We've had commissions which resulted in very little and may indeed have been evasive devices.
Ed Ed Weick 577 Melbourne Ave. Ottawa, ON, K2A 1W7 Canada Phone (613) 728 4630 Fax (613) 728 9382 > Ed, > > I'll accept what you say about your own experience of the independence of > Royal Commissions. However, many Commissions in this country are just > excuses to kick a problem into the long grass and the members of the > Commission (or at least a majority plus, importantly, the Chairman) can be > expected to do so, sooner or later. In short, they've become useful devices > for evasion, not genuine attempts at solutions. > > Keith > > At 10:22 08/02/03 -0500, you wrote: > >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 > > > > > > > > > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- > ------------ > > Keith Hudson, General Editor, Handlo Music, http://www.handlo.com > 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England > Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727; mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > ________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
