You will perhaps think that, with that introduction, I have already answered the question in the title. Don't jump to conclusions! Attendez un peu!

When I was elected president of this Association last year, I could scarcely have been more astonished. Obviously, there were dozens of people far better qualified. I asked myself why I had been chosen, and there was only one possible reason that seemed to me to make any sense. The Association was to become bilingual, and I was one of the few senior English-speaking members who could make a respectable noise in French. I hasten to agree that this is a most inadequate reason for my election, but it is still the only one I can think of.

Be that as it may, the twin facts that the Association is now to be officially bilingual, and that I can make a respectable noise in French, seem to me to impose upon me a double duty: first, to say something about our bicultural state (you observe how carefully I avoid, so far, the controversial word “nation”), and second, to say at least part of it in French.

“There is scarcely any inquiry more curious, or, from its importance, more worthy of attention, than that which traces the causes which practically check the progress of wealth in different countries, and stop it, or make it proceed very slowly, while the power of production remains comparatively undiminished, or at least would furnish the means of a great and abundant increase of produce and population.” This introductory sentence is borrowed from T. R. Malthus' Principles of Political Economy, Book II, “On the Progress of Wealth” (2nd ed.), p. 309.

It is indeed curious that 152 years after Malthus' inquiry, and, what is more, twenty-six years after the Keynesian revolution, stunted growth remains a problem. Canada, for example, is exceptionally well endowed with natural riches, has a relatively well-educated, young, and increasing population, and enjoys a privileged position alongside the world's richest market. Yet, Canadian economic growth has been mysteriously stunted. Although Canada's recent evolution is perhaps the most puzzling to a foreign observer, stunted growth is not peculiar to this country. The United Kingdom, Belgium, and the United States are other instances. Until some ten years ago, France was generally considered as irretrievably condemned to economic stagnation, owing, it was said, to the characteristics of her population, and her institutions.

This paper is not designed primarily as a contribution to the theory of political decision-making. Nor is it an economic analysis of the problems studied by the Royal Commission on Price Spreads and Mass Buying. Rather, it is an attempt to show how the opposition Liberal party developed a strategy to deal with the important issues of economic policy raised by the investigation and how it developed an alternative policy position.

On February 2, 1934, the Prime Minister, R. B. Bennett, moved that a Select Committee of the House of Commons be established to inquire into the causes of price spreads and a variety of related problems in the areas of distribution, inter-firm relations, and labour conditions. From the beginning, H. H. Stevens, the chairman and Minister of Trade and Commerce in the Bennett administration, dominated the Committee's hearings—selecting witnesses, scheduling proceedings, and stretching the Committee's already elastic terms of reference in search of new abuses and new sensations. He denounced unfair trade practices and what he felt were flagrant abuses of economic power by department stores, meat packers, and other mass buyers, economic power which he charged was used to squeeze the small retailer, supplier, and producer and destroy decent working conditions. The public interest in the hearings was high and the press coverage was extensive and full, particularly when the Chairman had angry exchanges with the presidents of Canada Packers and the Imperial Tobacco Company.

Canada's recent return to a pegged exchange rate marks the end of a highly interesting experiment in international economic policy and the end of an era in the history of the Canadian balance of payments. It is now appropriate, therefore, to look backwards and to examine the effects of changes in the balance of payments on the Canadian economy during the period in which the value of the Canadian dollar was allowed to fluctuate freely. Only a very narrow aspect of the problem is examined in this paper, namely, the effect of the large long-term capital inflow of the 1950s on the Canadian business cycle. This problem is interesting not only for its own sake, but also because the cyclical effect of a capital inflow is extremely important in determining whether the borrowing country achieves its potential or required growth rate.

If, for our purposes, we define the potential supply of goods and services available to an economy as domestic production at full employment plus imports minus exports, a capital inflow increases that supply by bidding up the value of the Canadian dollar until sufficient upward pressure on imports and downward pressure on exports is imposed to transfer the capital inflow in real terms. This increase in supply implies that planned aggregate expenditures in Canada can increase without exerting inflationary pressures on the economy. A capital inflow allows a higher level of investment expenditure and this raises the potential rate of growth of the productive capacity of the economy.

There has been considerable discussion recently in the English-speaking world about the office of Ombudsman, or complaints commissioner, in the Nordic countries. The present paper first explains the need for the office, and shows how it meets this need. We then deal with arguments that have been raised against transplanting the institution to other countries, consider some problems regarding its functions and powers, and finally discuss the specific problem of its application to Canada.

Briefly stated, the argument for the Ombudsman scheme derives from the fact that all democratic countries in the twentieth century have experienced a shift from the laissez-faire to the positive state. The accompanying tremendous growth in the range and complexity of government activities has brought with it the need to grant increasing powers of discretion to the executive side of government; and as Dicey has warned us, “Wherever there is discretion, there is room for arbitrariness.” It is quite possible nowadays for a citizen's rights to be accidentally crushed by the vast juggernaut of the government's administrative machine. In this age of the welfare state, thousands of administrative decisions are made each year by governments or their agencies, many of them by lowly officials; and if some of these decisions are arbitrary or unjustified, there is no easy way for the ordinary citizen to gain redress.

Newfoundland before 1934 had a Governor, a responsible Executive Council, and an appointed Legislative Council. The Governor “with the advice and consent” of the Executive Council, summoned and called together the General Assembly, and “the persons thereupon duly elected to be members of the said Assembly,” before their sitting, took the Oath of Allegiance. The Governor from time to time prorogued the Legislative Council and the House of Assembly, and also from time to time dissolved the House of Assembly. Laws were made by the Governor “with the advice and consent of the said Legislative Council and Assembly.”

From February 16, 1934, to March 31, 1949, Newfoundland was ruled by a Commission of Government. Upon the union with Canada in 1949, the constitution of the legislature as it existed immediately prior to February 16, 1934, continued as the constitution of the legislature of the province of Newfoundland, except in so far as it related to the Legislative Council. Laws are now “enacted by the Lieutenant-Governor and the House of Assembly” only.

Prior to 1928 the Assembly contained thirty-six members. In that year (by an act passed in 1925) the number was raised to forty, but in 1932 it was reduced to twenty-seven. In 1949 it rose to twenty-eight, and in 1956 (by an act passed in 1955) it once again reached thirty-six. Now, by an amendment adopted in 1962, the House of Assembly consists, from the dissolution of the General Assembly in October, of forty-two members.

The political ideas of public opinion analysts–pollsters as well as theoreticians–have often been submitted to rather harsh criticisms from political philosophers and scientists. On occasion, however, the analysts have reciprocated by accusing the latter of being poorly acquainted not only with the techniques and purpose of polling but also with the basic political assumptions that underlie their work. Public opinion analysts in the United States present themselves as champions of democracy; as a consequence, it is only natural that they should above all resent criticisms asserting that they hold naïve, false, or even subversive notions concerning democracy.

In the present article, I intend to explore the ideological conceptions of American public opinion analysts concerning the position and function of polling in a democracy. Reference to their critics will be made only when one or another public opinion analyst is known to have explicitly answered a specific point. Since many contemporary analysts acknowledge their debt to Bryce's The American Commonwealth, I shall start by presenting the pertinent views of the British author concerning public opinion; second, I shall summarize the views which present polling as a new technique of democratic government; third, I shall consider what public opinion analysts have to say about the impact of polling on the democratic process as such. Finally, I shall conclude by indicating how public opinion analysts view their research in relation to political theory in general.