Queen's Policy Studies
7 total works
Volumes in the Canada's National Defence series present an annotated collection of government statements on defence policy and internal studies and reports prepared by senior military officers, defence officials, and consultants to governments and ministers from about 1945 to 1997. They trace the history of the ideas that give Canada's defence policy and defence organizations their unique character. If there is an enduring Canadian strategy for national defence, it is expressed in these papers. Volume 2: Defence Organization is a collection of eight documents on the organization of the national defence establishment. Covering the period from 1936 to 1990, the papers include Colonel Pope's Memorandum; The McGill Reports, The Glassco Report, Hellyer's Reorganization, The Management Review Group, The Fyffe Review, The Vance Review, and The Little/Hunter Study.
Canadian governments have not issued many policy statements on national defence since 1945. Most of those presented to Parliament were simple pronouncements of the status quo, especially after the early 1950s. Occasionally, however, ministers attempted to take defence policy in new, and sometimes radical, directions. This volume of Canada's National Defence critically examines five such sentinel policy papers: Defence 1947; White Paper on Defence, 1964; Defence in the 70s; Challenge and Commitment: A Defence Policy for Canadians; and Defence 1994. Douglas Bland stresses the importance of seeing the papers as declarations of intent made in the midst of ongoing policy and administration. Each white paper and defence policy, generally, had to contend with the attitudes and opinions of senior military and public service leaders who had, not surprisingly, their own views on policy. Ministers who challenged these views usually had to force policies forward against the opposition of soldiers and officials. In such circumstances, the policies seldom retain their original shape and intent once the minister departs. The history of policies declared in white papers, therefore, provides a glimpse at the realities of civil-military relations in Canada. The questions are, whose policy survives and why?
Campaigns for International Security
by Douglas L. Bland and Sean Maloney
Published 19 February 2004
Social and Cultural Change
by David M. Last, Franklin Pinch, and Douglas L. Bland
Published 25 May 2004
New Missions, Old Problems
by Douglas L. Bland, David M. Last, and Franklin Pinch
Published 7 June 2004