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The Boundaries of the Canadian Confederation Norman L. Nicholson Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1979, pp. xi, 252

should display more humility by concentrating on the refinement of particular performance indicators. Gillespie's restrained enthusiasm is sensible when evaluation has become such a "buzz word" inside governments. A persuasive explanation for the endurance of annual, incremental budgeting is provided by Aaron Wildavsky, in the epigrammatic prose that we have come to expect from him. Budgeting serves a number of purposes. The traditional budgetary process survives because, although it does not score high on any single criterion, it serves modestly well a greater number of interrelated purposes than any of its flashier, modern competitors. Its virtues are its alleged defects. It is incremental rather than comprehensive; it is fragmented rather than integrated; and it is short-sighted rather than forward looking. But these characteristics give it the appeal of simplicity, flexibility and congruence with the wider political process. The theme of realism in programme evaluation is taken up by Mr. Harry Rogers, who was only several months on the job as Comptroller-General in the Government of Canada when the conference was held. He indicated then that his approach would be nontechnocratic and selective. Expensive, system-wide schemes for evaluation would be avoided. Since 1978, his office has worked jointly with 21 departments to establish so-called'' Action Plans" for programme evaluation and has launched a Financial Officer Recruiting and Development programme to ensure that departments are able to meet the challenge of expenditure restraint (see the House of Commons' Miscellaneous Estimates Committee, October 25, 1979). Mr. Michael English, MP, describes the lack of effective parliamentary control over spending in the United Kingdom, despite the existence since 1971 of an Expenditure Committee something like that which has been recommended by the Lambert Commission for the Canadian House of Commons. In a survey fashion, Dean Crowther describes the American institutions and processes involved in expenditure control and programme evaluation. While the range of executive and legislative instruments seems greater than in Canada, there is not a correspondingly higher level of satisfaction with the results apparently. In an excellent paper, Richard Bird and David Foot debunk a number of myths and identify a number of previously neglected realities concerning bureaucratic growth in Canada. The durable reader who perseveres through the definitional and statistical problems of such an exercise will probably have a few of his preconceived ideas shaken by the findings. Allan Maslove writes about the revenue loss to the federal treasury from so-called "tax expenditures." His estimate of the cost of various tax incentives is modest when compared to the Department of Finance's more recent calculation of a $32 billion annual revenue loss, but again there are methodological disagreements over what should be included in such calculations. A longer conference and a thicker volume would have allowed for the discussion of the many other aspects of policy evaluation, but the book is an excellent start on the exploration of this relatively uncharted topic in Canada.