Cet article porte sur les effets et les contraintes posés par la pandémie de COVID-19 sur les mécanismes de la gouvernance dans le système fédéral canadien. Pour ce faire, nous empruntons un cadre analytique bien spécifique, que nous faisons découler expressément des réflexions de la Cour suprême du Canada dans son Renvoi relatif à la sécession du Québec. Nous nous intéressons ainsi aux quatre principes sous-jacents à la Constitution canadienne identifiés par la Cour – soit le fédéralisme, la démocratie, le constitutionnalisme et la primauté du droit, de même que la protection des minorités – et à leur respect (ou non-respect) en temps de crise. Nous posons la question suivante : dans quelle mesure l’esprit de ces quatre principes constitutionnels fondamentaux a-t-il été respecté par les acteurs clés du système de gouvernance au Canada alors qu’ils étaient confrontés à la pandémie de COVID-19?

Alors que la lutte contre la corruption est généralement considérée comme une responsabilité de la Justice ou des agences anticorruptions, des recherches montrent que les institutions supérieures de contrôle des finances publiques (ISC) peuvent aussi jouer un rôle essentiel. Cependant, ce rôle n'est pas toujours clairement défini et pourrait diverger selon les contextes. L'objectif de cet article est de mieux cerner le rôle des ISC dans la lutte contre la corruption du point de vue des acteurs directement concernés, soit les membres des ISC. Treize entretiens, réalisés avec des vérificateurs au Québec et des magistrats en France et au Sénégal, démontrent une contribution effective de ces institutions dans le combat contre la corruption, bien qu'elles n'en aient pas le mandat explicite.

With the 2016 Charity Law, Chinese legislators created a public-private hybrid model for the governance of charitable trusts. By endowing private actors with greater rights in the creation and management of charitable trusts, this hybrid model demonstrates the State’s intention of changing the functioning of the charitable trust sector from complete dependence on the State to a partnership. However, embedded in China’s particular institutional environment, the partnership relationship still bears the mark of strict government control, which is secured by granting extensive powers to regulators. This article analyzes the newly established regulatory framework for charitable trusts and outlines how regulators exercise their power in practice. The findings show that the tradition of regulators being subject to intense administrative pressures remains unchanged and that political concerns permeate every aspect of the regulation of charitable trusts.

Traditionally, women have been perceived as the fairer sex with a moral compass and with less inclination towards gaining wealth and taking risks. Past research has posited that women consider crime due to need. Recently one piece of research has considered greed due to the development and empowerment of women, the opportunities and power accorded to them in line with governance frameworks, policies and regulations that cover crimes, penalties and punishments, and cultural and social norms. Social perspectives influence the moral values passed down within social and family units. A pilot survey of female participants exposed to investigation and law and from two age groups of 18–39 years and 40–61 years reflected a significant change in culture and values. The older group was critical of corrupt behaviour and that the choices were the “right thing to do”. The younger participants were selective in their choices, choosing to deny or be silent if there was insufficient evidence and protection or where there was the involvement of someone dear. This reflects the power of knowledge, empowerment and education. The author discusses case studies of women exposed to crime, including organized crime, via their family or social networks to assess abuse of power and trust.

Les crises sanitaires produisent des effets transversaux sur la santé publique et l’ordre socio‑politique. Aux yeux des citoyens, c’est le pouvoir normatif qui s’est trouvé discrédité par la crise sanitaire liée à la Covid-19. Bousculée à plusieurs reprises, la norme juridique a perdu beaucoup de sa normativité et de sa valeur dans la conscience collective. Face aux différentes formes de désarticulation subies par le pouvoir normatif, il paraît urgent d’envisager des perspectives de réforme visant à rénover la fonction et le processus de création des normes juridiques. L’application des outils de la légistique et l’adoption d’une conception plus partenariale que régalienne de la fonction normative peuvent concourir au changement souhaité de la culture normative.

The predominance of Whiteness, and the corresponding lack of representation of people who are both racialized and minoritized, in the governance of universities is a political issue. We present the results from an intersectional diversity audit of central and senior academic administrators at five Canadian universities: Simon Fraser University, University of British Columbia, University of Toronto, University of Victoria and York University. Our findings indicate that racialized men and women are hitting ceilings in the middle administrative ranks. Conversely, we find a notable overrepresentation of White men and women in the senior administrative ranks. Our analysis suggests that White women, unlike racialized women and men, no longer face serious barriers to representation within these senior ranks. These findings raise concerns about processes of racialization that may impede career progress for some but accelerate it for others. They raise concerns about the politics of who lifts whom into the echelons of academic decision making, which in turn has implications for justice, knowledge and social meanings of competency.

This article interrogates the laws that govern safety crimes, harmful but typically unintentional acts of negligence that occur in the production of goods and services. Acts that injure employees at work are commonly depicted in legal discourses as accidents and penalized through administrative laws, although other negligent acts such as driving offences causing injury or death are treated as potentially criminal events. Through a discourse analysis of legal and regulatory texts and documents, the authors argue that the constitution of workplace safety crime is rooted in complex historical factors that shape state responses to corporate wrongdoing. This article documents the roots of this “common sense” view of workplace crime, empirically focusing on Canadian corporate negligence law, and concludes with tentative strategies of resistance and change.

What, in fact, is the Welfare State? This article traces the emergence of the welfare state as a specific mode of government, describing its distinctive rationality as well as its characteristic forms, functions and effects. It identifies five sectors of welfare governance, the relations between them, and the various forms these take in different times and places. It discusses the contradictory commitments that shape welfare state practices and the problems associated with these practices and contradictions. It situates welfare state government within a long-term account of the changing relations between the social and the economic spheres. And it argues that the welfare state ought to be understood as a “normal social fact”—an essential (though constantly contested) part of the social and economic organization of modern capitalist societies.

We study the relation of financial contracting and the pace of technological advance in a dynamic agency theoretic model. A firm which is financed by outside shareholders but run by managers has the prospect of a process innovation which arrives stochastically. Adopting the innovation requires firing old management and hiring new with skills appropriate for the new technique. We show that subgame perfect equilibria in this game can be of two types. In “entrenchment” equilibrium once the new technique has been announced old style management raises their dividend payout sufficiently to preempt the innovation. In “maximum rent extraction” equilibrium’ managers are unable or unwilling to match the impending productivity improvement and instead respond by increasing their perquisites for the remaining time of their tenure. We show that both equilibria involve several types of inefficiencies and can result in underinvestment in positive NPV projects. We discuss the role of financial innovation in reducing the inefficiencies identified.