Lecture 7 (Oct 8th)

Question 1

Walkerton Tragedy

Answer 1

• E.coli O157:H7 and campylobacter bacteria
• Cattle manure run-off into a shallow well
• 7 deaths
• 2300 became ill, many with life-altering consequences
• Tragedy triggered alarm about the safety of drinking water across
  the province
• Inquiry called to determine what actually happened in Walkerton?
  What were the causes? Who was responsible? How could this have
  been prevented? Most importantly, how do we make sure this never
  hap-pens again?

Question 2

Swiss Cheese Model – Risk Management

Answer 2

model used in risk analysis and risk management. It likens human systems to multiple slices of Swiss cheese, which has randomly placed and sized holes in each slice, stacked side by side, in which the risk of a threat becoming a reality is mitigated by the differing layers and types of defenses which are “layered” behind each other. Therefore, in theory, lapses and weaknesses in one defense do not allow a risk to materialize. When the holes line up an accident or injury occurs.

Question 3

Ideology: Common Sense Revolution

Answer 3

PC Party elected in 1995 and re-elected in 1999 (both majority)
* 1995-1997 a series of omnibus bills were passed that reduced regulatory oversight, allowed more pollution, and permitted construction activities without permits
* MOE lost ~40% of its budget
* Defunding, deregulation & devolution of responsibility
* Downloading responsibility and privatization of service broke the chain of accountability
* Local municipality: no independent authority other than what the

Question 4

Framing (Problem Identification)

Answer 4

• Impact of budgetary reductions
• The implications of using public or private operators (including
  privatizing water testing)
• “Bad apple” theory contrasted with “continuous quality
  improvement” (CQI) approaches.
• Appropriate design of regulatory oversight
• framing is also about symbolism and the creation of policy
  stories, which are important parts of political and policy
  discourse and debate. The Harris government was skilled at
  framing, including the titles given to legislation.
• Well designed processes can help to encourage high performance
  and ensure that errors can be caught before catastrophic
  consequences result (Berwick, 1989)

Question 5

How to Create Change in Environmental
Health Policy. Material policy instruments: likely to result in changes in actual

Answer 5

1. Exhortation→ governments encourage stakeholders to act in a
   particular way
   * e.g. Information/education, symbolic gestures
2. Expenditure → government provides funds for a specific purposes
   * e.g. taxation (including tax breaks)
   Regulation→ rules are established to encourage or penalize certain types of actions
   * e.g. laws, meeting standards
3. Public Ownership→ government directly runs an activity
   * e.g. Direct provision of goods and services

Question 6

What’s the problem with exhortation

Answer 6

You can tell someone to do something all day but if no one does it. It won’t get done.

Question 7

If you don’t enforce a regulation it becomes an

Answer 7

exhortation

Question 8

What two material policy instruments went wrong in the Walkerton problem

Answer 8

Regulation and public ownership

Question 9

Ideology: Common Sense Revolution

Answer 9

• PC Party elected in 1995 and re-elected in 1999 (both majority)
• 1995-1997 a series of omnibus bills were passed that reduced regulatory oversight, allowed more pollution, and permitted construction activities without permits
• MOE lost ~40% of its budget
• Defunding, deregulation & devolution of responsibility
• Downloading responsibility and privatization of service broke the chain of accountability
• Local municipality: no independent authority other than what the province assigns

Question 10

Nature of Public Goods

Answer 10

• Is not the same as good for the public. They are defined using the characteristics of rivalrous or excludable.
• They are non-rivalry
• Non-excludable
• Free rider problem: incentive to avoid paying for public goods knowing the will still benefit if others are paying
• Not everything that is good for the public is a public good (e.g. water)

Question 11

Public Goods

Answer 11

water
food
clean air
safety

Question 12

Non-rivalry

Answer 12

• when consumed, it doesn’t reduce the amount available
  for others.
• E.g. benefiting from a street light doesn’t reduce the light available for others but eating an apple would.

Question 13

Non-excludability:

Answer 13

• It is not possible to provide a good without it being possible for others to benefit
• e.g. a dam to stop flooding protects everyone, whether they contributed or not

Question 14

A public good is not the same as good for the public but they are

Answer 14

treated as such

Question 15

Production Characteristcs

Answer 15

Contestable: Asset specificity or how easy/hard it is to get into the market
Measurability :Monitoring performance is easiest when measurability is high
Complexity: Goods/services stand alone or require coordination with other
providers (e.g. lab tests)

Question 16

Production Characteristics: Externalities

Answer 16

• “un-‐priced, unintentional and uncompensated side effect of
  one agents’ action, that directly affects the welfare of
  another (Baumol and Oates 1998; Sundqvist 2004).”
• “costs imposed on society and the environment that are not
  accounted for by the producers or consumers” (European
  Environment Agency 2004).”
• Private costs of production tend to be lower than its “social”
  cost. It is the aim of the “polluter/user-pays” principle to
  prompt households and enterprises to internalise
  externalities in their plans and budgets.

Question 17

Public-Private

Answer 17

• Apply to financing and delivery
• Public can apply to multiple levels of government
• Private can include corporate-for-profit enterprise (i.e.
  shareholder responsibilities) an for-profit small business
• Not-for-profit, e.g. hospitals
• Quasi-public, legally private but heavily regulated
• Privatization – movement from public to private

Question 18

Public-Private

Answer 18

• The dominant model for providing water service in Ontario is
  public
• the private sector is extensively involved in many aspects of
  water service delivery.
• Important considerations:
• critical mass to support necessary expertise
• extent to which water is (and should be) sheltered from budget
  constraints
• the extent to which PUCs share information among themselves;
• implication of differing policies regarding borrowing for capital projects

Question 19

Privatization

Answer 19

1. Termination of public programs and disengagement of government from certain responsibilities (implicit)
2. Transfer of public assets to private ownership
3. Public financing of private service delivery
4. Deregulation of entry into activities previously treated as
   public monopoly

Question 20

Privatization of Public Goods

Answer 20

• Contracting out – must clearly define what constitutes good
  performance.
• In the Walkerton case, the contracts for water testing specified how the test should be performed, but neglected specifying that the tests should be conducted by someone who understood what they meant, or that results should be conveyed to sources other than the client (here, the PUC) who had ordered them.
• One distinction between the former public model (where water was tested within the MOE) and the privatized model was that
  the for-profit company had an obligation to maximize their

Question 21

How is Accountability held

Answer 21

• Financial, performance and political/democratic dimensions; tools & levers
• Ex ante (before)
• Ex post (after)
• Performance management and measurement
• Accountability - responsible to its stakeholders for decisions
  made and policies implemented, including actions or inactions.
• Transparency –encourages and fosters stakeholder participation
  and openness in its decision-making processes; Processes are open and clear to the public
• Precautionary Principle

Question 22

Street Level Bureaucracy

Answer 22

People who work on the front-lines, directly interact with
the public and have considerable discretion in what they do and how they do it

Question 23

What is the Scope of Conflict?

Answer 23

• “the size and extent of a conflict”; may involve various
  types and levels of private or public organizations (Nice and
  Frederickson, 1995, 27).
• “it is the loser who calls for outside help” (Schattschneider,
  1975, 16): The loser will seek to expand the scope of
  conflict to new participants in order to gain advantage.
• In intergovernmental relations, contestants “seek the scope
  of conflict and the decision-making arena that are most
  likely to produce the desired policy decision…” (Nice and
  Frederickson, 1995, 26)

Question 24

Scope of Conflict is also affected by:

Answer 24

Visibility
* Information about the policy is available and whether it is of
advantage to participate
Intensity
* How attached one is to the policy issue
Direction
* Is the issue important enough to become involved and to succeed in
having the polices match their preferences
* “The definition of alternatives is the supreme instrument of power…he
who determines what politics is about runs the country, because the definition of the alternatives is the choice of conflicts, and the choice of conflicts allocates power (p.66)” Schattschneider.

Question 25

Scope of Conflict re: Policy Making

Answer 25

• Who is involved in deciding?
• How policies are defined?
• Who is at the table?
• What the rules will be?

Question 26

Public Inquiries Act
R.S.O. 1990, CHAPTER P.41

Answer 26

Appointment of commission
“Whenever the Lieutenant Governor in Council considers it
expedient to cause inquiry to be made concerning any matter
connected with or affecting the good government of Ontario
or the conduct of any part of the public business thereof or
of the administration of justice therein or that the
Lieutenant Governor in Council declares to be a matter of
public concern and the inquiry is not regulated by any special
law, the Lieutenant Governor in Council may, by commission,
appoint one or more persons to conduct the inquiry.”
(R.S.O. 1990, c. P.41, s. 2.)

Question 27

Public Inquiries

Answer 27

• “Are episodic.
• The issue, or the dispute, is bigger than who did what to whom,
  although that question may have to be addressed.
• The crisis that leads to an inquiry often demands a response that is
  public, specific about the past, comprehensive about the future, and
  cost-efficient and speedy.
• A public inquiry commissioner may combine a number of roles: that of
  a fact-finder, like a judge; a proposer for policy reform; a healer for
  traumatized communities; and a manager with responsibility for
  budgets and an administrative and legal staff.”
• Historically, Canada has been a very heavy user; some very important
  public policies have been shaped by inquiry recommendations

Question 28

O’Connor Report (The Walkerton Inquiry)
2002

Answer 28

Part One:
* 28 recommendations regarding Public Health Units, Communication, boil water protocols, approvals/inspections, training and certification, & MOE business processes
Part Two:
* 93 recommendations on a multi-barrier approach to managing drinking water and what is needed to reduce risk at every stage of the system
As of August 2007, all 121 recommendations were implemented through various initiatives and legislation