La présente thèse de maîtrise vise à analyser les débats parlementaires sur la Loi sur l’arrestation par des citoyens et la légitime défense (loi C-26), aussi surnommée le Lucky Moose Bill. L’objectif était de voir comment s’est posée la question du respect des droits et libertés des citoyens au regard de l’élargissement de la capacité d’arrestation et de défense des biens et de la personne des citoyens, particulièrement du fait que cela touche aux pouvoirs des agents privés de sécurité, lesquels ont les mêmes pouvoirs que les citoyens sans être soumis à la Charte canadienne des droits et libertés. Une analyse de contenu qualitative des débats parlementaires nous a permis de constater que malgré quelques inquiétudes, le focusing event déclencheur du projet de loi, soit l’affaire Lucky Moose, a permis de balayer les craintes soulevées quant à l’impact de ce projet de loi sur les pouvoirs de la sécurité privée.

This study seeks to examine whether the Corona pandemic has potential to serve as a focusing event for the problem of insufficient governmental action on climate change mitigation. The study is built on the Multiple Streams Framework by John W. Kingdon, with a main focus on the focusing event theory. According to this, focusing events can come in three forms: as crises and disasters, personal experiences of policymakers, and as symbols. Kingdon’s theoretical discussions, alongside my own developments of his work, provides the basis for a set of analytical questions through which the answer to the research question is provided. The analysis reveals that while the pandemic indeed can be considered a crisis or disaster and personal experiences of policymakers, establishing whether these could focus attention to the specific problem of insufficient governmental action on climate change mitigation requires further research, as the perceived cause of the crisis or disaster and personal experience must be established. However, the paper finds that the pandemic indeed has potential to serve as a symbol for the specific insufficient governmental action, for instance by stressing that deforestation increases the risk of zoonotic outbreaks, such as the Corona pandemic.

Focusing events are sudden, rare events that become known to policymakers and the public simultaneously, highlighting issues with existing public policy. Two case studies, the gas leak from the Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility near Porter Ranch, and the publication of the Health Risk Assessment and discovery of lead contamination from Exide Technologies’ battery recycling facility in Vernon, are used to deepen theoretical insights into the development and functionality of industrial health crises as focusing events. The case studies suggest four key areas relevant to understanding focusing events. The first is the unique characteristics of industrial health crises, which often involve anthropogenic risks and a degree of contestation unusual in other focusing event literature. The second is the scale of analysis, balancing geospatial realities with local histories, broad social dynamics and power structures, and the multiscalar nature of policy change. Third, community activism plays multiple vital roles in pushing a potential focusing event towards lasting policy change. Finally, the incorporation of ideas from environmental justice into the focusing event framework results in a better understanding of power and privilege in the creation of, and response to, industrial health crises. All four aspects have been written about in other bodies of literature, but have not yet been brought to bear on the concept of focusing events. These four domains thus add nuance to the scholarly understanding of one aspect of the policy change process, and provide a starting point for further research into the processes governing our public policy systems.

2011年末，一場持續數天的霧霾天氣席捲北京，環保部門卻並未提供相關污染物PM2.5的監測數據。相關法律法規的落後，以及環保部門的不作為，激起民眾的不滿。隨著美國駐華大使館、環保NGO、微博名人和廣大民眾的持續參與與推動，政府相關資訊政策也逐漸變化，最終將PM2.5納入空氣質量標準并公佈監測數據。本文以此次霧霾污染事件作為「焦點事件」切入點，首先藉由事件回顧討論“誰來監測”的問題，探討了環境信息公開的理論與實踐；然後分析政策變化的過程，歸納「政策變化模型」，討論政策變化形成的原因，分析各行為者在政策變化中的角色和作用；最後，由此事件得出這一政策轉變的影響以及啟示，歸納目前環境資訊公開領域制度層面所存在的缺失，并就此事件的經驗對於政府和環境NGO給出建議。 / In the end of 2011, the city of Beijing was hit by a long-lasting haze. However, the city’s Environmental Protection Bureau was unable to provide the public with the data of a critical pollutant – PM2.5. The political inaction of the government has caused great discontent among the public. With the continuous efforts from the US Embassy in China, environmental NGOs, Sina Weibo celebrity users and the public, the official information disclosure policy has seen a big change – the government has adopted a higher standard and taken steps to publish the data of PM2.5. This article takes the haze incident as a “focusing event”. It firstly reviews the case and discusses the theories and practices of the environmental information disclosure. It then analyzes the process of this policy change and forms a policy change model to determine the contributing factors and the roles of different actors. The concluding part summarizes the omission of the current information disclosure system, and makes recommendations to the government and the NGOs.

The Multiple Streams model developed by John Kingdon (1995) and Nikolaos Zahariadis (2007) provides a valuable framework for understanding the nature of policy change. This investigation draws extensively upon the Multiple Streams framework in order to understand the development of gun-control policy initiatives under President Barack Obama. The investigation uses a case-study approach with in-depth analysis of four different mass-shooting events that took place in the United States between 2009 and 2012. Reconstruction of the shooting events and detailed parsing of the Obama administration’s official responses to each incident, when viewed through the Multiple Streams lens, clearly explain why Obama’s aggressive policy initiative was so delayed in its emergence in spite of several shootings and the President’s clearly stated belief that gun-reform was a necessary step for the federal government. While the term “policy change” is broad and may encompass all sorts of governmental responsiveness, the term herein should be interpreted in the narrowest sense: exclusively encompassing legislative initiatives. Ultimately, the investigation concludes that numerous factors, but most prominently concerns about the timing and results of the 2010 Midterm and 2012 General Elections, prevented an aggressive pursuit of gun-reform prior to January 2013. The tragic shooting of 28 people in Newtown, Connecticut, then served as a prime focusing event for the President to aggressively engage a long-standing goal.