Public Administration and Comparative Constitutionalism: The Case of Canadian Federalism

Abstract

As men and women with an abiding commitment to public service, the participants in this symposium will surely be forgiven if they occasionally yield to the temptation to paraphrase Charles Dickens by saying: It is the worst of times; it is the worst of times. But even the worst of times has something to offer those blessed with a sanguine temperament. Banished to the fringe of events, we need not pass our days languishing in irrelevance. Instead, we should make use of our present unhappy condition to reflect upon how we might do better when public service once again enjoys popular support -- as it surely will some day. I believe serious reflection along these lines is already underway and has been for some time. I take the salience of the word governance in our recent literature as a sign of repentance for past transgressions and firm purpose to mend our ways. The transgression was our failure in happier times to link administration to governing, preferring instead to see it as some sort of neutral technique or even as a science. The marked tendency today to criticize the new-found enthusiasm for management for neglecting the rule of law should be seen not as a rejection of management, but as a constructive effort to tame its excesses by grounding it in the well-established norms of governing a constitutional republic. The salience of governance in our field has spawned a renewed interest in constitutionalism. Indeed, a symposium in Public Administration Review just three years ago identified a school of constitutional thought within the public administration community. The purpose of this article is to contribute to this growing interest in constitutionalism by adding a comparative dimension. Comparativists in the field of political science are fond of quoting a line from Kipling -- what knows he of England who only England knows? -- to make the point that one can learn much about one's own country by studying another one. Comparative studies stimulate the political imagination. They prepare us to think creatively about how we might integrate administrative institutions into traditional constitutional structures and how these structures themselves might be adapted to suit the times that lie ahead. My choice of Canadian federalism as a topic of inquiry needs a word of explanation in view of the seemingly endless string of constitutional crises that have bedeviled that otherwise pleasant land over the past three decades. I focus upon Canada for two reasons: 1. Frequent comments have been made by both Quebec sovereigntists and Ottawa federalists on the need to find administrative solutions to the Canadian constitutional crisis. Here is a bold claim that students of public administration would ignore at their peril. Since the referendum of October 1995, there has been precious little progress -- administrative or otherwise -- toward accommodating Quebec's demands within the present constitutional order, but the mere fact that serious people would even talk about administration doing the deeds of high statesmanship challenges the crabbed American view on the possibilities of administrative activity. In Canada, constitutional debates over the very survival of the regime evoke detailed discussions of such classic administrative themes as environmental management, immigration policy, public finance, civil service pensions, education, manpower and training, unemployment benefits, and control of natural resources. I hope that my article will provide a helpful, albeit rather sketchy, constitutional background for American administrationists who take the trouble to follow the dramatic events unfolding among our neighbors to the north. 2. There is a current American rediscovery of the Tenth Amendment, which promises a pronounced redistribution of authority away from Washington and to the states. There can be little doubt that we are about to enjoy (or, alas, endure) still another round of new but this time all signs point to a more profound and more lasting reprise on this theme than Presidents Nixon and Reagan were able to deliver The political culture of Canada is sufficiently similar to our own to warrant the expectation that by studying its highly decentralized federalism, we can learn something of the advantages of decentralization while avoiding its excesses. …