Evaluating Prime Ministerial Leadership in Canada: The Results of an Expert Survey
This article reports the results of the largest survey of expert opinion on prime ministerial leadership in Canada, conducted in 2011. The top-rated prime ministers were, in order, Laurier, King, Macdonald and Pearson, who were preferred because of their creative records of achievement and capacity to see the country whole, champion its unity and make for positive change. Survey respondents valued transformational leadership that altered the country, but did so in a cautious way that did not threaten national cohesiveness. The article makes frequent reference to the international literature on leadership, allowing for comparisons across a range of countries.
Ranking Prime Ministers: Canada in a Commonwealth Context
ABSTRACT The authors undertook an expert survey to evaluate Canada’s prime ministers, the most extensive such exercise ever conducted in a Commonwealth country outside of the United Kingdom. The results revealed the unspoken assumptions of the experts: effective prime ministers are those who are able to win and maintain the support of their party, the public, and parliament; who leave a substantive policy legacy; and who are able to convert promises into action. Communication skills were judged to be less important. Of the specific areas of evaluation, personal integrity had the least impact on the overall rankings. Responses were similar across gender and age cohorts, though the younger respondents were more sensitive to issues affecting Indigenous peoples. Many of the results align with those found in surveys carried out in other Commonwealth countries, specifically the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. In Westminster democracies, experts place a high value on political longevity, but more so in Canada than elsewhere. In all these countries, providing stable and efficient government is not enough: to achieve a high rating, a prime minister must have accumulated a record of policy innovation. Like their counterparts elsewhere in the Commonwealth, Canadians value change-makers but believe that activism has to be lightened with caution, an important consideration in a vast country readily split up into its parts.
Cambodian refugee health care beliefs and practices.
Since 1975, when refugees from Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia first began coming to the United States, many articles have been written about Southeast Asian or Indochinese refugees and health care. A careful review of the literature shows that most of these articles have one thing in common: they are written primarily about Vietnamese and do not address the unique health care beliefs and practices of Lao or Cambodian refugees.1 Although some beliefs and practices are common to most Southeast Asians, many are not. Understanding at least that differences exist, and hopefully what some specific differences are, will allow nurses and others to give better care to the various people commonly grouped together as Southeast Asians. This article will introduce readers to some Cambodian beliefs and practices related to health care. Of the principle refugee groups admitted to the U.S. since 1975, the Cambodians are presenting the greatest challenges to health care providers. Cambodians are usually poorly understood by Americans, their health status statistics are hidden among the broad category of "Asian-Pacific Islanders" or "Indochinese Refugees," and cultural and institutional barriers combine to make access to care an overwhelming problem. The end results, of course, are more problems and more expense for the Cambodians, increased stress placed on an already terribly overstressed people, and ultimately greater demands and expense placed on the health care system. One of the most common misunderstandings about Cambodians is that they (and Lao) are basically the same as the Vietnamese. "They speak the same dialect don't they?" There are some similarities, but there are also very significant differences.