No abstract

This article looks at public accounts committees (PACS) in Canadian legislatures and their relationship with legislative auditors. In most jurisdictions, there is a close relationship between the two, as PACS base their agenda on auditors' reports and interact significantly with auditors. The chief role of the committees is to provide a unique and important public forum for the further exploration of issues identified by auditors. Their effectiveness is thus not necessarily in their written reports as much as it is in their hearings and examinations of witnesses. While some committees are clearly stronger than others, for a variety of reasons, they are all potentially powerful. It is up to legislatures, governments, legislative auditors, and committees themselves to make use of PACS unique capabilities Sommaire: Le présent article se penche sur les comités des comptes publics (CCP) dans les législatures canadiennes et leurs relations avec les vérificateurs législatifs. Dans la plupart des juridictions des provinces et territoires, il existe une relation étroite entre les deux, étant donné que les CCP fondent leur agenda sur les rapports des vérificateurs et sont en dialogue constant avec ces derniers. Le rôle principal de ces comités consiste à foumir un forum public, unique et important, dans le but d'étudier plus à fond les questions identifiées par les vérificateurs. Leur efficacité ne découle donc pas néessairement des rapports écrits, mais plutôt de leurs audiences et de l'interrogatoire des témoins. Alors que certains comités sont clairement plus forts que d'autres pour toutes sortes de raisons, ils ont tous le potentiel d'être puissants. C'est aux législatures, gouvemements, vérificateurs législatifs et aux comités eux‐mêmes qu'il revient de faire usage des capacités uniques des CCP.

Legislatures are complex institutions that serve many purposes. While their overall roles vary in different political systems, they typically serve multiple functions, including representation, law making, scrutiny of government, public symbolism, and others. These inevitably overlap and sometimes collide; similarly, individual legislators must balance party, constituency, and personal factors in their decision making. Now, in a time of sudden and unexpected disruption amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the Parliament of Canada has been forced to rethink its complex activities under urgent and unexpected new conditions.

Religion and politics remain very complex issues in both Canada and the United States, and ripe for caricature and overstatement. While a Canadian Christian Right has arisen and finds some affinity with the Harper government, we should not assume that Canada will see anywhere near the visibility and influence of the American Christian Right. There is also some evidence of a new, more moderate American evangelical political presence, especially at the dawn of the Obama presidency, although we should be careful not to overstate this either. Differences between Canada and the United States may not be quite as large and clear-cut as they once were when it comes to evangelical Christians and politics, but the role of religion in public life and politics remains distinctly different in the two countries.

In face of the ongoing discrepancy between the number of political science PhD graduates and the availability of permanent academic positions, in this article we consider attitudes of faculty members towards options to address this issue. Based on a survey of faculty members in PhD-granting political science programs at English-speaking Canadian universities, we find considerable support for both reducing the number of PhD students admitted and reforming curriculum to ensure graduates cultivate skills transferable to non-academic environments. At the same time, faculty members are inclined to believe that PhD students themselves should shoulder the greatest responsibility for career preparation.