"Comparing Provinces: First Nations, the North and Provinces" 2015-06-02 1:30pm-3pm

Sheena Kennedy Dalseg (Carleton University), Frances Abele (Carleton University) : Digital Indigenous Democracy Deliberative Development Decision-Making in Northern Canada Martin Papillon (Université de Montréal) : Shifting Grounds: Aboriginal Peoples and the Provinces
Jerald Sabin (University of Toronto) : Comparing within and across Northern Canada: Citizenship regimes and the new North
Christa Scholtz (McGill University), Maryna Polataiko (McGill University) : Constitutionalizing self-government for whom? Provincial interests and the negotiation of the James Bay Northern Quebec Agreement

Present: Peter Russell, Graham White, Pauline Beange, Andrea Olive

Sheena Kennedy Dalseg and Frances Abele: "Digital Indigenous Democracy: Deliberative Development Decision-Making in Nunavut"

Developed in Nunavut, website like YouTube and Facebook for indigenous language materials

Specifically meant to help low-bandwidth communities connect

Also developed out of Baffin Island iron ore project

One deposit expected to last 21 years
Two ports and a railroad across the permafrost
Exports to Europe and Asia

Deliberative democracy literature (deliberative turn in democratic theory, democratic control substantive rather than symbolic and undertaken by competent citizens)

Digital democracy literature - realization of democratic ideals

Digital Indigenous Democracy (DID) "not simply an add-on, but an effort to affect fledgling institutional practice in Nunavut"

Nunavut Land Claims Agreement - Nunavut Impact Review Board charged with Inuit participation in decision-making

Many practical limitations - lack of funding for individuals and community groups to participate in NERB hearings
Community visits from companies and NERB often the only consultation

DID - deliberative process for consensus decision-making

Incorporation of indigenous knowledge and perspectives
"Multimedia experience with democratic potential"
People need time for research and analysis before formal consultations

Sufficient resources and competence for meaningful participation

Martin Papillon: "Shifting Grounds: Aboriginal Peoples and Canadian Provinces"

Various approaches to consultation, and how relationships are framed

Limited literature, mostly pessimistic about provinces addressing aboriginal issues

Conflicts over land, jurisdictions, provision of social services
Provinces have been reluctant to provide social services
1988 - A. Long and M. Boldt, Governments in Conflict (possible PhD source)

A "reluctant relationship" between aboriginal groups and provinces

Constitutionally established as federal jurisdictions
Provinces have jurisdiction over public lands, resources, justice, services, etc

Tension endures: federally-provided services on-reserve, but not for those living elsewhere

Provinces have reluctantly taken on some roles passed down by the federal government

1969 White Paper was seen as an attempt by the federal government to stop providing services and push the responsibility to the provinces

In 1970, 26 federal-provincial agreements on FN services, no direct Aboriginal-provincial agreements

1980s constitutional negotiations - embryo of provincial aboriginal policy

Big jump in number of agreements after 2005

Largely because of BC

Tone of relationships has changed

3 major themes: relationship building, rights and obligations (consultation, settle claims), "closing the gap" (socio-economic well-being)
Provinces "desperately" trying to build relationships, but maybe not doing it right

Why?

1) Political economy of resources

Supreme Court has emphasized consultation obligations
1998 Delgamuukw, 2004 Haida and Taku River
Provinces need to pay attention to what aboriginal peoples are saying

2) Federal disengagement

Progressive "drift" in federal aboriginal policy
Disengagement by political leadership
Little change or innovation over the last 50 years
Provinces trying to "fill the gap", especially in BC and the prairies

3) Policy learning

Provinces learn how to engage - language of relations, more comprehensive view
Growing capacity within provincial bureaucracies
"Learning moments" - Oka in Quebec; treaty referendum in BC
Networks between provinces, people mostly emulating BC
Diffusion effect between provinces - all now convinced of the need for substantive engagement with aboriginal peoples

Jerald Sabin "Comparing within and across northern Canada - Citizenship regimes in the new north"

Multiple citizenships, presents challenges to the liberal-democratic institutions of the settler state

In Yukon and NWT, the effect of multiple citizenships may exacerbate tensions between aboriginals and settlers

In Nunavut, less of a challenge to political cohesion

Pragmatic and conciliatory policies are needed to bridge institutional divides

Challenge to legitimacy of economic institutions

Some people offered services by up to 5 governments, live under 3 citizenship regimes

2 new regimes in the last decade in Northern Canada

Canadian citizenship, liberal-democratic, universalist, clear process for acquiring
Excluded status Indians until 1956
Second regime: indigenous citizenships (used to subjugate and eradicate indigenous peoples, Taiaiake Alfred)
Getting full services required renouncing indigenous citizenship, access to justice denied

Now a means to redress colonial past and recognize indigenous nationhood?

Membership or beneficiary status inside a land claim; indigenous citizenship under self-government agreements which include political rights

Aboriginal constitutions do include naturalization processes
Generally strictly genealogical, blood quantum (often 25%)
Usually provisions for the inclusion of non-aboriginal people to be honourary or associate citizens; likewise, aboriginals from other lineages
Adopted children treated differently in different places

"Closed" or ethnic citizenship treated in literature with caution

Cairns in Citizens Plus - creates boundaries between aboriginal and non-aboriginal people, both within land claim territories and Canada generally
Borrows less critical - Klee Chow (sp?) constitution

First comparative factor - challenges to political legitimacy

Challenges to economic institutions in the north - Peel watershed region, last fully intact ecosystem in North America

Panel established to consider how much of the region to open to development
Recommended that 80% of the region be set aside
Yukon government rejected this, held that only 29% should be protected
Negotiation not framed in government-to-government terms by the Yukon government, rather in terms of electoral politics
"When it comes to public land, it should be the publicly democratically-elected government that has the final say" -Premier
Setting democratic government aside from ethnic indigenous government

Multiple citizenship has the potential to create crises of institutional legitimacy

Christa Scholtz (McGill University), Maryna Polataiko (McGill University) "Constitutionalizing self-government for whom? Provincial interests and the negotiation of the James Bay Northern Quebec Agreement"

Sought papers related to James Bay Northern Quebec Agreement

First modern land claims agreement in Canada
Established three categories of people
Given effect through both provincial and federal legislation

Problem: section 91(24)

How can provincial legislation have power over Indians and land reserved for Indians
Fundamental constitutional problem
Is constitutional amendment required?

Bourassa and his team were totally aware of this problem, went ahead anyway

Has the gamble paid off?
Supreme Court - Moses 2010
Tsilquotin 2014

Quiet Revolution underway

Administrative expansion, legislative expansion into northern territories

Negotiation with Cree began 1971

How Quebec sought to secure legislative jurisdiction over the lands in question, in a way that would pass constitutional muster

Quebec legal team skeptical about agreement's constitutionality
Presented several options: constitutional amendment the only real option
Actually opted for more "watered down" solution
Two other legal analyses similarly skeptical

Quebec knowingly took the risk that the agreement encroaches on federal jurisdiction

Hoped in part that public opinion would help protect them against legal scrutiny
Lead negotiator of agreement subscribed to this view

Has the "bet" worked?

Came before Supreme Court in Moses decision of 2010
Question before the court: specific provision dealing with environmental assessment procedures under the agreement
Federalism question - can provincial laws with general application trump federal laws with general application
Only moment where the court did a federalism review of some sort on this agreement
Court split 5-4
Judges on both sides point to the James Bay as a breakthrough, addressing a conflict
Not willing to throw it out
Differed on small technical question - majority found for the federal government on textual reading of this particular clause

Tsilquotin decision of 2014

Does s. 35 (reconcilliation) take precedence over s. 91(24)
Court "watered down" exclusivity of 91(24)

Discussant 1: Graham White

Is this really deliberative democracy?

Isn't it more than just being non-coercive?

Scale and risks associated with the project

Railway being delayed
Risk to wildlife from road, railway, mine - and especially from extensive shipping
Massive carriers could be grounded (2/day all year round)

What happens in shorter timespans?

NERB approval with many conditions was for 6 months per year of shipping
Proponent now pushing hard for 10

Can this process work with a much shorter timespan?

Re: Martin - what happened to non-status Indians?

"Groundbreaking exercise in data collection and agreements"
"Nobody has ever done anything like this"
Not all of these agreements are equal: importance? how far-reaching?
How to account for this variability in analysis
There can be a big gap between the text of the agreement and "what happens in real life"
Numbers so heavily influenced by BC (motivated for desire for happy relations before Olympics?)

Re: Jerald - in Nunavut, you are a beneficiary - Elsewhere, you are a citizen

Re: McGill paper

"This is fascinating stuff, and it could only happen in Quebec"
Re: gamble based on public opinion - is there any actual data?
Might a court think "the agreement is wrong, but the sky would collapse if we changed it"? Do judges think that way?

Discussant 2

Re: Jerald

There is a need for empirical evidence
Normative literature in place - Alan Cairns
How is self-government reshaping the substance of citizenship, beyond formal legal status
Re: citizenship regime - essentially about formal status, or something else?
Jane Jenson re: citizenship regimes - citizenship as a kind of trade-off - legal equality along with market inequality
Can a single state actually have multiple citizenship regimes? Or is it one differentiated regime?
Conception of citizenship overly institutional and static - analysis would have more potential if citizenship was also seen as a site of struggle - Jim Thully (sp?)

Questions

Martin - Absence of treaties providing political strength for BC First Nations - distinct from Ontario and Quebec

Diffusion not just from BC to elsewhere, but also between other provinces; Ring of Fire, etc * Interview subjects did say that the Olympics played a role in aboriginal policy

Sheena - Values guiding community engagement: deciding together, etc

Different sites of authority

"Federalism and Public Policy" 2015-06-02 3:15pm-4:45pm

Allan Craigie (University of British Columbia): Regional Development, Political Opportunity, and Defence Spending in Canada: Examining the fallout
Kyle Hanniman (University of Toronto): Fiscal Federalism, Market Discipline, and Investor Type Mireille Paquet (Concordia University),
Jane Jenson (Université de Montréal): Canada's Changing Citizenship Regime
Jennifer Wallner (University of Ottawa): Federalism and (In)Equality in Education: Schooling in Canada and Australia

Present: Grace Skogstad, Andrea Olive, Kathryn Harrison, Tanya White

Craigie

Military procurement process can take decades

Took from the 60s to last year to get a helicopter

Canada lacks immediate threats to territorial integrity, aside from the US

Conservative government pretends to be military-friendly

Present themselves as a good ally to US/NATO, on a low budget

Lack of elite consensus re: what our military should do

Who to fight, what to buy

Provinces as powerful actors: political legitimacy of premiers' offices, premiers have similar mandates to PM, lots of administrative capacity

Governments attempting to use defence procurement as part of a political agenda raise regional tensions

Few bidders, and not likely to be in the same province

If there is an immediate fear of lives being lost, we can buy things quickly

Social/welfare programs implemented under the guise of national defence

Jobs as a motivation
Military spending doesn't compete with the private sector - hopefully only the government is buying tanks

CF-18

Major maintenance contract in 1980s
Firms in Winnipeg and Montreal shortlisted
$2.5 billion
Awarded to Montreal, caused a firestorm in the prairies

National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy

$35 B, largest since WWII - just to build the ships
(F-35 $35 B also covers cost of whole lifespan)
Quebec, BC, Nova Scotia shipyards shortlisted
Quebec shut out in the end, but accepted the decision

F-35

Consortium established to build in 1990s
Prohibits industrial and regional benefits - cannot be guaranteed
Rather, firms in each participant can compete for contracts and subcontracts
In 2012, federal government backed down on 2010 firm commitment to buy the F-35

Hanniman - Fiscal federalism and foreign investment

Fear of default - governments missing a bond payment

Investor beliefs re: creditworthiness very important

Large increase in foreign holdings of government debt since 2008 financial crisis, also 2010-12 Eurozone crisis

Including bonds from Australian, Canadian, and German governments

Foreign investors favour national over subnational borrowers

Has started to reverse since Eurozone crisis

Why have they favoured national over subnational debt traditionally?

Global flight to quality and liquidity during crises
Safest, most tradeable assets: creditworthy sovereign bonds
Lack of familiarity with default risk

High-risk, low interest rate environment

Subnational bonds offer slightly higher interest rates
Investors didn't always understand fiscal federal ties
Bought sovereign debt first, then subnational debt explicitly backed by federal government (like CMHC), then implicitly guaranteed debt like provincial and state bonds

Subnational treasurers and underwriters are actively advertising to foreign investors

Shift to buying subnational debt will lower borrowing costs and diversification of the investor base

Creates risk of foreign currency mismatches, and capital risk

Jane Jenson: "Changing Canada's Citizenship Regime"

Three dimensions of change since 1980s: access to participation, rights and responsibilities, belonging

Writing on the citizenship regime suffers from nostalgia about what used to be, a past perceived to be better

Distress about the direction of change

Now, neo-liberalism everywhere

Now, the direction of change is by no means unidirectional

As much generation of new spaces for claims-making as dismantling
Social policy, multiculturalism, Aboriginal rights, LGBT rights, Quebec-Canada

Citizenship with respect to immigration and integration is being "federalized"

Emergence of new actors with strong legitimacy within the federal system
Governance change is founded on shared constitutional jurisdiction

This change could be transformational due to availability of actors and strategies: province-building and decentralization

Dual-track entry, focused on ability to work

New workers, more than new arrivals or new citizens

How to understand institutional change?

How do you get beyond path dependency without falling into "ideas"
Try to understand agency

Minor change at Ottawa level led to path opening decentralization for provinces

Wallner - education

Responsibility almost always constitutionally assigned to sub-national level

Does the implementation of reforms in K-12 schooling necessitate an upward transfer of power within federal systems

Canada and Australia both constitutionally federalist

Australia has experienced considerable de facto transfer of authority

Canada has seen no such transfer of authority, provinces remain fully in control

Global School Standards Agenda

For 40 years, big pressure to standardize education: common learning outcomes in curriculums, standardized testing
OECD a major pusher

Australia enacted new requirements for schools, including mandatory testing regime - national assessment of literacy and numeracy in year 3, 5, 7, 9

Canada's assessment plan developed exclusively by provinces, doesn't replace existing provincial assessment regimes, only tries to follow a sample of students
Results don't affect grades

Discussion

Quebec makes it impossible for Canada's federal government to centralize educational policy in a federal Department of Education

"Jumping Over the Line: Case Studies of Academics as Activists" - 2015-06-03 8:45am-10:15am

Michael Byers (University of British Columbia) [absent]
Kathryn Harrison (University of British Columbia)
George Hoberg (University of British Columbia)
Paul Kershaw (University of British Columbia)
Melissa Williams (University of Toronto)

Harrison

Discouraged after studying climate change for 15 years

Strong consensus among scientists, equally strong among social scientists - "Put a price on carbon, get started"
"We're not doing any of that"
What's the most important use of my time? Publishing in academic journals is clearly not working

Guilt pushes me to do more - over fate of the Green Shift

BC carbon tax Feb 2008
"The policy I've been waiting for"
"Exactly what a group of academics sitting down would have written", but public misunderstanding exploited by opposition parties

Dion's Green Shift, worse in some ways

Widely attacked
"Academics didn't fulfil our responsibility to inform the debate"

Visit by McKibben to UBC

Big rally, then small talk for faculty and grad students
He understands the importance of reputation for academics, but what are you saving it for?
Harrison started writing op-ends, joined VTAC (small volunteer environmental group, exposing coal exports) which is currently suing the federal government

Melissa

Activism v. policy advocacy
Many praised by departments for doing "policy-relevant work"
Making policy recommendation part of the job for many, as is reaching out to the wider public
Based on academic judgment

She does "work that always has a normative edge to it" - democratic theory

Mobilization and strategy necessary for full-on policy advocacy

Involved in activism around last year's Fair Elections Act

"Goes to the heart of representative democracy"
"Couldn't in good conscience do nothing on this" - Wrote email to nine colleagues "Shall we mobilize?"
They had also been considering action
Drafting team of six people got 150 professors to sign a letter
Failing basic criteria of electoral integrity
Second letter signed by 460 academics in the G&M and Le Devoir (Apr 23)
Demonstrations planned for April 26th, but government partially backed down on the 25th

Third speaker, Paul - childcare focus, feminist gender equality

Bringing ideas from the academic literature into the public dialog
Writing articles, public talk off campus
Hundreds of interviews per year
Budget analysis of fed and all provinces within 24 hours
Briefing decision-makers

Set test for self in 2013

Didn't find himself capable of affecting platforms

Ideas, interests, institutions

His theory of change for too long focused on ideas only
Building institutions and interests to complement ideas is critical

What next? Inspired by Canadian Association of Retired Persons

Doing good work for 50 years

George Hoberg

Stats on how many people actually read and cite articles "have been devastating"

Started to blog in 2009, "Green Policy Prof"
McKibben meeting - founded UBCC350
Divestment campaign - successful at agenda setting, successful student and faculty referendums
Board of Governors must now decide
Also going door-to-door trying to elevate awareness on climate

"Just to study is not enough if you want to change something on climate"

Kids became climate activists as youths
16 year old daughter organized flash mob - aimed for 1000, got 15 friends
"Our generation needs to help, and fix the problem we've created"

Harrison

Door-to-door canvassing to put climate change on the agenda for the provincial election

Climate movement "so focused on local issues they don't talk about the climate anymore"

Challenges activism has created for your professional academic life

Does vary depending on age / status in academy

Harrison re: risks

Most people she collaborates with are not academics

"Academic integrity still the most important to me"
In activism, you don't make the other sides point for them
Has rolled things back at times in press releases

Gave media interview in tanker costume (will never do that again)

Has implications for career path, if you're interested in administration
Worried she would lose her ability to speak as an expert because of perceptions of bias
Surprised how little journalists have cared

Worried it may affect her ability to do research - ability to interview industry people, governments with different policy views

Would be more concerned if more junior

Also takes up evenings and weekends that would otherwise be used for scholarly productivity

Financial risks, when you go to court

If you lose a court case, you may need to pay tens of thousands of dollars toward the legal fees of other side
If you do civil disobedience, companies may sue you for loss of profits
People worry about losing their homes

Melissa

"Truth and politics are not necessarily very companionable"

"We as academics have to side with truth"
In politics, you have to be effective in your rhetoric
Can be in tension with sober academic judgment and attempts at gravitas

Challenges in terms of time

Impacts teaching - slows down grading
Affects research and writing
"Takes almost excessive attention" - mobilizing people, coordinating them (putting together teams, managing files), substance (arguments, tactics - mustn't contradict scholarly standards)
Can only make "claims you can redeem in an academic forum"

Colleagues will testify on the other side, before committees where you are appearing

Even sympathetic colleagues "may not do activism"

If you're pre-tenure "probably the default position is that you shouldn't get too busy"

Paul

Challenges that arise

How far have we "jumped over a line"?
Professional responsibility to be objective about the data
Once we know the data, we don't need to be disinterested about whether or not it shapes public dialog and policy

Universities and funders rhetorically support "excellence in community engagement"

"Using our research to enrich public dialog and contribute to positive change"

What are the roles and responsibilities of academics today?

Other parts of the institution "don't keep up with the strategic vision"

Community engagement not part of an established path to tenure
Opportunity cost of trying to curate a public conversation
You will produce fewer peer-reviewed publications

He ramped up his activism after tenure

Has published in the peer-review literature much less since, hasn't applied to become a full professor
Time on great peer reviewed article v. spreading ideas well established in the literature for a decade

Consensus

Lose research productivity
Creates tensions in terms of objectivity -Must be careful to maintain reputation about being right about the facts -Avoid buying into rhetoric of your allies (Keystone XL as "fuse to the carbon bomb" -"Ridiculous exaggeration" that works politically)
Frustrated by how the media doesn't especially care about his status as an expert, when taking strong positions in public
Re: teaching, he covers climate and energy. 60-70% of students always support pro-environment position, 10% always oppose, rest relatively indifferent -Must remain credible with people who have a different set of values
Encourages students to challenge him if he loses objectivity
Has a literal "activist hat" which he puts on to answer some questions

End of scary part

Benefit for selves and community:

Harrison

"I have learned so much", despite studying environmental politics for her whole career
"I am living Mancur Olsen's world"
"The coal industry has more money than god" -Buy whole sections in newspapers
Unions "have bought the NDPs silence on the issue"
Peaceful protest "put on a watchlist of potential terrorist activities"
Has learned a lot about strategy and networking

Next journal article - challenging received wisdom in IPE, re: politics of fossil fuel exports

Reminder of why she went into academic to begin with, which "the discipline beat out of me pretty quickly"

Often been amazed by how good it feels: big rallies, days of action

Remarkably joyful, despite level of shared frustration
Collective action feels good

Probably publishes one less article per year, but feels much better about her career

Melissa

Best when collective action includes scholars whose work you respect

Arendt - "freedom is action for the sake of a principle" as opposed to interest or need

People volunteering themselves, based on collective objective -Horizontal organization, cool for a democratic theorist

"Participant-observer dimension"

Didn't get ethical approval for some activities, so cannot draw on them for research
Became an obsessive tweeter, unlike ever before or since
Interesting dynamics, including with trolls
"Badge of honour" - "got preemptively blocked by Ezra Levant"

Paul

"Alignment between what's important and what I'm actually doing"

"Feel a kind of guilt when I prioritize the peer-reviewed article I am meant to finish"

"Especially passionate right now about making my country live up to its potential"

Community benefits

Who is responsible for move knowledge into action?
Who has the genuine opportunity? So few - academics among them
Journalists no longer have the freedom to focus in specific areas and help build good public dialog
CRA has clamped down on charities, preventing them from commenting on public policy
Place where people used to move knowledge into action, but not blocked
"Academics are the last bastion" -Decent paying job, safe from CRA, security of tenure
Tenure gives security to compete with advertising that contradicts the fact
Academics also hard to portray as self-interested
"Can go toe to toe with anyone in the country on the issues I study", and not be easily dismissed

Academics often lousy at being academic communicators

"Lead with the facts" usually not effective communication

Panel discussion

Hoberg previously thought it was inappropriate for academics to become in policy disputes any way other than simply presenting the facts

If you raise values, you are speaking just as a citizen rather than an expert
"I have completely abandoned this view because of the desperation of the situation"
"Just doesn't mention to other people"
Academics can be very helpful to the academic community

Main role: to be the person Mancur Olsen doesn't think ever exists - ignore normal cost-benefit incentives and keep the group going

Big contribution to existence of local group
Could collapse otherwise
Group must be rebooted every September; without someone to do it, could easily collapse

"I don't know what else to do to remain sane, given what I study and what I believe about the future of humanity on the planet"

Questions and discussion

1) Role of students? How is it appropriate or inappropriate to engage students in activism based on your own political priorities? Ethical boundaries? Special considerations re: civil disobedience?

Hoberg - "Deeply personal to me. I have lines."

"Wrong for me to use my stature as a teacher to recruit students into the cause."
Not sure if that's right, but it's his approach
No complaints over 4 years about inappropriate advocacy
Faculty coordinator of UBC350, cannot involve anything illegal

There is now a Vancouver 350 chapter that wants to do more direct action

May have to step back, or change the name of the group, if the UBC group becomes linked
One nightmare - being sued by parents of a student who is arrested, and where it "undermines their professional future"

Taught a senior undergraduate seminar on policy advocacy

People had to undertake a practical effort and write it up

Harrison - On the way to Burnaby Mountain "you can't be in this car if you're planning to be arrested" (re: students, specifically)

Engaging with undergraduates, you build personal relationships which can be a bit awkward - in class later, on social media
"Professor in the classroom, but friendly outside the classroom"
Grad student in another discipline very nervous about being visible in climate activism
Worried about "going on the job market with a reputation as an activist rather than a serious researcher"
"We get great work from this individual, but his name is never associated"

Williams - Important not to recruit students to your cause, but does use her work on the Fair Elections Act as an example

Some students do want to contribute their time and energy
Different if they come to her, asking how they can help
"Following them to a picket line different from leading them"

2) PhD student, previously working in abstract feminist theory, now studying the area where she was doing activist work for a long time - Now being quoted as an expert on it. Raises some eyebrows in the university setting: interviewing people who she has worked with in a professional setting for many years

"Nobody else could write the project I am working on"
"Is there room for more of this?"

Kershaw - The trajectory you describe is "the reverse version of crossing over the line"

More challenging trajectory for success in the academy
Need to protect expertise and credentials
Having been a vocal voice on an issue not valued in the academy
"Not confident that experiential expertise will soon become valued"

"There is a tradition in the academy that does normative scholarship: that starts with the question of what should happen"

"The only place you can bring your experiential expertise and turn it into a successful career trajectory within the academy"

Williams - Jane Mansbridge her favourite examplar for what you're describing

"Comes at some personal cost"
"Very difficult to take your critical gaze and point it at your allies"

Hoberg - "I've learned so much about how the environmental community works and how they divide labour between groups"

Wants to write a book, but "worried about ratting on my friends"

3) Leading versus supporting causes. Working on environment and indigenous issues - you must be supportive for them to talk to you, otherwise seen as "part of the colonial apparatus".

Harrison - Once you're a full professor, if you're in a supporting role there is a good chance a reporter will find you -You can decline to speak, but isn't that why you're there?

Speaking from empirical expertise v. speaking from values that we should be doing more

Hoberg - With indigenous issues, you need to be comfortable with a completely different level of engagement

Responsibility to the community

4) Trends in funding for research? SSHRC, etc.

Harrison - "SSHRC partnerships more difficult, because the money's all on the industry side"

Hoberg - "I keep wondering when someone's going to yell at me"

5) PostDoc at Dal, studying human rights activism - activist work has really shaped research

Line between facts and values can be unclear - values inform the research you do
Wants to do participant observation

6) Tension between political rhetoric and truth and accuracy, choice not to use some activist rhetoric. Have you actually challenged problematic rhetoric?

7) Me - re: divestment, we haven't really seen much overt opposition, aside from the occasional curmudgeonly economist. Others not out there raising the contrary arguments; we raise them so we can rebut them. Is this something you have experienced? What's the relevance for those trying to produce change?

Williams - silence a rhetorical tactic - who is going to speak up against the rights of indigenous peoples?

People don't speak out, and don't have to, because their interests are already well vested in the political system
"Truth, reasoned argumentation isn't going to get a lot of traction because the powerful
"That may be when direct action is necessary"

Kershaw - Relation of questions to ask and values - Feminism strong on showing there is no distinction between our values and the question we ask

Challenging to do participant observation in groups you have been involved with
"My job is to only go where the data goes" -Necessary to push back sometimes
However, you can be more effective in communicating when you don't focus on the data
Marshall Ganz

Harrison - "On the coal stuff, there is another side"

Have spent millions of dollars -TV ads
VTAC has staked out a different position, resisting thermal and not metallurgical coal
Projections for metallurgical coal demand stable, but thermal coal must fall to virtually zero in a 2 ˚C
Metallurgical coal produced in BC, thermal coal imported
Significant divide, most environmentalists opposed to all coal
Now having an activist personal out there, along with an academic one, isn't easy

Hoberg - Re: divestment - first they ignore, then laugh, then fight, then win

"You may still be at the ignore stage"
May only emerge at the last minute

"Aboriginal Politics" 2015-06-03 10:30am-12pm

Jennifer E. Dalton (York University) : Growing Public Awareness of Indigenous Criminal Injustice?: Implications for Institutional Legitimacy and the Indigenous-Canada Relationship
Joanne Heritz (Brock University) : Academic Indigenous Activism in Canada and Ireland

Notes handwritten

"Plenary: The Lost Potential and Legacy of the Failed 1992 Charlottetown Accord" 2015-06-03 12pm-1:30pm

Chair: Diedre Desmarais

Panel: Peter Russell, Ovide Mercredi

Land acknowledgement: Algonquin territory

Mercredi

Listening to the Truth and Reconciliation report, thought the Charlottetown Accord could have made a difference if ratified and implemented

"Double understanding" -the truth is to be found through the knowledge and perceptions of more than one person

Politics a half-truth, partisan effort based on power, not respect or understanding

Not a good formula for running a country, but how Canada has evolved
Always puzzled by the idea that partisan politics can be democratic

Notes respect that people in indigenous communities have for Peter Russell

"It's about opposition and never agreeing with the other side"

Grew up in Cree majority area in Grand Rapids

Competing Anglican and Catholic priests had to learn the language
"We were in control of our community, so I grew up with no sense of inferiority"
Grew up off reserve because status Indian mother lost status through marriage

"Because of the Indian Act and laws passed by Parliament, the law discriminated against my mother"
Despite how one of his ancestors negotiated Treaty 5 with the British Crown

Parliament sees itself as sovereign

"The Indian Act is one reason why I don't think people from outside my community should make laws for my people"
"How is it possible for Parliament to turn an Indian into a white woman"

Residential school system motivated in part by the aspirations of churches to convert people, and their search for state support to assist them

In 1950s, economy self-sufficient, based on fish and moose, home-made canoes

"And then something happened to end all that"
Our trauma was not so much the residential schools as the hydro dam
Vast flooding on the west side of their territory, eliminated the rapids
Eliminated trapping - hydro jobs only available for skilled labourers
"This was all done in the name of progress"
Move into traditional territory of a native people, take everything, move on

"The white men taught us to pray differently, and when we looked up our land was gone"

Idea of coexistence has not been abandoned

Promise of this was present at a brief and short time, and it started with a guy called Pierre Elliot Trudeau
"He was a brilliant man"
Vision for Canada: to keep it together
Patriation, end ties to England, finish decolonization from Britain
"He never thought about the aboriginal people and their role in the future of this country"
No Indians or women among the Fathers of Confederation
"These are the people who gave you your legacy as a Canadian right now, and it was all about what they brought across from the old country"
Old, old history of the French and the English played out in Canada
British North America Act created a country by recognizing Quebec
Done on the premise that they had the authority to do this, that the rest of the country was empty
"We need to develop this country"

MacDonald saw Indians as inferior beings to be assimilated

Pre-Confederation treaties: trade, military alliances

Canadian state says treaties 1-11 represented secession of land, rejected by aboriginals

Attempts at constitutional reform have been the consequence of political resistance

Native people opposed patriation because they realized that the numbered treaties were done in the name of Queen Victoria - so who will implement the treaties if the link is broken
Led to Trudeau realizing the existence of aboriginal people
Didn't initially expect them to get any attention in Britain
House of Lords, Lord Denning - ruling taken as favourable to aboriginals
Didn't think there was any reason why Canada would not honour the treaties

Trudeau's vision of patriation linked to "his baby", the Charter of Rights and Freedoms

When Queen Elizabeth came to sign the constitution in 1982, section 25 and 32 of the Canada Act included a promise for constitutional reform
A promise to re-shape the country, which was what aboriginal people wanted
This was not a vision shared by politicians who sought to preserve their power and authorities
Unwilling to share land and resources with aboriginal peoples
Addition of the word "existing" at the 11th hour, because of people like Premier Lougheed and others - feared it would be too broad without it
Word added to try to minimize the rights provided

There were also debates among aboriginals on the meaning of S. 35

Right to self government?
Relations with provinces and federal government?

Debates at Assembly of First Nations far more interesting than those in Parliament

What are democracy and justice? How do you implement treaty rights?
Is S. 35 a full box of rights or an empty box of rights?
Sovereigntists who distrust Canada saw it as empty; moderates counted on the Supreme Court of Canada to give purposeful meaning to S. 35
Risky move, "as these are not our courts" -Represent the other side of the treaty
"I don't think you would come to my court if I created one to define your rights"

Constitutional process established in S. 37

The PM will convene meetings with premiers, with aboriginal leaders invited to be present, to define aboriginal and treaty rights for inclusion in the constitution of Canada
"A chance we had to change this country"
They had to deal with Quebec first
Levesque didn't sign the constitution

Conservatives in power after Trudeau's walk in the snow

How to make Quebec comfortable with the constitution?
Negotiation of Meech Lake accord
Aboriginals opposed, because they were excluded from it
The constitution gave the PM the power to call these meetings (Trudeau's had failed, in part because premiers resisted)

Idea of recognizing Quebec as a distinct society

"If Quebec is a distinct society what are we? Chopped liver?"
Meech Lake another attempt to shape the country in our absence

Unforeseeable event, Elijah Harper

Became a hero, as the one who said no to the accord

Mercredi organized protests against Meech Lake

Charlottetown, after Meech Lake defeated

Mulroney still wanted to get Quebec into the fold
Appointed Joe Clark as the constitutional leader for the government
Aboriginals not initially invited to participate in the process
Clark eventually convinced that aboriginals should be included

Two distinct people trying to find out how to live together - A conversation that was suspended for a century after Canada became a nation state

FN had a clear sense of what to accomplish

Protect inherent right as a people to govern themselves
What would it look like?
Mercredi was the lead negotiator for the AFN at this time
Clyde: Can't just be a general statement - you need a list of powers
Risk of the approach: missing something
A list would be too definitive to begin with; need for something more fluid
Not interested in our own post office or army

How can you have 635 governments?

How many municipalities does Canada have?

Basic notion: the inherent right of the people to govern their own affairs

Safeguard language, economies, communities, and traditions
Control their development as a people, ensure the protection of their societies
Better to use broad principles which allow flexibility to evolve in systems of government

UK's lack of a written constitution preferable to Canada's approach

Indigenous peoples also governed via unwritten customary codes

Political v. judicial processes for determining what the treaties mean

One rather difficult issue: idea of lawmaking

What if aboriginal law conflicts with provincial or federal law?
Provinces want to protect jurisdiction and authority; federal government doesn't want to give up power; aboriginal governments don't want to be told their laws are inferior to those of others
Most difficult legal issue
Current system of conflict of laws: paramountcy
Body of law re: whose jurisdiction prevails
Ex, gaming - the Criminal Code applies, but provinces have the power to regulate gaming

"In the absence of consensus between the conflicting parties, we could go to the Supreme Court" to sort out the question of paramountcy

"Our laws on environmental protection are likely to be stronger by virtue of our desire to protect our land"
Federal or provincial processes should not automatically trump aboriginal ones

Conclusion: Charlottetown was a missed opportunity

Including to smooth the course of subsequent resource developments
Would have taken us to a better place than where we are right now
Current government imposing 'transparency', family law - about assimilation still
These laws would be thrown out by the Supreme Court if Charlottetown had passed
Intent for federal and provincial laws to apply for some time, and then be gradually replaced by aboriginal laws

Russell

This is an opportunity that can be recovered

When it went down, it wasn't rejected because of the parts on aboriginal peoples
There was actually agreement among Canadians on sharing this country with aboriginal people: First Nations, Inuit, and Metis
"The Creator gave you that responsibility, and it's not on the table"
Aboriginal title exercised long before Europeans arrived, "and it's still there"

Is this a turning point? We've been here before

Truth and Reconciliation Commission
Search for a just and reasonable relationship

"I hope and pray that this is not a lost opportunity"

Sharing of hope among aboriginal and non-aboriginal Canadians

After the Charlottetown Accord failed, the RCAP sent Roger Jones and Peter Russell to the AFN in Calgary, in a hockey rink, to raise the idea of another attempt at negotiations

Met with 56 different FN representatives, in a locker room, one after another
100% agreement - we don't ever want to go back to the process of meeting with first ministers
Commissioners "didn't like our bad news message"
Volume 6 of RCAP ignored this, saying they would like aboriginals to go back to this style of negotiation

We have moved on since the Charlottetown Accord

Inherent right to self-government not debated anymore
"I'd love to see it in the constitution"

"We have this messy Hobbesian word 'sovereignty' which I loathe"
We have never had sovereignty over aboriginal peoples
The right of aboriginals to govern themselves within the context of the Canadian federation is there
"We're all worried that there won't be any take up" - "We could talk the talk, but the country won't walk the walk"

We should have a political accord on financing aboriginal governments along the basic design of the equalization sections of our constitution (4 paragraph long political accord)

"Absolutely essential" because your leaders in your FNs, Metis Nations, and Inuit governments need to "learn money"
They have been underfunded, with resource bases taken away
Have to be hard-headed and realistic about this

It would be a tragedy if self-government failed due to lack of funds

Beyond the fiscal part, we need a political accord getting the provinces and Ottawa (and the territories) to commit to begin to negotiate with First Nations that are ready to go

"Has to be worked on both sides"
FN in particular "have to get their acts together"
"Far too divided"
Tribal groupings, regional groupings -RCAP made many suggestions

"Municipalities are not where you're going; I don't think you want to go there"

Political accord would call on both sides to get ready to deal with this, starting with groups that say they're ready to go

"There's as much work to be done on the aboriginal side to make progress as on the federal, provincial, and territorial side"

These are important parts of the Charlottetown Accord legacy

Martin Papillon - people are working on making their own arrangements

Charlottetown wasn't a lost opportunity, but a legacy which we can build on and have been building on

The whole country should hold its governments to uphold the rights of indigenous peoples

Created through five long years in Geneva and New York

Mercredi

Loss at Charlottetown about the dream of having shelter from the rule of other governments

"I still see the constitution as the answer, because a political accord doesn't guarantee anything"

Must be enforceable in the courts

The promise in S. 37 of the Canada Act is broken, and has to be fulfilled

"The generation coming is going to be powerful"

More presence at university
Should be at the constitutional table

Constitutional blanket "wrap it around ourselves while we heal"

It took 100 years to get here. Now, we have 50 years to transition to a new place

We would have been much farther ahead if Charlottetown had passed

"We're at the point where we have to rely on the media to get our points across, because obviously the governments are not with us"

"Connecting political science and politics: The challenge of diversity - CPSA Keynote Address" 2015-06-03 1:30pm-3pm

Intro: Melissa Haussman

Speaker: Marian Sawer (Australian National University)

Sawer

Political science often finds itself in a precarious situation

Needs to work at the global and national level to support the conditions for a pluralist political science

Cognate disciplines like history and sociology are ahead, in terms of participation of women and the incorporation of feminist critiques

Trajectory of feminism in political science from 1970s to now

New professional norms
Need to maintain relevance to women's movements

The challenge presented to the discipline by the women's movement of the 1970s
How changing disciplinary norms affected the relationship between feminist political
Case study of the impact of feminist scholarship on democratic norms

Second wave feminism, 1970s

Problematizing public/private distinction
Childcare and abortion being redefined as political
1971 launch of Ms. Magazine - ranked presidential candidates on such issues

Traditional view: reproduction and childcare not part of the subject of politics

"Feminist frames being imported into political science"

Moving from "dual roles" for women, to such roles for both men and women

Men taking on burden of care, giving women more space for pursuits outside the home

Underrepresentation of women in politics long unaddressed in the Journal of the Canadian Political Science Association

"Leadership" as a gendered concept - associated with characteristics associated with men

Photos of Australian cabinet and International Political Science Association executives in 1978

Little change in the Canadian journal in the 1980s

One excellent presidential address on women and the welfare state in 1984
Including as advocates, public sector workers, and clients

"Rich away of feminist scholarship" has more recently appeared in Canadian political science, in both French and English
"Jill Vickers was trying to invent political science by starting where women are and broadening the conception of politics to include the community activities that women were involved with"

Political science long a two-person career: wife to take care of family and support husband's output in other ways

Standard paragraph from acknowledgements in Canadian science books
"Finally, but not least importantly, I must thank my wife for typing numerous drafts of the manuscript both cheerfully and without pay."

Akin to politician's wife - "the smiling figure behind or next to the politician"

Two-person career taken for granted, rather than submitted to critical analysis

"Would you vote for a woman for president if she was qualified in every other respect?"

Feminist political science has shifted away from its origins in the women's movement

Much interdisciplinary work directed at the subordination of women, how it was maintained, and how to change it

"Strategic use of surveys" - surveys, of course, always have more than one purpose

Book with names of contributors not listed, "as it is the ideas themselves, rather than who presented them, which is crucial"

Not necessary to indicate academic status, since derived from a male-dominated system of awards

Aim to combat the masculine assumptions of the discipline

Changes in Canadian journal in 1990s, when "rich array of feminist scholarship" began to be published

Feminist political science has moved beyond directly speaking with words drawn from an external political movement

Increasingly used the language of the discipline and conventional methodologies
Message directed to international community of scholars rather than local publics
More emphasis on comparative work than studies on the gendered nature of political processes intended to change those processes

Reflected changing nature of research governance and evaluation

"Externally-imposed norms of research excellence" derived from natural sciences, with emphasis on publications in high-impact international journals
Last year's CPSA presidential address acknowledged the presence of such pressures here

Highest impact journals have little interest in the politics of smaller countries, unless as part of a large-n study

In UK, Emma Foster and colleagues say that new evaluation criteria impede placing analysis "close to home"

Topics of interest to journals shift focus far from everyday relationships and local political processes which are central to gender relations

"Core" work privileged over "work at the boundaries which draws on other disciplines"

Feminist political science more likely to be interdisciplinary, at the edges

Institution-building outside the United States has often been ignored

Effort "to make social science work more scientific"

Feminists increasingly making claims to serving the 'science' in political science, while still trying to drive political change
Still mostly avoided most abstract edge of the discipline, 5% of game theory approaches
Substantial use of "problem solving approaches"

Low female participation in legislatures as a sign of democratic deficit

Responses? quotas?

"Feminist work has play a crucial role of reframing this issue as not one of female deficits but of exclusionary institutions"

"The emphasis then changes from fixing women to fixing institutions so they can accommodate women"

Women are likely to be a majority of those engaged in the most common forms of political behaviour: signing petitions, engaging in political consumerism, voting

Boycott of slave-grown sugar
Political science very slow to recognize this as a form of political participation
Association with women made it less likely that such behaviour would be taken seriously
Also dismissed for not targeting the state directly

Changing public opinions is directly relevant to the achievement of movement goals

Reframing of gender analysis as a scientific process which can be undertaken without contact with advocacy groups

Research on the interaction of quotas, electoral systems, and party structures has been of especial practical importance

Epistemic community established via Facebook group, with up-to-the-minute updates on quotas around the world

Interparliamentary Union ranking of global parliaments by presence of women

In Australia, a purple corsage signifies feminism

Worn by Governor General when female PM sworn in

At the same time as politics is changing, the face of political science is changing

Can be attributed in part to Carole Pateman (IPSA president in 1991)

There can be an uneasy relationship between feminist scholarship and activist movements

1990s not an especially favourable decade for feminist activism, re: politics

Neoliberalism, markets, decline of the welfare state
"For women, the welfare state is crucial for equal opportunity"
Women in politics lacked voice to object to cuts that were especially harmful for women

Concept of "critical mass" took on a life of its own, having arisen in feminist scholarship

Used previously to examine dynamics of minorities within corporation
Group at token level faces enormous pressure to conform to dynamics of dominant group, driven by a desire to reduce distrust
Dynamic changes when proportion gets sufficiently large
Eventually allows substantive representation of women
Idea seized upon by women around the world, including those seeking party or legislative

> 30-35%, impact on political style and decisions
"Unfortunately, research does not support this link between the proportion and substantive changes in political processes"
Clash between feminist political science and the perceived needs of the women's movement

Equal Voice - NGO seeking to increase representation of women in Parliament

Responded badly to scholarly analysis saying critical mass doesn't work as advertised
They had seen it as "a critical tool for building an advocacy coalition"

"Collision between feminist political science and feminist political activism"

Scholars have pushed the agenda beyond numbers to institutional supports that will allow lawmakers to focus more effectively on gender equality issues

Changes in feminist PS over the last 40 years

More international, more comparative
Reflect changes in the discipline as a whole, and also to changes in the women's movement, as organizations have become specialized, professionalized, and internationalized
Partly a response to demands from governments for policy expertise
Also, pressure from research quality frameworks - has contributed to the development of international scholarly networks

"No irreparable rift between the two"

Danger of "self-referential scholarship wrapped up in impenetrable jargon"

Questions

1) What about diversity scholarship within feminist political science?

Not part of this address

More being done by the CPSA than in most countries
Increased emphasis on intersectionality in journal, especially re: indigenous women and their political activism

2) Impact of legal turn in the English Canadian women's movement? (Situation different in Quebec). Different from pattern in Australia and other Anglo democracies? Conscious decision to "turn most of what the women's movement does over to the lawyers"

"Of course, you have the Charter and we don't"

Different "repertoires of various women's movements"

In Australia, much more focus on Parliament than on the legal system

Legal efforts as well

3) Things seem to be improving by and large. Are younger elements of the discipline stagnating or regressing? "We're all equal now under the Charter so there's no need for feminist activism." Hashtag about not needing feminism

Looking at Canada and Australia, the actualities of women's earnings, childcare, etc - equality has not been gained, though there may be a perception that it has been

Young women in Australia really notice campaigns of sexist vilification against women in leadership positions

Facebook campaign "destroy the joint"

Response to financial commitment to improve women's prospect in the Pacific region
Talkback radio 'hero': "We don't need more women in leadership positions, they're destroying the joint"

Freelance cartoonist sending sexist cartoons based on the PM to all parliamentarians

"Natural Resource Governance: Canada & Comparative" 2015-06-04 8:45am-10:15am

Shaw

Until 15 years ago, there were no business schools in Africa

Corporate social responsibility in the BRICs and Africa

Development of airline hubs

Emergence of mobile money and payment systems

Spread of African banks

Resource governance: water/energy/food nexus

Variety of governance gaps
Media important for exposing

Agency v. dependency

Singapore: open to multinationals

Possibility of moving beyond neoliberalism - China model?

Development assistance has diminished

How does Africa envision technology, self-sufficiency, standing in the value chain?

China tends to use their own engineers and construction workers
Are states insisting on local hiring?
India and Brazil less likely to bring their own staff

"Artisinal mining"

Centralizing small-scale operations, instead of replacing them wholesale

Can Canadian impact-benefit agreements for indigenous groups be a model for Africa?

Africa's "demographic asset and challenge of use"

Hope for overcoming the resource curse?

Reliance on a single commodity exacerbates it
May apply to water, food, energy
Emergence of African middle classes
Role of private security

"Natural Resources in Cross-provincial Perspective" 2015-06-04 10:30am-12:00pm

Kathy Lenore Brock (Queen's University) : The Politics of the Environment: Setting Realistic Limits for Liabilities
Heather Millar (University of Toronto) : Fracking politics: A cross-provincial study of the regulation of hydraulic fracturing in Canada

Brock

Working for the government of the Northwest Territories on a policy framework on financial assurances and environmental liabilities

Botswana has a new regime which could be applicable in Canada

Prosecco wine industry in Italy -consideration of suing them for changing the landscape and worsening a flood that killed four

Mount Polley mine, in Canada

Governments and taxpayers at risk of having to pay for damage by companies

Governments can't look at economic development alone, but must consider sustainability as well

Liability as a quasi-criminal, administrative, and civil matter

Scope and nature vary, as do remedies
Permits can be withdrawn

Perspective of governments as stewards or trustees, with an obligation to future generations

Forms of financial assurance: cash, letters of credit, trust funds, insurance policies, third-party guarantees

Premature facility closure may leave trust funds underfunded

Canadian standards

Polluter pays
Regulatory objectives: damage to water, air, land, species
Persons responsible: current and past directors and officers, even in the case of corporate insolvency
Criminal prosecutions may be possible
Directors and officers must show due diligence in attending to any potential environmental hazards and to offset liabilities where possible

Directors have historically sometimes made a large profit, declared corporate bankruptcy, and left the jurisdiction

Mining involves very high up-front investment

Many in oil, gas, and mining are risk-takers

Put themselves in precarious financial positions
Up-front cash or security as deposit for environmental damage may undermine solvency
Protections can be inadequate over time or place, leading to insufficient remediation

State as enabler v. state as enforcer

Spectrum from criminal prosecution to co-ownership and shared responsibility
In the middle, licensing, issuing awards for corporate best practices

[QUESTION: IS THERE ANYTHING WE CAN LEARN FROM THE REAL WORST-CASE SCENARIOS, LIKE SHELL IN NIGERIA. HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS, BILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN DAMAGE, INDIGENOUS GROUPS ORDERING THEIR EXPULSION FROM TERRITORY, INABILITY TO COLLECT COURT-ORDERED DAMAGES - YOU COULD ALSO CONSIDER THE CASE OF CHEVRON IN EQUADOR]

Millar

h.millar@utoronto.ca

Why was New Brunswick unable to sustain support for shale gas development?

They have a small conventional oil and gas industry
Early estimates of shale reserves suggested they were considerable
General public reasonably pro-industry

Resounding defeat to Liberals, who had campaigned on a moratorium

Part of a larger pattern in Canadian provinces in relation to hydraulic fracturing

Single issue regulations: BC, SK, AB
Comprehensive frameworks: NB
Moratoria: QC, NS, NF
Bans: NB, NS

Variation in stringency and scope of regulation

Why have some jurisdictions banned or restricted while others have facilitated?

Conservative government in NB tried developing a comprehensive framework for oil and gas development

Why was this majority government unable to sustain its policy?
What was the mechanism of policy change?

Political economy: interests and partisanship

Preferences of industry factors, ideological commitments of parties
Principally a left-right issue?

Advocacy coalition framework a potential guide for how preferences and beliefs of actors are translated into policy outcomes

Mechanism for policy change: policy-oriented learning
Changes policy core beliefs or secondary beliefs

Focusing events lead to public framing debates, leading to policy change

Liberal government issued large lease to SWN in 2000

Alward (Conservative) elected in 2007
Natural gas group, shale gas forum, discussion paper released with 113 draft rules
Public consultation tour set up by gov't
Early 2013, government released framework with 97 rules
Established energy institute to do research on hydraulic fracturing
Sept 2014, Gallant (Liberal) elected
Dec 2014, moratorium imposed

Findings:

1) Industry influence and partisan values

30-40 existing onshore wells (3 fracked by Corridor & Apache)
SWN played a significant role in drawing the government's attention to the possibilities in shale development
2010 Alward campaign: "responsible shale gas development"
Less evidence that the preferences of industry shaped the rules published in 2012 and 2013 - Government ahead of industry in assessing risks

Pro-development coalition: elected officials, industry

Anti-fracking: residents, First Nations, environmental advocates, health care professionals
Distinct core beliefs, and different narratives

Pro-side focused on economic benefits and manageable character of risks

Assured the public that any potential risks would be addressed by the comprehensive regulatory framework
Asserted that it was the strongest in North America

Opponents focused on groundwater contamination

2) Policy-oriented learning

Leading up to the release of the 2013 rules

Cabinet committed to responsible development in 2012, but was unsure how to proceed

"Strong mandate from the top to be the best in North America"

Consulted with regulators elsewhere
Extensive literature review
Led to a shift in beliefs among politicians: risks tolerable, can be safely regulated

Pro-development appeals to expert authority

Seeking to legitimize new policy direction
"Science has the answers to calculate risks"

Average person uncertain about who to believe

Academics seen as unbiased and most credible
Institute established with the hope academics would help sell fracking

Authority hinges on the credibility of individual scientists

Institute suffered a huge blow when the CBC revealed that the man who ran the consultation tour had misrepresented his credentials for 30 years -Fired
Energy industry lost control of the public debate

3) Internal events

Listening tour increased salience

Elsipogtog protests contributed to policy failure

Anti-fracking appeals to public authority

FN consultation inadequate
Lack of trust in government and industry, concern about transparency
Scope of public opposition

By the time of the listening tour, the regulations had already been essentially set

Consultation meant to provide the impression they were listening
Led to public frustration, as bureaucrats not seriously considering how to proceed anymore

Future research

Trying to use scientific certainty to resist public opposition may not be successful
Distinction between policy-oriented learning (secondary beliefs)
New phase in energy development, must pay more attention to the politics of risk

[QUESTION - WAS CONCERN ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE A SIGNIFICANT MOTIVATOR FOR ANY OF THE GROUPS YOU STUDIED]

Discussant

Re: Brock

U of O management school got $25M donation from GoldCorp / Telfer

Advocate of financial contribution of mining
"I don't understand why they hate us so much"

Shale round tables in BC and Quebec

Technical research requirements, from engineering and science perspectives

Importance of "true partnership-building with aboriginal communities for the development of energy and mines"

Policy instrument literature

1st generation, very technical
2nd generation, more consideration for political factors

"Social license to operate" literature from the mining sector

Now being applied (perhaps problematically) to the energy sector

Accidents v. expected damage

Relevant to the type of financial instruments selected

Race to the bottom, or to the top, in financial liability regulations?

Rationales for more stringent approach v. competition with other jurisdictions

Having all the peer-reviewed science in the world won't necessarily lead to political acceptance

Re: Millar

Issues of social acceptance

Craig Leonard, post-election
"It's so important for governments to take the time to get the details right before they go to communities"
Process matters
Government moved to comprehensive regulations without adequately reaching out to communities and aboriginal groups
Contributed to a lack of trust

"Balanced and objective piece, salient, asking the right question"

Theoretical

Application of ACF: framework still retains a quasi-rational technocratic approach to decision-making
Other factors clearly important
More of a post-positivist, deliberative approach may be beneficial

"Tremendous empirical analysis"

Other possible causal factors, which may be jurisdiction-specific

New Brunswick has not always had the best experience with industry keeping its promises, remedying damage
Applies at very high levels
May help explain divergences between jurisdictions
On the opposition side, may there have been links into broader transnational social movements opposed to research development
Hoberg's paper on Blockadia and pipelines; Idle No More; Josh Fox and Gasland

Methodology

"You've done a tremendous amount of fantastic work"
Is New Brunswick here understood as a single case, or more than one?

Re: ACF - how much has it helped with understanding of these processes? How is it limiting?

What should governments do?

Questions and discussion

How did policy-oriented learning influence policy change?

Re: worst-case scenarios

Diamond mine in the NWT
Environmental disaster, corporate misbehaviour, murder, love triangles, sex
Mount Polley - see videos online
We can learn from such cases
Mining culture and the oil and gas culture
Mining: really risk-taking, "think about things in a way that we don't"
People at the top of the industry
Mining company trying to deter downstream competitor by deliberately contaminating the river with arsenic
"You gotta stop putting arsenic in the water! It's not fair play!"
"We need really progressive frameworks where you consider what the corporations are doing - They are not restoring the environment to its previous state. That's a myth. Fracking is terrifying. They don't know the consequences. They don't know the cost"
You need hooks to keep people within your framework

Re: New Brunswick

There could be a policy feedback from past breaches of trust
There was contact between opponents and New York-based advocacy groups

Re: policy learning, and usefulness of ACF

How do you measure policy learning?
Worked with references to other jurisdictions in the new 40-page draft framework, which had another 40 pages of references
Extensive discussions with other regulators, trips

Were politicians actually learning, or was it just confirmation bias?

Interview question: how uncertain were you when you began the process

Millar: "I straddle the line between positivist and post-positivist - undergrad in women's studies and critical theory"

Re: climate change

Much less concern than about groundwater contamination
CC concern peaked in 2012, fell in 2013
Chief officer of public health came out with a report on health risks in 2012
Opponents also devoted more effort to making the case about economic risks
Different from the standard environment/economy debate
Questioned claims about jobs produced

NB 2014 election "decided on the shale gas file"

Spatial support, re: ridings
Urban-rural issues
Leah Stokes' work on wind in Ontario

Re: liability, causality hard to prove when you go beyond a single mine

Even with the BP Deepwwater Horizon disaster there were three major companies involved

NB fracking lease was 1/7th the size of the province

Decided before any consultation or regulation process
Set things going in a controversial way

ACF the wrong framework?

Fracking is like nuclear waste - top geologists identified a location in France, below a village famous for its cheese
"It doesn't matter if you get the science right, it's about the process and how you consult"
Re: fracking, YouTube videos of burning water have more influence than peer-reviewed science

"When the committee comes after a political decision it never goes well"

Re: risk

Hoping to confirm industry values, policy learning, persuasion
Wants to build a theory around discourse and risk, and how they inform politics

Government of NWT "truly interested in evidence-based policy-making"

Bureaucrats and politicians work together closely
Water board, land board, different departments have distinct perspectives
Liability in NWT is controlled by small, powerful organization
Lack of awareness in some departments about what is happening in others

Multifaceted risks: environmental among others

"The Modernization of Energy Systems: Policy Opportunities and Challenges" 2015-06-04 1:30pm-3:00pm

Stephen Bird (Clarkson University) : Implications of Political Ideology for Smart Housing, Efficiency, and Energy Modernization
Kathryn Harrison (University of British Columbia) : The Comparative Politics of Carbon Taxes Maya Jegen (Université du Québec à Montréal), Xavier D. Philion (Université du Québec à Montréal) : Understanding the missing political dimension in social acceptance: the case of smart meters
Ian Rowlands (University of Waterloo), Gord Stephen (University of Waterloo) : The Smart Grid and Low-Income Residential Ratepayers: Emerging Challenges and Opportunities

Present: Douglas Macdonald, Kathryn Harrison, George Hoberg

Bird

Smart Housing Project

Buildings with substantial complements of sensors

Don't know in advance what data will be useful
Experiment: vary level of feedback to individuals, vary whether you have a motivation and goal-setting session
Both together expected to be most effective

Goal: to internalize motivation

Shower orb - green for five minutes, then orange, then red

Record shower: 37 minutes

Pro-social messaging important

Ideology, motivation, and behaviour

What influences environmental attitudes and behaviour?

Interaction between political ideology (economic and social) and self-determined environmental motivation

Survey-based, self-reported

If you put a pro-environmental label on a CFL bulb, more on the left buy them but those in the centre and on the right reach negatively and buy fewer

Self determination theory - psychology

Six subscales of motivation
Williams and Deci 1996
Pelletier et al. 1998
Range from amotivation to intrinsic motivation
'External regulation' in the middle

Surveys undertaken through Amazon's Mechanical Turk

Supposedly a reasonably unbiased sample

Structural equation modelling methodology

Nature of motivation highly important

How can operators of large buildings improve efficiency?

Specifically, by modifying ideology and motivation in order to affect environmental behaviour
Privacy concerns -"creepy"
Some people object to being targeted for messaging according to these sorts of criteria

Harrison

"Carbon taxation in the European Union" - Ireland and France

Strong expert opinion carbon taxes are desirable

Ireland and France implemented it in quite different ways

Timing also different

Better than cap-and-trade

We already have a tax system, so we can set one up within months
Allocating permits under cap-and-trade can take years
Taxes tend to be more transparent than cap-and-trade, which allows you to counter regressive impacts
In many cases, cap-and-trade is more regressive

Big challenge: politics

Unpopular with voters who don't like being taxed, and don't understand how environmental taxes work
Also tend to be unpopular with big polluters

France

Nicolas Hulot (TV talk show host) challenges presidential contenders - 2006
"Pact ecologique", including a carbon tax
All candidates endorsed it
Sarkozy elected, established expert commission
Commission recommended revenue-neutral tax with few exceptions
Bill that emerged from assembly had many exemptions, including for alfalfa growers
Any 60 senators or deputies can appeal a bill to the constitutional court
Court overturned carbon tax in 2009
Sarkozy promised to rework and try again
March 2010, changed tack: will only establish a carbon tax with the rest of the EU
After Hollande elected, adjusted existing taxes on fossil fuels in their first year
Established common carbon price of 7 Euros per tonne
Revenues used to reduce payroll taxes as part of a stimulus strategy
Current French environment minister may not be a big fan of her own government's carbon tax

Ireland

First attempt in 2004 -had to reduce emissions to comply with Kyoto Protocol
Large polluters covered by the EU ETS
Remaining emitters have low price elasticity, so small tax has little effect
Gov't decided to buy carbon credits internationally instead
Post-2009, desperation for revenues
Greens held balance of power to keep government alive
2011, Fine Gael raised tax, extended to coal and peat

Theoretical framework

Electoral incentives - electoral attention, interest group composition
Opposition from large polluters

Eurobarometer data on salience of environment/climate across time

Climate not a high-profile issue among Irish general public

Very little public attention to the environment in France by the time of their second carbon tax

Sectoral breakdown of GHG emissions

Ireland more from electricity generation (France nuclear), but already covered by ETS
Agriculture a big part of Ireland's GHGs
"Farmers are well organized and deeply opposed to carbon taxes"

Institutions account for delayed impact of opinion, and the French reversal

Single transferable vote in Ireland - made the Green Party part of cabinet
Hyperpresidential system in France - attention focused on presidential election candidates

Policy spillovers

Recession had opposite effect in Ireland v. France
Ireland needed money to bail out banks
In France, removed incentive (public attention / pressure faded)
Ireland needed to raise revenue, suffered much deeper recession

Economic incentives most influential

Convinced Irish government and successors to implement and maintain tax

Conclusions

1) Different windows of opportunity lead to different paths

Public opinion + institutions + leadership
Windows also close (Sarkozy retreat)

2) Economic/fiscal incentives most influential

France - round 2 - needed the money to pay for payroll cuts, carbon tax kept under the RADAR
Transfer from households to firms, with the encouragement of unions

Practical lessons

1) Ireland thought it unthinkable not to meet their Kyoto target

2) Carbon taxes are still a hard sell politically, especially initially

3) No single path: different windows of opportunity

4) Greens tend to win elections, implement carbon taxes, and then get wiped out at the next election

5) Carbon taxes may be easier to justify on groups aside from climate change, which should perhaps not be mentioned

6) Stealth taxes can work, and experience less opposition

Jegen

"Understanding the missing political dimension in social acceptance"

Smart meters often seen as a key energy reduction solution

Often deployed by large companies without public consultation

Unpopular - privacy and security concerns, fear of higher bills

Lots of opposition in California, BC, and Quebec

Hydro Quebec to install 3.8 M

Opposition from many different stakeholders, and different forms of collective action

Rollout continuing regardless

Does social acceptance matter in deploying such technologies?

State electricity monopoly has the power to impose it, even with some opposition

Social acceptance literature

History of social opposition to energy, especially nuclear
Many case studies on social acceptance, different countries and disciplines
Known do's and don'ts

Policy monopoly - Baumgartner and Jones

Definable institutional structure responsible for policy-making in a subsystem
Powerful supporting idea - policy image

Challengers have tried to shift policy venues to get their message through and circumvent the monopoly

Opposition is manifold: the public at large, municipalities, consumer and environmental organizations, trade unions, grassroots movements

Distrust toward technology, and toward the policy monopoly

Three key actors: Hydro Quebec (major industry and taxpayer), government of Quebec, Regie De L'Energie (energy regulator with quasi-judicial status, supervises energy distribution but not production)

Hydro Quebec connected to modernization, Quebecois nationalism

Conclusions

As long as there is no strong and unified opposition, it is very difficult for social acceptance to matter

Rowlands

Smart grid and low-income residential ratepayers

People working on energy poverty - significant share of people in Ontario have trouble paying their electricity bill, face being cut off, have a hard time dealing with increased rates

Smart grid - transition in energy system, integration of technology

Little communication between these two domains

Smart grid focus has been on technophiles and early adopter - little for ordinary consumers

Does technological development have the capacity to benefit low-income consumers

Electricity poverty support activities in Ontario

12% in low income households
New support scheme (means tested) will go to about 500,000 people
Waterloo Region Energy Assistance Program
Free home audits, weather stripping

Ontario "the world's living laboratory for some elements of smart grid deployment"

Mandatory deployment
Time-based pricing

Global agenda-setter for the last 3-4 years

Electricity services may grow more important in a low-carbon world, doing more of transportation and heating

Historical analogues

Deployment of phones, radios, TVs, cable, computers, internet access
The internet may be the closest analogy - people may all have access, but not all have means to take full advantage

Split-incentive issue: landlords v. renters

Decisions about upgrades have to be negotiated
Raises issues of power relations

Dynamic pricing may become the norm

In place to an extent in Ontario
Global studies on impact on low-income households very inconsistent
Sometimes "peakier", sometimes "less peaky"
In Ontario, lower use energy users are a bit worse off
Equity implications when you alter pricing systems

To what degree are the loads in your household discretionary

Run dishwasher after 7pm, etc
Heating a critical energy service in low income housing
Much social housing in Ontario uses electric baseboard heating (cheaper to build, though more expensive to run)

Feedback devices

PeakSaver plus, with in-home display
One-size-fits-all from each local provider
Problematic given variation in energy literacy
The challenge of the programmable VCR

Installation engagement - don't just install meters without speaking with resident

Data deluge

Privacy and creepiness
Data could be used to provide services, diagnose system problems

Smart grid may be "first step to the connected home"

Security, health, etc

"Utility death spiral" via reducing energy use and encouraging local production

Discussant

Re: importance of opposition

Joyce McClaren - opposition to wind power in various European contexts

Policy design v. implementation in case of smart meters

Is deployment all about implementation?

Re: using university residences as a lab

Important to understand link between ideology and environmental motivation
Growing involvement of American evangelicals in the climate change movement
Time spent outdoors in childhood as an effect on ideology?

Re: developing countries, you see people working on poverty / energy poverty

Frugal innovation, like solar water heaters
Innovation driven by price and making it accessible to the poorest

Demographics of low-income people in Ontario - variation in responses to policy by age, education, etc

Interesting that Ireland not hostile to buying carbon credits, unlike Canada, and was also determine to hit its Kyoto target, unlike Canada

Justification of Ireland and France as cases?

Just that they both tried carbon taxes around the same time?

Canada's current government stresses it's environment or jobs, not both

Questions and discussion

1) Re: scale of motivations, didn't include outright hostility. There are people who rip out the fuel system of their cars and alter them to burn coal...

They count as 'amotivation' - scale doesn't differentiate

Scales often include 'prefer not to answer'

Literature is seeking to understand distinctions between types of motivation

People can express high motivation for anti-environmental activities

Section in environmental values lets them express hostility toward the environment

Survey doesn't collect data on perspectives people have on environmental organizations

There are 'conservationists' who definitely don't see themselves as 'environmentalists', who value hunting and fishing, and who hate Greenpeace and other iconic green NGOs

2) Perceived health risk from radio frequencies as a cause for hostility to smart meters

Definitely present

People also have privacy / security concerns, and objected that the smart meters chosen are built by a non-Quebec company

Also, fires caused by malfunctioning smart meters in California and Quebec

The main source of opposition to smart meters and CFLs: people hate it

Struggling so much with small innovations
We need to get to the bigger, more challenging things - but how

Ontario: decent policy design, bad implementation

Derek Peters: "decide, announce, defend" the approach used by BC Hydro

Decided to exempt it from the utilities commission
Led to court cases
Ultimately had to allow people to opt-out
Having that as an option may facilitate time-of-use rates (heavy energy users probably more likely to opt out)

Quebec government unwilling to provide anyone to give an interview about smart meters - redirected researcher to Natural Resources Canada

"The Politics of Energy and Climate Policy in the Harper Era" 2015-06-04 3:15pm-4:45pm

Monica Gattinger (University of Ottawa) : From Energy Superpower to Energy Super Problem: The Harper Government's Approach to Energy 2006-2015
George Hoberg (University of British Columbia) : Pipeline Resistance as Political Strategy: 'Blockadia' and the Future of Climate Politics (PPT)
Douglas Charles Macdonald (University of Toronto) : Explaining the Collapse of the Canadian National Climate Change Process, 1998-2002 (PPT)

Present: Douglas Macdonald

Gattinger

Transition from Harper minority to majority governments

"The primary aim of the government has been really focusing in on market access"
Oil sands, gas
Insufficient action on climate, in part, has stymied this aim

Last five years: rapid and widescale transition in North American energy markets

Transformation in North American energy politics

Particularly, development of hydrocarbons

Harper government has been shooting itself in the foot on market access

Energy policy represents an area of wicked policy problems, with multiple barriers to policy-making

Governments are trying to identify the balance point between multiple energy imperatives

Environment, energy development, energy consumption, security imperatives (critical energy infrastructure)

Major federal role in security

Transformation of North American energy markets

Five years ago, people thought North America would have insufficient LNG and need to import it, began building import terminals for that purpose
Result of development of tight oil and shale gas (resources known earlier, but technology made it possible and profitable)
Big shift in the US energy picture: now the world's largest oil and gas producer
Expect to be net energy producers by 2020

Relevance for Canadian energy going forward?

Calls into question the size and viability of the US market for Canadian energy
The US may go from being a customer to a competitor

Number of pipeline proposals before regulators or in the works

Context has changed for both Canada and the US

US reversal of energy policy since 1970s: we're an energy importer, so energy security is a major driver of policy-making
In Canada, plans to export to the United States now being called into question

Transformation also in North American energy politics: fierce, polemical, nature of opposition going beyond place-based local to more principled forms of opposition primarily articulated around climate change

What has the Harper government done?

Primary objective: Market, Environment, Security, Social Acceptance (MESS)
Top concern: market access
Keystone XL, Asian markets

Have seriously neglected social acceptance and support in their policy style

2006-11 minorities

Energy not as prominent
Later shift driven by shale revolution, economic crises
One reference to energy in 2006 platform, in reference to the 'Made in Canada' climate policy

2007 'Turning the Corner' plan

"Clearly reduced Canada's targets"

2008 "Clean Energy Superpower"

Discussing cap-and-trade policy
Environment "much higher on the public agenda"
Cap-and-trade knocked off the agenda
Opposition to oil sands heating up at home and abroad

Majority: 2011-15

Energy propelled ever-higher on policy agendas
Continuing shale revolution
Price differential between Brent and WTI
Real focus on getting oil sands resources to market

2012 Economic Action Plan

"Responsible Resource Development"
Intended to get projects through approval processes more rapidly, reduced environmental assessment
Heavily critiqued for putting market access ahead of environmental protection

Combative style, not conciliatory

Gov't has led, but perhaps not in the right way
Joe Oliver's open letter: foreign radicals, demonizing groups with legitimate concerns about energy development
Gov't has distanced itself from meaningful action on climate - Called a carbon tax insane, regulations on oil and gas sector crazy
Development clearly trumps environment for the government, but this has stymied the government's market access aims

Permitting of individual projects necessary to achieve market access aims

Rather than putting shovels in the ground, they shot themselves in the foot

Hoberg

"Pipeline resistance as a political strategy"

Klein's Blockadia

"Paper is draftier than usual for a conference paper"

Dilemma: Does the strategy that has proven so effective at strengthening the climate movement set us up for the kind of success we need? [didn't have time to copy verbatim]

Blockading big dams, wind power, etc

Hard to mobilize on climate change

Wicked problem structure
Scientific consensus, and also consensus among social scientists on why we respond so badly to the problem
Uncertainty, spatial and temporal inconsistency, global tragedy of the commons (Mancur Olsen, logic of collective action)

David Victor's book on climate politics [ASK FOR TITLE]

Psychological barriers

Too large in magnitude, long timeframes, people far away
"We are well-suited to protecting our clans from immediate threats"

Anthony Leiser... at Yale - re: depth of psychological problem

Lindblom: "the privileged position of business"

Enormously wealthy industry actors manipulating political process
Consumer resistance to price increases
"Policies that restrict economic growth are doomed to fail"
Is continued economic growth possible?

Conservative social movement with a life of it's own - anti-climate change conspiracy theorists

Dysfunctional governing institutions

UN requires unanimity for a global agreement -not feasible
Polarized US Senate
Canada - much left to provinces, decentralized; first past the post electoral system allows for easy domination of government (thwarting the majority impulse to act)

Too hard to act, because of the structure of our political institutions

Options: localize the issue (tankers on the West Coast), allies with legal power, exaggerate threat, make threat concrete, create villains (divestment - deliberate strategy - big oil is the bad guy, not drivers of cars)

Agrees with 95% of Klein's book: "Capitalism vs. The Climate"

Has taken what would historically be seen as NIMBY as a progressive social movement: blockadia
Legitimized by the idea of a carbon budget, conceptually and scientifically
Strategic advantage: avoids some mobilization challenges - effective resource working to an extent to hurt the fossil fuel sector and governments

4 oil sands cases: Keystone, Northern Gateway, Kinder Morgan, Energy East

Framework: about political risk

Do you have access to a veto point?
Is there existing infrastructure (like Kinder Morgan and Energy East)
Place-based environmental risks people care about (tanker spills)
Geographic separation of risks and benefits? (BC faces all the environmental risk, virtually all of benefit goes to Alberta)

Affect the relative power of project opponents

KeystoneXL - aquifer a place-based risk

Route has been shifted in part

Group protesting southern leg coined the term "Blockadia"

Northern leg stymied, southern part built

Northern Gateway: exhaustive review process that changed Canadian politics, Joe Oliver's letter - fundamental shift West of the Rockies, BC and the rest of the federation

Changed environmental laws
Approved, but nobody thinks it's going to be built
"Virtually all observers believe the project is dead"

Unanimous opposition of First Nations west of Prince George

Consolidated litigation with FN groups, big unions, environmental groups

Kinder Morgan

Meant to be "the easy one"
"Explosion of protest"

Hoberg attended Burnaby Mountain protest and spoke there several times

Major municipal organizations have come out in opposition

Strategic perils of blockadia: what happens when place-based risks don't galvanize resistance?

We need energy system transformation with mind-boggling amount of new infrastructure (our biggest challenge)
Same tactics can be used to stop clean energy projects

Keystone now seen as all about climate

Obama's climate test
Original State Department report said it would make no GHG difference

Oil trains are not hard to block

Site C Clean Energy Project - 1100 MW

Limited GHGs from decomposition, but almost zero-carbon
Has storage capability
Help get Alberta off coal...
Provide energy storage for wind
Approved by the government of BC, but everybody opposes it (environmental groups, First Nations)

Big BC issues: site C, LNG, pipelines

First Nations ultimatum: either Site C or LNG, but not both

Wind energy in Ontario

Sense of place has slowed the clean energy transition in Ontario
Has also happened in other jurisdictions: transmission line for solar power in California blocked

Can we sincerely incorporate place-based concerns without paralyzing siting process?

Should lower levels of government have a veto?
Can activists have "institutional principles"?

Justin Trudeau: "Governments grant permits - Communities grant permission."

[Q: LOCATION-BASED POLITICAL EFFECTS RE: NUCLEAR POWER COULD BE INTERESTING TO INCORPORATE INTO THIS ANALYSIS]

Macdonald

Challenge of Canadian climate and energy federalism and the collapse of the Canadian national climate change process between 1998 and 2002

With Benjamin Donato-Woodger and Stefan Hostetter

Based on 2009-13 research project

Contents:

The need for national, co-ordinated climate and energy policy
The proposed Canadian Energy Strategy
Collapse of the NCCP

Federal government cannot act alone in this area; and the provinces cannot act alone

Why were we unable to put together a national program before 2002, and what implications does that have for current efforts at changing Canadian national energy strategy

Climate as a global collective-action issue

Countries need to take on targets, then allocate emissions among different sources
Sources often geographically concentrated
How are you allocating the cost of adjustment on a geographic basis - Creates issues with subnational governments

Widely-differing costs of reduction between oil-producing provinces on others

Provinces are highly motivated -Won't leave policy to the federal government

Federal government likely has jurisdiction over CO2, as with pollution

The federal government has effectively never acted on this issue
Provinces have acted, which constrains and affects future choices
Oil-producing provinces have not yet really acted

How do you achieve a single target, how do you have an international commitment to one target?

Alberta still planning emission increases

We need national policy-making: necessarily intergovernmental

Intergovernmental capacity varies among policy fields
Large provinces have often challenged the federal government on environmental policy
Interests of provinces differ
High-stakes issue

Canadian energy strategy, 2007-15

Focus on energy -Climate has to be included

Federal government out, then in, then out again
Weak institutional forum, provinces can opt out
Inherently distributive (pipeline costs v. benefits; differing provincial energy source mixes)

Federal government faces a lack of provincial trust

Ratification of Kyoto ended the 1998-2002 NCP

Opted for unilateral regulation using federal law (an approach that will not work)
Still no movement on federal regulation of the oil and gas industry
Canada has unilateral policy-making by all governments

Emissions increases in Alberta and Saskatchewan are undercutting reductions elsewhere

Four actors with different interests: federal government, Alberta, Ontario, Quebec

Alberta most threatened by effective climate change policy, and therefore the most willing to engage
Scale of the threat forces this
Ontario felt threatened, but less
Quebec wanted to get credit for hydro, worried Alberta would cut a deal with the federal

1997 First Ministers Meeting - adopts principle of "no region undue cost"

2001 US pulls out of Kyoto

Dec. 2002, federal government ratifies Kyoto over objections from all provinces

NCCP ends

Explaining the failure

Weak institutions of Canadian federalism
Big cost differences among provinces
This is a situation which we cannot escape
Actions of the federal government primarily explain failure: unwilling to use spending powers to make distribution more equitable, effectively ended national process and went unilateral
Ontario not a very helpful player
Alberta perhaps bears some responsibility -Acting out of economic self-interest -Willing to engage with process until effectively kicked out of the province
We need to find a way to make costs more equitably shared to make them more politically acceptable

Lessons

We must do whatever we can to strengthen federalist institutions - with a formal agreement
We need a federal government role
All involved must recognize and explicitly address the inherent distributive implications, like the EU did in two round of burden-sharing

Discussant

Coordination and cooperation are needed to reach sustainability objectives

Papers acknowledge the importance of variations in interests

Re: Macdonald's paper: big challenge is federal-provincial coordination and burden-sharing

Jean Chretien failed to recognize this, imposed his views instead
Strategic mistake - lost the support of the provinces
Would be good to provide more information on interview sources
Re: federal=provincial coordination, did Chretien go unilateral because he knew there was no hope of consensus?
Re: Canadian Energy Strategy, current situation, what's feasible right now?
Skeptical about Ecofiscal proposals
Could movement on the subnational level be the most effective for reducing emissions

Re: Gattinger: Harper shooting himself in the foot, by denying the access to markets which it most desired

Re: social acceptance, could comment on institutionalized ways to participate - Amendment to Canadian Environmental Assessment Act intentionally curtailed opportunities for public participation
More a matter of policy style, or institutions?
Broader question: is this a problem in other policy areas too and, if so, how has Harper been in power for 10 years

Re: Hoberg: Rise of energy in the policy and political agendas

Blockadia makes collective action more tangible by focusing on infrastructure
Risk that large-scale issues like energy transition and climate change will fall out of sight

No opposition to the import of oil from the east into Quebec, from Algeria

But there is opposition to bringing it in from the west via Energy East

Are we witnessing the mobilization of local groups that would not have mobilized 30 years ago

Or did they mobilize because they have no alternative strategies - no access to the political system?
"If so, democracy is really in trouble"

Is Blockadia a unified movement, or a disconnected set of local groups: not one movement but several

Structural power of the oil and gas industry not specifically addressed in 2/3 papers

What role does this lobby play? How do they affect policy styles?

Responses to discussant

Re: whether the Chretien government was right to go unilateral, David Anderson (Minister at the time) had become convinced that Alberta was going to spin it out forever

Counterargument: we have to deal with Alberta, and you can't do it when they aren't at the table with you
Alberta is undermining the climate efforts of all other provinces

Could bottom-up work?

Counterargument: problem of undercutting by Alberta
"Extremely unlikely that action in other provinces will add up to a total effective Canadian reduction of emissions while Alberta is undercutting"

We now have an opportunity to bring Alberta back to the table

Re: Canadian Newstand news paper stories, approach to measuring stories mentioning both pipelines and references to climate

20-30% of stories on Energy East or Northern Gateway involve climate: not the dominant discussion in either case

Canada has never had such a complex disagreement and disagreement about energy policy

Pipeline debates of 1950s led to Borden Commission
Mackenzie Valley - Berger Commission
Role for the federal government in matters of national significance

Are we prepared to move energy in this country or not? And what is the equitable mix of risk and reward?

National-level problem, difficult for provinces to move without federal action

Re: aboriginals - increasing recognition of the need for revenue sharing

On climate, we are increasingly seeing a quite receptive Alberta

Government and opinion leaders are seeing that lack of action on climate is getting in the way of market access
There has to be movement on climate
Focus on individual projects may draw attention from the larger conversation that needs to happen

Re: NRCAN - increasing recognition that what they're doing hasn't been working

"They still don't have shovels in the ground"
Forestry controversy in BC - War of the Woods - something big needs to get done to resolve this
There is beginning to be a recognition that incremental approaches have not been working
There is now a glimmer of recognition that we need to take a different approach, but changing tack carries major political risks for policy-makers

Questions and discussion

1) Hoberg - re: local-level vetoes part of a much bigger issue about democracy and politics: "the anarchist problem"

Anarchists can block everything, but they disrupt the structures of collective action and cannot build anything
Political fora that allow tradeoffs of costs and benefits get removed
How do we get clean wind energy out of Texas? We need large-scale energy corridors, and there is big resistance in the US
In the case of US railroads, opposition was addressed through eminent domain

Re: pipelines and authority, clear to environmental lawyer that the federal government has full power to cite and build pipelines, despite provincial and local opposition

Christy Clark threatened to deny electricity, and/or necessary forestry permits
The major issue: aboriginal rights and title
"Inevitable that First Nations will end up with a veto", via the Supreme Court case on the Northern Gateway Pipeline

2) Current government scrapped NRTEE

Should we re-create it? Or do we need a new forum?

Could be helpful, but what would the process be?

Universities can help convene stakeholders
Undertaking applied research on these topics "on both the what and the how"
How to get political authorities to cooperate?
How to get social acceptance for clean energy?

3) Hoberg: Re: Blockadia, they are undertaking various strategies - do they differ in effectiveness, and if so how?

Re: policy design and implementation: NWT approach, based on architecture planning process
120 stakeholders, when they embarked upon short- and long-term energy planning, in response to major problems with forest fires and low reservoir levels

Re: Macdonald, "schizophrenia at federal government level because NRCan and Environment Canada share the lead"

Did Chretien make his choice on Kyoto defiantly because he was retiring?

Provincial government jurisdiction and First Nations rights and title may both be real veto points for pipelines

"The people that matter are not talking about how to distribute revenues from a carbon tax"

Even with the best possible national process, will people be wiling to comply with clean energy development at the local level?

There was a lack of inter-provincial agreement on what the intergovernmental climate change negotiations were even for: to decide whether to act, or how to act

Reflected in split between NRCan and Environment, each with a set of allies

Chretien pushed out by Martin - Saw ratification as a legacy issue

4) Blockadia dilemma for clean energy development - Is it possible to have a differentiated perspective, where some forms are seen as more justified than others - Science on climate clear, re: 2 ˚C, carbon bubble, need for a clean energy transition

Necessarily based in abstract case that climate change is important, pulls us back away from the local focus

Hoberg was hoping people would help him find ways why the dilemma he sees is less problematic, not more

Some possibility of a "transformative process"

5) Re: potential Supreme Court case on Northern Gateway -Rachel Notley said it wasn't going to happen

Notley seems sensitive to international public opinion
"There is a battle in Europe which you didn't mention"
Where does public opinion factor in, nationally and internationally?