Lecture 7 (Oct 8th) Flashcards
Walkerton Tragedy
- 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?
Swiss Cheese Model – Risk Management
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.
Ideology: Common Sense Revolution
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
Framing (Problem Identification)
- 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)
How to Create Change in Environmental
Health Policy. Material policy instruments: likely to result in changes in actual
- Exhortation→ governments encourage stakeholders to act in a
particular way
* e.g. Information/education, symbolic gestures - 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 - Public Ownership→ government directly runs an activity
* e.g. Direct provision of goods and services
What’s the problem with exhortation
You can tell someone to do something all day but if no one does it. It won’t get done.
If you don’t enforce a regulation it becomes an
exhortation
What two material policy instruments went wrong in the Walkerton problem
Regulation and public ownership
Ideology: Common Sense Revolution
- 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
Nature of Public Goods
- 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)
Public Goods
water
food
clean air
safety
Non-rivalry
- 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.
Non-excludability:
- 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
A public good is not the same as good for the public but they are
treated as such
Production Characteristcs
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)
Production Characteristics: Externalities
- “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.
Public-Private
- 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
Public-Private
- 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
Privatization
- Termination of public programs and disengagement of government from certain responsibilities (implicit)
- Transfer of public assets to private ownership
- Public financing of private service delivery
- Deregulation of entry into activities previously treated as
public monopoly
Privatization of Public Goods
- 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
How is Accountability held
- 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
Street Level Bureaucracy
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
What is the Scope of Conflict?
- “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)
Scope of Conflict is also affected by:
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.
Scope of Conflict re: Policy Making
- Who is involved in deciding?
- How policies are defined?
- Who is at the table?
- What the rules will be?
Public Inquiries Act
R.S.O. 1990, CHAPTER P.41
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.)
Public Inquiries
- “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
O’Connor Report (The Walkerton Inquiry)
2002
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
