CBC 75th Anniversary

A few weeks ago, I went on a free tour of the CBC studio here in Ottawa. They offered the tour as part of their 75th anniversary celebrations, as part of Culture Days.

It prompted me to write a letter to my MP in support of the CBC, something that appears to be important, given the attacks by SUN TV what the increasingly call the "state broadcaster"(see discussion here ). They seem to be using the fact that the CBC is now subject to the Access to Information Act, to harass the broadcaster and also to attempt to get information they can use to either embarrass them or tow gain a commercial advantage.

Here's an excerpt from the letter:

An offhand comment made by someone at the CBC studios, which I visited during Culture Days here in Ottawa this past weekend, prompted this letter. She remarked that "public broadcasting is about the public, and about you". This comment reflects something I strongly believe about the important role of the CBC. In my case, as the son of two immigrant parents, I understand how important the CBC was in enabling them to become Canadian citizens in the fullest sense of the word. I know this is the same for others, who have also remarked how listening to CBC radio enabled their immigrant parents to understand their adopted country.

The importance of the CBC to the development of the Canadian fabric is of course not limited to immigrants. In my case, listening to the CBC has enabled me to identify with Canada as a whole. This particularly the case with radio. Radio has an incredible immediacy and ability to engage listeners in conversations.

All countries can be defined as an act of faith or imagination. This especially true in Canada given its huge geography, the diversity of its landscapes, symbols and local identities. I have learned so much about the North of this country, the various parts of Atlantic Canada including Newfoundland (places I have only been in my imagination), through listening to CBC radio. It has provided a window into other conversations about Canada that include these places.

Despite the Toronto centric view of things, I believe in particular that CBC radio offers Canadians great programming that challenges and inspires. This programming is typified by the wonderful annual Massey lectures, is not provided by any other broadcaster in Canada. The kind of programming provided by the CBC will never be provided solely by the market.

The CBC is an important cultural institution that deserves taxpayer support. I urge you to protect it, and ensure that any decisions made within the context of deficit reduction respect the importance of the institution and are in keeping with the maintenance of its important role.

Evidence in public policy and decision making

This week has seen a series of articles that touch on evidence in public policy. Unsurprisingly several are about the crime bills being debated in Parliament.

I however thought the most interesting development this week was actually found in the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) decision on Insite. Insite is the safe injection site in Vancouver, which is exempted from the federal controlled drug substances act. While an extremely narrow defeat for the Conservative government, it was nonetheless a unanimous 9-0 decision.

The background is that Insite had requested and received an exemption when it opened up. It had received several extensions until 2008 when the then Health Minister Tony Clement denied the exemption. The ongoing court case(s) allowed the site to continue until it was finally resolved

What intrigued me and relates back to the evidence in public policy, was that the SCC decision rested largely on evidence around Insite. The most intriguing element of the decision for me is in the following paragraph 137 of the decision

The goals of the CDSA, as I have stated, are the maintenance and promotion of public health and safety. The Minister’s decision to refuse theexemption bears no relation to these objectives; therefore they cannot justify the infringement of the complainants’ s. 7 rights. However one views the matter, the
Minister’s decision was arbitrary and unsustainable.

Now I am not a lawyer, and therefore am not qualified to give a definitive opinion on the matter, but it would seem to me based on a layperson's reading, that essentially the decision was arbitrary in that it was not based on evidence. Essentially the court said that the decision was not based on any available evidence. Strike a win for the requirement for evidence based public policy.

I'm not a fan of the SCC being so involved in such determinations, but in this case where a government decision is based on no evidence whatsoever, where all available evidence points to the fact that lives are saved and is seen by all around it as a success. In a situation where, the city, the policy, the surrounding community including an immigrant business association (in fact as Paul Wells notes, what normally would qualify as the Conservative coalition), it would seem to me that one should at least have some evidence for making a decision.

Dan Gardner's recent column with the title A crime debate without facts or arguments highlights the challenges faced by those who believe in evidence based policy on emotional issues such as crime. Deeply felt ideology or emotion can make marshalling the evidence and convincing people difficult, but I would argue it is exactly on these issues that it is most important.
He writes:

Not long after they took power in 2006, I heard a minister say in an interview that mandatory minimum sentences reduce crime by deterring criminals. So I called the minister's office and asked for the evidence that supported the minister's claim.

The minister's office sent a list of five criminological studies. I was impressed. An assertion backed with evidence: That's the way serious people deal with policy.

But then I found and read the studies.

It turned out that most were old, badly done, and, even if correct, actually only supported the deterrence hypothesis in certain very limited circumstances. More remarkably, the newest and best study actually concluded that mandatory minimums do not work.

The challenge is exacerbated when those proposing the policy have little interest in the outcome, or the impact of their proposed approach. Another example here, where Ian Brodie notes that

Despite economic evidence to the contrary, in my view the GST cut worked,” Brodie said in Montreal at the annual conference of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada. “It worked in the sense that by the end of the ’05-’06 campaign, voters identified the Conservative party as the party of lower taxes. It worked in the sense that it helped us to win.

In other words the evidence doesn't matter. Electoral results matter more than anything else. Now some will argue that this is always the case, and they have a point. That doesn't make it right, and that certainly doesn't make it any easier to deal with serious challenges. One can only get away with ignoring evidence for so long. The problems are real, the issues are real and they have costs.
One has to believe that in the end the evidence matters, and that it will have real impacts. Though it would appear these days that many who don't believe in science, who don't believe in evidence are in the ascendancy, at the end of the day the evidence does matter. How else can one have a society based on the rule of law. The Supreme Court bases its decisions on evidence, and it must be that way, and it why having an independent judiciary is an important component of democracy.
What an interesting decision they made yesterday, and I'll be curious to see what impact it has on decision making going forward.

For additional reading

On Insite:
Dan Gardner or Paul wells here or here


On crime:
Jeffrey Simpson or Alex Himelfarb