This exploratory study examines the electoral experience of persons with disabilities with a particular focus on those that have sought provincial political office in Canada for the last three provincial elections in every province. It also gauges the accessibility of the environment into which they were entering when deciding to seek political office: political parties (recruitment efforts, campaign finance provisions, disability specific language in party constitutions) and the provincial electoral management bodies (campaign financing laws). If the incremental nature of disability policy changes has long been "not good enough" with minimal gains won through long drawn out processes (Levesque and Graefe, 2014), what then is to be made of the gains made to date? For persons with disabilities, this is important given their late enfranchisement (Davidson and Lapp, 2004). In its wake, a small but growing literature has emerged that examines accessibility issues related to the voting experience (Prince, 2004(Prince, , 2012 while an even smaller literature exists that examines persons with disabilities seeking political office in Canada (e.g., D'Aubin and Stienstra, 2004). The work thus far largely focuses on barriers to inclusion and on federal electoral participation. Missing in this literature is a provincial assessment of persons with disabilities that have sought elected office, as well as the mechanisms used by political parties to encourage potential candidates with disabilities to seek office. The story that emerges is one of largely non-participation which underscores the work needed to attract candidates with disabilities to seek political office to aid in the construction and reconstruction of the Canadian nation.
Social policy innovation in Canada remains stunted despite recent attempts at social policy renewal via intergovernmental agreements. The fusion of accountability and policy learning is typically blamed, yet this ignores other potential factors. This article examines the Labour Market Agreements for Persons with Disabilities to highlight impediments to social program expansion and reform within governments as well as between governments, and how the design of recent agreements serves to reinforce those impediments. We find that the linkage of accountability and policy learning means that learning gets caught up in long-standing federal-provincial disputes over jurisdiction, and leads to a perverse form of learning. We also find significant barriers to innovation in the nature of federal government funding, which provides neither incentives for "have provinces" to expand their programming nor sufficient funds for "have not" provinces to successfully transform their programs.
Interest groups have much to offer citizen engagement activities, yet their contributions have been marginalized in recent years with the focus on more deliberative approaches for “ordinary citizens.” It seems that an either/or situation exists between citizen and interest group engagement. This article transcends this debate by delineating a methodology to inform the design of engagement processes that would include both citizens and groups in productive dialogue. Based on past interest group collaboration patterns, a collaborative method is outlined, which offers a way to identify and select interest groups for inclusion in engagement processes with citizens. The method is then applied to a case study of two water issues confronting the City of Hamilton in Ontario.
Despite much effort put toward Canadian social policy renewal in the past decade, innovations in programming have been stifled due in large part to a lack of funding and accountability issues. This is clearly evident in the disability policy field related to labour market programming for persons with disabilities where the packaging of programs has continually changed; however, the actual contents have largely remained the same. The focus on federal-provincial dimensions has come to marginalize the role of disability organizations in the process, yet it is these organizations that governments may enter into partnership with in new governance arrangements to foster new programming. This article reviews data from charitable tax returns for the time period 2005-2010 to assess the human, financial, and technological capacity of Canadian disability organizations in five Canadian provinces, in order to implement innovative programming. RÉSUMÉMalgré beaucoup d'efforts au renouvellement de la politique sociale canadienne dans la dernière décennie, les innovations dans la programmation ont été étouffées en grande partie à l'absence de questions de financement et de responsabilité. Cela est très évidente dans le domaine de la politique handicap lié à la programmation du marché du travail pour les personnes handicapées où l'emballage des programmes a constamment changé mais le contenu réel est restés largement pareilles. L'accent sur les dimensions provinciales fédérales est venu à marginaliser le rôle des organisations de personnes handicapées dans le processus, mais ce sont ces organismes que les gouvernements peuvent entrer en partenariat avec de nouveaux modes de gouvernance pour favoriser la nouvelle programmation. Cet article examine les données de bienfaisance des déclarations de revenus pour la période 2005-2010 pour évaluer les capacités humaines, financières et technologiques des organisations de personnes handicapées canadiennes dans cinq provinces canadiennes à mettre en oeuvre des programmes novateurs.
Les ententes intergouvernementales récentes en politiques sociales au Canada contiennent des nouveautés dans la manière dont le gouvernement central intervient pour assurer une intégration sociale pancanadienne. Cet article analyse les ententes en matière d’intégration en emploi des personnes handicapées pour voir à quel point le gouvernement central réussit à instaurer des mécanismes de définition des priorités, d’imputabilité et d’apprentissage social qui permettent une intégration de l’espace social et à quel point les gouvernements provinciaux décident d’adopter ces mécanismes ou d’y résister. L’analyse détaillée débouche sur la conclusion que les provinces ont pu limiter d’une manière importante le potentiel intégrateur de ces mécanismes.Innovation is clearly visible in recent intergovernmental agreements on social policy, in particular with respect to the ways in which the central government will act in order to ensure pan-Canadian social inclusion. In this article the agreements on the social integration of individuals living with disabilities are analysed in order to assess the extent to which the central government in Ottawa has succeeded in establishing a definition of priorities, accountability, and social learning that would allow for an integrated social space. Also examined are provincial acceptance or rejection of these programmes. Detailed analysis leads to the conclusion that provinces have been able to set significant limits on the promise of these programmes to deliver integration
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