On Saturday,
March 31st, I joined 100 fellow citizens from the Sunshine
Coast and North Shore in one of the government's public
forums for the Conversation on Health. Two burly guards,
who occasionally talked into radios, were on duty at both
ends of the hallway.
Mary
Polak, MLA for Langley and Parliamentary Secretary for the
Conversation on Health, spent about 60 seconds bringing
greetings before disappearing for the day. Apparently the
North Shore didn't rate a presentation from the Premier
or the Minister of Health.
Participants
were reminded about good practices for conversations, such
as allowing everyone to participate. It looks like the Campbell
government exempts itself from those good practices as it
is not participating. The government has refused to respond
to criticisms, including criticism from former Deputy Health
Minister Penny Ballem,
that its claims that health costs will reach 71% of government
spending are without substance. And the government has yet
to explain how a province can amend definitions, such as
accessibility and comprehensiveness, in a federal statute;
that's what its focus on the Canada Health Act amounts
to. It would be appropriate for the government to provide
some interim response to the comments that have been made
in the first six months of the conversation, and to assure
the public that there will be at least a second round of
talks before it acts on what it says it heard.
While
it was interesting to meet people who are interested in
discussing health policy, I found the day to be a frustrating
waste of time. In the morning participants threw out 28
topics and then ran between stations marked with balloons
to have quick conversations and fill out forms listing the
topic, what's going right, what's going wrong and what could
solve any problems. That might work as a party game, but
it doesn't have much to do with developing sound public
policy.
In the
afternoon, the topics identified by government in its conversation
starters were used in two rounds of facilitator-assisted
discussions and again ideas were jotted down. Everyone was
well intentioned but the gaps in knowledge were a problem
and no one was present to provide information beyond what
was found in the registration kit. If government is serious
about getting public participation, it should consider inviting
experts to present a panel discussion with opposing arguments,
and then have the forum participants discuss what they heard.
As it
is currently organized, the public forums are like picking
a group of people off the street and asking them to perform
brain surgery. A randomly selected group could offer value
judgments on the ethical conditions for when surgery should
or should not be performed, but such a group is not qualified
to advise on how a surgery should be done. The same is true
in the development of public policy. The government seems
to be blurring the line between public participation and
the need for technical advice. At the end of the process
the government is likely to use the exercise in an attempt
to legitimize whatever it wants to do.
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