What we are Working on Now

Dreaming of the Regulatory Village: Speaking of the Regulatory State

A paradox of public sector management over the last decades has been evident in an extraordinary expansion of regulatory growth. The actual paradox is that this expansion has occurred against the backdrop of a persistent rhetoric of privatization, deregulation and reduced government. This, as some have called it, “re-regulation” has moved away from the older command-and-control model to more nimble – market, negotiated, responsive, etc. – approaches. The Institute of Public Administration of Canada has captured unprecedented analyses of this heightened regulation under conditions of restricted state purview and resources in the eighteenth publication of its New Directions Series: Dreaming of the Regulatory Village; Speaking of the Regulatory State.

To read the press release, click here. To access the publication online, click here.

The Future of Energy Regulation:

An IPAC-SmartTape Conference

The energy industry provides a vivid example of vertical, horizontal, and multilevel regulation. There are now upwards of 60 departments, agencies and boards that regulate energy in some way: they include the National Energy Board, Provincial Energy Commissions, Environment Canada, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in the United States, and the Commission for Environmental Cooperation. The various government departments, agencies and international organizations are not well-coordinated, have little interaction and, at times, are in open conflict. Can the industry effectively meet its obligations to governments, their communities and their shareholders in such circumstances? Are the regulatory regimes sufficiently innovative to secure the energy resources that will guarantee Canada’s prosperity in the future? This conference will examine this rapidly transforming sector of the economy and examine possible policy and administrative reforms in the area of regulation.

Special Issue of Public Sector Magazine

The SmartTape Centre put together a special issue of IPAC's Public Sector Magazine on the theme of regulation. The issue included articles by IPAC Research Committee Chair,Keith Brownsey on regulation in the oil and gas industry; a piece from Industry Canada on the use of auctions to regulate the radio wave spectrum; a piece from Health Canada on electronic document management for regulators; and a review of John Braithwaite's responsive regulatory pyramid by IPAC researcher Michael McConkey.