Overview

This course considers how the environmental policy process in Canada works. Through your study of the material presented, you should gain familiarity with Canadian environmental organizations and government structures, the court's interpretation of environmental legislation, and the historic development of, and changes associated with, the environmental movement in Canada and in North America.

The course will identify and evaluate many of the environmental policy tools that governments have used, or might use in the future. These tools include regulation, environmental assessment, and mediation (multistakeholder discussions and bargaining) as well as market-based tools such as environmental taxes and user fees, green products, environmental subsidies (to recycling, for example), and subsidy removals (to extractive industries or energy-inefficient modes of transportation, for example).

The study of environmental policy should also help to convey some understanding of the policy-making process as a whole, that is, how governments make decisions. Political Science 325 places environmental policy within selected, real-world examples of environmental decision making in Canada. In particular this three-credit, senior-level course is designed to convey the idea that both policy and politics are embedded in fundamental value choices. These are choices that must be made (or avoided) collectively by society as a whole. Environmental values, such as ecology, wilderness, and habitat protection; air and water quality; and resource and environmental sustainability, must compete within both the policy and political processes for a share of the always limited public resources. Environmental values must vie with such politically formidable values as economic growth, social equity, corporate profits, regional preferences, employment opportunities, and-in terms of public budget dollars-with health care, social programs, education, interest on the debt, and tax reductions. Politics is always about the authoritative allocation of values.

Outline

Political Science 325: Canadian Environmental Policy and Politics has six units. Each unit of study contains either two or three lessons.

Unit 1: Environmental Values

Unit 2: Environmental Institutions

Unit 3: Environmental Policy Tools

Unit 4: Case Studies in Environmental Policy

Unit 5: Policy Linkages

Unit 6: Globalization and Environmental Decision Making

Evaluation

To receive credit for POLI 325, you must achieve a course composite grade of at least “D” (50 percent) and at least 50 percent on the final examination.

To learn more about assignments and examinations, please refer to Athabasca University's online Calendar.

Course Materials

Textbooks

Paehlke, R. C. (2003). Democracy's dilemma: Environment, social equity, and the global economy. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

VanNijnatten, D. L., & Boardman, R. (Eds.). (2002). Canadian environmental policy: Context and cases (2nd ed.). Toronto: Oxford University Press.

Other Materials

Other materials, prepared by R. C. Pahelke of Trent University, include a Study Guide (2004) and a Student Manual (2004).