Coordinating Federalism

The CoF chair is responsible for formulating the agenda for the meeting; in practice, the topics to be covered tend to be identified by con- sensus of all 13 provincial and territorial premiers, with each jurisdiction given the opportunity to table issues it wishes to see discussed. [...] Due to a lack of data, the present analysis is confined to the media and political agendas, leaving the examination of the public agenda to future study.16 According to this model, successful external agenda-setting depends upon strong internal agenda formation, including the identification of a relatively small number of focused priorities, clear and cohesive positions, well-planned strategies an [...] This dif- ference in structure is largely due to the fact that CoF agendas are set collabora- tively by bureaucrats from all jurisdictions, resulting in a proliferation of topics, while the chair and co-chair have greater control over which issues get the most attention at NGA meetings and thus generate greater focus.21 Influence on the media agenda The next set of findings concerns the extent to [...] Influence on the political agenda If these IGCs have failed to capture the attention of the national media, how have the federal governments in Canada and the United States reacted to the calls to action directed at them by CoF and the NGA, respectively? [...] Half (2) of these were too vague to assess in terms of a fed- eral response, namely, a pair of requests embedded in a 2010 joint letter from the NGA and CoF to the President of the United States and Prime Minister of Canada to assist their governments with “promoting policy innovation” related to competitiveness, and to “collaborate with them when developing national strategies that directly affec