Abstracts
Abstract
The Science Council of Canada (1966-1992) operated as an ‘arms-length’ agency providing science policy advice and recommendations to the federal government. The Council was always a voice for state interventionism. In the late 1970s, it turned to the politically sensitive issue of industrial policy and advocated a nationalistic, ‘transformative politics’ through its defense of technological sovereignty. An examination of its research and policy recommendations, and the controversies they excited, reveals that the Council’s struggle against new policy trends in its final years paralleled larger transitions in public perceptions of the role of government in Canadian society. Its 1992 dissolution symbolized Canada’s reorientation from a state-directed to a market-oriented approach to science and technology policy-making. This paper reviews the Council’s guiding philosophy and discusses its history within two larger contexts: the Canadian political debate over continentalism, and evolving conceptions of science, technology, and innovation, and the prospects for their management.
Résumé
Le Conseil des sciences du Canada (1966-1992) est une agence qui fournit des recommandations au gouvernement fédéral tout en conservant un certain degré d’autonomie. Au cours de son existence, le Conseil privilégie l’intervention de l’État en matière scientifique. À la fin des années 1970, son attention se tourne vers les politiques industrielles en préconisant une ‘politique transformative’ nationaliste se justifiant par la défense de la « souveraineté technologique ». L’analyse de ses recherches et recommandations, et des controverses suscitées, révèle que la lutte du Conseil contre les nouvelles tendances politiques s’effectue en parallèle aux transformations des perceptions publiques concernant la fonction sociale du gouvernement canadien. Sa dissolution en 1992 symbolise la réorientation d’une approche aux politiques privilégiant la direction de l’État vers celle du marché. Cet article examine la philosophie du Conseil et son histoire au sein de deux contextes plus larges: le débat politique concernant le continentalisme canadien et l’évolution conceptuelle de la science, la technologie et l’innovation et de leurs perspectives futures.
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Appendices
Biographical note
G. Brent Clowater is a PhD candidate in American Cultural History at the University ofNew Brunswick and holds an MA in the History of Science. He is in the final stages of completing his doctoral dissertation, which explores the politics of self-realization in marriage through an examination of the American Open Marriage movement of the 1960s and 1970s. More generally, Brent is interested in the dynamic interplay between policy and culture.