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West European Politics
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Crisis, uncertainty and urgency: processes of
learning and emulation in tax policy making
Matthew Lesch & Heather Millar
To cite this article: Matthew Lesch & Heather Millar (2022) Crisis, uncertainty and urgency:
processes of learning and emulation in tax policy making, West European Politics, 45:4, 930-952,
DOI: 10.1080/01402382.2021.1949681
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2021.1949681
© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa
UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis
Group.
Published online: 22 Jul 2021.
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WEST EUROPEAN POLITICS
2022, VOL. 45, NO. 4, 930–952
Crisis, uncertainty and urgency: processes of
learning and emulation in tax policy making
Matthew Lescha and Heather Millarb
aDepartment of Health Sciences, University of York, York, UK; bPolitical Science, University
of New Brunswick, Fredericton, Canada
ABSTRACT
This article examines how ideational factors shape policy making during crisis
conditions. Crises can generate ‘problem uncertainty’, in which policymakers
are uncertain about the nature of policy problems. Existing studies have linked
such conditions to processes of policy learning. Yet crises can also trigger
‘policy urgency’, where policymakers’ preference for immediate policy action
is paramount. This study suggests that bounded emulation, in which policy-
makers copy available solutions without learning, is related to perceptions of
policy urgency. To probe the plausibility of the framework the study conducts
a comparative analysis of value-added tax reform in Ontario and British
Columbia, drawing on 41 semi-structured interviews, policy documents and
news articles. The study finds that high uncertainty and moderate urgency
facilitated policy learning in Ontario, while moderate uncertainty and high
urgency fostered bounded emulation in British Columbia. The article identifies
the implications of the findings for future research on ideas and policy change.
KEYWORDS Policy; learning; emulation; ideas; taxation; uncertainty; crisis
Policy scholars have long identified crisis as a critical juncture in which
policy ideas are likely to drive substantial policy innovation and change
(Kingdon 1995). Crises can generate significant epistemic and political
uncertainties, making it difficult for policymakers to calculate their inter-
ests (Blyth 2001). Radical uncertainty can generate new opportunities
for new ways of thinking. Policymakers can draw on expert advice
(Dunlop 2017; Haas 2004), turn to new stakeholders (Breetz et al. 2018)
or engage with the public (Millar et al. 2020) to update their beliefs. In
short, a crisis can trigger processes of policy learning, namely ‘the updat-
ing of beliefs based on lived or witnessed experiences, analysis or social
interaction’ (Dunlop and Radaelli 2020).
https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2021.1949681
© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
CONTACT Matthew Lesch matt.lesch@york.ac.uk
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-
NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use,
distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered,
transformed, or built upon in any way.
WEST EUROPEAN POLITICS 931
Yet periods of crisis can also serve to spur decision-makers to act
first and learn later (Kamkhaji and Radaelli 2017). Crises often generate
epistemic uncertainty, but they also foster existential angst. Exogenous
forces can dramatically shift attention, leading some governments to
rapidly emulate (Boushey 2010) as the perceived impetus to act shortens
policymakers’ time horizons. Here, policy making is less a process of
collective puzzling and more a process of copying, as governments attempt
to manage perceived risks by seeking out geographically or ideologically
available policies. Thus, crises can also prompt processes of bounded
emulation in which policymakers ‘mimic the policy solution – including
instruments and settings – of a peer government because their ideas are
cognitively accessible’ (Lesch 2021).
Under crisis conditions then, policymakers can adopt new policies
under two different processes – policy learning or bounded emulation.
Less is known however about the elements of the policy making envi-
ronment that are likely to trigger one pathway over the other. This study
suggests that closer attention to ideological conditions of problem uncer-
tainty and policy urgency is a fruitful approach. Drawing on recent
developments in the policy learning literature (Dunlop and Radaelli
2020), the article argues that high levels of ‘problem uncertainty’ – that
is uncertainty about the causes of policy problems and effectiveness of
associated solutions – are likely to generate processes of ‘epistemic learn-
ing’ in which policymakers engage with experts to prompt policy action.
At the same time, some crises can also generate high levels of issue
salience, here termed ‘policy urgency’, which generates pressure on pol-
icymakers to act. Building on findings from policy diffusion studies
(Boushey 2010; Weyland 2005) this article suggests that high levels of
policy urgency can trigger processes of bounded emulation in which
policymakers copy available solutions without updating their beliefs.
Following calls for scholars to develop more robust measures of policy
learning and emulation (Maggetti and Gilardi 2016; Vagionaki and Trein
2019), the study also proposes indicators observable at both the micro-
and meso-level of analysis.
In order to probe the plausibility of the framework the study conducts
a comparative analysis of tax reform in response to the Great Recession
in two Canadian provinces: Ontario and British Columbia (BC). In
Ontario, high levels of uncertainty regarding economic conditions com-
bined with moderate levels of urgency to foster epistemic learning among
the premier, cabinet and key bureaucrats regarding the economic benefits
of implementing a value-added tax (VAT). In contrast in BC, moderate
levels of uncertainty about long-term economic growth combined with
an intense urgency to address public finance problems. These conditions
prompted the emulation of a salient and available alternative – the
932 M. LESCH AND H. MILLAR
adoption of a VAT. Despite similar policy outputs in each province, the
VAT was later reversed in BC. The article concludes with a discussion
of the implications of this approach for future research on ideas,
micro-foundations and policy change.
Uncertainty, urgency and mechanisms of policy change
Scholarship on policy learning has long identified the role of crises, often
in the form of external shocks, in triggering changes in ideological con-
ditions of decision making (Birkland 1998). Crises can generate high
levels of uncertainty about the causes of policy problems and the prob-
ability of policy outcomes, making it difficult for policy actors to derive
their policy preferences from structural factors alone (Blyth 2013). Policy
learning scholarship finds that under conditions of ‘radical uncertainty’
in which issue or problem definition is under-defined, policymakers turn
to new ideational ‘blueprints’ or ‘paradigms’ to guide policy action (Blyth
2001; Hall 1993). External shocks – such as financial market failures,
wars and global pandemics – provide policy change pathways as policy-
makers engage with new causal stories and new solution searches
(Birkland 1998; Kingdon 1995; Stone 1989). Conditions of radical uncer-
tainty can prompt actors to examine their policy beliefs and update their
preferences accordingly (Dunlop and Radaelli 2013; Millar et al. 2019).
When faced with uncertainty, policy actors can engage in goal-oriented
behaviour to maximise their utility, drawing lessons to resolve policy
problems (Börzel and Risse 2012). Problem uncertainty thus provides an
opportunity for policymakers to learn, whether from epistemic commu-
nities (Dunlop 2017; Haas 2004), past experience (Rose 1991) or from
other jurisdictions through policy transfer (Stone 2017). Recent scholar-
ship suggests that high levels of problem uncertainty can foster processes
of ‘epistemic learning’ from experts and/or social processes of ‘reflexive’
learning in which a broad set of actors examine their deep core values
and beliefs (Dunlop and Radaelli 2020). The presumption is in both
cases though is that policymakers update their beliefs about the causes
of a policy problem and generate new ideas about the efficacy and legit-
imacy of specific policy solutions. The underlying micro-foundation of
epistemic learning is fundamentally that of rational action. Radical uncer-
tainty makes it difficult for policymakers to know their interests, and so
they engage in a searching process to reduce uncertainty and update
their policy preferences (Millar et al. 2019). For example, in facing the
extreme uncertainty generated by the global Covid-19 pandemic, many
leaders turned to expert debate on the relative benefits and drawbacks
of mask-wearing, with some countries initially discouraging, then
WEST EUROPEAN POLITICS 933
encouraging use after more prolonged deliberation, in a process that took
several months (Davidson 2020).
At the same time, the intensity of economic, social and political crises
can generate high levels of urgency, spurring policymakers to act prior
to learning (Kamkhaji and Radaelli 2017). Crises draw attention to policy
problems, increasing issue salience and widening the scope of conflict
(Baumgartner and Jones 1993; Schattschneider 1960). Increased salience
can drive policy-makers to over-attend to some issues, diminishing others
(Jones 2017; Jones and Baumgartner 2012). Urgency can exacerbate pol-
icymakers’ cognitive limitations, making it challenging for them to com-
prehensively attend to relevant policy information, including signals from
peer governments (Simon 1985; Taber 2003). Under conditions of crisis
and perceived urgency, policymakers can engage in processes of ‘bounded
emulation’ in which policy action is guided by problem definitions that
seem representative, or readily available policy solutions, either through
geographic or ideational proximity (Lesch 2021; Weyland 2005). In this
case, policymakers are less likely to update their policy preferences prior
to adoption. Instead, policymakers chose action over inaction and
rationalise their choices through post-hoc processes of contingent learning
(Kamkhaji and Radaelli 2017). The micro-foundations of bounded emu-
lation are less clear in the policy diffusion and transfer literature. As
surveys of the field note (Maggetti and Gilardi 2016), in practice, emu-
lation often functions as a residual ‘catch-all’ category when learning,
competition or coercion mechanisms have been ruled out. By and large
emulation studies have tended to stress that policymakers adopt policies
because they want to emulate other governments and gain legitimacy,
reflecting a logic of appropriateness (Dobbin et al. 2007). While not
disputing the empirical prevalence of emulation under a logic of appro-
priateness (March and Olsen 1989), this article proposes that the concept
of bounded emulation allows for an alternative mechanism rooted in a
strong micro-foundation. Although policymakers sometimes emulate other
governments to ‘be like them’, findings from empirical studies of emu-
lation suggest that sometimes governments copy their peers just to act.
To return to the Covid-19 example, facing an overwhelming third wave
of cases in April 2021 the Ontario government rapidly implemented
playground closures over the course of a day, a move contrary to expert
advice (Carter 2021) but which drew on a readily available policy instru-
ment used earlier in the pandemic in other jurisdictions.
This study proposes that these findings suggest two pathways from
crisis to policy change, with different causal processes and underlying
micro-foundations. In the first pathway, a crisis generates high uncertainty
about both the causes of an existing policy problem and the legitimacy
of potential solutions. Faced with radical uncertainty, policymakers seek
934 M. LESCH AND H. MILLAR
out new information through learning, and, based on their findings,
update their policy beliefs. At the organisational level, this type of policy
making is likely to be more deliberative, as actors engage in a more
intendedly comprehensive search for problem causes and potential solu-
tions. In the second pathway, a crisis focuses attention on a particular
policy area, generating high levels of urgency. Faced with pressures to
act, policymakers reach out for what is available – either from trusted
epistemic communities, proximate jurisdictions, or ideological peers. The
presumption here is that policymakers engaging in bounded emulation
are more likely to drawing on heuristics or rules of thumb to guide
decision making (Weyland 2005).
This analytical framework thus provides guidance for when policy-
makers learn and when they are more likely to emulate. Relative levels
of uncertainty and urgency interact to facilitate policy learning in some
cases and bounded emulation in others. Recent research on issue defi-
nition and issue attention provide tentative support for this framework.
In their study of contested policy areas, Bromley-Trujillo and Karch
(2019) find that while perceived uncertainty can serve to slow down
legislative adoption, greater issue salience can increase the rate of bill
adoptions. Although the study does not examine mechanisms, the findings
suggest that uncertainty and salience can have varying effects.
The article postulates that if a crisis generates high problem uncertainty
and moderate urgency, learning is more likely (see Table 1). The assump-
tion is that radical uncertainty prompts decision-makers to examine their
deep core beliefs. At the micro-level, if actors engaged in policy learning,
they are more likely to demonstrate changes in their core beliefs about
causes of policy problems and effective solutions. At the meso-level, the
framework anticipates the devotion of significant resources to consulting
with experts, stakeholders and/or members of the public. Although mod-
erate levels of urgency prompt the need for action we presume that
decision-makers will prefer deliberative processes of policy formation.
Table 1. Measures of epistemic learning and bounded emulation.
Mechanism Micro-level indicators Meso-level indicators
Policy
learning
Individual decision-makers are
goal-seeking in that they
are intentionally updating
their policy beliefs.
Extensive resources: policymakers devote
significant resources to expert consultation
Deliberative: policymakers engage in a more
comprehensive, iterative process of
deliberation over a longer period of time
(months-years)
Bounded
emulation
Individual decision-makers are
acting through copying
and likely exhibit
heuristic-information
processing.
Limited resources: policymakers spend
limited time and resources consulting
beyond government
Rapid: policymakers engage in limited
deliberation over a short time period
(days-weeks)
WEST EUROPEAN POLITICS 935
Empirically, analysts should be able to observe policymakers engaged in
comprehensive, iterative processes of deliberation over sustained periods.
This type of deliberation is likely to take governments longer periods of
time, ranging from months to years. In processes of epistemic learning,
policymakers focus on ‘getting it right’ rather than ‘getting it right now’.
In contrast, when a crisis generates moderate levels of perceived uncer-
tainty, but high levels of urgency, bounded emulation is more likely. At
the micro-level, the framework anticipates that intense levels of urgency
will drive individual decision-makers to act prior to updating their beliefs.
At the meso-level, it expects limited engagement by policymakers with
the broader epistemic community. Instead, limited deliberation should
unfold over a short period of time, akin to what Simon (1985) described
as satisficing. High levels of urgency overwhelm the organisational impetus
of government to engage with multiple stakeholders in decision-making.
Processes of bounded emulation are more likely to unfold rapidly, taking
days and weeks, rather than years.1 In processes of bounded emulation,
policymakers are more concerned with ‘getting it right now’ than ‘getting
it right’.
Methodology and policy context
This study applies this framework to examine the responses of two gov-
ernments to the 2008 financial crisis. The study traces policy formulation
processes prior to the implementation of a VAT in two Canadian prov-
inces: Ontario and BC. The cases present an opportunity to examine
decision-making processes on the same policy issue within a similar time
frame and within a period of significant economic crisis (2008-2011).
As two significant jurisdictions in the Canadian federation, the provinces
are broadly comparable. Ontario is an economic engine of the national
economy, providing 37% of Canada’s total GDP, while BC contributes
approximately 12% annually (Government of Canada, Statistics Canada
2019). Although the VAT was adopted and fully implemented by both
provinces, only in the case of BC was the policy eventually reversed.
In both provinces, VAT reform was also overseen by governments
with significant political experience. The BC Liberals had been in power
since 2001, while the Ontario Liberals were first elected in 2003. Despite
both operating under the Liberal banner, it is worth noting that the two
parties are both philosophically and organisationally distinct (Koop 2011).
The Ontario Liberal Party operates as a classic centrist party, maximising
its electoral appeal by drawing on policy solutions from both the right
and left. In contrast, the BC Liberal Party has established itself as the
province’s main centre-right party. As such, supporters of the BC Liberals
tend to be more ideologically conservative than their Ontario
936 M. LESCH AND H. MILLAR
counterparts. Despite this ideological variation, VAT has not been con-
tested as a left-right issue in Canadian politics. VATs have been adopted
by provincial governments from a range of ideological backgrounds (Bird
et al. 2006; Hale 2002). Though this should limit concerns about com-
parability, the issue of political ideology and its potential influence on
decision-making is explored further in the analysis. Canadian tax policy
provides a useful empirical case to probe the plausibility of the analytical
framework. Although the federal government currently administers a
national VAT, the Goods and Services Tax (GST), provincial governments
also levy sales taxes, which they can choose to implement through a
retail sales tax (RST) or a federally harmonised (or non-harmonised)
VAT. A key advantage of VAT is that it distinguishes goods and services
procured for investment versus consumption. In contrast, RSTs require
businesses to pay sales taxes on capital expenditures, creating a disin-
centive for investment (Bird et al. 2006). When goods are subject to sales
taxes throughout the production chain, these costs cascade and are
reflected in consumer prices. Alternatively, in a VAT system, tax is only
charged at the final point of sale, allowing businesses to reclaim any
sales tax paid on capital costs (James 2015). The consensus among econ-
omists is that VATs are not only good for businesses but also beneficial
for consumers in the form of lower prices, though this is subject to a
time lag (Kesselman 2011; Smart 2007).
At the same time, shifting to a VAT model is not a painless political
exercise since it introduces distributive costs. A VAT typically broadens
the tax base, subjecting previously exempt items to sales tax. Tax-exempt
industries and consumers face highly visible and immediate costs, while
the benefits of the policy are both delayed and diffuse. Policies with
these distributive and intertemporal implications present an electoral
predicament for risk-averse politicians (Jacobs 2016). As a policy issue
then, VAT thus provides an opportunity for policymakers to turn to
experts and engage in processes of epistemic learning in the face of
economic uncertainty, making it a useful test case for the article’s ana-
lytical framework. VAT also enables analysts to assess how urgency shapes
policymakers’ actions and the potential for processes of bounded emu-
lation to shape policy formulation.
In the Canadian context, sales taxes are complicated by fiscal feder-
alism. In some provinces, governments have retained an RST system. In
others, governments have either adopted their own VAT or have chosen
to adopt a Harmonised Sales Tax (HST), which aligns the provincial
sales tax base with the federal VAT, the GST. From a policy perspective,
Canadian economists have been unequivocal in support for a VAT, pref-
erably federally harmonised (Bird et al. 2006). The Canadian federal
government has also historically been a strong proponent of provincial
WEST EUROPEAN POLITICS 937
sales tax reform. From their perspective, VATs, and particularly a federally
harmonised policy design, promote economic competitiveness and can
be easily administered by a single federal tax department.
In the 1990s, several governments followed expert advice, adopting a
VAT but then paid the ultimate price at the ballot box. In 1991, the
federal government implemented the GST but backlash led to the gov-
ernment’s historic defeat at the polls in 1993. This pattern of electoral
backlash persisted across the 1990s when five provincial governments
lost their subsequent elections after adopting a VAT. These electoral
disincentives suggest that policymakers are unlikely to adopt a VAT
without a significant impetus prompting urgency to act, such as a desire
to attenuate or avoid further economic crisis. Beginning in the mid-2000s,
the federal government tried to induce VAT-holdouts, including Ontario
and BC. Ottawa would provide provinces with a one-time transition
payment to alleviate the distributive impacts on consumers and specific
sectors.
The study conducts a comparative within-case study of tax policy
formulation and decision-making in each province from 2008 to 2011.
Theory-building process tracing is used to construct a historical record
of tax policy development and adoption in each province (Beach and
Pedersen 2013; Trampusch and Palier 2016). Drawing on primary gov-
ernment policy documents, news articles and secondary sources the study
charts the timing and sequencing of significant policy decisions, followed
by an examination of how and why political decisions were made (Stokes
and Breetz 2018). Analytical propositions developed during case analysis
were triangulated through interviews conducted with former politicians
(6), provincial and federal government officials (15), former political staff
(7), journalists (4), interest group leaders (4) and tax policy experts (5).
Interviewees were purposively sampled after having been identified
through a combination of government documents, media reporting and
snowball sampling. Interviewees were selected because they had either
been active participants in the policy process or possessed in-depth
knowledge of provincial tax policy. In total, 41 semi-structured interviews
were completed, with 22 for the Ontario case and 19 for the BC case.
Almost two-thirds of the interviewees (63%) were directly involved in
the formulation or implementation of VAT in either province. This
included several key decision-makers, including a former premier
(Ontario), several cabinet ministers from finance or revenue departments
(both Ontario and BC) and several senior civil servants (both Ontario
and BC). In cases where politicians were unsuccessfully recruited for the
study, the interview sample was expanded to include political staff who
possessed intimate knowledge of the decision-making process. Interviews
were conducted until saturation was reached. The interviews were
938 M. LESCH AND H. MILLAR
conducted in-person or by telephone between January 2015 and
January 2016.
Ontario and VAT reform: high uncertainty, moderate urgency
and epistemic learning
The policy context
In autumn 2008, Ontario found itself in the throes of one of the worst
economic downturns in recent history. By October 2009, Canada’s largest
economy had lost almost 206,000 jobs (LaRochelle-Côté and Gilmore
2009). Before the crisis, there were emerging signs of economic problems
in Ontario. Between 2004 and 2008, the province shed 198,600 manu-
facturing jobs (Bernard 2009). Following the onset of the crisis, the
government announced a series of new spending measures, including
$4.6 billion for infrastructure, $2.2 billion for post-secondary funding,
as well as the $3.5 billion bailout for General Motors (Ontario Ministry
of Finance 2009a). In March 2009, the government announced that in
addition to these measures, it would overhaul its sales tax system, replac-
ing the provincial RST with a federally harmonised VAT.
Ontario’s decision to adopt sales tax reform stemmed from a context
of economic decline and deep uncertainty about how to reverse the trend.
When indications of the downturn first became apparent, the Ontario
government responded like many other governments, stimulating demand
by adapting fiscal policy and increasing spending (Ontario Ministry of
Finance 2008). Premier Dalton McGuinty was given daily briefings on
the impact of the crisis in Ontario.1 Officials in the Ontario Ministry of
Finance warned the premier that the provincial GDP could see a signif-
icant drop. In another briefing, the premier was told that if nothing was
done ‘the province could lose up to 400,000 manufacturing jobs’, a vitally
important sector to the provincial economy.2
The economic crisis as a focusing event
These high levels of uncertainty generated by the financial crisis com-
pounded existing signs of economic distress. Between 2001 and 2010,
the Ontario manufacturing employment rate had decreased by 5.5%. In
the US and Germany, manufacturing had seen a 4.2% and 4.0% decline,
respectively (The Mowat Centre 2014). The financial crisis forced a
reckoning in the premier’s office that Ontario’s manufacturing sector was
facing an existential threat. As one McGuinty advisor, a former finance
minister to the premier recalled:
WEST EUROPEAN POLITICS 939
The world’s economy was going to hell in a hand-basket. Ontario was one
of the places where the Great Recession was going to have a huge impact.
Not just on [its] financial institutions… but the auto sector and manufac-
turing sector were heading for disaster.3
Trade liberalisation and other pressures had slowly contributed to the
decline of Ontario’s manufacturing sector but the recession helped put
the sector’s short- and long-term health into focus. As McGuinty (2015)
later recalled:
Nobody saw it coming and when it hit us, we did not fully appreciate
how devastating it was going to be… In the initial stages, I was scrambling
to get good strategic advice, but it was just not available. Nobody had an
answer… I heard a lot about the impact of the recession, but when I asked
for their opinions on how long it would last or how to get out of it, they
were initially less able to help.
By November 2008, the full weight of economic pressure began to
weigh on the government. Two months into the crisis, the premier told
his advisors that ‘all policy options need[ed] to be on the table’. Following
this, McGuinty and his advisors contemplated everything from short-term
stimulus spending to a complete restructuring of the provincial tax sys-
tem.4 Signs of policy failure with regards to existing economic conditions
were clear but the precise drivers of the problem were not fully appre-
ciated, indicating higher levels of problem uncertainty.
In a 2009 interview, the premier told reporters ‘When you lose 250,000
jobs in short order, you sober up very quickly… you recognise that you’re
going to have to make some difficult decisions in order to strengthen
this economy’ (Benzie 2010). Premier McGuinty and his advisors thus
faced deep uncertainty about the future of the provincial economy. The
financial crisis drew decision-makers’ focus to a problem that had been
present but ultimately overlooked. The premier’s attention to the manu-
facturing sector prompted a deeper analysis of the economy’s fundamen-
tals. Through discussion and analysis, the premier and his advisors
recognised that the downturn was a symptom of a deeper, structural
problem. At the same time, although the Ontario government was facing
deep uncertainty regarding long-term economic outcomes, because the
government had initially turned to fiscal policy to support vulnerable
sectors and workers, the pressure on the government to implement sub-
sequent measures was more limited, providing more time to puzzle over
additional policy measures. Thus the government’s initial foray into incre-
mental fiscal policy change enabled decision-makers to reflect on the
nature of the problem they were confronting, including major policy shifts
to the provincial tax system.
940 M. LESCH AND H. MILLAR
Reducing uncertainty through epistemic learning
Case analysis finds that these conditions of high uncertainty and mod-
erate urgency prompted epistemic learning in Ontario. At the meso-level,
the government engaged in a thorough examination of epistemic reports
and widespread consultation with key experts, helping formulate a
clearer understanding of the causes of economic decline and potential
solutions. First, economic advisors in the Ministry of Finance presented
the premier with a report, Time for Vision: Much of the Foundation of
Past Economic Success Has Crumbled. The report offered a candid
assessment: Ontario’s economic and fiscal policies had failed to adapt
to an increasingly competitive globalised economy. Higher energy costs
and a rising Canadian dollar had made the province a much less appeal-
ing place to invest. The authors singled out the RST as a major dis-
incentive for investment. The report also pointed to new evidence on
the impact of VAT reform in three Canadian Atlantic provinces
(Drummond and Burleton 2008). In these provinces, VAT reform was
credited for increasing business investment while also driving down
consumer prices in the long term (Smart 2007). The report, then,
presented a cogent diagnosis of Ontario’s policy problem and identified
a potential policy alternative. After reading the report, the premier
reached out to several business leaders, academic experts and finance
officials. These discussions helped reinforce the emerging
problem-definition and policy solution.5
The Ontario case reflects a classic case of policy entrepreneurship
(Kingdon 1995) by actors within the bureaucracy who were attached to
the VAT as an idea. The VAT system had long been the preferred policy
option among senior officials in the finance department. According to
one official, the reform was ‘routinely presented’ to politicians when
‘bold revenue generation ideas were solicited’.6 As one expert explained,
‘there were key personalities in the bureaucracy pushing [VAT] for a
long time; it was largely a question of getting the politicians to sign on
t o i t’. 7 When sales tax reform finally got on the agenda, finance officials
were well versed in the theory and evidence underpinning VAT reform.
This iterative back and forth between elected officials, economic experts
and members of the bureaucracy reflects processes consistent with epis-
temic learning. Time for Vision generated a new causal story for the
premier, identifying economic competitiveness as the problem frame and
pointed to the province’s tax system as a major culprit. This new problem
definition reduced problem uncertainty and was further reinforced by
other key actors. Key finance officials could help analyse, validate and
explain expert ideas and research on sales tax policy to the premier and
his cabinet.
WEST EUROPEAN POLITICS 941
Moreover, support for sales tax reform was not limited to finance
officials. Several provincial business organisations had historically advo-
cated for a VAT, including the Ontario Chamber of Commerce.8 In 2007,
the Chamber commissioned research on the implications of VAT reform
for the Ontario economy. Part of this research involved regular contact
with senior finance officials. Ministry officials supplied the Chamber
with their own queries and provided technical information.9 Early findings
from the Chamber were then presented to McGuinty and his advisors
just as the government was contemplating what to do about the economic
downturn. While the Time for Vision report clarified the policy problem,
the Chamber’s research identified the potential efficiency gains VAT
reform could provide for Ontario businesses. The work by the Ontario
Chamber of Commerce and Ministry of Finance further reduced the
premier’s uncertainty about the efficacy of sales tax reform. McGuinty
had been sceptical about the potential policy benefits of VAT; the
Chamber’s research was critical in contextualising the impact of the
reform. Following consideration of both policy reports, the premier turned
to his advisors and said: ‘Let’s do this, let’s look at some options’.10
Officials then began negotiating with their federal counterparts about
the one-time transition payment and other key administrative issues.11
McGuinty’s decision to move forward with the VAT reflects a signif-
icant change in beliefs at the micro-level. Before the crisis, McGuinty
had described the VAT as an ‘ideological non-starter’ due to potential
electoral risks, as well as whether the instrument was effective (Cowan
2009). When the economic crisis heightened uncertainty, the premier
turned to expert advice. Consistent with learning processes, this deep
engagement with the policy problem and with experts prompted a shift
in the premier’s core beliefs about tax policy. As McGuinty explained:
I had heard for a number of years that we were one of the few remaining
holdouts in the world when it came to not having a value-added tax but
hadn’t fully appreciated the impact of this. [But then] I got some excellent
policy advice from the Ministry of Finance and from folks outside gov-
ernment, which said that we should adopt [VAT], that it would make our
businesses more competitive. That it would lead to increased business
investment, create jobs, [and] raise incomes.12
British Columbia’s HST: moderate uncertainty, high urgency
and policy emulation
Policy context
In July 2009, the BC provincial government announced it would also
replace its existing provincial retail sales tax with a VAT. The BC
942 M. LESCH AND H. MILLAR
government cited Ontario’s March 2009 decision, saying the province
would be left at a competitive disadvantage if it did not follow Ontario,
one of its economic rivals (Ontario Ministry of Finance 2009b). At first
glance, this policy change reads like a case of competition-induced policy
diffusion, where a competitor’s policy decision makes retaining the status
quo too costly and thus results in policy convergence (Dobbin et al.
2007). A closer analysis shows that the BC government was far less
systematic than a ‘competition’ explanation would seem to suggest.
By early 2009, BC’s resource-based economy was showing signs of a
downturn. Provincial revenues had fallen by almost $1 billion during the
recession (British Columbia Ministry of Finance 2011). The crisis had
also affected the labour market, with 48,500 jobs lost across the province
(BC Stats 2015). Early in the crisis, the BC government, led by Premier
Gordon Campbell did not introduce any major policy changes. In October
2008, the premier told reporters that his government had no interest in
pursuing ‘deficit financing’ (Fletcher 2008). Unlike his Ontario counterpart,
the premier did not consider the financial crisis a source of significant
problem uncertainty. The economic threat emanating from the global
recession was significant but Campbell and his advisors were also rea-
sonably confident that the economy would rebound. Although there was
some uncertainty about the timing and speed of the recovery there was
no indication that BC’s economy had a structural problem. In the absence
of an existential threat, BC policymakers had less incentive than the
Ontario government to engage in policy learning. As time passed however
and the economic outlook continued to worsen, the premier’s initial
position became untenable. In March 2009, Campbell reversed himself,
announcing a $495 million budgetary deficit (Palmer 2009), while com-
mitting to a balanced budget by 2011 (Ontario Ministry of Finance 2009b).
The government’s shifting approach to budgeting suggests that by early
2009 it was facing moderate levels of uncertainty, creating conditions for
potential policy learning.
As in Ontario, prior to the financial crisis, the sales tax system in BC
had been routinely criticised, yet successive provincial governments
showed no interest in policy change. Largely for political reasons, poli-
ticians refused to ‘touch the [sales] tax with a ten-foot pole’.13 In
Campbell’s case, since taking office in 2001, he had both publicly and
privately expressed opposition to the idea.14
However, Ontario’s decision to adopt the VAT heightened the salience
of the issue across Canadian provinces, including BC. The timing proved
awkward. By March 2009, the provincial election campaign had just got
underway towards a May 2009 election day. The salience of Ontario’s
decision forced the incumbent BC Liberals to restate their opposition to
VAT reform in BC. The Liberals portrayed themselves as the safe electoral
WEST EUROPEAN POLITICS 943
option given the economic climate, promising to protect social programs
through modest deficit spending. This electoral strategy ultimately paid
off. The BC Liberals won a majority of seats for a third consecutive
election.
Although discussion of VAT reform was kept to a minimum on the
campaign trail, urgency regarding the need to revisit the idea was slowly
building behind the scenes. Following Ontario’s decision, BC finance
officials provided a briefing note for their minister, Colin Hansen. The
briefing discussed the anticipated benefits and risks of a similar policy
change in BC. Officials also noted that some of the risks could be man-
aged by using funds that the federal government had set aside for such
purposes (CBC News 2010).
Responding to urgency through bounded emulation
In contrast to epistemic learning in Ontario, the decision to adopt the
VAT in BC stemmed from a handful of short meetings between the
premier, his senior staff and finance officials, reflecting a process of
bounded emulation. This process was driven in part because of high
levels of perceived urgency among policymakers regarding the govern-
ment’s public finances.
Just days before the provincial election, the premier was warned by
finance officials that revenues projections for the first month of the year
were off by between $200 to 300 million (Palmer 2009). Two days after
the election, the premier met with a senior finance official and was
presented with an even ‘grimmer’ forecast.15 The deficit would be twice
the size of what Campbell and Hansen had promised earlier. Frustrated
by the prospect of a $1.3 billion deficit, the premier instructed his finance
officials to ‘go and figure something out’.16 Defining the policy problem
as an urgent budgetary issue rather than a radically uncertain economic
problem had important implications for policy decision-making.
Beyond the urgency generated by the salience of Ontario’s decision to
adopt the VAT and the changes in provincial public finances, BC poli-
cymakers also found themselves facing urgent time pressure from the
federal government. Finance officials approached their counterparts in
Ottawa and were told that BC could expect $1.6 billion in compensation
for adopting the VAT. The federal government wanted Ontario and BC
to implement these reforms on the same schedule and so the offer was
time-sensitive.17 For Campbell, the federal offer presented a convenient
(and available) solution to the deficit. A month later, though, finance
officials told the premier, yet again, revenues were significantly off-target
and that the $1.3 billion deficit figure was likely much larger.18
944 M. LESCH AND H. MILLAR
Among finance officials, it was understood that although the effects
of the recession were deep, BC was confronting a cyclical economic
shock. Decision-makers were under pressure but the nature of the chal-
lenge was distinct from Ontario. In BC, finance officials grasped the
causes of the downturn and reported feeling confident about the medium-
to long-term recovery. Forecasters anticipated that the provincial economy
would rebound over 2009 and 2010, particularly as demands for BC’s
exports increased.19 The decision to restructure the entire provincial tax
system is, then, somewhat striking. As one policy expert put it, ‘As a
general rule, governments do not overhaul the tax system in order to
deal with a cyclical problem like a budgetary deficit’.20
The political consequences of bounded emulation
Faced with an urgent policy problem and a salient, yet time-limited
policy solution, policymakers engaged in a process of bounded emulation.
Rather than probing their deep core beliefs about the economy, Campbell
and Hansen were spurred to make a rapid decision to alleviate urgent
perceived financial and federal pressures. BC’s deteriorating fiscal situation
and Ottawa’s fleeting offer presented a dilemma: Officials knew that
replacing the sales tax system would have major consequences for stake-
holders but they did not believe that they had sufficient time to examine
those issues.21 As a result, there was no systematic analysis of the dis-
tributive implications of adopting the VAT within the government bureau-
cracy before the decision was made. In contrast to Ontario, the government
did not engage with or consult with external experts or stakeholders
prior to deciding on the VAT. According to one cabinet minister, time
constraints were the main factor: ‘we were rushed by the feds… [and
so] there was a complete absence of a communications plan’.22 On July
23 2009 Campbell announced the policy change describing it ‘the single
biggest thing we can do to improve B.C.’s economy’ (CBC News 2009).
In contrast to processes of epistemic learning in Ontario, the nature
and pace of the VAT decision-making process in BC were much more
consistent with a rapid pattern of cognition. As one political strategist
pointed out:
The government needed to find money, they looked around and went ‘oh,
the HST’… This explains why there [were] no research papers [and] why
there was no notice to the business community. There were no secret
papers, there weren’t any secret documents. In fact, there weren’t any
documents at all. They did not do the research, they did not do the studies
[and] they did not do the polling or the focus groups, nothing.23
WEST EUROPEAN POLITICS 945
At the meso-level, policymakers’ failure to perform any comprehensive
assessment of VAT reform and its impact is indicative of bounded emu-
lation. Moreover, the decision to restructure the provincial tax system
over such a short period of time suggests that policymakers were drawing
on limited amounts of information. Since the government never consulted
with experts or stakeholders on this major reform, it is reasonable to
assume that the evidence base for the policy was biased and/or incom-
plete. In addition, there was no indication that actors’ ideas significantly
shifted at any point, rather the incentives to adopt VAT changed. As one
journalist noted, ‘I think [Campbell] looked at that money [from the
federal government], knew it was a generally good policy idea and said
yeah, let’s do it… really that’s the only way to make sense of the timing
of the decision’.24 Research suggests that Campbell’s decision to adopt
the VAT was likely bolstered by his previous success in reforming carbon
pricing in the province. Despite significant differences in the design and
roll-out of the VAT, BC’s success with the carbon tax may have prompted
over-confidence biases that the government would be able to ‘sell’ the
tax during implementation to the public (Lesch 2018).
The BC government was unprepared for extensive resistance to the
distributive impacts of the VAT. Over the autumn of 2009, an anti-VAT
coalition mobilised and triggered a provincial referendum in August 2011
(Bailey 2010). The VAT issue sparked strong divisions within the pro-
vincial cabinet and Gordon Campbell resigned in late 2010. By nearly a
10-point margin, the public voted to restore the provincial RST. Subsequent
analyses have attributed the reform’s unpopularity to a poor communi-
cation plan and policy design (Abbott 2015; Lesch 2018).
If the Campbell government was reasonably confident that the pro-
vincial economy could recover in the medium-term, then the urgency
attached to responding to the budgetary crisis might seem somewhat
surprising. Understanding the hasty decision to embrace the VAT needs
to be examined within the broader context of BC politics. Since the
mid-1990s, the BC Liberals have positioned themselves as the ‘more
fiscally responsible’ alternative to the New Democratic Party (NDP), the
province’s main left-wing party.25 Upon first taking office in 2001, for
example, the Campbell Liberals introduced balanced budget legislation,
effectively banning the province from running budgetary deficits. The
Great Recession forced the government to amend its signature legislation
in order to run a deficit (Simpson and Wesley 2012). Economic stew-
ardship and fiscal restraint had been instrumental to the BC Liberal’s
electoral appeal in the 2000s. These issues helped the party attract support
from suburban voters as well as mobilise the small-c conservative base.26
Thus Premier Campbell had a strong ideological motivation as well as
the political incentives to prioritise the deficit as an issue after the Great
946 M. LESCH AND H. MILLAR
Recession. The political environment differed dramatically in Ontario,
where a centrist government enjoyed more ideological room and electoral
flexibility in experimenting with different policy approaches.
Discussion and conclusion
The comparative analysis conducted above provides support for the ana-
lytical framework of this study, drawing out the twin influences of prob-
lem uncertainty and policy urgency in Canadian tax policy making in
the context of the Great Recession. In the case of Ontario, the study
finds that when governments face crises characterised by high uncertainty
and moderate urgency, epistemic learning is possible. Radical uncertainty
can prompt decision-makers to contemplate their deep core beliefs, seek-
ing out information about both the causes of policy problems and alter-
native solutions. Moderate levels of urgency are conducive to policy
action but provide actors with greater time to engage in iterative solution
searches. Although policymakers are still influenced by cognitive con-
straints, they are goal-seeking in their behaviour. Under such conditions,
actors focus on getting the policy decision ‘right’ as opposed to ‘right away’.
In contrast, the study finds that BC policymakers engaged in
bounded emulation, allocating limited time and resources to studying
the policy problem and solution before implementing the VAT. In line
with the proposed analytical framework, the decision-making process
in BC was marked by moderate uncertainty. Finance officials knew
that the Great Recession was unlikely to have a prolonged negative
effect on the province’s long-term economic prospects. Although prob-
lem uncertainty was less extensive in BC than in Ontario, the degree
of urgency facing policy officials was much more intense. The com-
bination of a rapidly growing deficit, a diminishing timeline to access
federal funding, and increasing salience of Ontario’s adoption of the
VAT served to drive policy action, fostering processes of bounded
emulation. Faced with the need to ‘get it right now’, the premier and
the finance minister settled on a cognitively accessible tax policy instru-
ment. The findings, then, appear broadly consistent with research on
heuristic-information processing and policy diffusion (Weyland 2005).
Although the scope of the study does not allow us to identify the
specific heuristic at play, such as availability bias, this could be the
focus of future research.
The findings present several additional implications for future research.
First, as the variation in provincial responses to the Great Recession
demonstrates, the same exogenous shock can generate different levels of
uncertainty, with associated differences in mechanisms of policy learning.
WEST EUROPEAN POLITICS 947
Despite the prevalence of scholarship on the importance of uncertainty
for policy change (Blyth 2013; Cairney et al. 2016) more analysis of
problem uncertainty and its correlations to policy learning is needed. As
our empirical analysis demonstrates, although uncertainty and urgency
are often interlinked, they can have disparate influences on policymakers,
encouraging learning on the one hand and dampening it on the other.
These findings align with Kamkhaji and Radaelli’s (2021) call to refine
our understanding of the relationship between different ideational char-
acteristics and policy change.
Second, the findings suggest that the seeds of policy termination can
sometimes be found in the process through which policy is made. Public
backlash to the policy in BC resulted directly from the lack of attention
that policy actors paid to distributive impacts, and in particular limited
attention to how the policy was framed and communicated to the public
(Lesch 2018). More research is needed to determine whether policy
learning can insulate decision-makers from policy reversals and/or
whether bounded emulation can nevertheless generate durable policies.
Notes
1. Author’s interview. Former policy advisor (Ontario).
2. Author’s interview. Former cabinet minister (Ontario).
3. Ibid.
4. Author’s interview. Former policy advisor (Ontario).
5. Author’s interview. Former premier (Ontario).
6. Author’s interview. Confidential.
7. Author’s interview. Policy expert (Ontario).
8. Author’s interview. Stakeholder group (Ontario).
9. Author’s interview. Confidential (Ontario).
10. Author’s interview. Policy advisor (Ontario).
11. Author’s interview. Confidential (Ontario).
12. Author’s interview. Former premier (Ontario).
13. Author’s interview. Journalist (BC).
14. Author’s interview. Journalist (BC).
15. Author’s interview. Confidential (BC).
16. Ibid.
17. Author’s interview. Former cabinet minister (BC).
18. Author’s interview. Journalist (BC).
19. Ibid.
20. Author’s interview. Policy expert (BC).
21. Author’s interview. Former cabinet minister (BC).
22. Ibid.
23. Author’s interview. Political strategist (BC).
24. Author’s interview. Journalist (BC).
25. Author’s interview. Former cabinet minister (BC).
26. Author’s interview. Political strategist (BC).
948 M. LESCH AND H. MILLAR
Notes
1. This distinction with regard to time is a relative, rather than absolute
measure. As the process of vaccine development for Covid-19 demonstrates,
processes of epistemic learning can be extremely rapid, however the pro-
cess also required an extensive mobilization of resources, supporting the
categorization put forward in the analytical framework of the study.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the participants of the 2019 Annual Meeting
of the International Public Policy Association in Montreal, Canada, for their
comments on an earlier version of this article. Special thanks to Jonathan
Kamkhaji, Femke Van Esch and Claudio Radaelli for their guidance in developing
this symposium, and to the editors and anonymous reviewers of West European
Politics for their constructive comments.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
Dr Matthew Lesch is a Research Fellow in the Department of Health Sciences
at the University of York. His research focuses on the politics of policy making,
policy transfer and policy learning. His research has appeared in Policy Sciences,
Regional & Federal Studies and Social Science & Medicine. [matt.lesch@york.ac.uk].
Dr Heather Millar is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University
of New Brunswick. Her research examines the politics of uncertainty and risk,
policy learning and policy feedback. Her articles have appeared in Policy Sciences,
Review of Policy Research, Environmental Politics and Public Policy and
Administration. [h.millar@unb.ca]
ORCID
Matthew Lesch http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3015-0937
Heather Millar http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5859-541X
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