The effect of political partisanship on the allocation of funds for job creation in the province of Ontario

This thesis examines the role of political considerations in the development and administration of programs that are the responsibility of the federal and provincial governments. Previous research has shown that political considerations do influence public policy outputs, however, this research mostly addresses programs administered by a single level of government. This thesis explores this question further by analyzing and comparing two similar allocative programs: the Canada/Ontario Employment Development (COED) program administered jointly by the federal government and the government of Ontario; and the Canada Works program administered solely by the federal government. Drawing on a comparative analysis of the two decision making structures and upon interviews with decision makers involved, it is argued that policy outputs of the federal-provincial program are less likely to have been affected by political partisanship than the outputs of the program administered solely by the federal government. This proposition was tested further using multiple regression analysis. It was found that after controlling for economic need, the distribution of expenditures from the federally sponsored Canada Works program are significantly related to political partisanship while the distribution of expenditures of the jointly administered COED program are not.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts (MA)

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Political Science

Year dc:date

1984

Author dc:creator

• Bricker, Darrell Jay

Contributors dc:contributor

• Steve Brown

• Political Science

Repository record dc:identifier

https://scholars.wlu.ca/etd/55

OAI record oai:identifier

https://scholars.wlu.ca/do/oai/?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=oai_etdms&identifier=oai%3Ascholars.wlu.ca%3Aetd-1054