ABSTRACT
Any conclusions on the course of Canadian national policy must rest on assumptions about the nature of national decision making. The differences between Canadian and Japanese national decision making are so great that it is difficult to conceive that the Canadians would follow the Japanese model even if it were the most desirable one for Canada. Expectations of Canadians have been geared by and large to a government which acted only when pressures required it do so and then only in a moderate manner. Avoiding actions which would disrupt the main body of private enterprise decision making upon which the overall dynamics of the economy were expected to depend. A corollary of the traditional mild role of the government is the limited experience in the Ottawa bureaucracy with complex intragovernment decision making on economic matters. Government-business relations in Canada are closely related to the government role in business affairs.
