The Integrity Gap

This thoughtful collection exposes the gap between rhetoric andperformance in Canada’s response to environmental challenges.Canadians, despite their national penchant for environmentaldiscussion, have fallen behind their G-8 peers in both domesticcommitments and international actions. In a cogent examination of theissue, eight authors demonstrate how Canada’s configuration ofpolitical and economic institutions has limited effective environmentalpolicy. Canadian environmental institutions, the authors argue, haveproduced an integrity gap: the sustainability rhetoric adopted bypolicymakers fails to achieve concrete results. In an analysis thatpenetrates several policy domains and combines various disciplinary,sectoral, and geographic perspectives, the authors demonstrate howCanada fell from leader to laggard within the internationalenvironmental community.

Placing the study of Canadian environmental policy within a soundtheoretical framework for the first time, this book makes a significantcontribution to existing policy scholarship. It will find anenthusiastic audience among political scientists, neo-institutionaltheorists, policy analysts, and students at both undergraduate andgraduate levels.