Queen's Policy Studies Series – serie

Canadian governments have not issued many policy statements on national defence since 1945. Most of those presented to Parliament were simple pronouncements of the status quo, especially after the early 1950s. Occasionally, however, ministers attempted to take defence policy in new, and sometimes radical, directions. This volume of Canada's National Defence critically examines five such sentinel policy papers: Defence 1947; White Paper on Defence, 1964; Defence in the 70s; Challenge and Commitment: A Defence Policy for Canadians; and Defence 1994. Douglas Bland stresses the importance of seeing the papers as declarations of intent made in the midst of ongoing policy and administration. Each white paper and defence policy, generally, had to contend with the attitudes and opinions of senior military and public service leaders who had, not surprisingly, their own views on policy. Ministers who challenged these views usually had to force policies forward against the opposition of soldiers and officials. In such circumstances, the policies seldom retain their original shape and intent once the minister departs. The history of policies declared in white papers, therefore, provides a glimpse at the realities of civil-military relations in Canada. The questions are, whose policy survives and why?

Volumes in the Canada's National Defence series present an annotated collection of government statements on defence policy and internal studies and reports prepared by senior military officers, defence officials, and consultants to governments and ministers from about 1945 to 1997. They trace the history of the ideas that give Canada's defence policy and defence organizations their unique character. If there is an enduring Canadian strategy for national defence, it is expressed in these papers. Volume 2: Defence Organization is a collection of eight documents on the organization of the national defence establishment. Covering the period from 1936 to 1990, the papers include Colonel Pope's Memorandum; The McGill Reports, The Glassco Report, Hellyer's Reorganization, The Management Review Group, The Fyffe Review, The Vance Review, and The Little/Hunter Study.

Countries studied include the United States, Switzerland, Australia, Austria, and Germany as examples of developed industrial societies; India and Malaysia as examples of multilingual and multicultural federations; Belgium and Spain as examples of emerging federal systems that illustrate bicommunal and asymmetrical approaches; and Czechoslovakia and Pakistan as examples of bicommunal federations that have failed. Watts compares the interaction of social diversity and political institutions, distribution of powers and finances, processes contributing to flexibility or rigidity in adjustment, extent of internal symmetry or asymmetry, degree of centralization and decentralization, character of representation in federal institutions, role of constitutions and courts, provisions for constitutional rights and secession, and pathology in federations.

Universal healthcare, perhaps the most distinguishing feature of Canada's public policy, is under fire, criticized for its heavy expense and questionable sustainability. In Where to From Here?: Keeping Medicare Sustainable, Stephen Duckett defends Canadian Medicare, addressing key concerns and refuting criticism, while also acknowledging flaws in the system and room for improvement. Duckett argues that while the fundamentals of Medicare are sound, a great deal of change is necessary to keep it sustainable. This book envisions a Medicare that is not static and simply responsive to problems, but an active, shifting system that keeps up with the evolving needs of a rapidly changing time. Duckett systematically lays out proposals for incremental change across a range of areas including primary care, hospitals, and the health workforce. Where to From Here? Presents an unflinching defense of one of Canada's iconic policies, while keeping a clear eye on the future of the nation's health.

Often when water is thought about, the focus is on problems, challenges, and crises. In November 2012, a group of researchers came together at Queen's University with the idea that it is more illuminating and constructive to think about water as an opportunity. Water as a Social Opportunity conveys the idea that the ways in which society responds to water-related challenges has the potential to yield a variety of positive outcomes not just for water, or the economy, but for society more broadly. Contributors consider water issues across Canada from this original perspective, and suggest this concept as a basis for developing a long-overdue national water strategy in Canada.