Public Policy and Governance Review

Volume 3 Issue 2

In Uncategorized on April 25, 2012 at 10:00 am

The Public Policy and Governance Review is pleased to announce the release of its 2012 Spring Issue.

Spring is here and, as has become tradition, so too is the second and final issue of the PPGR for the academic year. It has been an eventful year, full of debt crises and revolutions abroad, federal and provincial budgets and the much-anticipated Drummond Report, and a new political movement in Occupy Wall Street that brought the issue of inequality into mainstream conversation. It has been an exciting year for public policy, and it has been a privilege to showcase the fresh thinking of emerging policy leaders from around the country.

This issue features an interview with Professor David Zussman, whose distinguished career in public policy has taken him in and out of government during economic conditions similar and dissimilar to the present. We also take on issues of sovereignty with an analysis of recent developments in Libya, as well as recommendations for Aboriginal self-government here in Canada. Other papers discuss the role of social media in elections, the orientation of newly elected MPPs in Ontario, Toronto Amalgamation, Nitrate Contamination in PEI, and Land Use Agreements in the British Columbia treaty process.

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Asia-Pacific Region, China, Foreign Policy, Military

The Sky is Not Falling

In Ernest Chong, Uncategorized on May 4, 2012 at 10:00 am

… or Why We Shouldn’t Worry Too Much About China’s Latest Military Budget

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Ernest Chong

China’s official defence budget is set to rise by 11.2 percent this year to an estimated 670 billion RMB ($106B US).

Hold the Chicken Little routine. Is the budget increase really that big of a deal?

Not really.

The news should not be surprising. China has been increasing its military spending annually by double-digits for nearly two decades, largely to make up for when military budgets were neglected in favour of the country’s budding economic reforms. Now that the Chinese economy has taken off, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is merely reaping the rewards of its sacrifice.