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Gendered poverty among the elderly is a statistical fact. Previous studies have identified inequitable treatment of women and insufficient income for unattached elderly women among the most serious shortcomings of the retirement income system. Despite pension reform over the past decade, the gender gap has widened for elderly Canadians whose incomes fall below the poverty line. This thesis seeks to understand the relationship between the laws that govern Canada's retirement income system and the over-representation of elderly women among Canada's poor, and to explore why the retirement income system continues to deliver benefits in a manner that, though expressed in gender neutral language, is systemically unfair to women. The benefits of Canada's retirement income system may be accessed through workforce participation and, in a more limited way, through a spousal relationship. Familial ideology is used as the theoretical framework to examine the role of the laws that govern access to benefits in reinforcing and perpetuating assumptions about women that undermine their economic autonomy. This examination reveals that gendered economic inequality is embedded within Canada's retirement income system because it accepts the social and economic construction implicit in familial ideology of women as economically subordinate to, and dependent upon, men. The relationship between gender inequality and the two modes of delivery of retirement income benefits, during retirement as pension benefits and prior to retirement as tax subsidies that enhance taxpayers' opportunities to accumulate retirement savings, is also explored. A tax expenditure analysis exposes the bias against the economically disadvantaged (mostly women) inherent in delivering benefits as tax subsidies. Additionally, familial, public/private and restructuring ideologies are used as methodological tools to interrogate the reform process which, although ignoring gender issues, paradoxically deepened and compounded the systemic inequalities for women that existed prior to reform. The thesis concludes by offering suggestions for developing a progressive agenda for advancing gender equality within the retirement income system. The limitations of legal action as a strategy for implementing this type of agenda are discussed, and political action is designated as the most promising strategy for achieving progressive reform.

Gendered poverty among the elderly is a statistical fact. Previous studies have identified inequitable treatment of women and insufficient income for unattached elderly women among the most serious shortcomings of the retirement income system. Despite pension reform over the past decade, the gender gap has widened for elderly Canadians whose incomes fall below the poverty line. This thesis seeks to understand the relationship between the laws that govern Canada's retirement income system and the over-representation of elderly women among Canada's poor, and to explore why the retirement income system continues to deliver benefits in a manner that, though expressed in gender neutral language, is systemically unfair to women. The benefits of Canada's retirement income system may be accessed through workforce participation and, in a more limited way, through a spousal relationship. Familial ideology is used as the theoretical framework to examine the role of the laws that govern access to benefits in reinforcing and perpetuating assumptions about women that undermine their economic autonomy. This examination reveals that gendered economic inequality is embedded within Canada's retirement income system because it accepts the social and economic construction implicit in familial ideology of women as economically subordinate to, and dependent upon, men. The relationship between gender inequality and the two modes of delivery of retirement income benefits, during retirement as pension benefits and prior to retirement as tax subsidies that enhance taxpayers' opportunities to accumulate retirement savings, is also explored. A tax expenditure analysis exposes the bias against the economically disadvantaged (mostly women) inherent in delivering benefits as tax subsidies. Additionally, familial, public/private and restructuring ideologies are used as methodological tools to interrogate the reform process which, although ignoring gender issues, paradoxically deepened and compounded the systemic inequalities for women that existed prior to reform. The thesis concludes by offering suggestions for developing a progressive agenda for advancing gender equality within the retirement income system. The limitations of legal action as a strategy for implementing this type of agenda are discussed, and political action is designated as the most promising strategy for achieving progressive reform. / Law, Peter A. Allard School of / Graduate

Government of Canada communications professionals work in an increasingly challenging environment, characterized by an intrusive 24/7 media cycle, a frenetic pace of evolving communication technologies, layered accountability requirements, political tension, and waning public trust. Scholars call on professional communicators to help rebuild public trust, which is intrinsic to a healthy democratic government. The Three-dimensional Model for Transparency in Government Communication developed by Fairbanks, Plowman and Rawlins (2007) serves as the theoretical framework for investigating the Government of Canada’s approach to transparent citizen-focused communications from the perspective of communications professionals. The model’s adaptability to the Government of Canada context is tested through 23 qualitative semi-structured interviews with Government of Canada senior communications advisors, managers and executives. The data is analysed using constant comparative thematic analysis. The findings demonstrate that Government of Canada communicators strongly value transparency. Furthermore, the key components of the transparency model – communications practices, organizational support and provision of resources – encapsulate the factors that influence the practice of transparent citizen-focused communications by the Government of Canada. The study concludes by offering recommendations for future research and practical applications.

Government of Canada communications professionals work in an increasingly challenging environment, characterized by an intrusive 24/7 media cycle, a frenetic pace of evolving communication technologies, layered accountability requirements, political tension, and waning public trust. Scholars call on professional communicators to help rebuild public trust, which is intrinsic to a healthy democratic government. The Three-dimensional Model for Transparency in Government Communication developed by Fairbanks, Plowman and Rawlins (2007) serves as the theoretical framework for investigating the Government of Canada’s approach to transparent citizen-focused communications from the perspective of communications professionals. The model’s adaptability to the Government of Canada context is tested through 23 qualitative semi-structured interviews with Government of Canada senior communications advisors, managers and executives. The data is analysed using constant comparative thematic analysis. The findings demonstrate that Government of Canada communicators strongly value transparency. Furthermore, the key components of the transparency model – communications practices, organizational support and provision of resources – encapsulate the factors that influence the practice of transparent citizen-focused communications by the Government of Canada. The study concludes by offering recommendations for future research and practical applications.

In the past, the Ministry of Social Services and Housing has placed many native children from the Seabird Island Band, a Salish band in the Sta’lo Nation, in permanent placement or adoption off the reserve. Government agencies imposed a system of child welfare that superseded Seabird Island adoption practices. The Seabird Island Band members would prefer to see these children placed within the band through ‘custom’ adoption. In apprehension and placement court cases, the band social worker has needed documented information defining ‘custom’ adoption, and data regarding the benefits of this Seabird Island process. This thesis investigates and documents the process and results of adoption on the Seabird Island Indian Reserve. This thesis begins with a brief history of Canadian adoption policy as it applies to First Nations people. The thesis is based on detailed taped interviews with Seabird Island Band members who had experienced foster care and/or adoption. This fieldwork was the result of negotiation with the Seabird Island Band to discover the type of research that they needed. The thesis documents four kinds of adoption experience of the Seabird Island members: foster care, closed legal adoption, open adoption, and ‘custom’ adoption. In my analysis of these adoption experiences, three main themes occur: (1) issues of ethnic identity, (2) power and the child welfare system, and (3) the definition and functions of ‘custom’ adoption. The thesis concludes that the imposed system of child welfare based on Euro-western ideas of appropriate child care may have destroyed or seriously damaged some Seabird Island Band members’ sense of ethnic identity. As well, it may be a factor in the break-up of the extended family. ‘Custom’ adoption, as defined by Seabird Island Band members, offers an alternate model for keeping apprehended Seabird Island children within the band. Open adoption, as defined by the pilot project documented, is an alternative for those children who cannot be returned to the band. I have made several recommendations in the conclusion for the Seabird Island Band’s consideration.

This paper uses the case of Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs) to examine the dynamics of the public policy cycle in Canada. A process approach is applied to examine the principal stages of the cycle: problem identification, agenda-setting, decision-making, and implementation. In examining these stages, the factors that drive the policy cycle and those that impede its progress are identified. The regulatory history of PCBs is traced to demonstrate some of the complexities of the policy cycle. As one of the better known hazardous wastes in Canada, PCBs have been the catalyst for the introduction of new toxic chemical regulations throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Since the late 1970s, regulatory policies have been developed and implemented for PCB use and handling. After major PCB accidents occurred during the second half of the 1980s, regulations were introduced for their transport, storage and disposal. This case study provides seven major conclusions: (1) before the right policy solution is found and implemented, several stages in the cycle may need to be repeated; (2) public perception is a key determinant of the policy problem; (3) focusing events are a critical factor in setting the agenda; (4) decision-making often takes an incremental approach due to incomplete information and divided policy jurisdictions; (5) successful implementation, particularly in divided jurisdictions, requires sympathetic officials who are supportive of the enabling legislation; (6) constituency group support is a necessary condition for policy implementation; and (7) to deal with public concerns which may impede the implementation process, officials need political and managerial skills.

This dissertation examines the multifaceted and pervasive impact of globalisation on the Canadian public policy environment through a detailed analysis of the monopoly marketing of prairie wheat. The study argues that forces associated with globalisation, working through regionally differentiated configurations of farmer opinion and interest groups amidst varying partisan settings, are key to understanding the changing nature of policy-making processes, structures, and outcomes in the wheat marketing arena. The forces associated with globalisation include the increased presence of transnational corporations, the expansion of international trade regimes, increased interaction and cooperation between Canadian provincial governments and US state governments, the international harmonisation of regulations, advances in transportation technology, and heightened levels of education, knowledge, and information. In attempting to understand how globalisation influences the wheat policy arena, the examination uses a comparative analysis focusing on Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. The inter-governmental harmony that had prevailed since the 1940s on the matter of Canadian Wheat Board's (CWB's) wheat monopoly was replaced by conflict by the 1990s as the forces of globalisation washed across the Canadian prairies. The dissertation shows that where the absence of these forces once reinforced the CWB's wheat monopoly, the presence of these forces now poses a formidable challenge to its continuation. Farmer opinion data indicates that a trend away from monopoly selling toward open marketing is present throughout the prairies. Like the presence of the forces of globalisation, anti-monopoly opinion is particularly strong in Alberta. The dissertation will also show how the conflict over monopoly wheat marketing was projected into the policy arena through differentiated sets of interest group configurations and partisan environments. In doing so, the examination points out that institutions, while often providing resistance to change, can also serve as conduits facilitating change. The analysis shows that the public policy network involved with the marketing of prairie wheat, as well as actors within this network, have become increasingly internationalised. The examination indicates that domestic governmental regulation and control have been severely undermined in the wheat marketing arena as north-south ties increasingly undermine and replace the east-west unity previously forged by the National Policy.

The objective of this thesis is to determine why Canada, a state that pioneered nuclear technology, and that faced, throughout the Cold War, the Soviet threat to its national security, consistently rejected any opportunity to convert its latent nuclear capability into an indigenous nuclear weapons program. The answer to this research question must address a number of explicit contradictions in Canadian foreign policy. While Canada has, on the one hand, rejected the bomb, it has, on the other hand, pursued defence and industrial policies based upon intimate involvement with nuclear weapons. Moreover, Canada espouses, on the one hand, a clearly realpolitik view of international relations, while, on the other hand, committing to forging for itself a role as an international peace broker. It becomes, therefore, unclear which theory of international relations could adequately explain this dualism in Canadian policy formulation. This thesis argues that power and self-interest are not separable from Canada's decision to reject the bomb, and that by modifying certain precepts of realist theory, we may substantiate the hypotheses that two disincentives to proliferation are at the root of Canada's policies: first, Canada's political and geographical proximity to the United States and thus a credible U.S. nuclear umbrella; and second, prestige, where Canada interpreted both the rejection of its nuclear option and its internationalist policies as a sign of independence vis-a-vis the United States.