Input from public sector leaders needed in shaping a post COVID future

2021/04/07 Leave a comment

Reasonable call and consultation. However, I would hope that the focus would not just be at the deputy and ADM level, but executives and others closer to the front-line.

We have recently seen the disconnect between top levels and greater expertise in PHAC decisions and for such a survey to be more useful, it needs to draw on the deeper policy and subject expertise than in senior leaders who understandably have to focus more on policy management:

In a time of tremendous uncertainty, information overload and misinformation, Canadians are getting reams of advice and opinion on everything from how to manage the pandemic to the Supreme Court decision on climate change. The commentary comes from pundits, political actors, academics and interest groups, all important contributors to democratic debate. Some of it is informed, some of it is not.

Canadians are not hearing from those who, on a daily basis, are managing the challenges, developing the policies, implementing the programs and responding to the ever-changing political, legal and public opinion winds blowing on any given issue.

We are referring to senior, respected, professional public service executives who support elected municipal, provincial and federal representatives on complex challenges each and every day.

Who are these individuals?  Public sector executives and their organisations who are responsible for nearly 40 per cent of Canada’s GDP and an estimated 20 per cent of the country’s workforce.  They are distinguished by a ‘calling to serve’ and have a sense of duty to the community and a responsibility to help make things better.  They put collective interest over personal interest. While reasonably compensated it is often lower than the market compensation of their private sector counterparts.  And that’s okay.  These committed leaders are tireless in their pursuit of service and often burn the midnight oil through weekends and family events to help decision-makers make the best choices with the best advice.

These professional public servants wield tremendous influence on the quality of life we enjoy by advising, delivering services and providing effective stewardship of public resources to serve the priorities of democratically elected leadership.

Public sector leaders today are both driving and being driven by change. Facing paradigm shifts of seismic proportions, these experts and informed leaders are on the front line, supporting democratic institutions and governments, battling the pandemic, climate change and social polarization.  Public service executives are having to adapt, innovate and transform government organizations and services at top speed.

As we begin to consider what life will be like after the pandemic, and at a time when Canadian society is becoming increasingly polarized and diverse, and conflicts between different interest groups – including racialized tensions – are on the rise, the weight placed on the shoulders of this cadre of professional executives is unprecedented.  The pandemic and the difficult economic times are further straining public trust and governments will need to develop and enact policies and programs that address ongoing complex issues in a way that fosters better confidence in public institutions.

The chief administrative officer of a large metropolitan city or the deputy minister of a provincial or federal department has tremendous responsibility, knowledge and expertise.  They are impacted by changes to Canadian society, declining trust in government and concerned about whether or not their respective public institutions are equipped to deal with new, yet-to-be defined modern public administration practices.

Canadians need to hear from this informed cadre of dedicated experts. As vanguards of the public interest, they possess a unique knowledge, perspectives, and insights to the forces shaping society.  There is a need to give voice to, and share learnings from, the experience of public sector leaders regarding today’s issues and future challenges.

The Institute on Governance, with the support of the Mulroney Institute of Government, will be interviewing influential public sector leaders across the country and at all levels of government to collect their insights, learnings and assessments of the challenges and opportunities on the near and far horizons.  Knowing what is top of mind of this class of executives will offer an informed perspective to the important debates over Canada’s future and the role of governments in getting us there.

Toby Fyfe is the president of the Institute on Governance.  Stephen Van Dine is the senior vice president of public governance at the Institute on Governance.

Source: Input from public sector leaders needed in shaping a post COVID future

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GPHIN: Top scientists propose moving pandemic warning system outside government

2021/04/07 Leave a comment

Understand and share the concerns, but I would prefer to address these and related problems at PHAC identified by media coverage and the recent OAG report.

The WHO also had its issues, relying too much on Chinese government information (or lack thereof).

But hopefully this initiative will increase government focus and attention that COVID has brought to current weaknesses:

A group of top scientists concerned about the decline of the federal pandemic early warning system in the years before COVID-19 emerged have proposed relocating the operation to a university where it can work independently of government.

The proposal is aimed at restoring the Global Public Health Intelligence Network to its former status as an internationally respected pandemic surveillance system. Documents outlining the plan were submitted to an independent panel in Ottawa that is reviewing the system’s future.

According to the documents, GPHIN would work with the World Health Organization and be based at the University of Ottawa’s Bruyère Research Institute. The university and the WHO back the idea, says the proposal, which was reviewed by The Globe and Mail.

“We propose the creation of a Canadian-based WHO collaborating centre for global health intelligence,” the proposal states. Such a move “would provide a new, stable and cost-effective environment for the future management of GPHIN.

“GPHIN must be guaranteed freedom from government influence or interference. To achieve independence of any future government influence, bias or interference, GPHIN must be situated outside of government.”

A Globe and Mail investigation last year found that GPHIN’s capabilities had been allowed to erode over the past decade as priorities within the government changed, and senior officials in the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) sought to deploy its resources elsewhere.

Some of the core functions of the system, which provided crucial intelligence before and during the 2003 SARS crisis and 2009 H1N1 outbreak, were silenced in 2018 and 2019. With no pandemic threats apparent, management in the department sought to shift resources to areas that didn’t involve outbreak surveillance.

The proposal to partner with the WHO is being led by Ron St. John, a former top federal epidemiologist who helped create GPHIN in the 1990s, and other current and former top federal scientists. If it succeeds, the operation would run as a non-profit, funded in part by the federal government, and also able to seek science and technology grants from other sources, which it currently cannot do.

That new funding would be used to rebuild GPHIN’s operations and expand the system’s technical capabilities, taking some of the financial burden off the government, the documents say. GPHIN’s annual budget is around $3-million, and federal documents show it lacked the resources needed to update or grow its surveillance capacity, particularly as the system was allowed to erode.

The proposal argues that the environment needed to properly run the pandemic early warning system no longer exists inside Public Health, due to a drain of scientific and medical expertise over the past decade.

“Meeting these principles and operational conditions is not possible within the current managerial environment that exists in PHAC,” the document states. “We cannot wait for these changes to happen, as waiting will result in irreversible degradation of GPHIN and further depriving users within the global public health surveillance community of an essential tool to detect and monitor public health threats.”

WHO collaborating centres around the world are a way for member countries to contribute resources to the WHO by offering skills or technology they have. The Bruyère Research Institute is already home to one such collaborating centre, which focuses on technology used to track global health equity.

At one time, GPHIN provided the WHO with as much as 20 per cent of its epidemiological intelligence, according to Ottawa’s records. The proposal documents say GPHIN would remain one of Canada’s key contributions to the WHO, with the government providing funding for the system’s analysts to work.

Health Minister Patty Hajdu ordered an independent review in September of how PHAC handled the system after a Globe investigation last summer detailed many of the problems.

A report by the Auditor-General of Canada issued two weeks ago also found that the federal government did not use the pandemic early warning system appropriately in the early days of the COVID-19 outbreak, and that GPHIN failed to issue alerts. This contributed a series of faulty risk assessments as the virus began to spread around the world.

The independent review is expected to issue its final report in May, and the government won’t comment on its progress.

This is not the first time the idea of a WHO collaborating centre has been proposed for GPHIN. The proposal documents say the WHO has supported the idea since the SARS crisis, and has held talks on the subject six times, but those negotiations never came to fruition.

In 2005, talks were put on hold amid management changes inside Public Health. In 2009, similar discussions were halted due to the H1N1 outbreak. In 2012, another proposal was frozen during the Harper government’s deficit reduction plan. Similarly, talks in 2013, 2017, and 2018 never progressed due to internal restructuring in the Public Health Agency that resulted in management changes, and no further steps were taken.

The push to rebuild GPHIN comes at a time when other countries have identified the need to build their own early warning systems to help the international community detect major threats early and better contain outbreaks. The U.K. government and the Biden administration in the United States have signalled plans to bolster such capacities in recent months. An independent review examining the WHO’s pandemic preparedness is also expected to highlight the importance of such systems in its final report, expected this spring.

The epidemiologists behind the proposal say they want to restore Canada’s leadership in pandemic early warning and detection.

“GPHIN has achieved world-wide recognition as a rapid provider of accurate information regarding a variety of global events of public health importance,” the proposal says. “Future versions of GPHIN must build on and maintain this pre-eminent position. It’s Canadian origin and Canadian support during its lifetime is recognized and should be retained.”

Source: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-top-scientists-propose-moving-pandemic-warning-system-outside/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=Morning%20Update&utm_content=2021-4-6_7&utm_term=Morning%20Update:%20Top%20scientists%20propose%20moving%20pandemic%20warning%20system%20outside%20government&utm_campaign=newsletter&cu_id=%2BTx9qGuxCF9REU6kNldjGJtpVUGIVB3Y

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Wolfson: Without good data, we’re flying blind on good health care

2021/03/27 Leave a comment

Hard to disagree:
Yet again, the provinces are wailing about the need for more federal money for health care, with no strings attached. These are the same provinces who have for decades grossly underfunded long-term care. And as we are seeing in real time, many of the provinces are scrambling last minute to have the data to understand and manage the pandemic, most recently in rolling out vaccinations.Of course, the federal government should not cave in to these unwarranted provincial demands. It is entirely within the federal government’s constitutional authority, despite what the provinces are saying, to play all kinds of roles in the health sector. The provinces never object to the billions of dollars the federal government pours into health research every year.

But many of the provinces are still in the dark ages when it comes to collecting and making available for crucial health services research the kinds of data essential to understanding how well health care is being delivered.

Car dealers and airlines have for years had far better computer systems to keep track of the health of your car, and every airplane seat in the world. The Big Tech software companies not only collect humongous volumes of data on many of us, with their real-time technologies; they are continually doing experiments to see what will induce us to click more on their sites and advertisements.

Yet our public health authorities are having difficulties even connecting our COVID-19 tests, our vaccinations, and any hospital visits, as in many cases these software systems are completely separate silos.

So, what’s wrong with the federal government saying to the provinces, if you want more cash, you first have to implement decent real-time data systems? Indeed, the constitution expressly assigns jurisdiction for statistics to the federal government, hence the authority to play a strong leadership role in health data systems in the provinces.

The federal government has to be accountable to us in our role as federal taxpayers, not only as provincial taxpayers. It is incumbent on the federal government to ensure that any monies it transfers to the provinces are used for the purposes intended.

If the transfer is for health care, a province cannot use the cash received to finance tax cuts. If the transfer is to push the provinces to improve the generally awful state of long-term care, then it is entirely reasonable for the federal government to impose requirements on the ways the provinces spend the money, including collecting data and other reporting to ensure that provincial promises are more than rhetoric.

These requirements are more than just reasonable; they are based on the federal government’s constitutional authorities for the spending power, and for peace, order and good government.

At the same tine, the federal government sorely needs to up its game.  For example, the most recent speech from the throne committed the federal government to take the lead in developing national standards for long-term care. But one has to wonder how this can be achieved when there is virtually no nationally comparable data on one of the most crucial aspects of long-term care quality, namely staffing.

The federal government was negotiating the purchase of COVID-19 vaccines many months ago. That should have been more than sufficient lead time to ensure that there would also be a national system in place when the vaccines started arriving to track how the vaccine rollout was progressing.

Yes, it can and should be left up to each province to decide vaccine allocation. But with the current hodge-podge of computer, fax and email systems, there is no way to keep track in real time of what’s being done across the country. There’s also no way to connect vaccinations to rises and falls in outbreaks at the level of detail needed to inform lockdown policy.

Health care and public health are quintessentially knowledge industries. It should be obvious that they should be organizations that learn from experience. But it is impossible to learn from experience if you have no way of knowing just what you are experiencing.

Proper data collection and analysis are essential.

It is long past time that the federal government stiffened its spine and, in addition to saying it will work collaboratively with the provinces, put some muscle into meeting nation-wide concerns.

Michael Wolfson, PhD, is a former assistant chief statistician at Statistics Canada and a member of the Centre for Health Law, Policy and Ethics at the University of Ottawa.

Source: Wolfson: Without good data, we’re flying blind on good health care

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PMO scrambled to contain controversy over pandemic early-warning system, internal e-mails show

2021/03/06 4 Comments

Makes pretty clear that failure was at the senior bureaucratic level:

Internal e-mails show the Prime Minister’s Office was scrambling last summer to contain the fallout over the silencing of Canada’s pandemic early-warning system after learning it was curtailed less than a year before COVID-19 struck.

The e-mails, which provide a rare look at exchanges between the Prime Minister’s top political aides, show the upper levels of government were caught off guard when details about the silencing of the Global Public Health Intelligence Network (GPHIN) were made public by a Globe and Mail investigation.

The internationally respected system was created to detect and monitor international health threats to help Canada and other countries respond faster and more effectively to a deadly outbreak. However, The Globe found that the operation’s alert system was silenced in early 2019 amid shifting government priorities.

During an exchange of early-morning e-mails on Aug. 13, advisers to the Prime Minister can be seen trying to figure out what went wrong with GPHIN, and whether the blame for its mishandling could be contained to the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), and decision makers within that department, without political ramifications for the government.

“Can you confirm all the decision are internal to PHAC?” Samantha Khalil, the PMO’s deputy director of issues management, said to a colleague in an e-mail at 8:33 a.m. “I’ve got a hard deadline of 8:45 now to update my senior team.”

That morning, The Globe reported the pandemic alert system was suddenly restarted about two weeks after it published its investigation that showed GPHIN had gone silent in 2019. The shutdown of the alert system, and its reinstatement, appear to have blindsided the government.

At 7:15 a.m., the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, Katie Telford, sent an e-mail to PMO staff with the article attached, saying, “Front page of globe. How will we respond to this?” The replies to that e-mail paint a picture of the Prime Minister’s Office trying to find answers, and concerned with whether the blame will spread beyond the Public Health Agency.

Responding to Ms. Telford’s e-mail at 8:03 a.m., PMO senior adviser Ben Chin told colleagues: “The thing I’d like to understand better is whether all decisions on this are internal to PHAC. I understand there was no funding reduction.”

In another e-mail, Ms. Khalil asks a colleague: “Can you send me any background there is on why this was stopped and restarted? As well as your messaging on it.”

At 8:53 that morning, Cole Davidson, press secretary to the Minister of Health, responds to Ms. Khalil, “We’re working on getting specifics and answers to some questions. … When did this change happen? Why did this change happen? Who made the decision?”

The e-mails are among thousands of federal documents being disclosed in response to a production order for COVID-19 records that the House of Commons approved in October despite objections from the Liberal government.

Before it was curtailed, GPHIN was internationally renowned for tracking deadly outbreaks, and provided the World Health Organization with 20 per cent of its epidemiological intelligence that fed global advance warnings. The system was used effectively during H1N1 and Ebola, helping governments respond swiftly to contain those deadly outbreaks. However, in 2018, with no pandemic threats on the horizon, senior management reallocated some of GPHIN’s resources to domestic projects.

As PMO officials arranged a 10 a.m. briefing from Public Health Agency officials that morning, they also worked on the messages that would be delivered to Canadians on the matter.

At 11:16 a.m., after the briefing, Mr. Davidson e-mailed Ms. Khalil with an update. That e-mail confirmed several key details of The Globe’s investigation, which reported that, in late 2018, managers at Public Health began requiring GPHIN analysts to obtain senior-managers’ approval before issuing alerts. This effectively suffocated the early warning system. When approvals never came, the international alerts stopped. Meanwhile, GPHIN analysts were reassigned to tasks that did not involve international outbreak surveillance.

“A new process was put in place requiring approval of all alerts by a VP at PHAC in fall of 2018,” Mr. Davidson reported to the PMO. “This change was not supported by the GPHIN analysts.”

He also confirmed the silencing of the alert system, which Public Health had initially told The Globe last summer did not occur. “From May, 2019, until last week, no alerts were issued,” Mr. Davidson told the PMO.

“PHAC is getting us answers on these questions: Who made the decision to change the approvals? Why was this change necessary? Was MinO briefed on this change? (we don’t believe so),” Mr. Davidson wrote, referring to the Health Minister’s Office as MinO. “Why did the alerts nearly stop after the change?”

Three weeks later, Health Minister Patty Hajdu ordered an independent federal review of the way GPHIN was handled. The Auditor-General has also launched an investigation.

Department management has also been shuffled amid the GPHIN controversy. The president of the Public Health Agency stepped down in September, and was replaced by the head of the National Research Council, while the government appointed a new vice-president to oversee GPHIN.

Source: PMO scrambled to contain controversy over pandemic early-warning system, internal e-mails show

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Public Service Disaggregated Data for Visible Minorities and Indigenous peoples, Citizenship status

2021/03/01 Leave a comment

Over the past few months, I have been analyzing the various datasets breaking down public service employment and employee survey data by the individual visible minority and Indigenous groups.

The three articles, What new disaggregated data tells us about federal public service diversity (Policy Options, October 2020), What the Public Service Employee Survey breakdowns of visible minority and other groups tell us about diversity and inclusion (The Hill Times, November 2020) and Diversity and Inclusion: Public Service Hirings, Promotions and Separations (The Hill Times, March 2021) allow for a more comprehensive view of visible minority and Indigenous groups in the federal public service. Moreover, recent Public Service Commission studies analyzing recruitment of employment equity groups add an important element to discussions on public service staffing and recruitment practices.

Much of the debate and discussions have understandably focussed on Blacks in the public service. Yet public service data indicates that their situation is not unique in terms of representation, hirings and promotions and the employee satisfaction, with many commonalities with the other groups. A more granular analysis within each occupational group (i.e., comparing representation at each level by occupational group, as some departments are conducting, may very well provide such evidence).

Key findings are:

  • Overall EE analysis shows considerable variation among the different visible minority and Indigenous groups
  • Visible minorities
    • Correlation between lower educational attainment and representation for most groups save Chinese
    • Overall under-representation common to most groups
    • Blacks, West Asian/Arab small over-representation
    • EX: All groups under-represented save Japanese with Filipino, Latin American and Blacks having the largest gaps
    • Hirings: Hirings of visible minorities have increased for all groups in most occupational groups save for technical and administrative support. Hirings at the EX level have increase for Black, Chinese, South Asian/East Indian and West Asian/Arab, with other groups showing no increase.
    • Promotions: While promotions have increased marginally for virtually all groups at the agregate level, promotions by occupational category provide a mixed picture, with most groups and most occupational categories experiencing a marginal decline in promotions.
  • Indigenous peoples
    • First Nations under-represented, Métis and Inuit over-represented
    • Hirings: While hirings at the EX level have increased slightly, this is less the case for the other occupational categories. Hirings of Métis have increased the most in the operational category, hirings of First Nations the most in the technical category, while hirings of Inuit the most at the EX level.
    • Promotions: A marginal decline across all Indigenous groups and occupational
  • Harassment/Discrimination experiences vary
    • Harassment: Japanese report the most as do First Nations and Métis, Chinese and Filipino least satisfied with resolution as is the case with Métis
    • Discrimination; Blacks report the most, but all groups encounter discrimination on the basis of race, ethnic origin or colour. Black, Japanese and Latin American least satisfied with resolution. All Indigenous groups report having been discriminated against, mainly based on race or ethnic origin, with Métis also least satisfied with resolution

The recent PSC Audit of Employment Equity Representation in Recruitment provides some interesting data and analysis of the staffing process and how the different employment equity groups, and visible minority largest sub-groups, fare at each of the five stages in the staffing process: job application, automated screening, organizational screening, assessment and appointment (FY 2016-17 data).

The most significant stages were organizational screening and assessment where most filtering took place as shown in the table below:

The next table breaks down visible minorities by the largest groups:

As noted in the audit, Blacks have the largest decrease in representation at all stages save for appointment, with a non-negligible being screened out by automatic screening. Chinese are screened out more by organizational screening whereas West Asian and South Asian are more likely to be screened in as the assessment stage.

The audit provides the following explanation for visible minority groups. Overall, visible minority women have higher success rates than visible minority men at the organizational screening and assessment stages. Visible minorities screened out at the organizational screening stage due to citizenship status (Canadian citizens are given preference over non-citizens) and experience qualifications. Those with public service work experience were more likely to be screened in at this stage but overall “experienced less success than their counterparts regardless of whether or not they had federal public service experience.”

At the assessment stage, visible minorities were less successful when written tests were used, particularly the case for Black candidates.

A separate PSC report addresses the Citizenship of applicants and external appointments. While Canadian citizens have a hiring preference, the share of non-citizen applicants has risen from 9.4 percent in 2015-16 to 14.5 percent in 2018-19, with the share of hires has increased to 2.5 percent from 1.5 percent over the same period

Non-citizen visible minority applicants account for 22.9 percent of all visible minority applicants, for non-visible minorities, the share is only 12.1 percent.

The table below contrasts applicants and appointments by citizenship status for the past four years. For Canadian citizens, the percentage of applicants and appointments are comparable, for Permanent Residents and others, appointments are significantly greater than applicants suggesting that citizenship may be less of a barrier than commonly believed.

Visible minority Canadian citizens represented 17.2 percent of all applicants and 19.5 percent of all hires (2018-19).

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Federal documents show sharp decline of Canada’s pandemic warning system, and debate over who was to blame

2021/02/26 2 Comments

Looks like decision was mainly at the bureaucratic, not political level:

Newly released government documents paint a stark picture of how quickly Canada’s pandemic early warning system fell into decline before COVID-19 hit.

E-mails between staff at the Prime Minister’s Office show how alerts issued by the Global Public Health Intelligence Network, or GPHIN, dropped precipitously from 2009 to 2019, when key parts of the operation were curtailed.

The numbers confirm internal Public Health Agency data obtained by The Globe and Mail last summer, which showed how Canada’s internationally renowned pandemic early warning system was effectively shuttered less than a year before COVID-19 began spreading.

GPHIN was created in the 1990s to provide Canada and its allies with the earliest possible warnings of outbreak threats, so that governments could move quickly and decisively. A Globe investigation last year detailed how GPHIN played an integral role in detecting and helping the international community respond to past outbreaks such as SARS, H1N1 and MERS.

The e-mails between PMO staff are part of a release of thousands of federal documents that are being disclosed in response to a production order for COVID-19 records that was approved by the House of Commons in October over objections from the Liberal government.

In those e-mails, PMO advisers are responding to The Globe’s GPHIN investigation, which reported that the pandemic early warning system had issued more than 1,500 alerts on potential outbreak threats between 2009 and 2019. The probe found that GPHIN suddenly fell silent on May 24, 2019, less than eight months before COVID-19 started to become a world crisis.

The investigation detailed how shifting priorities within Public Health led to GPHIN’s resources being moved to other areas. With no apparent pandemic threats on the horizon, analysts were reassigned to study domestic issues, such as the effect of vaping and the spread of syphilis in Canada. When GPHIN’s alert system went silent last year, its surveillance of international outbreaks was also significantly curtailed.

According to an e-mail between PMO staff on Oct. 8, GPHIN issued 1,598 alerts between 2009 and 2019, including 877 in 2009, the year of the H1N1 outbreak. These alerts spanned a wide range of threats – from Zika to Ebola, yellow fever and Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever – and most never evolved into a crisis, though GPHIN would have kept close tabs on each situation as needed.

But the numbers began to decline sharply. After issuing 198 alerts in 2013, when an outbreak of H7N9 bird flu emerged, GPHIN’s alerts dropped in half the following year and soon declined further. By 2018, GPHIN issued just 21 alerts, a drop of 97 per cent from 2009 levels.

The e-mails suggest that as staff inside the PMO deliberated on how to respond to The Globe’s investigation, they appeared concerned about whether the Liberal government could be blamed for financial cuts to the operation, or whether the decisions that shifted GPHIN’s focus and resources inside the department rested solely with the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC).

“PHAC may have reprioritized its efforts, but it is an Agency that gets to decide, to an extent, their own priorities – those would be internal, bureaucratic decisions, not political ones,” Elise Wagner, a senior special assistant in the PMO wrote to a colleague. “Our government did not cut funding for the global early warning system.”

The shuffling of resources within the department had a significant effect, though. GPHIN’s role was not only to detect the first signs of an outbreak, but to provide continuing, rapid intelligence of an evolving situation, so that Ottawa could quickly bolster stockpiles of personal protective equipment and ensure hospitals and long-term care homes were ready if needed.

The goal was to inject urgency into government decisions, including when to implement physical distancing, mask wearing and stricter border measures. However, scientists inside PHAC told The Globe that they struggled to get important messages up the chain of command.

Members of the Canadian intelligence community have since raised concerns about the curtailing of GPHIN, given its role in informing the government’s risk assessments on COVID-19. Through January, February and into March of 2020, Ottawa rated the outbreak a low threat to the Canadian public, even as evidence emerged about how deadly the virus was and how easily it was spreading, and despite other countries implementing unprecedented measures.

Faced with criticism over the government’s early response, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he wasn’t sure what role added intelligence could have played in Ottawa’s decisions, but said he regrets not acting sooner to bolster stockpiles of personal protective equipment. However, informing such decisions is exactly what GPHIN was created to do.

The federal documents show GPHIN first picked up on the outbreak on Dec. 31, 2019, after news of a strange pneumonia in China made international headlines and a New York based disease-tracker called ProMed issued an alert to doctors and hospitals around the world. Scientists now believe COVID-19 had likely been spreading several weeks by that point, and that China did not fully disclose the problem.

Epidemiologists say the speed at which governments can implement containment measures has a major effect on the spread of a virus and its death toll, even if only by a few days or a week.

The problems surrounding GPHIN are now the subject of two federal probes; the Auditor-General of Canada has launched an investigation while the Minister of Health has ordered an independent federal review. The results of both are expected sometime this spring.

Source: Federal documents show sharp decline of Canada’s pandemic warning system, and debate over who was to blame

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Delacourt: ‘The nudge unit’: Ottawa’s behavioural-science team investigates how Canadians feel about vaccines, public health and who to trust

2021/02/23 Leave a comment

Innovative and appropriate:

Vaccines are one miracle of science in this pandemic. But another scientific experiment has also produced surprisingly speedy and widespread results over the past year. It happened in the realm of behaviour science — and ordinary citizens were the laboratory subjects. 

One year ago, few people would have believed that science would come up with a vaccine, ready for mass immunization around the world, by the start of 2021. 

But who would have also predicted that citizens could be persuaded to turn their lives upside down, wear masks and isolate themselves from their families and friends for months on end? 

“I know we’re asking a lot,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in early April, when no one knew just how much COVID-19 would force Canadians into behaviour change on a grand scale. “A lot” is an understatement: not since wartime has the government had to request this much of the citizenry for so long. 

Yet while the government’s medical scientists have been front and centre on the public stage almost every day since last March, the behavioural scientists have mostly been operating under the radar. If you know where to look, though, evidence of the behaviour-nudging team keeps peeking out under all those public proclamations from Canada’s COVID-19 crisis managers. 

When Trudeau and the premiers use their podiums to calm fears or tell hard truths about the pandemic, for example, their words don’t just come from hunch or political instincts. Reams of behavioural data is being collected by government throughout the pandemic, on everything from people’s general emotions about COVID-19 to their willingness to get vaccinated. 

Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer, spoke earlier this month about the problem of vaccine hesitancy in this country and what the government knows about it. It was one of the few times that public officials have made direct reference to the behaviour-studying unit inside government. 

“Some of the studies are actually carried out by the Privy Council Office, where there is a behavioural insight team,” Tam said. “We do know that the intention for Canadians to get the vaccine is actually quite high and I think has improved since we started the vaccine campaign itself.” 

Tam went on to explain how people’s views on vaccines are shaped by where they get their information. Since you are reading this story in a mainstream news medium, you might be interested to know that you’re more likely to feel positive about getting immunized. Consumers of traditional information sources tend to have more trust in vaccines and what the government is saying about them. Conversely, if you’re the kind of person who gets your news from social media, you’re likely more wary of vaccines. 

So the government is doing some fine-tuning of its communication channels, Tam explained at this Feb. 5 briefing. “We know that we have to work with the internet and social media companies and that has been happening with Facebook, Google, YouTube and others,” she said. 

That behavioural-insight team Tam mentioned is actually called the “impact and innovation unit” of government, which was set up within the PCO in 2017, meant for more low-key work than it has been doing, now that the pandemic suddenly created an urgent need for its insights into how citizens behave.

Headed up by veteran public servant Rodney Ghali, this group has kept its eye on the huge social-science experiment of the COVID-19 crisis. (Ontario too has a behavioural insights unit, which has been working closely with the federal government over the course of the pandemic.) 

In normal times, this federal team would have been researching questions such as what would motivate people to invest more in RRSPs or cut down on food waste. 

Its members prefer to remain low-profile — a couple of them talked to me for this article, but on condition that they would not be named or quoted.

Results of the team’s research are quite public, though — anyone can check them out on their web page, along with reports of some communication campaigns they’ve tested on the population and what the ads were supposed to achieve. The most visible ad — one Canadians may remember — is one that depicted COVID-19 as a green cloud, spreading noxiously over the buttons in an elevator. 

The behaviour being studied by the government has shifted as the pandemic has dragged on, naturally. In the beginning, the research focused a lot on compliance with public health measures, what it would take to get people to wear masks, and so on. 

Nowadays, the main concern is with vaccines and whether enough people will take them to achieve herd immunity. Medical science handles the immunity part of that equation — behavioural scientists have to build the herd. For that to happen, the government has to know where and how to administer the nudging. 

“Nudge” is the operative word. Britain blazed the trail for the use of behavioural insights in government back in 2010 when it set up a team inside the cabinet office nicknamed ‘the nudge unit.” The name comes from the hugely influential book “Nudge” by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, which laid out how people could be influenced to make better choices in their lives. 

Sunstein is now the chair of an advisory group for the World Health Organization, set up specifically to use behavioural insights in COVID-19 management. And that leads us right back to Canada, which has taken the WHO’s tool for tapping behavioural insights in the pandemic and put it to comprehensive use in this country for nearly a year now. According to officials inside the behaviour unit, Canada has made the most comprehensive use of the WHO tool, creating a chronicle of behavioural ups and downs throughout the COVID-19 crisis. 

Since last April, a static group of about 2,000 Canadians — chosen randomly but in proportion to statistical, demographic considerations — have been taking part in a rolling series of surveys, plumbing their attitudes and behaviour on all things pandemic-related. The process is called “COVID-19 snapshot monitoring,” which has been shortened to COSMO.

In the early months, the COSMO respondents were a dreary lot, reporting that they believed things would get worse before they got better. But they were keen on vaccines — keener than they are now, in fact. Last April, more than 70 per cent of respondents were interested in a vaccine if it was either safe or effective. By the end of 2020, that enthusiasm had dropped to the low and mid-sixties. 

Herd immunity is generally accepted to be around 70 per cent, so governments — with the help of the behaviour scientists — need to get those numbers up again. 

The COSMO group has also been asked regularly about which people they trust to provide information — perhaps one of the more important pieces of insight sought by government in this pandemic. If you’re going to nudge the population in one direction or another, after all, it’s crucial to know who should do the nudging. 

Repeated waves of data on this issue show that public health officials rank high on the trusted list, whereas politicians and the news media rank lower. This would explain why Tam and her provincial colleagues have become household names over the past year (the provincial public-health chiefs have actually been rated slightly higher for trust than their federal counterparts). 

On top of vaccine hesitancy, the biggest concern right now for the behaviour monitors is simple COVID-19 fatigue. For almost a year now, governments have been asking, imploring, begging and arguing for citizens to keep large areas of their lives on hold. The same tools that worked last April, when Trudeau was “asking a lot,” may not keep working over the long term. 

In December, the COSMO participants started being asked about pandemic fatigue. Here’s what the behaviour unit learned: “Adherence to key protective behaviours remains reportedly high, and many participants are not getting tired of having to wash their hands frequently, physical distancing or wearing a mask. However, most participants (80 per cent) indicate they are getting tired or somewhat tired of having to avoid gathering with loved ones.”

It’s probably safe to assume that the weariness has only grown since then, but the results of more recent surveys haven’t yet gone online. 

Whenever the pandemic is over, most Canadians may be too busy getting back to their normal lives to reflect on the massive social-science experiment that has taken place over the planet this past year. But that radical change in people’s lives is the other great scientific achievement of COVID-19, one that may have given government important clues on how to modify citizens’ behaviour for other big global issues — such as climate change, for instance. 

“The behaviour and choices made by each and every one of us matter a great deal,” Tam said in a briefing earlier this year, which is why a small behavioural-science unit inside government suddenly became a big deal in 2020. 

Source: https://www.thestar.com/politics/political-opinion/2021/02/21/the-nudge-unit-ottawas-behavioural-science-team-investigates-how-canadians-feel-about-vaccines-public-health-and-who-to-trust.html

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Provinces are working with outdated vaccine tracking systems, hindering national data

2021/02/23 Leave a comment

Canada’s patchwork system at its worst:

As Canada prepares for a massive increase in vaccine doses from abroad, some provinces and territories are using outdated technology to record their vaccination data and not fully participating in a system Ottawa created to manage infectious disease outbreaks.

The results of a Globe and Mail survey sent to every province and territory found a patchwork of systems for recording vaccine information that will be crucial in monitoring supply, adverse reactions and population immunity across the country, and for booking appointments. Some provinces reported that they had not enabled core pieces of the technology, called Panorama, that the federal government designed for campaigns like this one.

The SARS epidemic of 2003 highlighted the fact that Canada lacked a modern public-health database to manage all the information related to outbreaks of infectious diseases. Ottawa funded the creation of Panorama for all provinces and territories to use. The platform is actually a suite of technologies and databases for vaccine and infectious disease tracking. But more than a decade of delays and the increasing cost of participation led some provinces to opt out of some parts, revert to their previous systems, or adopt other technology platforms.

The end result is 13 different vaccine-tracking systems, many of which do not communicate with each other or Ottawa.

Shannon MacDonald, an adjunct professor at the University of Alberta faculty of nursing and a researcher with the Canadian Immunization Research Network, said the situation gives the federal government an incomplete picture of the national vaccine program.

“We can’t look at immunization coverage nationally,” Prof. MacDonald said. Some provinces and territories, she added, will struggle even to track their own programs.

Panorama has been in use for several years to track immunizations. The federal government obtained new technology in January to address some of the gaps, and that platform came online on Feb. 2.

Every province that responded to The Globe confirmed it has yet to plug in to the new system.

Representatives of some provinces said health officials still use paper or basic Excel spreadsheets to track vaccines and vaccinations.

The Globe survey found that Quebec, British Columbia, Yukon and Saskatchewan use Panorama, or some version of it, for various aspects of the COVID-19 vaccination campaign. Alberta, the Northwest Territories, Ontario and Manitoba have their own systems. Other provinces did not respond or did not indicate what technology they use.

In light of COVID-19, Ontario hired the accounting company Deloitte Canada to develop a new system. COVaxON, once it comes online, will manage “scheduling, client management, recording administered doses, site inventory management, receipt of vaccination” in a platform that is easy to use, Ministry of Health spokesman David Jensen wrote in response to the Globe survey.

Since December, Canada has received just over a million doses of two types of COVID-19 vaccines. In the next six weeks, four million are scheduled to arrive, and tens of millions more before the end of summer.

The shelf life and storage requirements of each vaccine must be closely monitored. Dale Hunter, a spokesperson for Saskatchewan’s Health Ministry, said the state of the province’s vaccine cold storage is “reported and tracked manually,” meaning the data are sent to the ministry via e-mail or fax. Panorama can be used to manage inventory, but several provinces and territories, including Saskatchewan, said they had not enabled that feature.

The Northwest Territories is using Excel spreadsheets and “specially trained logisticians” to ensure that “no dose is wasted,” Health Ministry spokesperson Andrea Nilson said.

Panorama includes a feature that allows health authorities to scan the barcodes on pallets and doses to keep track of the vaccines and who needs a second dose of which one. None of the provinces or territories that responded to the survey said they had enabled that feature, meaning health authorities enter the data manually.

In Ontario, government employees enter lot numbers into COVaxON when vaccine shipments arrive. Nurses and doctors who administer the vaccines can select the identifying serial numbers on their computers from a drop-down list. This helps clinics track doses both used and unused. Quebec does something similar, Health Ministry spokesperson Robert Maranda wrote.

Mr. Jensen wrote that Ontario’s system could be more efficient if the federal government provided lot numbers in advance.

Many provincial and territorial health systems are accessible on only a limited number of hospital and clinic computers, raising the question of whether they could be used more widely, such as in pop-up clinics or pharmacies.

The Globe asked provinces how they would deal with data entry for vaccinations in makeshift clinics or pharmacies. Manitoba, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec said their systems are designed to be accessible in all clinics and pharmacies. Saskatchewan reported that only public health facilities and some First Nations communities have access to Panorama. Data from pharmacies will be entered manually.

Prof. MacDonald said most provinces and territories have “good enough” systems to manage the vaccination programs. But she said that if any continue recording data with pen and paper, “we’re in a lot of trouble.”

There’s also the question of how provinces and territories will book vaccination appointments.

Alberta, British Columbia, and Saskatchewan are finalizing their booking systems. The Northwest Territories is leaving that issue to health authorities and hospitals. Booking systems for Quebec and Ontario are online.

Health authorities will need to monitor for adverse reactions and the possibility that some people who received the vaccine still contract COVID-19 – which could indicate a defective batch, a more potent variant, or that the patient is among the few for whom the vaccine is not effective.

Quebec’s system is designed to identify defective batches based on reports of adverse reactions and to notify those who received doses. Ontario is tracking adverse reactions with a system that has not been integrated into COVaxON. Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories have not activated Panorama’s adverse-reaction module, and submit their reports manually.

The Public Health Agency of Canada is the main body responsible for monitoring adverse reactions. However, some provinces told The Globe they report to Ottawa on that manually or infrequently.

As the vaccinations continue, provinces will want to know what proportion of their population is immune at any given time. A 2016 study found the majority of provinces and territories lacked the ability to do a complete analysis of a mass vaccination campaign.

New Brunswick spokesman Shawn Berry said the province’s technology can “obtain near real-time immunization data for COVID-19 vaccinations.” Quebec said its system allows good population surveillance for infectious disease outbreaks, which includes vaccination data. While many provinces and territories that responded did not provide much detail, most told The Globe that, even if they can analyze their data, they do not automatically share the results with the federal government.

Most provinces and territories provided complete answers to the Globe survey, but British Columbia spokesman Devon Smith wrote that “confidentiality and safety” issues prevented the province from answering. Manitoba spokesman Brian Smiley said the province was unable to respond to most questions. Newfoundland and Labrador spokesperson Erin Shea indicated the province was still struggling with a recent outbreak of COVID-19 cases and could not fulfill the request. Nunavut, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island did not send responses.

Prof. MacDonald said the COVID-19 crisis should inspire provinces to modernize their health infrastructure. “God forbid it takes a pandemic for us to get moving on this,” she said. “But let’s make hay.”

Source: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-provinces-working-with-outdated-vaccine-tracking-systems/

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What Canada can learn from Australia’s COVID response

2021/02/12 2 Comments

While an Australian strict travel restrictions much harder to do in Canada given our long land border with the USA and the high level of economic integration, it is striking that Canadian governments have been unable and late in responding to COVID-19, with the results we are familiar with:

This temporary Saskatchewan expat is loving Melbourne this summer, for the reason many of the locals aren’t. It’s cool – not cool as in hip, but low-20s temperature cool. Great for running and biking and walking. Not so great for the beach or dining on restaurant patios and decks.

Those patios and decks are nonetheless open and full (maximum density of one person per two square metres), spilling out onto busy streets full of shoppers. The Australian economy is now projected to grow by 3.2 per cent in 2021, a major turnaround from last July’s estimate of minus 4.1 per cent for this year. Whence this miracle?

Maybe pandemic control has something to do with it. Here, “pandemic control” is not an oxymoron. Australia isn’t an orderly, fastidious society like Japan or hospitable to healthy doses of authoritarian rule like Singapore. It is a raucous democracy with its politics evenly divided between conservative and progressive camps. Last November saw a big anti-lockdown demonstration in Melbourne convened to protest the measures that drove the case count down to zero.

You cannot attribute Australia’s success to logistical genius or Delphic foresight. There were some legendary missteps. The Ruby Princess cruise ship debacle that disgorged a boatload of infected passengers onto the streets of Sydney a year ago. The slapstick hotel quarantine theatre in Melbourne that created the second wave of cases last June. The multi-million-dollar inquiry never did get to the bottom of exactly how, and by whom, quarantine security was contracted out to a company with no experience and ill-trained staff. The State of Victoria cabinet secretary, a cabinet minister,  and a secretary (deputy minister) lost their jobs, while others were shunted aside.

But as of Feb. 5, Australia has had 35 COVID deaths-per-million since the beginning of the pandemic. By comparison, Canada has had 543.

So, what accounts for the difference? Some is luck and circumstance. Australia is an island off the world’s heavily beaten paths. But at the beginning, its numbers were similar to Canada’s. As of March 31, 2020, Australia had 4,763 cumulative cases and Canada had 8,612 (about 20 per cent more per capita). By early February 2021, Canada had 19 times as many cumulative cases per capita.

Early in the pandemic, no one knew with certainty how contagious or lethal it was and which measures were essential to containing it. Different jurisdictions tried different policies and practices. The results of the global experiment are in. What can we learn from Australia?

First, testing is important but is powerless without good policy. Over the past year, there were periods where Australia’s testing rate was about double Canada’s, but since last summer overall rates have converged and at times Canada’s rate has exceeded Australia’s. Testing tells you what you’re dealing with. It doesn’t tell you how to deal with it.

Second, both external and internal travel restrictions are effective. Australian states – over the objections of the national government – are quick to close their borders to each other as well as the outside world. Since last September, the highest daily count of new cases nationally has been 44. Yet even after five months of stable, low numbers, people still had to quarantine for 14 days to go to Western Australia (rescinded as of Feb. 5, 2021).

On Jan. 31, a single case popped up in Perth, in Western Australia: a guard working in the hotel quarantine program. His flatmates tested negative, as have others of his reported contacts. Yet Victoria has closed its border to most populated areas of Western Australia and will fine people up to the equivalent of $4,900 if they enter without a permit.

Third, people are more likely to follow rules if you enforce them. Victoria levied the equivalent of about $29.5 million in fines last year. People were upset. Many resulted from minor infractions and/or confusion about what was permitted. Most weren’t paid and all but the most brazen violators can get the fine rescinded if they go to court and promise to behave. But the government took the heat to make a point. Pandemic control measures carry the force of law. Four hundred people were arrested at the November anti-lockdown rally.

Fourth, decisions are swift and decisive. Australia doesn’t wait for a prolonged spike in numbers. As soon as there is a small outbreak – a single case in Perth, a few cases in the Northern Beaches area of  Sydney – the system springs into action. The hot zones are mapped. Activities are suspended. Contact tracing and testing intensify. Perth and the surrounding region are locked down for an initial five-day period – the vaunted circuit-breaker approach that gives the testing-and-tracing system time to nip the contagion in the bud before the numbers get out of hand.

But the most important lesson is that Australia learned and applied the lessons. It gave up on selective restrictions when the modelling and the epidemiology suggested they couldn’t keep numbers stable and low.

The world knew from the beginning that travel was a major risk factor. Australia took that knowledge to heart. Leaders took a whole-of-pandemic perspective, reasoning that in the case of Victoria, which had most of the country’s cases for months, a severe 112-day lockdown would be less damaging to health and the economy than attempts to finesse the risks with more selective policies. The state premiers became pandemic hawks, determined to do whatever it took to avoid greater and more prolonged misery.

I don’t know how closely Australian officials have observed Canada’s pandemic performance. I suspect they would use it as an object lesson in what not to do. There is, of course, no pan-Canadian strategy – that is part of the problem – but too many provinces have catered to special-interest group pleading, played to their political bases, left bars open, made mask-wearing optional, did little enforcement and responded belatedly to emerging threats. They gave the virus a huge headstart before they chased it in earnest.

Policy and practice have to be grounded in an understanding of the citizenry. Fascinating new research reported in The Lancet shows that countries with “loose” cultures of adherence to social norms (like Canada, the U.S., most of Europe) have had infection rates five times higher, and death rates nine times higher, than those with “tight” cultures (such as Singapore, China and South Korea). Australia and New Zealand are in the loose culture camp, but they have succeeded nonetheless. They did not bank on voluntary, universal adherence to sensible guidelines. They did not make suggestions or request adherence. They raised the stakes, communicated unambiguously, came down hard and showed force where force was needed.

For once, the resolve appears to have achieved consensus among governments of different political stripes. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is a social democrat, as are three Australian premiers. The other three state premiers are conservatives, as is Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Despite their political differences, they’ve all sung largely from the same pandemic-control hymn book.

Now that more virulent mutations are on the scene. Canada needs to steepen its learning curve. The material is not difficult to master. The lessons are clear. The learning from failure has gone on too long. If Canada wants to succeed, emulate success.

Australia’s strategy is worth a close look not because the country is a paragon of hyper-efficiency and extraordinary governance, but because it is not. You don’t have to be perfect to do well. You simply have to say what you mean; mean what you say; pay attention to the science; and accept that while you may be vilified in some quarters for overreach, you invite catastrophe if you underestimate the strength and agility of the virus.

Source: What Canada can learn from Australia’s COVID response

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If Trudeau Really Wants to “Bring Canadians Along” On Big Issues, He Must Improve the Consultation Process

2021/02/09 Leave a comment

More on narratives. Not sure how realistic this is in the context of an adversial and partisan environment along with time pressures. Changing how people feel normally takes longer than one government mandate but agree on need to address perceptions and feelings as well as facts:

In an interview with The Toronto Star last week, the prime minister expressed regret that in its first term his government didn’t always do enough “to bring Canadians along” on big initiatives. Ideally, it would be “involving Canadians as active, engaged citizens on the work we’re doing,” he said.

As a team with expertise in public engagement, we thought we’d weigh in.

The Liberals’ current agenda includes some ambitious social-change initiatives, such as Reconciliation, systemic racism, Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD), and fighting climate change. To defeat the pandemic, they must mobilize the entire country.

All would benefit from better citizen engagement but what, exactly, does that mean? Trudeau is on the right track when he says that “to bring people along” it is not enough that they know what’s going on, they also need to feel it. We think that his government could build on this insight to make public consultations much more effective and meaningful for Canadians.

Engagement Should Challenge How We Think and Feel

One way that governments try to bring people along on initiatives is by “informing” them. Providing the right facts and information can raise awareness on issues such as Reconciliation or racism, which is helpful.

But knowing that, say, racism exists and is wrong is not enough to end it. As Trudeau suggests, attitudes like these are also anchored in our values and emotions – in how we “feel” about others. Facts and information are rarely enough to change or eliminate negative feelings.

Real change requires adjustments at an emotional as well as an intellectual level and engagement can help. The key lies in something we call public narratives.

A public narrative is a theme or motif that people use to give order and meaning to a complex set of facts, values, emotions, and more. Basically, narratives give us a viewpoint or mental map of a situation.

For example, our traditional views on treating illness are shaped by a narrative in which death is the primordial enemy and anything that postpones it is a victory. Causing death when life can be preserved is a terrible wrong.

Narratives like this are deeply embedded in our culture. We internalize them early in life and they become part of our shared identity and worldview.

But these narratives can and do evolve. Many people have watched their loved ones suffer or lose their faculties before dying. The experience can be heart wrenching and those who go through it often come out changed. The public narrative around treating illness no longer fits their experience, and they want to see it changed.

Public Consultations Tend to Divide Where they Should Unite

The lesson for governments is that successful social change often requires narrative building. As circumstances change, so do people’s experiences. Society evolves and, eventually, public narratives are called into question and need a reset, say, on treating illness, protecting the environment, or responding to systemic racism.

Let’s note, however, that turning our attention to the role of values and emotions in engagement doesn’t mean that facts no longer matter. The challenge is to find a narrative that aligns complex emotions AND informs people – to arrive at a viewpoint that resonates with Canadians’ emotions and is truthful and accurate:

Unfortunately, traditional public consultations weren’t designed for this kind of deliberation. Far from reconciling competing facts, values and emotions, they tend to pit them against one another, without doing the hard work of aligning them.

Take the Department of Justice’s consultations on MAiD. Canadians were invited to fill out a questionnaire, which allowed officials to tally up how many people feel one way vs. another. The Department also held a series of roundtables, where select experts and stakeholders were invited to discuss their views on MAiD.

Processes like this are more likely to divide than to unite people. Advocates at the table may be polite about their differences (or not), but narrative building is not part of their agenda. In their view, their job is to make the case for their views, while defending them against criticism, much like lawyers in a court case. Processes like this tend to sharpen and deepen the differences.

By comparison, narrative building discourages competition and instead promotes collaboration by setting different “rules of engagement.” In our approach, participants must agree to:

  1. Recognize the legitimacy of one another’s lived experience.
  2. Focus the dialogue on how the narrative in question can be adjusted to align people’s emotions and understanding in new and better ways.
  3. Be guided by a facilitator who will ensure the rules are respected.

These rules commit people to listening empathetically to the experiences of others and working together to find innovative ways to reconcile tensions through a better narrative. In short, they put people’s emotional intelligence to work, along with knowledge and facts.  Done well, this should lead to a win/win.

Ministers and Parliamentary Committees Should Lead Public Dialogues

Finally, regarding Trudeau’s goal of ensuring his government “brings people along,” we think ministers and/or parliamentary committees could and should do more to engage the public directly on narrative building in areas such as systemic racism, climate change, and MAiD.

This would be a departure from the usual “communications approach,” where a minister or leader uses speeches and other tools to deliver a fully formed narrative. In our approach, politicians are as much facilitators as a decision-makers. They present ideas to the public, but they also engage the public in a dialogue about them and adjust and adapt the narrative as the dialogue progresses.

The goal is to have government draw on the public’s experiences to build the narrative, while showing real give and take in its interactions with Canadians. This assures the public of a meaningful role in the process, which, in turn, builds legitimacy around the narrative. In Trudeau’s language, it “brings them along” and makes them “feel” that they are part of the change.

Unfortunately, most of the government’s public consultations barely scratch the surface of this kind of engagement. If Trudeau really wants to bring Canadians along, why not start by hauling engagement over to the other side of this competitive/collaborative divide?

Dr. Don Lenihan is Senior Associate at the Institute on Governance and an internationally recognized expert on public engagement, governance, and policy development. For more, visit his website at: www.middlegroundengagement.com

Andrew Balfour is Managing Partner at Rubicon Strategy in Ottawa.

Source: If Trudeau Really Wants to “Bring Canadians Along” On Big Issues, He Must Improve the Consultation Process

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