Priorities First: Punctuated Equilibrium Theory and Environment Canada, 1972-2019

The Government of Canada plays a critical role in setting national and international environmental policy. Yet there has been little research conducted on how the government has prioritized environmental policy over time. This paper examines the budgets of Environment Canada from the time of its creation in 1971 to 2019 using information from the Public Accounts of Canada. This assessment shows that Liberal governments support environmental policy funding to a greater extent than Conservative governments, but that political partisanship does not solely determine support for Environment Canada’s budget. Using punctuated equilibrium theory (PET) and measurements of Environment Canada’s budget as a percentage of overall government spending, this research also finds that there has been significant volatility in environmental budget funding patterns. This suggests that an environmental “policy monopoly” within the Government of Canada has not been reached and Canadians are likely to continue seeing significant variation in the future.