Executive Styles in Canada: Cabinet Structures and Leadership
Practices in Canadian Government, Luc Bernier, Keith Brownsey and
Michael Howlett, eds., Toronto: University of Toronto Press, for The
Institute of Public Administration of Canada, 2005, pp. xiii, 282.Executive Styles in Canada is a welcome addition to the
literature on Canadian political leadership and provincial politics,
essentially raising the question of the power of the premier, central
agencies, and executive council in each of the Canadian provinces. To this
end the editors have organized the book in 13 chapters. The book begins
with a survey of the whole debate over “court government”
raised by Donald Savoie, and the development model of Canadian cabinets
advanced by Stefan Dupré and Christopher Dunn. The second chapter
is given over to Savoie to make his case with respect to the federal
government. His argument, by now familiar, is that by the 1990s the real
power in the federal government is in the hands of the “prime
minister and a small group of carefully selected courtiers” (17).
Executive dominance of the legislature in the Westminster model has given
way to even greater centralization. Power flows not from ministers, but
from the prime minister. While Savoie does not address the seeming anomaly
of the Paul Martin minority government of 2004–05, in which the
House of Commons and even the opposition parties suddenly became relevant
again, one gets the sense that he would argue that this is a temporary
development rather than a more durable departure from the direction of the
last 30 years.
„Zabić Indianina w dziecku”. O kulturowym ludobójstwie w Kanadzie i sprawiedliwości tranzycyjnej z Kate Korycki rozmawia Anna Zawadzka [“Kill the Indian in the Child.” On cultural genocide and transitional justice in Canada. Kate Korycki in an interview by Anna Zawadzka]
