The demise of Keynesianism and the advent of monetarism has had a profound impact on the Canadian 'welfare state'. In British Columbia, as in other provinces, monetarist policies have included a 'down-sizing' of government, and a resurrection of a strategy of privatization in the social service sector. In some instances, privatization has meant abandonment; that is, the government has both shed its responsibility for providing many public sector social services and either reduced or eliminated funds which were directed into the non-profit sector through the system of 'contracting-out'. With the loss of revenue, many non-profit social service agencies have been forced to seek alternative sources of funding. The contents of newspaper stories and other articles indicated that some had turned to gaming in order to raise funds. Therefore, recent developments in the gaming industry in British Columbia were explored in order to provide some insight into their relevance for, and impact on, the non-profit social service sector. In addition, a survey was undertaken in order to determine the impact of these developments on a sample of non-profit social service agencies in the Greater Vancouver area. The results indicate that certain trends are emerging across the non-profit sector. Agencies reported an increased demand for services and, for some, the proceeds from either bingos or casinos have been crucial in both maintaining current levels of services and providing other benefits. The implications of this development are explored; for example, in some agencies, fund-raising has reduced the staff hours spent in direct service while otherwise increasing workloads; some agencies are becoming more 'entrepreneurial' in order to provide necessary social services; and, it may be that certain client groups are paying for their own social service programs. While non-profit social service agencies are turning to gaming in order to provide programs and services which the government will no longer support, the government's public statements regarding the future of the gaming industry, and its actions in this area, have been ambiguous. On the one hand, policy-makers have made public statements to the effect that there will be no extension of legalized gambling beyond that which is provided by non-profit groups. On the other hand, the government is moving to increase its gaming revenues through direct means, such as establishing casinos, and indirect means, such as increasing licence fees levied on non-profit organizations wishing to conduct gaming events. It is contended that neither privatization nor gambling are 'immoral'. However, what is perhaps problematic is the recent marriage of the two phenomena. By reducing direct services, as well as curtailing funding to the non-profit sector, the government has restrained its expenditures. When non-profit organizations turn to gaming, they become a source of revenue for the government while simultaneously providing the vital social services which the government has abandoned. / Arts, Faculty of / Social Work, School of / Graduate

The practice of providing urban parks as an integral part of community development no longer creates public debate about the function or legal authority of local governments to make such purchases. However, the debate continues on the ethics of local government's parkland acquisition practices. These practices have the capability and motivation to influence the land value of sites they wish to acquire. Local governments are responsible for determining land use, which in turn affects land value. The limited financial means of local government to acquire parks makes influencing land value one way of stretching the scarce resources of the community. The ethics practiced in the negotiations to acquire urban parkland where the land has development potential are unique because: 1. Parkland is a public good and not a market commodity; 2. The potential for other higher land uses exists; and 3. Local government plays a dual role: one of a regulator and approving authority for determining land use and providing community stewardship, and the other as the corporate cost controlling agency seeking to acquire land. These qualities create the strong possibility for ethical conflict to occur in the negotiating process. Building upon the Interest-Based approach to negotiations, this paper uses a set of Prescriptive, Intuitive and Evaluative (P.I.E.) criteria that define ethical conduct, and the dimensions of Fact, Social Consensus and Experience that defines the dimensions of interests, to develop a General Model for Ethical Negotiations (GMEN). Conceptually, the GMEN model is a three-sided pyramid within a sphere of negotiations. Negotiations that adhere to the principles defining the parameters of the pyramid would be considered ethical. Negotiations outside the pyramid are considered unethical. Six parkland acquisition cases are discussed using the GMEN model. In this study, the parameters establishing the criteria for passing ethical judgment are the functions of the political economy, the policy statements of the local government, and the legislation that delegates power and authority to local government. The study finds that ethical conflict is inherent in parkland negotiations where the land has development potential because of the multiple roles and dual character of local government. This conflict is not necessarily illegal since prescriptive criteria are only one means of judging ethics. Nor is the outcome necessarily negative to the vendor, since the public may end up with a less attractive park agreement. However, the parameters that would require parkland acquisition negotiations to be ethical sometimes conflict with some of the multiple roles held by local government. Several recommendations are made that would help to reduce ethical conflict and the imbalance in parkland negotiations. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Community and Regional Planning (SCARP), School of / Graduate

This thesis argues that landscapes are products of language, that the meaning of a landscape depends upon how it is presented and interpreted in the course of human communication. It is also argued that the field of rhetoric—as a body of theory, ideas, and methods for interpreting the persuasive use of language—can assist human geographers in their attempts to interpret landscapes. These positions are put to work in a study of the promotion of tourist landscapes by the British Columbia government. Two time periods are examined: first, presentations of landscape during the 1920s and 1930s, and second the 1970s and 1980s. These periods are similar in that they are periods of transition—periods in which the tourism industry underwent significant change. The first period is associated with the development of mass tourism, and specifically with the emergence of the state as a major player in the tourist industry. The second period concerns the recent development of postmodern (alternative environmental and cultural) tourism. Postmodern tourism is characterized by the rejection of mass tourism and by the quest for real places and experiences. The thesis uses both qualitative and quantitative (computer-assisted content analysis) methods to examine how the state has rhetorically responded to these changes in its presentations of landscape. Changes are found in both periods, but they are gradual and incomplete. It is consequently argued that the state’s character as an author limits its audience and the strategies it may use for presenting tourist landscapes. / Arts, Faculty of / Geography, Department of / Graduate

Until the introduction of the trade liberalization initiatives of 1989, the wine producers of British Columbia appeared to have operated in an environment that fostered less than competitive behaviour. Two factors in particular may have been responsible for creating such an environment: (1) the structure of the industry was inherently oligopolistic; and (2) protection from foreign competition was afforded by the British Columbia government in the form of a wine policy that effectively created non-tariff trade barriers against foreign wine producers. This study econometrically tests the hypothesis that British Columbia wine producers behaved non-competitively during the years 1957 to 1986. A model of the British Columbia wine industry is developed and used to estimate the degree of non-competitive pricing behaviour in the industry, and tests are undertaken to determine whether the estimate of behaviour is consistent with competitive or with other well known behavioral specifications. the main structural components of the industry are described in a model of oligopolistic behaviour using a linear system of equations, in which both demand and pricing equations appear. The parameters which affect each of these equations are estimated using the appropriate estimation technique. The econometric results, and the subsequent statistical tests, support the hypothesis that the domestic wine industry in British Columbia operated in a non-competitive manner between 1957 and 1986. Specifically, the hypothesis of competitive behaviour is statistically rejected, whereas, the hypotheses of Cournot and collusive-type behaviour could not be rejected. These results suggest that British Columbia consumers may have been sacrificing to firms at least a portion of the surplus they would have obtained in a perfectly competitive industry. In addition, it appears that the wine policy of the provincial government helped create a non-competitive industry that will likely have difficulty competing in today's global market for wine.

This study examines how the unprecedented placement of blame on social workers in B.C., following the Report of the Gove Commission into Child Protection in 1995, has affected those workers, by exploring the phenomenon from the point of view of the social workers themselves. By using structural social work theory, with a feminist perspective, the conceptual context is explored in terms of how risk and blame have been constructed and how the relationship between clients and workers, and the treatment of social workers by management have been impacted by that construction. Purposeful criterion sampling was used, applying a snowball approach of recruitment. Ten social workers participated who are or have been recently employed by the Ministry for Children & Families. Data collection occurred through one focus group session as well as individual interviews. Transcripts of the interviews were made from audiotapes. Categorical and holistic content analysis led to identification of participant themes. Findings confirmed fear of blame as a significant contributor to high stress levels but, surprisingly, social workers expressed their belief that a similar fear was frequently behind management decisions. This research provides unique insight into the factors which motivate individuals to do the difficult work of child protection. It also offers an explanation for the ongoing difficulty which government experiences in recruiting and retaining skilled, trained staff, which, if unaddressed, is a serious impediment to the effective delivery of child welfare services in B.C.

Until the introduction of the trade liberalization initiatives of 1989, the wine producers of British Columbia appeared to have operated in an environment that fostered less than competitive behaviour. Two factors in particular may have been responsible for creating such an environment: (1) the structure of the industry was inherently oligopolistic; and (2) protection from foreign competition was afforded by the British Columbia government in the form of a wine policy that effectively created non-tariff trade barriers against foreign wine producers. This study econometrically tests the hypothesis that British Columbia wine producers behaved non-competitively during the years 1957 to 1986. A model of the British Columbia wine industry is developed and used to estimate the degree of non-competitive pricing behaviour in the industry, and tests are undertaken to determine whether the estimate of behaviour is consistent with competitive or with other well known behavioral specifications. the main structural components of the industry are described in a model of oligopolistic behaviour using a linear system of equations, in which both demand and pricing equations appear. The parameters which affect each of these equations are estimated using the appropriate estimation technique. The econometric results, and the subsequent statistical tests, support the hypothesis that the domestic wine industry in British Columbia operated in a non-competitive manner between 1957 and 1986. Specifically, the hypothesis of competitive behaviour is statistically rejected, whereas, the hypotheses of Cournot and collusive-type behaviour could not be rejected. These results suggest that British Columbia consumers may have been sacrificing to firms at least a portion of the surplus they would have obtained in a perfectly competitive industry. In addition, it appears that the wine policy of the provincial government helped create a non-competitive industry that will likely have difficulty competing in today's global market for wine. / Land and Food Systems, Faculty of / Graduate

This study examines how the unprecedented placement of blame on social workers in B.C., following the Report of the Gove Commission into Child Protection in 1995, has affected those workers, by exploring the phenomenon from the point of view of the social workers themselves. By using structural social work theory, with a feminist perspective, the conceptual context is explored in terms of how risk and blame have been constructed and how the relationship between clients and workers, and the treatment of social workers by management have been impacted by that construction. Purposeful criterion sampling was used, applying a snowball approach of recruitment. Ten social workers participated who are or have been recently employed by the Ministry for Children & Families. Data collection occurred through one focus group session as well as individual interviews. Transcripts of the interviews were made from audiotapes. Categorical and holistic content analysis led to identification of participant themes. Findings confirmed fear of blame as a significant contributor to high stress levels but, surprisingly, social workers expressed their belief that a similar fear was frequently behind management decisions. This research provides unique insight into the factors which motivate individuals to do the difficult work of child protection. It also offers an explanation for the ongoing difficulty which government experiences in recruiting and retaining skilled, trained staff, which, if unaddressed, is a serious impediment to the effective delivery of child welfare services in B.C. / Arts, Faculty of / Social Work, School of / Graduate

British Columbia is undergoing a transformation in both its forestry policy regime and its regime governing aboriginal policy. Forestry policy has evolved from what once was a closed network, dominated by the ministry of forests and the forestry industry, to a more expansive network that includes a variety of interests. British Columbia's aboriginal policy now recognizes the legitimacy of aboriginal claims to traditional territories, and has correspondingly initiated a treaty negotiation process with B.C.'s First Nations. A synthesis has emerged between aboriginal politics and the provincial forestry regime in some parts of the province. Consequently, two independant policy sectors have converged and this new policy phenomenon has been unexplored by political scientists. Clayoquot Sound, on the west coast of Vancouver Island, is an area at the forefront of forestry policy development. This thesis, therefore, uses Clayoquot Sound as a case study of sector convergence. In doing so, this thesis explains the phenomena of inter-sector penetration and explores its consequences to policy theory.

This study applied Ethnographic Decision Tree Modeling (Gladwin, 1989) to the field of child abuse reporting to investigate the factors that influence decisions to report possible child abuse. Participants were licensed psychologists in the lower mainland of British Columbia. Using ethnographic interviews, participants were asked to discuss a recent case in which they reported possible child abuse and the factors that were influential in their decision making. Based on the data from 34 cases, six factors were identified: (1) Were there any signs of or risk factors for child abuse or neglect? (2) Did the signs or risk factors meet your threshold to report as you understand the law? (3) Was there some other value to report other than a legal one? (4) Were you concerned that reporting would cause harm? (5) Were you able to minimize the harm that would result from reporting? and (6) Did the reasons to report outweigh the reasons to not report? These six factors were presented in a decision tree to illustrate the relationship between factors and decision outcome. This preliminary group model was then tested using the case experiences of a separate yet similar group of registered psychologists in British Columbia. Results found that the preliminary model accurately predicted the reporting outcome of 93% (33 of 36) of the cases in the new sample. Errors in the model were identified, and suggestions were made to improve its predictive ability. The results are evaluated in light of the decision tree produced. Implications for theory building, naturalistic inquiry, clinical practice, policy, and future research are discussed.

British Columbia is undergoing a transformation in both its forestry policy regime and its regime governing aboriginal policy. Forestry policy has evolved from what once was a closed network, dominated by the ministry of forests and the forestry industry, to a more expansive network that includes a variety of interests. British Columbia's aboriginal policy now recognizes the legitimacy of aboriginal claims to traditional territories, and has correspondingly initiated a treaty negotiation process with B.C.'s First Nations. A synthesis has emerged between aboriginal politics and the provincial forestry regime in some parts of the province. Consequently, two independant policy sectors have converged and this new policy phenomenon has been unexplored by political scientists. Clayoquot Sound, on the west coast of Vancouver Island, is an area at the forefront of forestry policy development. This thesis, therefore, uses Clayoquot Sound as a case study of sector convergence. In doing so, this thesis explains the phenomena of inter-sector penetration and explores its consequences to policy theory. / Arts, Faculty of / Political Science, Department of / Graduate