of the controversy caused in 1885 by the Macdonald government's expansion of the dominion franchise to First Nations reserves in eastern Canada, a controversy that revolved around the liberal tenet that the right to vote should be intrinsically linked to independent property ownership. It then discusses the role of the Grand River Six Nations and Mississaugas in the elections and by-elections that took place in the Ontario ridings of Brant South and Haldimand between 1886 and 1897, the year before the Laurier government abolished Macdonald's Electoral Franchise Act, with the result that treaty status Indians would not regain the vote in national elections until 1960. The picture that emerges is of an Indigenous community torn between conflicting forces, with traditionalists opposing participation in Canada's elections, reformers supporting the franchise as well as the Conservative Party, and a third group who argued that the Liberal Party was more sensitive than the Tories to First Nations demands for increased responsibility and autonomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In September 2011, the government of Ontario implemented payment incentives to encourage the delivery of community-based psychiatric care to patients after discharge from a psychiatric hospital admission and to those with a recent suicide attempt. We evaluated whether these incentives affected supply of psychiatric services and access to care.Methods: We used administrative data to capture monthly observations for all psychiatrists who practised in Ontario between September 2009 and August 2014. We conducted interrupted time-series analyses of psychiatrist-level and patient-level data to evaluate whether the incentives affected the quantity of eligible outpatient services delivered and the likelihood of receiving follow-up care.Results: Among 1921 psychiatrists evaluated, implementation of the incentive payments was not associated with increased provision of follow-up visits after discharge from a psychiatric hospital admission (mean change in visits per month per psychiatrist 0.0099, 95% confidence interval [CI] -0.0989 to 0.1206; change in trend 0.0032, 95% CI -0.0035 to 0.0095) or after a suicide attempt (mean change -0.0910, 95% CI -0.1885 to 0.0026; change in trend 0.0102, 95% CI 0.0045 to 0.0159). There was also no change in the probability that patients received follow-up care after discharge (change in level -0.0079, 95% CI -0.0223 to 0.0061; change in trend 0.0007, 95% CI -0.0003 to 0.0016) or after a suicide attempt (change in level 0.0074, 95% CI -0.0094 to 0.0366; change in trend 0.0006, 95% CI -0.0007 to 0.0022).Interpretation: Our results suggest that implementation of the incentives did not increase access to follow-up care for patients after discharge from a psychiatric hospital admission or after a suicide attempt, and the incentives had no effect on supply of psychiatric services. Further research to guide design and implementation of more effective incentives is warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ontario Works is a provincial income assistance programme of last resort, operating under a workfare policy structure. Based on interviews with clients and staff (case managers, supervisors, managers and administrators), as well as an examination of policy directives, this article explores the work of workfare including claims making, training and resocialization, and employment internships. This article asks particularly how the work of workfare and the complex and costly workfare infrastructure is justified in the face of its failure to lead to employment. Findings include a contrast between the official story of an employment-focused programme and workers' reports of spending far more time on eligibility than employment readiness. In addition, applying Gramsci's notion of 'common sense', an argument is developed that the normative justification for workfare is based not on the effectiveness of workfare programmes, but on the belief that clients need to exchange their work for welfare and self-improvement so that they appear 'employment ready' even if not employed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses miscellaneous information related to parliament of Ontario related to the membership changes, question of privilege concerning government advertising and budget planning. Topics dsicussed include Writ of Election issued for the Electoral District of Sault Ste. Marie, how member Jim Wilson rose on a question of privilege concerning government advertising on electricity pricing and budget presented by Finance Minister Charles Sousa.

Copyright of Ottawa Law Review is the property of University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Canada's religious landscape has changed a great deal over the last forty years and, in most provinces, educational institutions have changed to accommodate this social shift. The articles reviews the divergent ways in which educational regimes have responded to this change and then turns to an examination of the one province in which little has changed regarding religious schools, Ontario. Ontario's educational structure, which has continued to publicly support only a secular and Roman Catholic separate school systems in one of the most religiously diverse jurisdictions on the planet, is a surprising example of institutional rigidity in the face of societal change. This article highlights the peculiarity of this outcome, attempts to explain this surprising example of institutional continuity, and considers its implications for Canadian secularism more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the legal geography of municipal bylaws regulating rooming houses in the City of Toronto. Using a legal geography analysis of Toronto's rooming house licensing bylaw, I argue that this bylaw is a ghost jurisdiction that designates part of the city as illegal and has implications for governance of the inner suburbs. In so doing, I push the debate on legal geography forward by suggesting that we, as urban scholars, take the temporal seriously in our analysis of space. Drawing from semi-structured interviews, archival data and participant observation, I analyse seemingly mundane legal mechanisms through the case study of suburban rooming houses. Overall, in this article I make three contributions. First, I demonstrate how a temporal analysis is important to legal geography inquiries of uneven regulation and spaces of poverty. Second, I suggest that studies of legal governance are integral for redefining suburban governance amidst socio-economic decline in the inner suburbs. Third, I argue that studying urban legal mechanisms in the suburbs is essential for moving beyond downtown analytical frameworks and is needed to address how low-income suburban tenants, a large majority of whom are racialized newcomers, are unevenly regulated and unfairly governed by local government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of incumbent evaluations for voting and the existence of an incumbency effect are well-established. However, there is limited research on the effect incumbency has on voters’ engagement with election campaigns. This paper examines whether the use of incumbency as a cue when voting is associated with there being less interest in an election and whether campaign period attentiveness affects incumbent support. We consider these questions using data from the Toronto Election Study, a large-N, two-wave survey of Torontonians conducted around the time of the 2014 Toronto Municipal Election. We find that attentiveness, on its own, does not make voters more likely to support an incumbent or non-incumbent candidate. However, among individuals with high knowledge, attentiveness decreases the likelihood of supporting the incumbent, as opposed to a non-incumbent candidate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Lien Social et Politiques is the property of Institut National de Recherche Scientifique (INRS) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article provides an overview of the test for decertification and reviews recent instances in which decertification motions have been successfully used in Canada where new evidence, subsequent facts, or developments have arisen after certification. It will also highlight certain cases where courts, instead of granting decertification, have adopted alternative measures to address the concerns raised by the defendants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the results of a survey on the policy priorities of municipal candidates in the 2014 municipal elections in Ontario. As part of a survey of municipal candidates in 47 Ontario municipalities, we asked a series of questions relating to perceived policy priorities, election issues, and electoral success to shed light on the extent to which municipal political candidates are "policy seekers," and the extent to which their policy priorities vary across municipalities and municipal types, successful and unsuccessful candidates, and urban and rural candidates. We 5 nd that reported policy priorities tend to fall into two major categories: 5 scal issues and economic development or administration and good governance. . e prominence of these 5 scal and procedural priorities is steady across a range of local candidate types, including successful and unsuccessful candidates, incumbent and non-incumbent candidates, and even urban and rural candidates. Only in very large municipalities, according to our 5 ndings, does the structure of candidate priorities begin to diverge from this standard emphasis on 5 nance and procedure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context matters when understanding evaluation. This case study illustrates how the internal dynamics of the Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario (FedNor) since 2008 were affected by evaluation priorities. Recent changes meant evaluation of FedNor programs focused on indicators of short-term growth. This prompted a range of adaptive responses by actors within FedNor concerned with securing its developmental mandate, while meeting the requirements of evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on reconvening of the 42nd Parliament of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario on December 17, 2018. Topics discussed include legislation preventing a possible upcoming strike by the Power Workers' Union over the Christmas holidays as behind the purpose of recall, introduction of the bill, Restoring Trust, Transparency and Accountability Act, 2018 by Minister of Finance Victor Fedeli and appointment of a Select Committee on Financial Transparency.

In recent years, interest has grown in collaboration in public policy. Responding to the complex issues now playing out in cities, scholars are focusing on localized governance relations that blur boundaries between public, private, and community sectors. This article introduces discursive localism as a framework to understand better collaborative urban governance. It argues that ideas play a pivotal role in motivating collective action, channeling policy resources, and shaping governance relations. Although recent urban-focused accounts of collective action suggest a role for ideas, systematic attention to their normative-philosophical and cognitive-programmatic dimensions reveals how different policy discourses frame incentives and institutions for collaboration. Applying discursive localism to Toronto, Canada, the article describes change processes across three complex policy fields. Governance arrangements are argued to flow from the operative policy discourses, especially whether their normative and cognitive dimensions are integrated, dissociated, or fragmented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the negative campaigning literature has witnessed tremendous growth in recent years, the precise targets of campaign negativity have not been fully explored, as candidates and their parties are largely treated as the same target. Likewise, although scholars are increasingly writing about the personalization of politics, this literature has not considered whether parties can “personalize” their opponents by focusing their messaging and attacks more on individual leaders than the parties they lead. In an attempt to bridge the gap between these two literatures, we develop the concept of negative personalization. Negative personalization, as we define it, is an emphasis on opposing party leaders in campaign communication more so than on the parties that they lead. Exploring recent election campaigns in Canada's largest province, we document the extent to which parties engage in negative personalization and suggest hypotheses for the factors leading to increased negative personalization. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Voting behaviour in municipal elections is understudied in Canada. Existing research is limited by the type of data (aggregate instead of individual-level) and the cases evaluated (partisan when most contests are non-partisan). The objective of this study is to contribute to this literature by using individual-level data about a non-partisan election. To do so, we use data from the Toronto Election Study, conducted during the 2014 election. Our research goals are to evaluate whether a standard approach to understanding vote choice (the multi-stage explanatory model) is applicable in a non-partisan, municipal-level contest, and to determine the correlates of vote choice in the 2014 Toronto mayoral election in particular. Our analysis reveals that, although it was a formally non-partisan contest, voters tended to view the mayoral candidates in both ideological and partisan terms. We also find that a standard vote choice model provides valuable insight into voter preferences at the municipal level. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Do women vote for women and men for men? Do visible minorities vote for minority candidates, and white voters for white candidates? And what happens when a minority woman appears on the ballot? This study tests for the presence of gender and ethnic affinity voting in the Toronto mayoral election of 2014, where Olivia Chow was the only woman and only visible minority candidate among the three major contenders. Our analysis, which draws on a survey of eligible Toronto voters, is the first to examine the interactive effects of sex and ethnicity on vote choice in Canada in the context of a non-partisan election and in a non-experimental manner. We find strong evidence of ethnic affinity voting and show that Chow received stronger support from ethnic Chinese voters than from other minority groups. Our results also reveal that gender was related to vote choice but only when connected with race. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Urban sustainability is a priority for cities, challenging public administrators to coordinate action on environmental policy, economic development and social policy. Multilevel governance is now a popular theoretical framework but research must illuminate the constraints on local administrators. This case study reviews efforts of public administrators in the City of Ottawa and Canada's national capital region to implement sustainability policies with collaborative governance, but new governance relationships are constrained by traditional intergovernmental relations. Case study research illuminates the challenges of multilevel governance for local governments and provides insights on the pursuit of sustainability with environmental programs, land use, and urban and development by Crown corporations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the compatibility between performance improvement and compliance-based accountability in the implementation of a new system of public health performance management in Ontario. Findings from this mixed-method study show that only minor elements of performance improvement get incorporated into pre-existing compliance-based accountability structures, that reinforcement of accountability structures works to the detriment of performance improvement intentions, and that limiting managerial influence in developing performance measures and targets diminish the utility of information for improvement. The study concludes that achieving a better balance requires an alternative to top-down decision making that goes beyond consultation to include partnership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this study was to bring to light legislators' construction of household food insecurity using a data set of debate texts from the Hansard records of four Canadian jurisdictions over approximately the last two decades. We found that legislators' fundamental problematization of food insecurity was one of insufficient income but that certain groups were of greater policy concern than others. Proposals to address food insecurity linked to legislators' differing perceptions of underlying cause. Consensual agreement on structural mitigation strategies for household food insecurity is likely to require a shift in symbolism of who is deserving of attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the wake of wide-ranging municipal amalgamations Ontario, the provincial government promoted the use of community councils, citizen-led boards that would have input in local matters. Community councils were touted as a way of preserving local identity and policy control. However, more than a decade removed from Ontario's restructuring process, few municipalities have community councils in place. Those that have implemented community councils established them with purely advisory functions. This paper asks why community councils were so inconsistently implemented and introduced with such limited powers. Overall, it is found that community councils were victims of restructuring politics. Blocked by city councillors fearing decentralization would dilute their authority and foster political rivals, constrained through a restrictive legislative framework and pushed aside by city officials fearing they would effectively recreate a two-tier system, community councils were either abandoned or installed with a limited mandate. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Postwar programs of urban renewal in Canadian cities have long been considered failures in the sense that their objectives were faulty and their impacts generally harmful. However, so complete is the consensus around this interpretation that historians have not made as much effort as they might have to understand the goals and mechanisms of renewal programs. This close study of postwar urban renewal in Toronto identifies several significant aspects, largely unrecognized, of one city's renewal program. It clarifies that urban renewal and public housing, though often conflated, were actually two discrete things. It finds that renewal advocates carefully inventoried the communities they sought to renew - their plans were by no means based on James C. Scott's now paradigmatic "synoptic" view - but it confirms that many did indeed have insufficient understanding of those communities. It also finds that much less urban renewal was done in Toronto than is generally assumed, suggesting that urban renewal's failure resulted more from inaction than from action. In conclusion, it notes that physical renewal of the city was ultimately accomplished not by urban renewal programs but, rather, by the actions of private property owners and entrepreneurs, raising questions about public endeavour as a means of urban improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Bulletin of Medical History is the property of University of Toronto Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Canadian Review of Social Policy / Revue Canadienne de Politique Sociale is the property of York University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Toronto is unlike any other city, as its local boosters will not hesitate to point out. That was the basis, after all, of the "charter movement" that demanded special rights for a mega-city that the movement's backers insisted was so vital that it even warranted a status similar to that of an entire province. Their efforts culminated in the province's passage in 2006 of the City of Toronto Act, which appeared on its face to grant the metropolis the power it believed it required and merited. In reality, the Ontario government may have actually set Toronto back, leaving it more at the mercy of provincial power than other smaller municipalities. The few additional taxation powers that were granted by the ostensible Toronto "charter" -- the City of Toronto Act -- are, in reality, still overseen by the province, which retains the right to limit those revenue tools if it considers it "desirable in the provincial interest to do so." But while Toronto may have been given just a small number of revenue tools, which it has used only sparingly, and the use of those tools is ultimately decided by Queen's Park, their very existence has given the province licence to sidestep the city's calls for more funding. The provincial Liberals have, in the past, insisted that Toronto make use of its own taxes before it demands more provincial funds. Meanwhile, the City of Toronto Act did nothing to curtail the power of the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB). Because municipal zoning decisions made in Toronto can be appealed to the OMB, which can substitute its own idea of "good planning" for elected local government, the City of Toronto is ultimately left with limited control over its planning decisions. In sum, virtually none of the desires that Toronto expected would be served by a city charter have been fulfilled. Quite the opposite, it would appear that the dreams once imagined by charter-city proponents have been snuffed out, and there is no longer any real political voice anywhere advocating for more autonomy and taxing authority for Toronto. In the pursuit of more funds for transit infrastructure, the current mayor, John Tory, has returned to the traditional model of attracting funds from higher levels of government, rather than seeking to use any of the revenue tools provided by the City of Toronto Act. It would be truly surprising if municipal leaders anywhere else in Canada sought to emulate Toronto's experience with charter status. If that experience serves as a model for anything, it is as a way for provincial governments to cleverly defuse and deflect a major city's demands for enhanced status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diversity management (DM) has become one of the critical aspects of public sector reforms in recent times because of population dynamics and demographic shifts in society. The idea is that DM can help public organizations achieve their objectives effectively, especially service delivery. In 2008, the Ontario government made DM a core part of its public sector modernization agenda, and launched its first comprehensive diversity strategy that viewed diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion as fundamental to a modern, progressive civil service. This paper aims at understanding the challenges in the implementation of diversity and inclusiveness in the Ontario public service. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 1991 profile of Toronto in Cities presented a picture of a municipal and metropolitan government with a strong reputation for solving urban problems (Lemon, 1991). Two decades later, Toronto is a polarized and divided city that seems unable to address its urban problems. It suffers from a dysfunctional urban politics, crumbling infrastructure, traffic gridlock and inadequate investment in transit, growing income disparities, and a lack of affordable housing. We find three main changes are responsible for Toronto’s difficulties including economic globalization, political restructuring (e.g., amalgamation), and the ascendance of neoliberalism as the governing philosophy at the provincial and federal levels. Toronto’s crisis metaphor has emerged as it has achieved global city status. Toronto therefore presents a particularly fascinating case to explore a global city under pressure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research note introduces and describes a new dataset of political actors from the city of Kitchener, Ontario. The dataset is comprised of 348 complete political careers, across four local institutions, from 1912 to the present. This research note aims to show that large-scale databases of local political actors can contribute to our understanding of (a) local political careers, (b) the dynamics of formal and informal local institutions, and (c) the nature and boundaries of local multilevel governance. This note concludes with some practical advice for those who wish to build similar datasets in other Canadian cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A summary of legislative bills introduced during parliamentary hearings in Ontario as of June 2018 is presented.

In 1998, the province of Ontario introduced the Consolidated Municipal Service Manager (CMSM) system, which effectively downloaded the responsibility for delivery and partial funding for a range of social services to municipalities. Separated cities and counties—a unique system of municipal organization in Ontario that draws a sharp institutional distinction between urban and rural areas—were given a particularly wide range of discretion over the implementation of these services. A number of these jurisdictions experienced an array of problems reaching a local solution. Some even wound up in arbitration. This article examines the implementation of the CMSM, focusing specifically on the unique institutional arrangement found in counties with separated cities, finding that the provincial government overlooked the institutional design of city–county separation, hindering the policy downloading process. Overall, it is argued that the local institutional environment is key when shifting policy responsibility from central to local actors. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In recent decisions, the Ontario ombudsman has developed his own definition of a 'meeting' of a municipal council. The definition derives more from American statutes and judicial decisions than from any prior interpretation of Ontario (or other Canadian) law. The ombudsman's rulings claim that the law prevents municipal councillors from meeting together informally 'to lay the groundwork necessary' for the council to exercise its authority. He mistakenly suggests that the policy-making process is much more open at the federal and provincial levels of government. His rulings unduly restrain groups of municipal councillors from organizing themselves to promote policy change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Delegated Administrative Authorities (DAAs) are widely employed for delivering public safety and consumer protection regulatory functions at the provincial level in Canada. Although strongly supported by governments, the model has been subject to considerable criticism from legislative committees and officers, non-governmental organizations, and the media. This paper examines Ontario's DAA experience through the case of the Technical Standards and Safety Authority (TSSA). It finds that, like other jurisdictions pursuing similar new public management (NPM) reforms, the Ontario government adopted legislation significantly strengthening its oversight and control, indicating substantial concerns about the structure and performance of the TSSA and by implication Ontario's other DAAs. Even with these changes, significant gaps are identified in the TSSA's governance and accountability structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the topics related to the legislative activities in Ontario. Topics discussed include the 2015 budget of Ontario presented by Finance Minister Charles Sousa on April 23, 2015, the election of Patrick Brown as the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario on May 9, 2015, and the appointment of Ellen Schwartzel as Deputy Environmental Commissioner.

The article explores the political aspects of the harmonization of sales taxation in Ontario and British Columbia. Emphasis is given to topics such as the impact of the sales tax on consumers, the influence of deficit containment in economic policy, and the passing of the Recall and Initiative Act in British Columbia.

This article examines the representational preferences of the represented, a perspective which has been largely neglected by political scientists in Canada. Using focus group interviews, I assess views of representation among three visible minority communities--black, South Asian and Chinese--within the urban and highly diverse setting of the Greater Toronto Area. Applying Hanna Pitkin's classic conceptual framework, I probe the multiple dimensions of political representation, examining the relative importance of its formal, descriptive, substantive and symbolic elements from minorities' perspective. Drawing on more recent advances in representational theory, I examine how minorities evaluate political actors' claims to represent them, and look at the "mobilizing objections" citizens raise in the face of such claims. Finally, I compare the three communities to assess similarities and differences in perceptions of representation along its various dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the definition of success in First Nations drinking water service as voiced by the First Nations technical community of practice. The research explores success stories to identify success themes and factors to formulate a workable definition for policy-makers. Researchers interviewed sixteen technical practitioners in Ontario using a semi-structured approach. Data analysis revealed a definition of success that extends beyond the technical boundary to include professional growth, employment, local action and a facilitating policy environment. This comprehensive definition provides a basis for policy and program considerations to increase First Nations buy-in and foster a constructive environment for drinking water improvements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is based on select results taken from a survey of NGO and provincial government policy workers. The purpose is to provide an empirically based assessment of how government and non-government policy workers engage with one another in the policy process. The data suggest that policy co-construction and co-production are a significant feature of the process but there is some need for nuance. The data presented here indicate that the extent of policy engagement may not be as broadly inclusive as the proponents of New Governance suggest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers news briefs related to ecology and environment as of June 2105. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) gas approved the use of pesticide-spraying drone. China has redesigned a number of cities for flood control and water conservation. Ontario province of Canada has restricted the use of beekilling pesticides.