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Reviewed by:
  • Transforming Provincial Politics: The Political Economy of Canada’s Provinces and Territories in the Neoliberal Era ed. by Bryan M. Evans and Charles W. Smith
  • Rand Dyck
Bryan M. Evans and Charles W. Smith, eds., Transforming Provincial Politics: The Political Economy of Canada’s Provinces and Territories in the Neoliberal Era (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 2015)

After a long absence, an explosion of scholarly books on provincial politics in Canada is suddenly upon us. This is welcome news for the obvious reason that the provinces are such important factors in Canadian political and economic life. Transforming Provincial Politics consists of thirteen chapters on individual provinces and territories, along with the editors’ introduction and epilogue. The chapters are written by academics with local expertise and thus display rich [End Page 288] detail on the distinctive features of each political sub-system.

The editors begin with a well-constructed framework of neoliberalism and the “neoliberal era.” These are primarily characterized by reducing the role of government through tax cuts, expenditure and service cuts, privatization, deregulation, and trade agreements, and by attacks on labour. Whether the additional features mentioned – balanced budgets and excessive executive power – are confined to such an era or ideology, however, might be questioned. The editors and many of the contributors approach the subject through a normative lens, and make the point that neoliberalism is not so much about diminishing the role of the state as to reorient it to serve the interests of capital. But in the process, they may overstate their case on occasion, such as not distinguishing sufficiently between neoliberalism and “Third Way,” and several seem eager to pin the neoliberal label on Parti Québécois (pq) and New Democratic Party (ndp) governments. While each chapter includes a solid discussion of political developments since about 1980, not all of them concentrate on neoliberalism, as such; some are written in a more general fashion. It should be said for readers of this journal that most chapters deal extensively with government-labour relations during the period under review.

That is particularly true of the chapter on Newfoundland and Labrador, which gives much attention to labour relations, especially in the Danny Williams era. The chapter shows how increased provincial revenues from offshore oil sometimes softened the neoliberal assault on labour and government operations in general. The chapter on Prince Edward Island is a more general treatment of politics in that province, including its socio-economic context. After discussing several forays into neoliberalism, starting in the early 1990s, it concentrates on the gaming industry as a distinctive aspect of neoliberalism – raising revenues without raising taxes. The Nova Scotia chapter presents a catalogue of the province’s many economic problems and deficit crises, but as in some other chapters, may be too ready to classify the ndp government as “neoliberal” when it faced such an array of challenges. The chapter on New Brunswick also details a long history of economic problems and debts. In these circumstances, it admits that not all governments in the province could be simply called “neoliberal.” But that term is applied to the chapter’s primary focus – the aborted sale of nb Power to Hydro-Québec, as a unique application of privatization.

The Québec chapter deals comprehensively with the many themes in that province’s recent history, of which neoliberalism is only one. For example, it makes the illuminating argument that neoliberalism ran counter to the social democratic and nationalistic streams in the political culture, so that the state could not be so easily dismantled. Nevertheless, the chapter makes it clear that neoliberalism has been evident in the province from the second Robert Bourassa regime onward, including both pq and Liberal governments. When it comes to Ontario, the chapter written by the editors, we get a condemnation of the Bob Rae government’s social contract legislation and other measures adopted in the difficult economic circumstances of the early 1990s, and, of course, a detailed discussion of the Mike Harris government’s neoliberal “Common Sense Revolution.” Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals are categorized as practicing a “Third Way” variant of neoliberalism, which is termed more rational and legitimate.

The Manitoba ndp is said...

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