[Canada] Canadian Politics Redux

[Jacob]

I didn't know he was a Covid truther. I was just wondering at the "pay a political movement insider $250,000 to write a report to tell us our government did good", but instead it's going to be "pay a political movement insder $250,000 to denounce the science wing of our party in favour of the conspiracy nut wing"?

[Barrister]

I didn't know he was a Covid truther. I was just wondering at the "pay a political movement insider $250,000 to write a report to tell us our government did good", but instead it's going to be "pay a political movement insder $250,000 to denounce the science wing of our party in favour of the conspiracy nut wing"?

OK, so I didn't even blink at the $250k.  Manning has done well enough for himself post-politics: lots of senior advisor, fellowships.  The Manning Centre raised millions of dollars in fundraising.  Plus public service shouldn't require one to wear a hair-shirt - it should be fairly compensated.  $250k is on par with like a provincial judge's yearly salary.  Fair note: I am in the public service.

"Political movement insider"... I mean the Manning Centre still clearly identified itself as being conservative, and aims to help conservatives.  But he was never involved in provincial politics, has not been involved in provincial politics since retiring from politics, and in that way is hardly an insider.

But yes - it's clear he's going to denounce the former Premier's actions during Covid.  He probably won't suggest people be arrested, unlike his "fictional" report, but there's no question which way the report will go.



Edit: because I am (was?) a Manning stan, I recall he was involved in Provincial politics back in the late 60s when his father was Premier.  He actually tried to negotiate a merger between the Socreds and the then-surging PCs, and his negotiating partner was none other than a young Joe Clark.  PCs saw no need to merge (and indeed they won in 1971) and the negotiations went nowhere.  But he was uninvolved since then.

[Sheilbh]

I didn't know he was a Covid truther. I was just wondering at the "pay a political movement insider $250,000 to write a report to tell us our government did good", but instead it's going to be "pay a political movement insder $250,000 to denounce the science wing of our party in favour of the conspiracy nut wing"?

Although I slightly wonder about this on the "movement insider". He sounds like a disaster and I'm not sure he is qualified.

But I think a big issue in the UK is sclerosis and I wonder how much of that is because lots of things end up in a judge led public inquiry. There are currently fourteen open inquiries across UK government and devolved administrations. The UK covid one is getting underway this year, chaired by Baroness Hallett who's a former CofA judge.

I get the principle is useful and there have been some very good ones that really matter - but my impression is that they're very slow and expensive (£250k is probably a minimum of what you'd pay a former judge who could be doing private sector arbitrations - and that doesn't include all the legal teams involved). Not least because they take seriously the idea that everyone has a right to respond. They also tend to end up very lawyerly/judgely. They relatively rarely criticise actual decisions but instead criticise process and the lack of "due regard" for various issues, or failure of balancing, failure of record-keeping, informal decision making etc. So everyone builds those recommendations into BAU and things gum up again.

Though I think they are helpful for getting the record established - they are ignored if they don't agree with what people already think (this will happen with the covid inquiry).

So I wonder if it'd be worth getting retired political decision makers or civil servants to do a quick and dirty report on things. Less worrying about establishing absolutely what happened and allowing rights of reply - more on a quick "lessons learned" approach from people who won't approach it in that lawyerly/judgely/public law way but as people who are aware of political and civil service constraints? Possibly a little less public so people have less need to lawyer up and pending the full inquiry only recommendations are released?

[crazy canuck]

I agree that Inquiries are a waste of time for things that are ultimately questions of public policy.  For COVID, it is even more wasteful since there is a confluence between public policy choices and medical judgements about how best to protect public health.

[Barrister]

So I wonder if it'd be worth getting retired political decision makers or civil servants to do a quick and dirty report on things. Less worrying about establishing absolutely what happened and allowing rights of reply - more on a quick "lessons learned" approach from people who won't approach it in that lawyerly/judgely/public law way but as people who are aware of political and civil service constraints? Possibly a little less public so people have less need to lawyer up and pending the full inquiry only recommendations are released?

I think like you I share a real scepticism of judicial inquiries or royal commissions.  They can be overly formal, overly legalistic, almost always coming in late and over-budget.  It certainly doesn't help that everyone involved has to have a lawyer.

And certainly retired politicians can have a role post-politics.  First one that comes to mind was George Mitchell, former Dem Senate Majority leader who was appointed by Clinton as special envoy to Northern Ireland and helped negotiate the Good Friday Accords.  As I googled to make sure I had the details right I had forgotten he also did THE report on steroids in baseball.

So a former politician can be fine - but it usually helps if you appoint someone from the opposite side of the spectrum.  And it helps if the person has the appearance of impartiality.

Because there are definitely things to be learned here.  The biggest for me is how long we stuck with the droplet method of transmission as opposed to airborne, combined with the reluctance for a long time to recommend masks.  And there certainly is some room to debate cost / benefit for various public health restrictions.

But on such a politically fraught topic you need to be extra careful to appear fair and balanced - and based on what I've learned about Manning's positions he's anything but.

[Barrister]

I agree that Inquiries are a waste of time for things that are ultimately questions of public policy.  For COVID, it is even more wasteful since there is a confluence between public policy choices and medical judgements about how best to protect public health.

But that's just like, your opinion man.

I disagree.  Some kind of Covid inquiry would be valuable.  I just disagree with how Smith is going about it and she's just further politicizing the issue.

[crazy canuck]

I agree that Inquiries are a waste of time for things that are ultimately questions of public policy.  For COVID, it is even more wasteful since there is a confluence between public policy choices and medical judgements about how best to protect public health.

But that's just like, your opinion man.

I disagree.  Some kind of Covid inquiry would be valuable.  I just disagree with how Smith is going about it and she's just further politicizing the issue.

Ok, but I am not so sure your assertion that an inquiry would be valuable carries any greater weight.  The whole thing is terribly politicized in your province.

[Barrister]

I agree that Inquiries are a waste of time for things that are ultimately questions of public policy.  For COVID, it is even more wasteful since there is a confluence between public policy choices and medical judgements about how best to protect public health.

But that's just like, your opinion man.

I disagree.  Some kind of Covid inquiry would be valuable.  I just disagree with how Smith is going about it and she's just further politicizing the issue.

Ok, but I am not so sure your assertion that an inquiry would be valuable carries any greater weight.  The whole thing is terribly politicized in your province.

But that's it - hopefully an inquiry could start to depoliticize it as we put Covid behind us (I know it's never fully behind us - it's still out there).

So I dunno - who is someone all Albertans could get behind.  I dunno - Get Jarome Iginla or Nathan Fillion to chair it.  

[Sheilbh]

So a former politician can be fine - but it usually helps if you appoint someone from the opposite side of the spectrum.  And it helps if the person has the appearance of impartiality.

Yeah I agree. I also think they probably should have been an officeholder. In our sort of systems I think if you're going to ahve an inquiry by a politician it probably also helps if they have similar level cabinet/ministerial experience - because that's a very different role from being an opposition politician. I think that's the value they could bring in a more quick and dirty approach that could be of use to policy makers/civil servants relatively quickly after an even.

Because there are definitely things to be learned here.  The biggest for me is how long we stuck with the droplet method of transmission as opposed to airborne, combined with the reluctance for a long time to recommend masks.  And there certainly is some room to debate cost / benefit for various public health restrictions.

I agree. I think there are definitely questions - in the UK context the one that I think everyone expects will be damning was the decision to discharge people (generally old people) into care homes to create spaces in hospitals without testing because we didn't have enough testing capacity at that time. I think it's directly linked to the outbreaks in care homes and probably thousands of deaths. I think establishing what happened around that decision is really important.

The problems ramping up testing and sourcing PPE I also think will be very big questions. I think the role - maybe overemphasis - of behavioural scientists ("people won't comply with lockdown") will also come in for a lot of criticism.

I think how the state handled the covid response is a "good" subject for a judge led inquiry. And all those issues seem like ones that will suit an inquiry.

But on such a politically fraught topic you need to be extra careful to appear fair and balanced - and based on what I've learned about Manning's positions he's anything but.

Here it's politically fraught in the opposite direction. My expectation is that it's going to head into the same pattern as the various Iraq inquiries where it's just never going to say what many people want.

That tends to be the way. Very critical inquiries are evidence of their usefulness, ones that are more measured are "whitewashes" - even if, in actual fact, both are put together in the same way and just as factually accurate.

Edit: Athough as you say a massive covid conspiracist is not going to produce a credible one in any respect.

[Barrister]

Edit: Athough as you say a massive covid conspiracist is not going to produce a credible one in any respect.

Okay, I gotta partially stand up for Manning.  Based on what I'm reading he's not a conspiracist - he's not saying this was all orchestrated by The Globalists, or Big Pharma, or whomever.  He certainly isn't saying that Covid-19 is fake, he himself says he was vaccinated.

That's why I labelled him as a "truther" - that people aren't being told the whole truth, that governments shut down legitimate inquiries into alternate medicines and the effectiveness of public health measures.

[Jacob]

Seems the inquiry is intended to build up another batch of Covid nonsense for political purposes. I guess it's to help with the upcoming provincial election?

[Barrister]

Seems the inquiry is intended to build up another batch of Covid nonsense for political purposes. I guess it's to help with the upcoming provincial election?

POlitical purposes being throwing read meat to the anti-covid base?  Yes.

Otherwise the report isn't supposed to come out until after the election.

[crazy canuck]

I agree that Inquiries are a waste of time for things that are ultimately questions of public policy.  For COVID, it is even more wasteful since there is a confluence between public policy choices and medical judgements about how best to protect public health.

But that's just like, your opinion man.

I disagree.  Some kind of Covid inquiry would be valuable.  I just disagree with how Smith is going about it and she's just further politicizing the issue.

Ok, but I am not so sure your assertion that an inquiry would be valuable carries any greater weight.  The whole thing is terribly politicized in your province.

But that's it - hopefully an inquiry could start to depoliticize it as we put Covid behind us (I know it's never fully behind us - it's still out there).

So I dunno - who is someone all Albertans could get behind.  I dunno - Get Jarome Iginla or Nathan Fillion to chair it.  

If the purpose is to develop a report that the majority can get behind, that is just populist politics. If the province wants to develop good public policy, the money would be better spent on the work of public health doctors.

[Barrister]

But that's it - hopefully an inquiry could start to depoliticize it as we put Covid behind us (I know it's never fully behind us - it's still out there).

So I dunno - who is someone all Albertans could get behind.  I dunno - Get Jarome Iginla or Nathan Fillion to chair it.  

If the purpose is to develop a report that the majority can get behind, that is just populist politics. If the province wants to develop good public policy, the money would be better spent on the work of public health doctors.

The point isn't to have a report that's popular in its conclusions.

The point would be to have a report generated by a non-biased, well-respected system (including the chairperson) so that the conclusions will be widely accepted, no matter what they are.

Public health doctors would absolutely be an important part of that, but it has to go just beyond best public health practices.  Various public health measures were absolutely disruptive and destructive, and so the question has to be asked whether they were "worth it".  I think by-and-large the answers would be yes, although as we have much more knowledge about the disease now than in spring 2020 probably some measure would have been done differently with the benefit of hindsight.

[crazy canuck]

But that's it - hopefully an inquiry could start to depoliticize it as we put Covid behind us (I know it's never fully behind us - it's still out there).

So I dunno - who is someone all Albertans could get behind.  I dunno - Get Jarome Iginla or Nathan Fillion to chair it.  

If the purpose is to develop a report that the majority can get behind, that is just populist politics. If the province wants to develop good public policy, the money would be better spent on the work of public health doctors.

The point isn't to have a report that's popular in its conclusions.

The point would be to have a report generated by a non-biased, well-respected system (including the chairperson) so that the conclusions will be widely accepted, no matter what they are.

Public health doctors would absolutely be an important part of that, but it has to go just beyond best public health practices.  Various public health measures were absolutely disruptive and destructive, and so the question has to be asked whether they were "worth it".  I think by-and-large the answers would be yes, although as we have much more knowledge about the disease now than in spring 2020 probably some measure would have been done differently with the benefit of hindsight.

The problem in Alberta is that the response was always political.  We have already discussed the differences in our public health statutes, so there is no usefulness in repeating that.  Now this inquiry will further politicize the issue, and by the time Manning issues his report, a new variant presenting new challenges will likely be plaguing us.