Commissioning Ideas

Despite a vast literature on specific Canadian public policies and policy sectors, no one until now has sought to understand where the ideas for policy change--especially fundamental change--originate in the Canadian political system. Professor Neil Bradford's incisive and highly readable Commissioning Ideas makes a major contribution to our understanding of Canadian public policy by clearly demonstrating the dynamics of idea generation and national policy innovation at times of economic crisis and popular discontent. In such uncertain times, Canadian political leaders have not led; rather, they have appointed royal commissions. Two of these--the Rowell Sirois Commission in the 1930s and the Macdonald Commission in the 1980s--devised sweeping policy packages that led to major change in the political and state systems. A third royal commission, the Gordon Commission in the 1950s, was similarly influential but with different effects. It launched two opposed policy discourses--liberal continentalism and interventionist nationalism--that fought for dominance over the next three decades. In addition to examining Canadian policy innovation from the Great Depression to the present, Professor Bradford provides a comparative perspective by surveying developments in Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States, where social interests, political parties, and the executive, respectively, have been central to policy change. The book concludes with a call for a 'Fourth National Policy', with sustainable full employment as its central feature and increased research funding for political parties and proportional electoral representation as important factors for its realization.