Speakers at 2011 Gordon Symposium - 2011-03-10 22:50:40 - Manveen Puri

On 2011 March 22, Massey College in collaboration with the School of Public Policy and Governance of the University of Toronto, hosted the 21st Gordon Symposium. Titled, “Democracy, Expertise, and Politics”, it sought to determine the roles of politicians, expert bureaucrats and citizens in determining a direction for the state’s government. The panel moderated by Misha Glouberman, a facilitator, was composed of Mel Cappe, former Clerk of the Privy Council, Secretary of the Cabinet, and Head of the Public Service, Munir Sheikh, former Chief Statistician, and Antonia Maioni, a professor of McGill University.

Throughout the evening, the panelists concurred that government needed more accountability and policy decisions required more evidence.

Maioni, the first to speak, began her talk by eschewing the elitist term, ‘intellectual’, rather referring to herself as a ‘knowledge worker’. She went on to state that as a social scientist, “we collect data, evaluate evidence, and draw conclusions based on observation or fact. In other words, we actually do live in the real world”. She said that there were three issues of importance that have affected this.

First, we must “remember the difference between evidence and expertise. There is a tendency to mix what experts say with the actual expertise. There is very little expert created research that is actually expertise these days.”

She gave an example in her own field that, “the relationship between politics and political science is very tenuous […] with evidence generated in areas such a polling, voting behavior and even policy analysis” that barely inform the public in general or in specific.

Another problem Maioni pointed out was that, “I would suggest that actual researchers, the knowledge workers in the academy - the [genuine] - are in fact not in the fore front of the accountability exercise and there in lies the problem. We need a better conduit to get ideas and concepts out the door of the universities where a real public debate can occur.”

Secondly, Maioni examined “the potential damage done to expertise and evidence by mixing up correlation and causation. There is a tendency to equate two objects or phenomenon with a cause and effect relationship, which may or may not be there.”

“In many cases there is a correlation, but no a causation relationship.” This occurs quite frequently.

Lastly is the issue of an informed and uniformed public.

“I was trained to understand the meaning of a rational public. Even if individuals behaved irrationally, the collective was coherent, rational and stable over time. We as citizens may not know a lot about the specificity, since we can not be experts in everything.”

Maioni continued that “this only works if we are given valuable information that can be validated, by evidence and transmitted by channels such as the media.” But there is also the widespread “misuse of reporting and false information”.

She concluded that there were “two problems between expertise and democracy in Canada. First the difficulty to make informed decisions […] and second, the overemphasis on partisanship and jargon”.

Munir Sheikh, the Chief Statistician who recently resigned over the Harper administration’s long form census scandal, was the next speaker being greeted with much applause. He divided his talk into two parts, the ones that did not cause his resignation from the head of Statistics Canada and those that did.

To much laughter, he declared, “Politicians not agreeing with the advice of experts from Statistics Canada on the long form census […] did not cause my resignation.”

“Even though in my view, the government’s plan would produce low quality data at high cost, not implementing their decision would have been worse, because in a democratic system only the one final decision maker can be the elected government […] Otherwise there is only chaos.”

“The accountability of an elected government must go hand in hand with its ability to make decisions, even wrong ones.”

Sheikh went on to state that, “my resignation was solely an action of last resort related to a totally different reason that is defined as part of a deputy minister’s responsibility. The purpose of my resignation was to protect the integrity and reputation of an institution that I had the honor of leading.”

In an interview after the event, Sheikh stated that it was the attacks against the competency of the institution he headed that caused him to resign. The government had originally claimed that the removal of the long form census was Statistics Canada’s idea, only admitting ownership of the policy after controversy and further investigation.

The claim that the new plan would not affect the quality of data was ridiculous, according to Sheikh. During the panel discussion, Cappe would further add that the government even had a research article, which was untrue, published in the peer reviewed journal, Lancet, to defend its claims.

When asked why the government wanted to remove the long form census, Sheikh said that he was not involved in the policy decision but stated it did not come directly from Tony Clement, Minister of Industry, but rather from Stephen Harper, Prime Minister.

Last amongst the three presenters was Mel Cappe, who began his speech with a jest. “When the lights were up, I saw two of the professors I had as an undergraduate at this university. I will not say their names, Stephen Clarkson and Gerry Helleiner,” a comment that brought about much laughter.

Cappe, then turned to the issue at hand, stating that “I will argue the anti-intellectual side, but I can not make myself to do it. I guess they [Clarkson and Helleiner] taught me well.”

He began by addressing the issue of an elite. “There is a very legitimate value in having an elite in Canada for dealing with difficult issues.” However, there needs to be a rational elite that does not rely upon ideology, with Cappe adding that “My thesis is that evidence based politics is crucial for the future of Canada.”

Cappe raised three issues, an “increasing complexity in issues […] which are unequivocally international in nature”, a problem in the demand side of policy creation as well as a problem in the supply side.

“We need ministers who are prepared to look over the horizon, the elected officials who are going to think about the challenges of the future and who are going to demand help in dealing with those issues,” commented Cappe on the demand side of policy creation.

As for the supply side he remarked that, “The public service has a privileged access and a unique perspective. However, we also need others such as NGOs and special interest groups. […] But are we prepared to be open and engage in public discussions on these issues. Ministers need evidence and analysis.”

“Policy based evidence and hiding behind ministers are two problems” that needs to faced, finished Cappe, pointing out two problems that Canada has encountered over the past decade.

At the end, there was consensus amongst the panelists that there was a need for more accountability and evidence based policy in government.