Review: The Structure of Canadian Government
| Published date | 01 June 1972 |
| Date | 01 June 1972 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070207202700225 |
| Author | Walter Young |
| Subject Matter | Review |
REVIEWS
331
he
worked
in the
provinces
and at
Ottawa.
Camp
can
write,
and
he
tells
a
good
story
with
a
copywriter's
zest
for
the
punchline.
But
what
is
most
striking
about
the book
is
the
extent
to
which
it
reveals
Camp
as
a
typical
old
party
non-ideologue.
He
disliked
the
smug-
ness
of
the
Grits,
and
that
was
apparently
enough
to
turn
him
from
a
Liberal
into
a Conservative.
There
were
no
policy
differences between
Camp
and
the
Liberals
-
or
at
least
no
more
than
might
exist
between
Camp
and
half
the
Conservative
party.
But
ideology,
after
all,
seems
to
be
important
neither
in
winning
elections
nor
in
governing
a
country
like
Canada,
and
lamentably
Camp
is
almost
certainly
correct
in his
approach.
Still,
it
is
a
surprise
to
see
in
print
precisely
how
little
im-
portance
ideology,
principles,
and
policy can
receive
from
a
major
political
figure.
We
can
only
await
volume
ii
to
see
if Camp
helps
engineer
the
ouster
of
John
Diefenbaker
for
purely
pragmatic
reasons.
There,
perhaps,
policy
may
have
some
importance.
J.L.
Granatstein/York
University
THE
STRUCTURE
OF
CANADIAN
GOVERNMENT
J.R.
Mallory
Toronto:
Macmillan,
1971,
xii,
418pp,
$io.oo
Unlike
their
colleagues
in
the
United
States,
Canadian
political
scien-
tists
have
not
had
the
benefit
of
a wide
choice
in
books
about
their
government.
For
two decades
R.M.
Dawson's
The
Government
of
Canada,
and
the
two
revised
editions
ably
produced
by
Norman
Ward,
have been
the
only
game
in
town.
A
persistent
rumour
had
it
that
James
Mallory
of
McGill
was
writing
a
book
about
Canadian
government
but
there
was
no
evidence to
support
it.
Now
with
commendable
despatch
and
editorial
proficiency
Macmillan
and
Mallory
have
given
flesh
to
the
rumour
with the
publication
of
The Structure
of
Canadian
Govern-
ment.
At
first
sight the
immediate
basis
for
comparison
would
seem
to
be
Dawson.
Mallory
makes
no
bones
about
his
book
being
squarely
in the
institutional
tradition:
political
behaviour
is
important
but
"politicians
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