Balancing Resilience and Adaptability Amidst Change: The Cases of Three Federal Agencies

1. Balancing Resilience and Adaptability Amidst Change: The Cases of Three Federal Agencies

2. Introduction • Regional Development Policy in Canada since the 1960s (culminating in Section 36 of the Constitution Act of 1982) • Structural reforms in 1987 • Focus: “socioeconomically disadvantaged” regions of Northern Ontario, New Brunswick and Manitoba

3. Research Framework • Transition in the analytical framing of policy implementation processes from “administration” to “governance” • Shift in regional development policy discourse from industrial development to local “innovation” • Implications for the relationships between the mandates, resources and culture of public agencies and their wider strategic environment

4. Methodological issues Comparative method: three cases Timeframe of study: 1987-2010 Units of analysis: Organizations Data collection: Semi-structured interviews and content analysis

5. FedNor in Northern Ontario FedNor has a distinct institutional feature compared to other agencies The agency has two main programs, the Northern Ontario Development Program (NODP) and the Community Futures Program (CFP) Changes since the late 1990s

6. ACOA in New Brunswick ACOA’s main program activity areas are threefold: Enterprise Development; Community Development; and Policy, Advocacy and Coordination The rise of ‘provincialism’ since 2000

7. WD’s Bilateral “Contracts” with Manitoba The primary tool of regional economic development in Manitoba: Bipartite contractual framework agreements Post-2000 shifts in intergovernmental policy collaboration.

8. Summary of Key Findings • Politics as a significant variable in the supposedly sanitized world of program management. • From centralized program administration to devolved and decentralized authority effectively vested in provinces. • From concrete industrial “growth pole” strategies to a rather nebulous “innovation” policy (with greater role for local economic actors)

9. Implications for public managementin Canada • Diversity of intergovernmental implementation arrangements (WD’s contractual mechanisms; ACOA and FedNor’s style of direct program delivery) • Stronger provincial determination of processes and outcomes means more variety in policy instruments, processes and outcomes

10. Shifts towards local coordination among a more complex network of actors • Increased strategic importance of municipalities as arenas of policy implementation • Less clear/tangible indicators for tracking performance and accountability (and a greater emphasis on “learning” and “adaptation”)

11. Theoretical Considerations Three considerations 1. Several levels of jurisdiction in joint policy action. 2. Multiple lenses of interpretations among agents, (multiple loci). 3. Highly dynamic nature of evolving networks.

12. Transition in the analytical framing of policy implementation processes from “administration” to “governance” Noticeable shift in regional development policy discourse from industrial development to nurturing local “innovation” clusters. Nexus between the mandates, resources and culture of public agencies and their wider strategic environment

13. Conclusion • Considerable shifts in regional economic development policy implementation in Canada • These shifts are reflective of broader transformations in public management and governance • The shifts are also indicative of wider global ideational and structural changes in the role of the state in society and the economy

14. Thus, policy implementation research is being shaped by two broad concerns: administrative capacity and institutional legitimacy (with the latter becoming more predominant). The implications of currents of transformation in Canada suggest that policy implementation or program delivery tasks in complex intergovernmental systems are best viewed as strategic, and not merely operational.

15. End of presentation Thank you