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Canadian Transportation Research Forum i.e Groupe de Recherches sur les ransports u Canada GOING THE DISTANCE Franchir le fil d'arrivee PROCEEDINGS of the 29th vo- Annual Meeting rp, ‘Cq. .110 ACTES de la 29ieme Conference annuelle 683 Royal Commissions and Canada's Transport Policy Community: The Changing Dynamics of Political Innovation Dr. Anthony Penl Department of Political Science University of Calgary Calgary, AB T2N 1N4 Introduction: Placing Royal Commissions in Context 11°oneYal Commissions have been a mainstay of Canadian transportation policy making. bod e In each generation since the First World War, government has charged such a eff,Y to develop a new transportation strategy. This paper takes stock of the latest such the "Royal Commission on National Passenger Transportation" chaired by Louis e‘,/a7ullian• The potential influence of the Hyndman commission's report will be mated in a comparative context that spans both time and space. By connecting the inYtolitian Commission's efforts with the work of its predecessors, one gains insight Lue domestic political forces that will serve to either constrain or facilitate its 'ence on reinventing government's role in Canadian transportation. Earli anal er. roYal commissions have influenced policy reform through a combination of of thYttcal insight and political resonance with the interests and ideas held by members and transportpolicy community, those government, industry, and civic organizations (109nulviduals who perceive a stake in the transport sector. Coleman and Skogstad have characterized the policy community as a locus of politics, the societal space Where th ti_ Problems are contested and solutions are crafted.1 Hayward (1991:401) notes the re policy community approach to comparing policies cross-nationally "usually fits acts better than do rival approaches." inprodeanada's transport sector, the changing political and economic organization of of e licters, consumers, and government itself has led to a very different interpretation thatacil royal commission's analysis, due in some measure to the ideas and interests implegreeted such findings. No commission's blueprint for policy reform has been d as proposed. In each era, certain recommendations were incorporated into com,P?licy while others were left to gather dust on library shelves. The policy implp unnY framework suggests that the connection between recommendations and apriv 111entation is not random. Rather, by focusing on the way in which public and it_is.„130,..sdsecibliesion makers interact in the period following release of commission findings, menu of innovations nu to predict which policy items will be ordered off the which ones will be left untested. If the resPonse pattern predicted by the policy community model holds true, then the arilani`y1T. an commission will not impact transport policy based upon the strength of its leag°1s. Per se. The attributes that will motivate policy actors (e.g., administrative 'I's in the federal and provincial bureaucracy, political parties, government, and 1 Perl 684 organized transport consumers and producers) to take up a particular recommendation for reform turn out to lie mainly in these recipients of policy advice, rather than in the donor's intentions. Focusing on prior episodes of transport policy development that followed the release of royal commission reports will help sharpen the image of a policy community and its function in the selection and implementation of reforms. But given the increasing openness of Canada's economy, the transport policy community may have taken on a new orientation for this latest round of reform. Instead of assuming that the ideas and interests of various public and private policymakers are formed within a domestic frame of reference, one must now take the perspective of world markets and global competition into account. Contrasting the Hyndman commission's recommendations with the work of a contemporary French effort, the Debat national sur les infrastructures du transport, will offer an international counterpoint to the issues raised here in Canada. Not only can looking across the Atlantic sharpen our understanding of how new transport options relate to their respective policy community, but looking abroad will also highlight the new economic influences on the Canadian transport policy community. As a result of heightened international competition, both Canada and France will wind up choosing new transport policy options based upon an unprecedented inflow of signals from abroad. Thus, exotic foreign options Will increasingly influence innovations on the domestic policy menu. The analytical horizon set out by the Hyndman commission makes periodic reference to the global economic forces that will influence Canada's transportation sector in years to, come, but it does not identify how the policy community will interpret those signals and value the stakes associated with the outcomes. The economic analysis that forms the Hyndman commission's principal research tool tends to focus on the degree of insulation from market signals that regulatory barriers and subsidies can create. NOW that those markets are becoming global, the quality as well as the quantity of insulation between Canadian transport practices and those elsewhere becomes increasinglY important. The Hyndman commission's recommendations can be thought of as opening a new policy making episode. But as previous episodes have demonstrated, the timing and direction of actual change depend on an interaction of political and economic forces that emanate from well beyond the commission's analysis. How Earlier Policy Communities Greeted Recommendations for Change The Hyndman Commission is the fourth royal commission to investigate Canada's transportation policy in the twentieth century. The varied fates of its predecessors suggest that the balance of power between governments and societal interests, transport investors, consumers, and producers, can serve as useful indicators of MILT policy options will be developed and implemented and which ones will languish In, obscurity. As Canada's transport policy community has evolved, each royal commission confronted a different set of opportunities and constraints for poi< innovation. In 1917, the (Drayton-Acworth) "Royal Commission to Inquire into Railways and Transportation" released its findings into a transport policy community where the, national government dominated all other interests and organizations. World War I created an unprecedented centralization of political authority in Ottawa, turning.the federal cabinet into a temporary "constitutional dictatorship" with near absolute polical powers (Smiley, 1980: 50). At the same time that Ottawa's power wasover-extendeerrcli at a mod apogee, the economic demands of wartime had pushed an already 2 685 e rrailroad industry to the brink of financial collapse. This royal commission's ric°111rnendations to nationalize the privately owned Canadian Northern Railway, fand Trunk Railway, and Grand Trunk Pacific Railway thus came at a time when 6uvernrnent was exceptionally powerful in relation to transportation producers. Tc_hi.s.. configuration government and a weak private sector td of a powerful central enitates a "state directed" policy network in which government was in a position to overcome,. ..r any challenge to its policy preferences. And those preferences were in near iect harmony with the royal commission's findings. Ottawa sought to assert a new ,,,,u,.1r 11 of economic sovereignty through railway nationalizion. The goal of the new 1:41cY was to use nationalization as a policy instrument that could impose the costs of waY reorganization on the British investors who owned the Grand Trunk and Grand u `LII1c Pacific railways (Per!, 1994). This redistribution was needed to bail out oinestic financiers of the Canadian Northern Railway. Persuasive circumstantial evidencee suggests that government's activity in this state directed policy network )(tended to shaping the findings of the royal commission itself.2 Prom 1 , 917 through 1923, Ottawa continued to direct policy development in ,`"Piernenting- only those findings of the Drayton-Acworth commission that ,scorresponded example, Drayton and Acworth' a with government's preferences. For the power of appointments to the national railway's board of directors in existing directors was studiously ignored. Board members were appointed by the Cabinet°met, Withoutwithout advice from the Canadian National's sitting directors. A stat e directed policy network thus facilitates government autonomy in policy making, co_ when government's preferences either overlap with, or extend to, guiding a royal nZmission's analysis, the likelihood of translating favoured recommendations into 'funw_policies is quite high. Indeed the Drayton-Acworth commission's primary 'Ion was legitimating new policy that had been developed within the federal 8°veha,ernme n t . But as the balance of power between government and societial, a new policy network emerged to greet the next royal commission s findings.interinterests"tea, The 1,, • auth '.3us demonstrated that an economic crisis could not legitimate Ottawa's political des onty in the way that a wartime emergency had. For in peacetime, no matter how otrrate the economic circumstances were, Canadian federalism short circuited wa's public policy initiatives like unemployment insurance and interventionist pr eg,1 711 ation of the national economy. In the transport sector, this division of powers ented government