ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates that a lack of democratic quality meant that democratic quality had almost no influence on climate performance in the case of Canada's Kyoto Protocol climate policy. A closer look at transparency and the question of whether access, traceability and explanation of all relevant information at the different stages of the policy process between 2003-2005 ensured transparency might be informative to see what impact transparency had. Since the National Climate Change Process (NCCP) ceased to function when the federal government announced its intention to ratify the Kyoto Protocol in 2002, the government used bilateral agreements as a major instrument to navigate Canada's federal system and to move forward on climate policy arrangements with the provinces between 2003-2005. In terms of the credibility of the government's commitment to policies and the coordination of conflicting objectives into a coherent policy, the government's departments had an important part to play.
