Canadian Multimodal Transport Policy and Governance

Book excerpt: Given its geographical expanse, Canada has always faced long-term transport policy issues and challenges. Canadian Multi-Modal Transport Policy and Governance explains how and why Canadian transportation policy and related governance changed from the Pierre Trudeau era through the Chretien, Martin, Mulroney, Harper, and Justin Trudeau eras. With particular attention paid to the diversity and ongoing evolution of transportation policy since the 1960s, the broad distribution of regulatory authority across different levels of government, and the politicization of regulatory regimes and investment decisions since the 1970s, Doern, Coleman, and Prentice attempt to answer three critical questions: How and to what extent have policy and governance changed over the decades? Where has transport policy resided in federal policy agendas? And is Canada developing the policies, institutions, and capacities it needs to have a socio-economically viable and technologically advanced transportation system for the medium and long term? A sweeping history of transportation policy in Canada that fills a gap in the existing literature, Canadian Multi-Modal Transport Policy and Governance concludes that transportation has been subordinate to other federal goals and priorities, delaying and eroding transport systems into the twenty-first century.