Risky Business : Canada's Changing Science-Based Policy and Regulatory Regime

Risky Business is a comprehensive look at Canada's science-based policy and regulatory regime. It asks what risks Canadians might be exposed to as fiscal pressures strain the capacity of regulators in areas such as food, drugs, pesticides, fisheries, and the environment.

The first part of this book focuses the reader's attention on diverse and major themes and issues that pervade science-based regulatory regimes today. The second part suggests a framework for analysis and endeavours to present both sympathetic and critical perspectives on the inner-workings of regulatory departments and agencies in the area of the protection of human and environmental health and safety.

Covering such topics as the organizational evolution of regulatory agencies, regulatory bodies' changing sources and levels of funding, a review of the independence of science, and the increased potential for realization of risk, these essays point to the need for these regulators to operate with openness and accessibility in order to maintain public confidence. Indeed, the contributors argue that this openness is crucial to both democratic governance and the development of innovative knowledge economies.

G. Bruce Doern is a professor emeritus in the School of Public Policy and Administration, Carleton University. He is the author and co-author of numerous books on Canadian politics and policy, including Faith and Fear: The Free Trade Story, with Brian Tomlin, and Canadian Public Policy: Ideas, Structure, Process, with Richard Phidd. Ted Reed is a Research Fellow in the Carleton Research Unit on Innovation, Science and Environment (CRUISE) at Carleton University and is also a Lecturer with the Department of Environmental Studies and Geography at Carleton.