Canadian Science Policy and the Retreat from Transformative Politics

The Final Years of the Science Council of Canada, 1985-1992

Bibliographic Data

ID14819360
AuthorsG Brent Clowater (University of New Brunswick, corresponding author)
Year2013
Volume35
Issue1-2
Pages107-134
Publication date2013-02-11
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueScientia Canadensis Canadian Journal of the History of Science Technology and Medicine (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0829-2507 • E-ISSN: 1918-7750
PublisherUniversity of Alberta Libraries (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.7202/1013983ar
OpenAlexW2008663066
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited2

The Science Council of Canada (1966-1992) operated as an ‘arms-length’ agency providing science policy advice and recommendations to the federal government. The Council was always a voice for state interventionism. In the late 1970s, it turned to the politically sensitive issue of industrial policy and advocated a nationalistic, ‘transformative politics’ through its defense of technological sovereignty. An examination of its research and policy recommendations, and the controversies they excited, reveals that the Council’s struggle against new policy trends in its final years paralleled larger transitions in public perceptions of the role of government in Canadian society. Its 1992 dissolution symbolized Canada’s reorientation from a state-directed to a market-oriented approach to science and technology policy-making. This paper reviews the Council’s guiding philosophy and discusses its history within two larger contexts: the Canadian political debate over continentalism, and evolving conceptions of science, technology, and innovation, and the prospects for their management

International relations · Political science · Politics · Public policy · Social science · Sociology · Sovereignty · Transformative learning · Law · Public Administration · Research, Science, and Academia · Twentieth Century Scientific Developments

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