The convergence of nonequity housing models in Canada: Changes to housing policy since 1990

Abstract

This study examines the impact of housing policy convergence on the nonequity housing system in Ontario, Canada. Ontario has four distinct nonequity housing models— public, nonprofit cooperative, municipal nonprofit, and private nonprofit. This article argues that since 1990, housing policy in Canada, and particularly in Ontario, has become increasingly influenced by the neoconservative agenda of downsizing and decentralization of government functions found in the United States.

The findings reveal that changes to housing policy have caused the convergence of nonequity housing models in the areas of management and administration. Drawing on the present findings and on an experimental project in tenant management, this article argues that the trend toward convergence will continue and will likely result in one nonequity housing model in Canada. This pattern is interpreted in light of the neoconservative agenda of both countries that emphasizes private sector solutions to housing low‐income families.     

Intelligence analysts and policymakers: Benefits and dangers of tensions in the relationship

This article is occasioned by public interest in reported tensions between CIA analysts and policymaking officials of the administration of President George W. Bush regarding the significance of ties between the Saddam Hussein regime and Al Qaeda terrorists, an important factor in the US decision to invade Iraq in 2003. No evaluation of the latter case is provided. The article addresses, instead, general patterns of tensions between intelligence analysts and policy officials in order to provide context for public assessment of the Iraq-Al Qaeda incident when the public record is more complete and enhance understanding of similar future instances of tension.     

Habermas and the pragmatics of communication: a Deleuze–Guattarian critique

The intention in this article is to explore, explicate, and, ultimately, critique Jurgen Habermas' communication theory. Drawing on the pragmatics of Deleuze and Guattari we will propose that Habermas' defence of the importance and priority of communicative action is problematic to the extent that it implicitly involves the issuing of an imperative order that cannot be accounted for within the normative framework that he envisages. In other words, we will be suggesting—with the help of Deleuze and Guattari—that Habermas, undoubtedly against his best intentions, precipitates, what we will call, a strategic levelling of communicative action.     

Dishonestly and without due cause

Legal context: UK trade mark law was harmonised with the laws of other EU memberstates pursuant to the Trade Marks Directive (89/104/EEC) withthe coming into force of the Trade Marks Act 1994. Since then,the English courts have sought to absorb into English jurisprudencecontinental concepts of unfair competition, and a new code relatingto the use of another's trade mark in comparative advertising.Traditionally, the English approach has been more liberal andless protective of a trade mark owner's rights than that ofcontinental jurisdictions, but since 1994 the ECJ has been calledupon to provide frequent guidance on the interpretation of expressionssuch as the "essential function" of a trade mark and the "dutyto act fairly" in relation to the legitimate interests of thetrade mark proprietor. Key points: This article examines the way in which some recent decisionsof the ECJ have led to the English courts having greater regardto the property interests of the trade mark owner and less regardto the concepts of free market competition and consumer protection.In the recent High Court case of L'Oréal and others vBellure NV and others, Lewison J made findings of infringementunder s.10(1) and (3) Trade Marks Act 1994 where he found thatthere was "free riding" on the back of the reputation of certainof L'Oreal's trade marks without there being any evidence ofconfusion or association between the trade marks and the defendants'signs. Practical significance: For trade mark owners, this change in the approach of the Englishcourts opens up new opportunities to combat look-alike productsand comparative advertisements which take unfair advantage ofthe reputation of established marks.     

Smallpox vaccination and the limits of governing through contagion in the Straits Settlements, 1868–1926

Vaccination involves the encounter of nonhuman biological matter and human bodies, recalibrating our susceptibility to illness and death. This boundary-crossing act has been caught in conflicting webs of moral significance, including the normalizing frameworks of public health governance and its corresponding forms of resistance. Such tensions and dynamics were a feature of smallpox vaccination - the first modern, systematic state-driven project to build population immunity. Focusing on smallpox vaccination in the British-ruled Straits Settlements (Singapore, Penang, and Malacca) between 1868 and 1926, we examine the recurrent features of contentions over vaccination from the tentative beginnings of the 1868 Vaccination Ordinance to the systematic extension of vaccination in the 20th century. Engaging science and technology studies of nonhuman agency and social theories on security, we argue that such contentions demonstrate the limits of a power formation we call governing through contagion (GTC). GTC centralizes law and other technologies to normalize public health measures that combat contagious diseases, while dysconnecting populations by its strategies of control. Our history of smallpox vaccination reveals: (i) GTC relies on the interconnectedness of human and nonhuman actors in protecting populations against viral threats; law is essential but does not necessarily drive vaccination or other strategies of control and (ii) resistance to GTC, in which law plays an integral role, reinforces inequalities and differentiated treatment, what we term endemic inter/dysconnectedness.