Secrecy,Security and Digital Literacy in an Era of Meta-Data: Why the Canadian Westminster Model Falls Short

The purpose of this article is to undertake a critical assessment of the governance of Canada's national security apparatus and, more specifically, the growing digitization and data-driven dimensions of such an apparatus. Over the previous decade, since 9/11, the advent of electronic government (e-government) and its emphasis on horizontality and interoperability became intertwined with the security apparatus of the public sector: the recent Snowden affair in the US has once again brought such discussions to the forefront. It is within such a context that the rise of ‘big data’ (or meta-data) as an identifiable term denotes a confluence of forces and contradictory tensions between openness and secrecy for the public sector both operationally and democratically. We examine Canada's Westminster insularity in this regard, how Canadian reforms meant to augment oversight and review capacities of security agencies have been stunted in recent years, and why such stalled actions matter to the privacy and safety of Canadian citizens. Conversely, a case for more openness and governance innovation is put forth premised on two main and inter-related directions: more political oversight and public dialogue on the one hand, and a greater emphasis on privacy as a responsibility on the other hand. Together these directions emphasize a more activist and participative civil culture that is central to ensuring societal resilience in an increasingly virtual and complex security environment.     

Local economies and national economic evaluations

Underlying the phenomena of economic voting are voters’ perceptions of economic conditions. But from where do these evaluations originate? This work examines the effects of three types of factors influential to the formation of national economic evaluations: predispositions (such as age, gender, income, partisanship), information and attentiveness, and objective local economic conditions (local unemployment rates). Our findings fit with earlier work, broadly confirming the influential role each set of factors plays in shaping national economic perceptions. We then extend the literature - demonstrating that the impact of the local economic environment is conditional on attention to media, political information and education. Using a combined dataset of the 2006 Canadian Election Studies with neighbourhood level economic indicators drawn from Canadian Census data (2006), our findings show that, in developing perceptions of the national economy, more attentive, more informed and more educated individuals are less influenced by local economic conditions than their less attentive, less informed and less educated counterparts. These findings contribute to our understanding of how local economic conditions influence the formation of national economic evaluations.     

The Effect of Lower Transaction Costs on Social Security Disability Insurance Application Rates and Participation

Transaction costs pose significant barriers to participation in public programs. We analyze how Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) application behavior was affected by iClaim, a 2009 innovation that streamlined the online application process. We use a difference‐in‐differences design to compare application rates before and after 2009 across counties with varying degrees of access to high‐speed internet. We estimate that counties with internet connectivity one standard‐deviation above the mean experienced a 1.6 percent increase in SSDI applications, and a 2.8 percent increase in appeals after the reform. We estimate that the increase in applications due to iClaim can explain 15 percent of the overall increase in applications between 2008 and 2011. Higher exposure to the online application led to a slightly larger increase in SSDI awards, meaning there was a small but significant increase in the overall award rate. Application rates increased the most in rural areas, while appeals and awards had more significant increases in urban areas. These results suggest that the online application reduced transaction costs to applicants, and the lower costs improved the overall targeting efficiency of the application process.     

‘I live off this land:’ Tahltan women and activism in northern British Columbia

Tahltan territory of northern British Columbia has been flooded with some of the largest industrial extractive projects in the world. One critical point of conflict is centered on how Canada legislates and regulates access to lands without regard to Indigenous sovereignty. This article illustrates the centrality of gender to such struggles. It argues that historic forms of dispossession paved the way for these contemporary threats to Indigenous territories. It offers a case study on how an aspect of colonial policy—the trapline registration system established in early twentieth-century Canada—prioritized white trappers and registered Indian traplines in ways that were at odds with Tahltan matriarchal systems of governance and land management. Despite colonial attempts to undermine the Tahltan’s relationship to their land and to reorder it according to gender norms, Tahltan women have adamantly revitalized and exercised their matriarchal authority to fulfill their role as protectors of lands and water.     

Public opinion on media presence in the courthouse

Very little attention has been devoted to the public's opinion of media coverage of court cases despite extensive research on pretrial publicity (PTP). Following a provincial judgment to restrict media access in Quebec courthouses, a preliminary unpublished study found that the public was largely in support of these restrictions. The present study sought to expand on this finding in a more widely generalizable sample. Subjects were recruited from continuing education classes and completed a questionnaire that assessed their support for restricting journalists in courthouses. Nearly 80% of the 243 participants supported media restrictions. Although participants in the four experimental conditions and one of the control groups were largely in favor of the restrictions, one control group was opposed to the restrictions. The results suggest that the public prefers that journalists have restricted access to courtroom participants, resonating research on PTP and the Supreme Court's decision on the case.     

A democratic responsiveness approach to real reform: an exploration of health care systems' resilience

Real reforms attempt to change how health care is financed and how it is rationed. Three main explanations have been offered to explain why such reforms are so difficult: institutional gridlock, path dependency, and societal preferences. The latter posits that choices made regarding the health care system in a given country reflect the broader societal set of values in that country and that as a result public resistance to real reform may more accurately reflect citizens' personal convictions, self-interest, or even active social choices. "Conscientious objectors" may do more to derail reform than previously recognized.