Canadian Parliamentary Exchange

Programs

Congressional Fellowship Program

Articles About the Program

"As the saying goes, 'Americans are benevolently ignorant about Canada, while Canadians are malevolently well-informed about the United States.' Being well-aware of this long-standing imbalance of understanding and interest, our gracious Canadian hosts set out to enlighten us..."
_{Darcia Harris Bowman, Political Scientist Fellow 1998-99}

There is something constant in 1998-99 political scientist Congressional Fellow Darcia Harris Bowman's description of the three-decades-old Canada-US Parliamentary Exchange, but even this bedrock program changes to match the current environment. The longstanding exchange between the APSA Congressional Fellows and the Canadian Parliamentary Interns continues to provide an intensive comparable study of Westminster versus U.S.-model parliamentary systems. The one-week study tours, organized by the Fellows and their Canadian counterparts respectively, allow participants to examine the relationship between the United States and Canada from an institutional perspective.

Each year since 1973, the Fellows have planned a comprehensive, weeklong introduction to the Congress for 10 Canadian Parliamentary Interns in Washington, DC. Much of the agenda reflects that key ingredients of this bilateral relationship - the longest international border between two countries, the largest import-export relationship in which Canada continues to provide the largest portion of US carbon-based energy and hydro-electric power, a vibrant mutual security relationship in NORAD that has been updated since 9/11, and an ever-growing cross-border transit of people and products. The 2012 exchange, however, reflects new dimensions such as the debate over the proposed XL Keystone pipeline from Alberta's tar sands to a U.S. Gulf Coast port with a briefing by the Independent Petroleum Association of America; the stark contrast of differing national campaign finance processes with a briefing by EMILY's LIST; the close Canadian provincial and U.S. state involvement with the Great Lakes Economic Initiative; the importance of the U.S. deficit with a briefing by the congressional staff of the Senate committees with jurisdiction over deficit reduction; the robust U.S. congressional support arms with briefings by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), Government Accountability Office (GAO), and Congressional Research Service (CRS); the growth of U.S. institutional focus on Canada with a briefing at the Canada Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars; and the growing press engagement in the politics of both countries with a bi-national panel of journalists at the National Press Club.

The sustained and adaptive natures of this exchange are probably its greatest strengths and it continues to serve the objective of in-depth comparative parliamentary analysis. Specifically, it promotes increased understanding between each country's major trading partners of the other's distinctive culture.

Under the aegis of the Canadian Political Science Association, and since its founding in 1969, the Canadian Parliamentary Intern Program has annually selected 10 of Canada's most promising university graduates to spend a 10-month internship in offices of Members of the House of Commons in Ottawa. While a large number of their interns go on to graduate and professional schools, a number have remained as career parliamentary public servants or gone on to currently being some of Canada's leading journalists and academics.