In contrast to the numerous expositions and commentaries concerning the origin, history, and nature of the doctrine of the separation of powers, early theories of parliamentary government have failed to attract the attention of historians of political thought. This negligence arises from two factors which must not be under-estimated. In the first place, it is generally asserted that Walter Bagehot was the first to appreciate the true nature of parliamentarism. Indeed, the penetration and lucidity of his famous essay on the English constitution overshadowed earlier attempts to grasp theoretically the mechanism of parliamentary government. In the second place, historians of political theory have been less prone to trace the roots of the theory of parliamentarism than those of the doctrine of the separation of powers because parliamentary government, although gradually introduced into a number of countries in the course of the nineteenth century, was not reduced to writing in any organic law prior to the World War. The development of the theory of parliamentary government is, therefore, one of the most neglected chapters in the history of constitutional ideas.

While the English to the end of the fifties of the last century looked upon and appraised their constitution through the eyes of Montesquieu, Blackstone, and De Lolme, continental theorists were busy in elaborating a new theory about the nature of the English constitution. The early history of parliamentary theory is determined, therefore, to no small extent by the way in which continental theorists observed and conceived the operation of English government. It was in France and Germany that the true nature of the English constitution was first discovered and a theory of parliamentarism formulated for the direct purpose of introducing the parliamentary system into those two countries.

The literature of scientific studies, either demographic, economic, or sociological, on Canadian families, is rather thin. Except for some valuable local monographs and theses interred in university libraries, one must rely almost exclusively on excellent but very few general studies of the Dominion Bureau of Statistics. Among such are the 1931 Census monograph on the Canadian family, the 1937-8 national survey on the Canadian family income and expenditure pattern and, more recently, the remarkable series of studies by Dr. Enid Charles on the trends and differences in Canadian family size as revealed by the last Census of 1941.

The French-speaking part of Canada geographically concentrated in the Province of Quebec represents, within the Canadian context, a culturally and politically conscious social structure. At present, this society, owing to rapid industrialization and concomitant adjustments, includes areas and communities of all the possible transitional shades from the solid, old-settled, rural type, to the more complex, dynamic, and urbanized variety. Studies of French-Canadian families in any of these differentiated areas are also scarce. The traditional type of French-Canadian rural family has been ably studied by the Canadian sociologist follower of the Le Play School of Social Science, Léon Gérin, especially in his monograph entitled the Habitant de Saint-Justin. More recently, Horace Miner scientifically analysed for the first time, the relationships between land and the family in rural Quebec. Both of these studies stress the following basic features of the traditional rural French-Canadian family: a high degree of familism and of internal solidarity, a fundamental functional relationship with the tenure system of large family-ownership of the farm as well as with a peculiar pattern of land inheritance which consists in the passing of the whole farm, undivided, to only one inheriting son in each family.

Claude-Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon, was born in 1760; his writings date from 1802 until his death in 1825. He is widely regarded as perhaps the most enthusiastic of all scientistic writers, and one of the most influential, but the nature and motivation of his scientism have been frequently misunderstood. Scientism I understand to be the belief that all, or virtually all, moral and political problems can be solved by methods similar to those used in the natural sciences. Historicism, a form which scientism very often takes, I would define as the revealing of laws of history by which, it is claimed, the future of man can be predicted. Exponents of scientism appear to have one or more of three different but related objectives: one, the pursuit of truth about man and society; the second, the acquisition of techniques to cure social ailments; the third, the re-establishment of ideological uniformity.

The economist J. B. Say once wrote that “our duty with regard to errors is not to revive them, but simply to forget them.” Complete acceptance of this doctrine would expose the political scientist to ruin, for the study of government is largely the study of errors and man's clumsy efforts to correct them. The history of errors, so far as government control of radio broadcasting in Canada is concerned, centres on the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission which struggled for survival between 1932 and 1936. Our concern, however, is not with this history of errors but rather with the attempt, through the creation of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, to correct these errors. In particular, our interest is focussed on the pressing problems of integrating administration and politics in the public interest, through the device of an independent government corporation.

In 1900, Professor Frank Goodnow first differentiated between politics and administration by suggesting that all activities involved in expressing the will of the state should be classified as “politics,” while all operations necessary to the execution of the will of the state should be termed “administration.” The harmonization of these two activities, according to Goodnow, depends on the subordination of one to the other. In a parliamentary system, harmonization in the public interest is presumably obtained by having the agents responsible for the execution of the will of the state dominated by the agents responsible for its expression. This simple bifurcation has been complicated by the fact that the cabinet, the supreme instrument of party government, has become responsible in large measure for both the expression and execution of the will of the state. In certain sectors of governmental activity the party (partisan) character of cabinet supervision has led to the demand for a withdrawal from its hands of the direct responsibility for “politics” and “administration.”

This paper is an attempt to give the interested economist who is not an econometrician a general picture of some of the developments in the specialized field of econometrics. It is hoped thereby to enable him to see how this field is related to the general science of economics, and how he may be able to make use in his own work of the results obtained in econometrics. The implications of the current rapid innovations in the field of electronic computers are stressed, since these may soon help to produce an ever increasing flow of econometric results.

In an address given in 1897, Alfred Marshall suggested that economics should develop not only as a quantitative science in many of its aspects, but also as a numerical science. Professor Schumpeter, in appraising Marshall's advice, observes that it follows the line of development begun by Sir William Petty in his Political Arithmetick of 1672. Schumpeter came down firmly on the side of this prescription himself. He too emphasized the importance of economics' being able to “figure out results.” Professor Pigou also reveals how Marshall, well aware as he was that much in economics cannot be described by numbers, hoped to see the areas that could be so described brought to the same stage as physics, where the amount of an effect produced by a cause can be estimated by numerical methods, using statistical data.

Resale price maintenance raises not only economic problems but also legal ones. Indeed, much of the material on the subject is legal in origin. These legal aspects are, of course, important in showing the nature of the arguments—economic and other—involved, but their importance is mainly with respect to the technique of maintaining the system. For the immediate purpose one can assume that the economic aspects of resale price maintenance are the same, irrespective of the actual technique of enforcement and therefore the legal aspects, as such, can be ignored here.

It may be pointed out, however, that the methods used to enforce compliance with the system are various. In Great Britain, for example, the trade association with contracts for its members and dealers is common. These may be enforced by legal action or economic action such as refusal to sell. In other cases it may be handled by contracts between the manufacturer and the jobber and then jobber and dealer. The actual technique used is usually dependent upon what the law permits; accordingly it varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Of course, the effectiveness of the scheme depends upon enforcement. Paradoxically enough, the better the system is maintained, the greater are the gains to any one dealer in evading it. Thus success tempts the very forces which if not checked will break it.

In 1974, Richard Simeon and David Elkins published an influential analysis of provincial political cultures. Nearly half a century later, their results still operate as the baseline against which new studies compare their own results. In this article, I re-examine their conclusions, combining five decades of Canadian public opinion survey data (1974–2019). The article replicates their analysis by focusing on three dimensions of political culture examined by Simeon and Elkins: political cynicism, internal political efficacy and external political efficacy. It also expands on their work by accounting for contextual factors that can potentially drive or hinder provincial differences in political culture. The results suggest that Simeon and Elkins’ interpretation of Canadian provincial political cultures needs to be updated, as the patterns they found differ markedly from those identified in this article.

Résumé. Des citoyens peuvent-ils désobéir à la loi, pourtant issue de la volonté majoritaire et de la décision du Parlement légitimement élu, au seul motif qu'elle leur semble injuste ? Face à la pensée conservatrice, tenante de l'ordre établi et réfractaire à la moindre transgression (« mieux vaut une injustice qu'un désordre »), la philosophie libérale contemporaine a fourni une défense de la légitimité démocratique de la désobéissance civile. Cependant, les justifications rawlsienne et habermassienne de la désobéissance civile semblent bien timorées dès qu'on accepte de les comparer à la pensée politique des activistes désobéissants eux-mêmes, à savoir Gandhi, Martin Luther King et Howard Zinn. Cette « pensée désobéissante » méconnue, voire occultée, vient révéler les insuffisances et les présupposés de la conception libérale de la désobéissance civile.

Abstract. Can citizens disobey the law, which comes from the will of the majority and the decision of the legitimately elected Parliament, merely because it seems to them unjust? Opposing conservative thought, which defends the established order and condemns any transgression, contemporary liberal thought has provided a defense of the democratic legitimacy of civil disobedience. However, the Rawlsian and Habermasian justifications of civil disobedience seem rather weak when compared to the political thought of disobedient activists themselves, namely Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and Howard Zinn. This overlooked “disobedient thought” reveals the shortcomings and assumptions of the liberal concept of civil disobedience.

Abstract. In revisiting Michael Murphy's critique of the cultural test adopted by the Supreme Court of Canada to interpret Aboriginal rights, this article takes up the suggestion that the works of Charles Taylor and Will Kymlicka support an inherent understanding of Aboriginal rights. An assessment of the jurisprudence suggests that the Court's approach reflects, rather than contradicts, Taylor's and Kymlicka's rights frameworks, which invoke the same discourse of culture and identity embraced by the Court. The article also contends that the role played by culture in Canada's Aboriginal rights jurisprudence extends well beyond the cultural rationale adopted by the Court.

Résumé. En revisitant la critique de Michael Murphy sur l'examen culturel adopté par la Court Suprême du Canada dans l'interprétation des droits indigènes, cet article adopte la suggestion que les travaux de Charles Taylor et Kymlicka supportent une définition inhérente des droits indigènes. Une évaluation de la jurisprudence suggère que la position de la cour reflète, plutôt que contredit, l'approche des droits mise en avant par Taylor et Kymlicka. Celle-ci, en effet accepte le même discours culturel et identitaire que la court. L'article affirme également que le rôle joué par la culture dans la jurisprudence Canadienne sur les droits indigènes se prolonge bien au delà du raisonnement culturel adopté par la court.

The political value of rights depends on the availability of effective instruments for remedying violations of those rights. Recognizing this, the authors of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms provided courts with three remedial alternatives for enforcing its provisions. Focusing on section 24(1) of the Charter, which permits courts to impose any remedy they consider “appropriate and just in the circumstances, ” this article assesses how Canadian courts have dealt with the remedial dilemmas inherent in Charter litigation. This assessment unfolds in three stages. First, it sets out a framework for analyzing remedial decision-making. Next, it summarizes the cases in which section 24(1) has been explicitly invoked to enforce Charter rights. Finally, the article examines the remedial implications of judicial enforcement of minority- language educational rights.

Résumé. Comment expliquer la politique de sécurité nationale américaine, notamment l'évolution de certaines décisions en matière de politique étrangère et de sécurité intérieure ? Quels acteurs et quels facteurs rendent compte des résultats pour le moins controversés de celles-ci ? Au-delà des discours, des institutions et des énoncés, les choix de sécurité ont été l'œuvre de ceux que nous surnommons les « entrepreneurs » de la prise de décision. La question à laquelle cet article veut répondre est précisément de savoir qui sont ces « entrepreneurs » et comment ils ont réalisé cet objectif de transformation des politiques de sécurité des États-Unis. Trois prises de décision de la première administration Bush sont abordées : la guerre préventive en Irak, la redéfinition légale de la notion de torture, et l'institutionnalisation plus grande de la sécurité intérieure.

Abstract. How are we to explain U.S. foreign policy, particularly policymaking on national security and homeland security, under the first administration of G. W. Bush? Who were the actors and what were the factors that produced what were, to say the least, controversial results? Looking beyond the speeches, statements and institutions, the security decisions can be seen as the work of “policy entrepreneurs.” This article considers who those entrepreneurs were and how they achieved their goal of transforming U.S. security policy. Three decisions are discussed: the pre-emptive war in Iraq, the legal redefinition of torture by the Bush administration, and the institutionalization of homeland security, in particular the Patriot Act.