Inroads: A Journal of Opinion articles from January 1 1996

Inroads: A Journal of Opinion archives from January 1 1996

Russia: the end of an unnoticed revolution?
January 1, 1996... Prologue This story begins in August 1991 when hope of true democratic reform dramatically became alive in Russia. It ends in June 1996, just as those hopes may be dashed in the first round in the presidential elections. The contenders...

Canada's massive investment in education: is the return adequate?
January 1, 1996... There is a widely held belief that our schools are not doing the job we expect of them. Yet how do we really know? Is our dissatisfaction merely the by-product of an ideologically motivated attack on public institutions, as defenders of our...

Diagnosis of a troubled system: Quebec's "Estates General" on education.
January 1, 1996... Over the last decade, pressure has been mounting in Quebec for an overall review and reform of the publicly funded education system. The main concerns are the poor command of language, particularly written language, exhibited by graduates of...

Curing the schools to death: saving public education from its defenders.
January 1, 1996... Growing discontent in public opinion polls, rising private school enrollment and a new energy and aggressiveness among reformers are symptoms of the declining health of Canada's public schools. Rather than consensus about reform, however,...

Can schools solve problems they did not create? Washington State's "Schools for the 21st Century" Program.
January 1, 1996... Primary and secondary education reform efforts in the US over the past 40 years have often resulted in only partial successes at best. Major reform efforts, such as the National Defense Education Act of 1958 (NDEA), defined education system...

Youth service program for Canada.
January 1, 1996... In April 1995, the then-Ontario NDP government unveiled its new youth strategy. Called "JUMPstart," it reminded me of the "jumpstop," a basketball move I'd learned in high school. Given that JUMPstart was basically a warmed over program left...

Six degrees of -- separation.
January 1, 1996... Hallowe'en came a day early in 1995. From the initial results in Iles de la Madelaine until well into the night, the OUI side was ahead in the referendum tally. With 70 percent of the vote in, it was 50-50. Only after two hours of counting,...

Attempt to reconcile the irreconcilable.
January 1, 1996... You have to respect Richards and Milner's courage in building a Plan A ship at a time when Plan B has become the vessel of choice and the destination one of preparing for national break-up. Given our constitutional failures in 1990 and 1992,...

What does Quebec want?
January 1, 1996... Milner and Richards's analysis is useful in analyzing the political feasibility of the various options facing Canada in the wake of the Quebec referendum. I want to build on their analysis, highlighting my conclusions about attitudes among...

Playing constitutional games.
January 1, 1996... Because game theory and rational choice are part of my academic specialization, I was intrigued by the quasi-game-theory approach that Richards and Milner employ in their article. Much of their model is quite valuable, but I start with one...

Someone has lost touch with reality.
January 1, 1996... Richards and Milner require me to consider whether I may have lost touch with political reality. For if I have not, they have. They claim to be prescribing the next move for Canada outside Quebec. But their game makes sense if, but only if, for...

Downtrodden adminstrative route.
January 1, 1996... Richards and Milner's article, very much like Robson's "Nine Plans from Outer Space," which they acknowledge as an inspiration, provides a clinical overview of the Canadian political minefield and a useful survey of the constitutional terrain...

Avoiding a third referendum.
January 1, 1996... In "Six Degrees of Separation," the authors say they "are not personally convinced the end game is upon us" in the problem of our national disunity. I agree--unless we, in the Rest of Canada, do not care enough about this country. We need to...

From six degrees of separation to three degrees of reality.
January 1, 1996... With some reservations regarding the distinct society clause, I personally would have little difficulty supporting the proposed solution to the Constitution game in the Richards-Milner paper. There is one problem: it simply will not have enough...

Province or a country? Quebecers must choose.
January 1, 1996... John Richards and Henry Milner have produced a thoughtful, sincere, but rather sad prescription for the latest symptoms in Canada's chronic constitutional disease. It is sad because for 30 years I have been reading a plethora of somewhat...

Chasing a falling market.
January 1, 1996... The analysis in "Six Degrees of Separation," like so much political analysis in the current constitutional analysis, is chasing a falling market. It betrays a certain unwillingness to accept the full range of possible outcomes, and therefore an...

Language of accommodation.
January 1, 1996... Among the recommendations of John Richards and Henry Milner is to grant explicit jurisdiction to provinces over the public use of language in the province. This, they argue, would effectively respond to an important aspiration among a majority...

Ontario NDP: what's left after 4 1/2 years in office?
January 1, 1996... The Ontario New Democratic Party surprised everyone by winning a majority government on September 6, 1990. Initially, government spending was increased to cover both new and existing programs, incurring the wrath of business and news...

Agenda for a revived Canadian left: social conservatism: economic radicalism.
January 1, 1996... The Canadian left is generally irrelevant and deservedly so. Indeed, from my perspective, there is no left in Canada today. There hasn't been one for at least a decade. I am not happy about this. A left is sorely missed. We have been living...

British Columbia: where fed bashing goes too far.
January 1, 1996... In defining the elusive Canadian identify, "fed bashing" by the provinces is as important as, say, prairie farmers moaning about the weather and last year's wheat price, or Montreal Expo fans grumbling about the usual late-season collapse, or...

Primer on Russian parliamentary elections.
January 1, 1996... According to the 1993 Constitution, Russia is a Presidential Republic (more like the U.S. or France than Canada or Britain). The government is effectively controlled by the President, which can lead the Duma (parliament) to somewhat...

Getting there from here.
January 1, 1996... I have never been as convinced as many now seem to be about the degree of duplication and overlap of federal and provincial responsibilities. Nor have I felt that the network of federal-provincial arrangements is, on balance, a negative aspect...