About the book
The Handbook of Canadian Public Administration is a comprehensive analysis of the theoretical foundations and practice of public management in Canada today. With contributions from over thirty leading Canadian scholars and specialists in the field, this thoroughly updated collection exposes students to key issues in public administration from public service to workplace equity.
Chapter summary
This chapter compares and contrasts Canada and the European Union (EU). Canada is a full-fledged federation, whereas the EU is a fledgling federation. They share similar values, and have strong links. There are interesting similarities in some of the challenges that they face, even if the two political systems are quite different. The chapter focuses on the broader contexts within which each system’s public administration is embedded and not the specific features of each public administration. In today’s world globalization and other developments confront political systems with profound challenges pertaining to the fundamentals of political order, community and governing. Europe’s attempt at overcoming its traumatic past has taken an unprecedented shape: the world’s first attempt at supranational democratic governance. Canada has over the last four decades grappled with a range of fundamental questions pertaining to its constitutional fundamentals. These include questions of historical injustice (especially in relation to First Nations), how to deal with cultural and national diversity, the thorny issue of Quebec secession, and how to organize its external and internal economic relations. Many of the issues and challenges facing Europe and Canada are constitutive. With that is meant that they refer to the fundamental rules, principles and arrangements for governing and living together (and apart). The chapter compares and contrasts the EU with Canada on five different issues. One aspect that runs through all of these pertains to the pronounced role of executive officials (heads of states and governments and their supportive staffs).
Full info
Looking Across the Atlantic: The European Union and Canada Compared
John Erik Fossum
In: The Handbook of Canadian Public Administration
Christopher Dunn
Oxford, 2018
ISBN: 9780199026166