Philippe Lagassé

Canada and the Bureaucratic Politics of State Fragility

Canadas 2005 International Policy Statement announced that the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade and the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Forces were committed to “whole of government” interventions in failed and fragile states. This led both the Canadian government and outside observers to declare that Canada was successfully harmonising the aims and practices of its internationally focused departments and crafting a synergised approach to interventions in failed and fragile states. Drawing on Halperin and Clapps organisational theory of bureaucratic politics, this paper argues instead that the foreign affairs and defence departments embraced the idea of failed and fragile states to reinforce their organisational essences and recycle their existing missions, roles, and capabilities. In addition, the departments used a “whole of government” approach to secure their autonomy, fence their respective functions, and enlarge their unique capabilities, under the guise of greater efficiency.

SPECIALIZATION AND THE CANADIAN FORCES

Canada is facing a force structuring dilemma. In spite of Ottawas desire to promote international peace and stability alongside the United States and the United Nations, Canadas minimalist approaches to defence spending and capital expenditures are undermining the long‐term viability of the Canadian Forces’ (CF) expeditionary and interoperable capabilities. Two solutions to this dilemma present themselves: increased defence spending or greater force structure specialization. Since Ottawa is unlikely to increase defence spending, specialization provides the only practical solution to the CFs capabilities predicament. Although it would limit the number of tasks that the CF could perform overseas, specialization would maximize the output of current capital expenditures and preserve the CFs interoperability with the US military in an age of defence transformation. This paper thus argues that the economics of Canadian defence necessitate a more specialized CF force structure.

Parliament Will Decide: An Interplay of Politics and Principle

Debates about Parliament’s role in deciding military deployments are clouded by misunderstandings of the relative legal authorities of the executive and the legislature, and the mixture of political objectives and democratic obligation that inform these discussions. Much has been written about the legal aspects of this question. This article considers instead the issues of politics and principle, which we argue are consistently interwoven: while governments have elevated Parliament’s role in military deployments for political purposes, the choice to involve the legislature also reflects the idea that it is the “right thing to do” in a democracy.

Royal Succession and the Canadian Crown as a Corporation Sole: A Critique of Canada's Succession to the Throne Act, 2013

The constitutionality of Canada’s Succession to the Th rone Act, 2013 (Succession Act) will be tested in Quebec’s Superior Court in the coming months. In a case brought by two law professors from Laval University, with the government of Quebec as an intervener, the Quebec Superior Court will consider whether the Parliament of Canada’s assent to a British statute is sufficient to change the rules of royal succession for Canada.