Hi Keith, I'll just comment on one of the points you made. More later.
> I'm sorry, but Commissions appointed by governments (advised by civil > servants) can never be guaranteed to be independent. Some may turn out to > be, but many more (at least in our experience) are likely not to be because > there are too many potential honours and rewards available for those who > take part. At the very least, there should be no ex-politicians or retired > civil servants involved. A Commission is more likely to be independent if > its members come from a quite different career stream -- such as academia > or business. I was a full time staff member of one of our Commissions, a Commission of Inquiry on the proposed Mackenzie Valley Pipeline, headed by Tom Berger, a Justice of the Supreme Court of British Columbia and a former politician. Rest assured that we were independent of government almost to the point of being at war with Ottawa. I've also worked for another Commission, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. Again, I saw no evidence of dependence on government or of the Commissioners seeking "honours and rewards". However, it may be that the Canadian practice and experience is different from that of the UK. Ed Ed Weick 577 Melbourne Ave. Ottawa, ON, K2A 1W7 Canada Phone (613) 728 4630 Fax (613) 728 9382 _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
