Economic Policy

This chapter identifies the differing policies and outcomes that Canadians and Americans have pursued with respect to economic growth, stabilization, and income distribution, and it analyzes several factors that can partially explain why divergent policy choices have emerged. The United States (U.S.) has recorded better productivity growth, while Canada has achieved a more sustainable fiscal policy, a less fragile financial sector, and more generous distributional policies. These contrasting outcomes are related to differences in size and geography, in political culture, and in political institutions. The analysis also considers how much it may be possible for each country’s policymakers to benefit from the other’s experiences. While identifying some lessons in this regard, the authors conclude that the sheer difference in the size of the two economies affects which economic policies can be expected to be effective. As a result, it is concluded that convergence in economic policymaking will remain somewhat limited.

Managing Diversity

Comparing the United States (U.S.) and Canadian responses to immigration in the context of each country’s civil rights struggles underscores the importance of history, geography, demography, and institutional structures in determining law and policy. Civil rights in the U.S. required a civil war over slavery and created an important role for courts to interpret constitutional mandates of equal treatment. Constitutionally enshrined individual rights came late to Canada and change occurred often through piecemeal legislative and bureaucratic action rather than litigation. Such differences in the trajectory of rights influence differences in immigration policy: active support and management of entry and integration in Canada versus an ambiguous welcome and laissez-faire incorporation in the U.S. Looking to the future, the political system and contentious views on immigration make policymaking difficult in the U.S., while Canadian policymakers enjoy more public support and flexibility as they take on the challenges and opportunities of immigration.

Electoral and Party Systems

Electoral laws are often regarded as the key factors structuring party competition. Yet, despite having very similar electoral systems, reflecting a shared colonial legacy, the United States (U.S.) and Canada have had very different party systems. For the past 100 years, the U.S. is perhaps the most consistently two-party system among the world’s major democracies, but during this same period Canada has experienced considerable variation in the number of parties represented in Parliament at the national level. This chapter addresses both the causes and consequences of this puzzling divergence in party systems in the two countries. We also compare a number of other features of the two nation’s electoral institutions, including campaign finance rules, rules for constituency boundary drawing, bicameralism, and the mechanism for the selection of the executive, with particular attention to the U.S. Electoral College and its alleged link with two-partyism. We also examine the policy consequences of the divergence in party systems and look at the way in which party competition in the two countries may affect voter turnout.

Political Culture and Values

A long intellectual tradition links the different historical experiences in Canada and the United States (U.S.) to continuing contrasts in their political cultures. New evidence from contemporary public opinion polls highlights more cultural similarities between nations than differences. In broad value priorities, Canadians and Americans are more similar to each other than to the citizens in most other advanced industrial democracies. Feelings of national identity and trust in government are also strikingly similar across these two nations. The norms of good citizenship are very comparable. And perhaps most surprising of all, images of the appropriate role of government overlap substantially. In short, the rhetoric of cultural differences is less apparent in the reality of public opinion surveys.

Assessing Performance

This chapter asks whether standard theories of differences between Canada and the United States (U.S.) can explain disparities in critical social and political outcomes in the two countries. On six measures of system performance (homicides, infant mortality, poverty, economic inequality, voter turnout, and women legislators) Canada consistently delivers far better outcomes than the U.S., but examination of subnational variation reveals a more complex pattern. Most indicators differ more among U.S. states than among Canadian provinces. Within the U.S., outcomes in the northern tier of states usually resemble those in neighboring Canada more closely than they do the rest of the U.S., especially the South, which performs worst by every measure. Standard institutional and cultural theories of differences between the countries cannot explain regional variation within the U.S. nor the similarity of Northern Border states to Canada. Although obvious differences between Canadian and U.S. political institutions help account for greater homogeneity among provinces, explaining the overall pattern may require invoking such causes as climate, ethnic diversity, size of political units, and subnational political cultures.

Federalism

The federal systems of Canada and the United States (U.S.) are difficult to define both individually and in comparative terms. They are similar in some ways yet very different in others. They have employed different strategies to deal with issues, diverse populations, and political structures. At the same time, both have relied on their constitutions to respond to change. Their strategies have moved between conflict and collaboration to attempt to support principles of democracy at different points in their historical development. Federalisms are highly variable; each is sui generis. Few if any generalizations about them are very robust. If this is true, then we have two quite different models to describe and explain. The task, then, is to understand how and in what ways they are similar and ask what common factors might explain why; and to understand the differences, and explain them.

Bureaucratic Influence and Policymaking

This chapter examines the influence that senior career officials in the bureaucracy have on the policy decisions that politicians make. It argues that institutional differences tend to facilitate more bureaucratic influence in Canada than in the United States (U.S.). Furthermore, it contends that the greater the influence of these career bureaucrats on the policy formulation process, the more carefully policy alternatives are considered—and, ultimately, the better the selected policy tends to perform overall. The chapter illustrates these arguments with a pair of historical vignettes concerning Canadian and American defense and environmental policymaking, as well as examples drawn from the Obama and Trump administrations and the Harper and Trudeau governments. It concludes with a discussion of the growing cross-national trend toward the politicization of the career bureaucracy.

Healthcare

The differences and similarities in health policy between the United States (U.S.) and Canada provide useful examples of how political institutions can shape democratic governance. These institutions have shaped both the obstacles to rapid welfare state expansion and the nature of the political reform coalitions that have been able to break through those obstacles. This chapter explores contending explanations of welfare state development, and then develops an institutional approach with which to parse though crucial differences between the U.S. and Canadian welfare states, and policy evolution in their healthcare systems. The chapter focuses on the role that political institutions have played in influencing national policy choices and in explaining policy differences between the U.S. and Canada. This comparison also bridges institutionalist theories with a more nuanced understanding of the way in which institutional arrangements interact with parties, policies, and welfare state outcomes.

Environmental Policy

Although Canada and the United States (U.S.) have a special responsibility to act on climate change given per capita greenhouse gas emissions among the highest in the world, both have repeatedly failed to meet their domestic emissions targets. Their failure ultimately reflects the formidable political challenge of transforming economies heavily reliant on fossil fuels, which prompts opposition from both emissions-intensive industries and voters resistant to higher energy prices. Efforts to mitigate climate change have been undertaken in fits and starts, with leadership flipping between the U.S. and Canada as center-left leaders have exercised institutional points of leverage available to them. However, Democratic presidents’ efforts have been stymied by Republican successors, while Canadian governments’ efforts have been undermined by concerns about competitiveness with the U.S. That challenge looms large once again as Canada has pledged to meet its target under the Paris Agreement despite Donald Trump’s reversal of the U.S. commitment.

Executive Leadership and the Legislative Process

This chapter examines executive leadership and the legislative process in the United States (U.S.) and Canada. The U.S. has a separation-of-powers or presidential system while Canada has a parliamentary system. The constitutional differences do not produce predictable differences in policymaking performance, but they have crucial consequences in interaction with other political conditions. In particular, their effects depend heavily on variable conditions of the two countries’ electoral and political party systems. To explore these effects, the chapter distinguishes two major aspects of policymaking performance: (1) ideological direction and change and (2) policy competence. Over the long run, both systems have tended toward moderation and incrementalism. Canada has probably had an advantage with respect to competence. In recent years, developments in the respective party systems have challenged the long-term moderation of Canadian policymaking and have produced gridlock and episodes of serious incompetence in the U.S.