Executive Styles in Canada: Cabinet Structures and Leadership Practices in Canadian Government, Luc Bernier, Keith Brownsey and Michael Howlett, eds., Toronto: University of Toronto Press, for The Institute of Public Administration of Canada, 2005, pp. xiii, 282.

Executive Styles in Canada is a welcome addition to the literature on Canadian political leadership and provincial politics, essentially raising the question of the power of the premier, central agencies, and executive council in each of the Canadian provinces. To this end the editors have organized the book in 13 chapters. The book begins with a survey of the whole debate over “court government” raised by Donald Savoie, and the development model of Canadian cabinets advanced by Stefan Dupré and Christopher Dunn. The second chapter is given over to Savoie to make his case with respect to the federal government. His argument, by now familiar, is that by the 1990s the real power in the federal government is in the hands of the “prime minister and a small group of carefully selected courtiers” (17). Executive dominance of the legislature in the Westminster model has given way to even greater centralization. Power flows not from ministers, but from the prime minister. While Savoie does not address the seeming anomaly of the Paul Martin minority government of 2004–05, in which the House of Commons and even the opposition parties suddenly became relevant again, one gets the sense that he would argue that this is a temporary development rather than a more durable departure from the direction of the last 30 years.