Dr. Simmons’s research interests centre on federalism, public policy and administration in Canada. In particular, she focuses on democracy and accountability issues in federal-provincial relations.
A separate avenue of her current research considers whether the governance framework for ...
Dr. Simmons’s research interests centre on federalism, public policy and administration in Canada. In particular, she focuses on democracy and accountability issues in federal-provincial relations.
A separate avenue of her current research considers whether the governance framework for self-regulating health professions in the province of Ontario achieves the legislated goal of defending the public interest. A related project interrogates the nexus of reproductive autonomy, state oversight of the profession of midwifery, maternal empowerment and the public interest.
She is currently completing a book-length manuscript considering the tensions between deliberative and representative democracy evident in the role of non-governmental actors in the negotiation of intergovernmental agreements across a number of social and environmental policy initiatives in the 1990s. She is co-editing a volume entitled “Understanding and Explaining New Intergovernmental Accountability Regimes: Canada in Comparative Perspective” based on a recently completed SSHRC and IPAC funded collaborative research project. Prior to her academic career she was briefly at the Ontario Ministry of Intergovernmental Affairs.