The Governance of Climate Change Adaptation in Canada: Two Multilevel Case Studies

Anthropogenic climate change is affecting, and will continue to affect, communities across Canada. From increased average temperatures and alterations of seasonal precipitation patterns, to extreme rainfall and heat events, Canadians face a 21st century environment significantly different from that of the past. With risks to people and services identified via the global scientific and social science literature, the need to adapt to climate change is pressing. Climate change adaptation includes the identification of climate impacts in order to develop interventions into systems and services so to avoid negative effects and recognize opportunities. The emerging consensus is that climate change adaptation is challenged by the complexity of the cross-sector and cross-scale nature of climate impacts and the systems and services which are vulnerable to them. Due to jurisdictional divisions and public-private divides in many climate-impacted systems, adaptation scholarship has increasingly turned to the study of governance to conceptualize and overcome challenges. To contribute to this field, this study engages in an in-depth characterization of the current governance of climate change adaptation in Canada. Using an established theoretical framework of competing governance modes, the study characterizes adaptation governance in two Canadian sites as well as identifies the preferred visions of governing processes according to expert practitioners. Through analysis of key documents, eighty-one in-depth interviews, and two expert workshops, the thesis provides a number of novel insights for Canadian and international scholarship. In the thesis it is argued that the study of adaptation governance benefits from the application of a typology of competing governance modes. Further, the study identifies that current adaptation efforts in the Canadian sites are dominated by network processes and that the concept of network failure is consistent with the observed adaptation implementation deficit. Finally, it is revealed that practitioners at different scales of government in Canada’s federal structure idealize the governance of adaptation in drastically different ways, with local respondents providing critiques of network processes and increased interest in hierarchical governance. As climate impacts are projected to worsen in the coming decades, the findings of the study offer crucial insights for intervention into the governance of climate change adaptation

How to make classrooms creative and open spaces: ARIS games, digital artifacts and storytelling

As part of long-term research into interviewing users and visualizing digital artifacts, we have created a parallel archives of projects in our classroom. Ethnography helps us to discover the temporal trends of interactions with students and with the virtual environment. The outcomes expected motived us to repurpouse stories we co-create with students in a new form, retelling motivations, design, narratives, into a gaming scenario where the use of experiences become more digital and less tangible but always snapshots of their social existence.Peer Reviewe

Characterization of a Contact-Stylus Surface Digitization Method Using Collaborative Robots: Accuracy Evaluation in the Context of Shoulder Replacement or Resurfacing

Total shoulder arthroplasty (TSA) is the third most common joint replacement. While robot-assisted hip and knee replacement technologies have enjoyed extensive development, this has been limited in the upper limb. This work focused on quantifying the localization accuracy of a robotic system, and evaluating its efficacy in the context of TSA. A collaborative robot was fitted with a stylus tip to perform manual surface digitizations using the robot’s encoder output. In the first experiment, two precision-machined master cubes, representing the working volume around a glenoid structure, were used for system validation. Next, cadaveric glenoids were digitized and compared to a ‘gold standard’ laser scanner. Digitization errors were 0.37±0.27 mm, showing that collaborative robotics can be used for osseous anatomy digitization. This thesis presents two novel concepts: 1) use of collaborative robotics for manually operated surface digitizing, and 2) optical fiducial technique, allowing registration between a laser scanner and stylus digitizer

The Innovation and Diffusion of Policy: Novelty in the Canadian Regulatory System for Plants with Novel Traits

In 1993, the Canadian federal government made a decision with respect to the direction that the country would take in regulating agricultural products of biotechnology, commonly referred to as GMOs or GM crops. Following the lead of the United States, Canada adopted the innovative “product-based” approach to regulation, making it necessary for all GM crops to go through the regulatory system in order to gain approval for commercialization. However, the iteration that Canada’s adoption of the policy took differed from the form that the product-based approach took in the United States. Canada created a category of “plants with novel traits”, which is based on the concept of novelty and reflects the idea that products of newer technologies such as recombinant DNA are not fundamentally different than those developed through more conventional means. The United States does not require regulation on novel plants created through conventional means via a regulatory trigger which seeks out plant pathogens, present only in newer, recombinant technologies. As a result, many crops developed through more conventional modification techniques such as mutagenesis are not subjected to the American regulatory system, but are in Canada. The objective of this paper is to determine how Canada and the United States came to adopt the product-based approach to regulation, where the Canadian system began to differ from the American system, and why the Canadian system has not diffused internationally, despite being the most directly implemented representative of the product-based approach. This is accomplished via the application of the policy change, policy diffusion, and policy innovation literatures. Theories of policy change and diffusion are introduced. I trace the history and diffusion of novelty using the historical method, and test the applicability of other diffusion models to the case study in order to determine their predictive power in an international diffusion scenario. The innovation literature is also applied in order to explain how and why the product-based approach to regulation has been incorporated differently at multiple levels of regulatory policy. I conclude with an argument that Canada has lost a “standards war” with the United States for regulatory superiority, in light of lost marketability and a less permissible regulatory landscape, which must prompt us to re-evaluate our regulatory approach

Removal of Endocrine Disrupting Compounds (EDCs) and Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products (PPCPs) from Drinking Water

Studies have reported almost ubiquitous presence of endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs) and pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) in the aquatic environment globally. Many of these compounds have been documented to be detrimental to aquatic flora and fauna which have raised concerns regarding their potential health impacts on humans. Humans are unwittingly and indirectly exposed to EDCs and PPCPs as these emerging contaminants can easily flout conventional drinking water treatment processes. Lake Huron, despite being a major drinking water source for many communities around the Great Lakes area, remains largely unexplored in terms of assessing EDCs and PPCPs contamination. The current study thus focuses on the occurrence of selected EDCs and PPCPs in Lake Huron Water and their removal using O3/H2O2 based pre-coagulation advanced oxidation process (AOP). Raw water, collected from a drinking water intake on Lake Huron near Ontario and spiked with nine target EDCs and PPCPs at environmentally relevant concentrations, was treated in a dual train pilot scale treatment plant to achieve finished water turbidity less than 0.1 NTU. Poly-aluminum chloride (PAC1) was used as coagulant for the coagulation treatment during the study. Pre-coagulation AOP was applied on one side of the pilot plant. An O3 dose of 2.0-2.3 mg/L and 0.2 mg/L of H2O2 were applied. Solid phase extraction followed by LC-MS/MS, using electrospray ionization in both positive and negative modes was used to analyze the target micropollutants. Results show that pre-coagulation AOP can efficiently reduce the number of particles in finished water compared to the conventional treatment process. Also, improved filtered water turbidity was achieved during all the runs following AOP treatment. Sharp decline in ultraviolet absorbance at 254 nm (UV254) was observed right after AOP while only minimal overall decrease in dissolved organic carbon (DOC) was achieved. This indicates that the pre-coagulation AOP treatment did not mineralize organic carbon but probably formed intermediate products. Atrazine, carbamazepine and fluoxetine were detected in raw Lake Huron water on at least four occasions at mean concentrations lower than 60 ng/L. None of the target chemicals showed any significant removal following conventional coagulation, sedimentation and filtration processes. Most of the target pollutants plummeted to concentrations below the method detection limit following AOP. However, ibuprofen and atrazine were consistently showing resistance to the applied doses during the study. No significant improvements in removals were observed following coagulation and filtration process preceded by AOP. The findings of the study suggest that certain EDCs and PPCPs are present in Lake Huron water. It also indicates that the majority of Canadian Drinking water treatment plants, since they employ only conventional coagulation and filtration processes, will be not be able to remove EDCs and PPCPs contamination, if these compounds are present in raw drinking water sources

Class Roots: The Genesis of the Ontario Class Proceedings Act, 1966 - 1993

Nearly 25 years since its passage, the Ontario Class Proceedings Act has become one of the most frequently debated procedural mechanisms of its kind. The CPA came about following the release of the Attorney Generals Advisory Committee (AGAC) Report in 1990. None of the current narratives explain how this Report pulled together so many divergent interests where previous attempts had failed. My thesis answers this question with reference to the historical sources and the legal, political and social changes that took place throughout this period. This thesis also highlights the unique nature of the AGAC consultation process, which saw the negotiation of a consensus between the parties and the subsequent drafting of legislation. Although this process was effective, however, it led to compromises and a lack of democratic oversight that continue to affect the CPA and its goals of access to justice to this day

Re-Occupying the Archipelago: The Potential of Unified Governance in the Thousand Islands Region through Application of the Haudenosaunee Great Law of Peace

This thesis explores the potential Indigenization of governance in the Thousand Islands region through integration of Haudenosaunee political philosophy to better inform methods by which local governing bodies make decisions pertaining to development of the region. By considering forms of governance that are in and of themselves Indigenous to the region, problems pertaining to overdevelopment, racial equity, and conservation may be addressed. The development of a comprehensive framework for the sustainable management and development of Canada’s Thousand Islands region may be used to promote coexistence and reciprocity amongst all stakeholders in the area. Through a historical analysis of the site, regional treaties, and Indigenous philosophy, new methods of interaction that contrast hierarchical systems of governance arise as alternatives. The application of the structure of the traditional grand council of the Haudenosaunee, offers a method by which consensus can be achieved by large groups of individuals, prioritizing ideas that benefit the broader community, the land, and generations to come

Carbon Footprinting Dietary Choices in Ontario: A life cycle approach to assessing sustainable, healthy & socially acceptable diets

Recent studies have established the link between food consumption and its broad impact on the environment. However, environmental implications of dietary choices have not been previously studied in Canada. Given geographic variations of eating habits and environmental impacts, this study aims to explore current dietary patterns and their environmental implications in Ontario. This exploratory study assesses the environmental impact of seven dietary patterns and investigates the role of nutrition and dietary guidelines in evaluating sustainability of diets. Food baskets representing each dietary pattern were formed based on data obtained from dietary recall survey. Using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), greenhouse gas emissions were estimated for farm operations, processing, distribution and household processes associated with current food consumption. Canada’s dietary guidelines were used to assess the nutritional quality of current diets and propose nutritionally optimal dietary changes. Results showed that Ontario population overconsumes protein. Popular dietary patterns including foods rich in animal protein exhibit the highest impact. This interdisciplinary approach helps combine nutritional and environmental research which can facilitate the formulation of environmentally friendly, healthy and socially acceptable diets. The study outlines key limitations in diet-related LCA, provides recommendations for improvement and serves as a primer for further diet-related research in Canada