Challenges in Public Health Governance: The Canadian Experience - Softcover

Claude Rocan

9780987757586: Challenges in Public Health Governance: The Canadian Experience

Softcover

ISBN 10: 098775758X ISBN 13: 9780987757586

Publisher: Invenire, 2012

Challenges in Public Health Governance: The Canadian Experience is an examination of public health from a governance perspective. Part 1 begins with an examination of the fragmented nature of public health in Canada, identifies some major fault lines that characterize the public health realm, and reviews briefly the notion of network governance. Part 2 looks at specific public health theatres: crisis issues such as SARS and the HlNl pandemic, and the ongoing work of the Canadian Heart Health Initiative. It also examines the Pan-Canadian Public Health Network as the key piece of network infrastructure at the national level. It seeks to demonstrate that current governance structures and mechanisms are inadequate to deal with the governance challenges facing public health, and that network governance, appropriately applied, is a means through which public health in Canada can better achieve its objectives. Part 3 examines the nature of the relationships with the voluntary sector, and discovers that much of the potential of these organizations to contribute to public health is being lost. Global trends further underline the need for broader, more inclusive forms of governance. Part 4 deals with the need to develop the tools for network governance to cope with issues related to governability, accountability, and legitimacy. The book ends with a proposal to establish a network governance regime in public health and identifies a series of practical steps that can be taken to achieve this objective.

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About the Author:

Claude M. Rocan was born in St. Boniface, Manitoba, and earned a PhD in political science from York University. He held policy/advisory positions within the Government of Saskatchewan and the Government of Canada at the senior professional and executive levels. As Director General of the Centre for Health Promotion at the Public Health Agency of Canada, he had the opportunity to experience directly the complexities and challenges of governance in the public health sector. He was recently a Visiting Fellow with the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa. He lives in Manotick, Ontario and is an independent public policy consultant, specializing in network governance.

Review:

Governance is more than government, a point made memorably (for me) by Osborne and Gaebler in their 1991 book, Reinventing Government. They stated: Governance is the process by which we collectively solve our problems and meet our society s needs. Government is the instrument we use. While I would argue that government is not the instrument we use, but one of the instruments perhaps the main instrument their point is very important. A collective process of solving problems and meeting needs, whether at the local level or at the global level, will involve many sectors across the community or society public, private, non-profit, academic, faith, community as well as individuals. So clearly, the ability to apply network governance will be needed to manage this process of community and societal governance. ... Central to this concept of governance for health is the need to recognize and accept the importance of partners beyond government. So it is unfortunate, to say the least, that the Public Health Network has in effect ejected its non-governmental partners from the expert group level (now represented by the new steering committees) and relegated them to the working group level, which is neither as influential nor permanent in nature. In my view this is a step back from good governance for public health. In this book, Claude explores these and other issues both directly and indirectly through the lens of the Public Health Network (PHN). --Dr. Trevor Hancock, Univ. of Victoria

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