Whether because of Al Gore, increasingly stern warnings from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change or the strange weather of late, this past year has seen political actors of all stripes—business leaders prominent among them—restate their commitment to the environment. MacDonald's new book is thus a timely contribution, offering a historical perspective that may lead readers to treat the latest round of corporate “greening” with caution. This study of shifting business interests, strategies and power in relation to environmental policy making demonstrates how firms have worked over the last fifty years, notwithstanding public statements and even some sincere efforts to the contrary, to minimize the threats posed by new environmental regulations.

Business and Environmental Politics in Canada reviews business/government relationships in this issue area since the 1950s, with a focus on the regulation of pollution emissions and waste. This history is divided into three phases: the implementation of the regulatory system from 1956 to 1980; an era of increased regulatory pressure from 1980 to 1993; and the era of relaxing regulatory pressure, with an emphasis on voluntarism, from 1993 to 2000. Observations on developments since 2000 are limited, dealing only with the aftermath of the Walkerton water crisis and the debate over the Kyoto Protocol's ratification.

MacDonald advances two main theoretical arguments. The first is that, among the goals that businesses pursue, social legitimacy should be seen as important and separate from profitability, thereby challenging the assumption that business interests can be reduced to profitability. The second contends that it is the degree of threat posed by regulation—in terms of the coerciveness of the instrument—and whether it is targeted at the firm's product or the byproduct of pollution, that determines a business's response to regulation, rather than corporate culture and the extent to which this has been “greened” (19). In the course of marshalling evidence to support these arguments, this study makes several empirical claims. These include the idea that garnering social legitimacy has become increasingly important for businesses in the face of the growing power of environmentalism. Compare, for example, the pulp and paper industry's response in the 1970s, when it negotiated quietly with government officials to minimize and delay regulatory threats (76–83), with the chemical industry's “responsible care” program of the late 1980s, which sought to convince both the public and governments that industry was taking environmental concerns seriously (111–16). Perhaps more insightful, however, is the claim that despite such efforts to garner legitimacy, the primary strategy of firms in response to regulatory threats remains private negotiation; firms turn to the public sphere only when elite-level contact is making no headway (181–82). The 2002 debate over the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol is a case in point. This debate spilled out into the media only when industry felt that Jean Chrétien's Liberal government was no longer listening behind closed doors. Notably, even after industry “lost” the public battle over ratification, it still managed to win the war when it subsequently negotiated relaxed emission targets and voluntary mechanisms for meeting them (162–69).

The strength of this work is its focus on business/government relations over time, and its solid grounding in the literature on business as a political actor. After federal and provincial governments, businesses are the most important actors in environmental regulation in Canada, so they deserve the attention received here. Unfortunately, this book's narrow focus on business also results in a blind spot. MacDonald repeatedly refers to the rise of environmentalism as a social movement, and discusses how firms have responded to the general challenge posed by it. However, he does not explore in detail the ways that environmental activists have, in a number of cases, actually been able to intervene in cozy business/government relationships. While it would be unfair to expect a detailed study of environmentalism, this work should have incorporated cases that illustrate more complex relationships between civil society, business and governments. The debate over genetically modified (GM) organisms beginning in the late 1990s comes to mind, which led to outcomes such as the federal government's decision to approve some GM crops but not to approve Monsanto's recombinant bovine growth hormone. These debates demonstrated the power of environmentalists, working alongside some business interests (including farm organizations) and against others (Monsanto and its biotech partners) to influence (some) policy outcomes. MacDonald admits that environmentalists have been powerful in certain instances, such as in the forestry issue in British Columbia but does not examine how their strategies can reshape the business/government dynamic that lies at the heart of his concern.

Despite this caveat, MacDonald's study could almost be subtitled “a brief history of environmental policy development in Canada.” This carefully argued study would thus make a good text, alongside works that explore the wider context of environmentalism, for undergraduate or graduate courses on Canadian environmental policy.