Julie M. Simmons – författare

Public reporting has been used experimentally in federal-provincial relations since the mid-1990s as an accountability mechanism to promote policy effectiveness, intergovernmental cooperation, and democratic legitimacy. Our understanding of how well it is working, however, remains limited to very specific policy sectors – even though this information is essential to policy makers in Canada and beyond. Overpromising and Underperforming? offers a deeper analysis of the use of new accountability mechanisms, paying particular attention to areas in which federal spending power is used.This is the first volume to specifically analyse the accountability features of Canadian intergovernmental agreements and to do so systematically across policy sectors. Drawing on the experiences of other federal systems and multilevel governance structures, the contributors investigate how public reporting has been used in various policy fields and the impact it has had on policy-making and intergovernmental relations.

Regional dynamics and federalism lie at the heart of Canadian politics. In Open Federalism Revisited, James Farney, Julie M. Simmons, and a diverse group of contributors examine the legacy of Prime Minister Stephen Harper in areas of public policy, political institutions, and cultural and economic development. This volume examines how these areas significantly affected the balance between shared rule and self-rule in Canada’s federation and how broader changes in the balance between the country’s regions affected institutional arrangements.Open Federalism Revisited engages with four questions: 1) Did the Harper government succeed in changing Canadian federalism in the way his initial promise of open federalism suggests he wanted to? 2) How big was the difference between the change Harper’s government envisioned and what it actually achieved? 3) Was the Harper government’s approach substantially different from that of previous governments? and 4) Given that Harper’s legacy is one of mostly incremental change, why was his ability to change the system so relatively minor?With attention to such topics as political culture, the role of political parties in regional integration, immigration policy, environmental policy, and health care, Open Federalism Revisited evaluates exactly how much changed under a prime minister who came into office with a clear desire to steer Canada back towards an older vision of federalism.