It's Just Politics
Is Big Brother still watching?
By Agar Adamson
In 1948, George Orwell published his most important work, 1984. Readers were aghast at the content, especially the role of ‘Big Brother.’
In 2007, have we escaped the world of Big Brother, or have we walked silently and unsuspectingly into that world?
Take a moment to reflect upon the power of government and the bureaucracy. Parliaments, legislatures and municipal councils adopt legislation, but in most instances it is the bureaucracy that is given the task of implementing the newly-minted legislation and to enforce it over the years. Furthermore, it is the bureaucrats that write the rules on how the legislation is to be implemented.
Take, for instance, the Income Tax Act. Parliament passes the legislation, but it is the bureaucracy that writes the rules on how that act is to be implemented. Locally, the municipal councils adopt the official land-use plan for the municipality, but it is the professional staff that fine-tunes the legislation and puts words into action.
In Canada we have reams of what is referred to as ‘delegated legislation.’ One good example of this is the CRTC, which regulates the radio, television and telecommunication industries. Another is the Nova Scotia Utilities Review Board, which amongst other things regulates electricity rates in the province. At the municipal level we have the planning review committee, which oversees many aspects of land use or misuse in our municipalities. Only the latter body has elected politicians amongst its membership.
Bureaucrats at all three levels of government have enormous powers over our daily lives and these powers are increasing, not decreasing, as the newly-minted regulation of the price of gasoline illustrates. One of the reasons why Pierre Trudeau gave us the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was to protect individuals from the misuse of authority by all levels of government including the bureaucracy. The courts, whose duty it is to interpret the law, are there to protect individual Canadians. Legislation is often misleading and once again it is the role of the courts to state what was meant by certain articles in an Act of the Legislature.
Parliament, for example, does not have the time nor does it have the expertise to handle complicated and/or delicate issues.
Take atomic energy, for example. Are there any atomic scientists in the House of Commons today? Probably not, thus experts within the bureaucracy are required to implement the provisions of this particular Act.
On the whole, we are well served by the bureaucracy, our public service. There are the odd exceptions as the Arrar inquiry and the Walkerton Commission have illustrated, but in general, we should be proud of our public service.
However, there is always room for improvement! Recent events at the municipal level in Nova Scotia and Ontario may set one to wondering about the question of dispute resolution between the bureaucracy, including boards and commissions to whom authority has been delegated by the legislative body.
True, the aggrieved citizen can go to the courts to seek redress. They can lobby the elected politicians and they can run for office at the first opportunity. However, these potential remedies are time consuming and often very expensive. In certain instances like the Veterans Pension Review Board, it may be too late for the aggrieved individual by the time the board adjudicates a complaint. A similar argument can be made for the licensing and availability of new drugs.
Often these days we read of disputes going to mediation. Looking at the Ontario and Nova Scotia examples mentioned earlier, both of these could have been settled by mediation. Both of these examples involved land use regulations. The Ontario case was finally settled by the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) holding not one but two separate hearings, both of which were costly and time consuming and both of which sided with the individuals. The Nova Scotia incident, to my knowledge, was not settled and the municipality in question has lost a commercial rate-paying venture.
Given the power of government, the size of government and the cost of government we need to find ways to resolve certain conflicts other than the courts. If we can use mediation as a means to resolve family law matters, why can we not use mediation to settle conflicts between individuals and the state, at least as an initial opportunity to resolve the conflict?
Big Brother is alive and well and is lurking in the corridors of power at all three levels of government. It is up to all of us to make our political institutions more user friendly. To do this we must be prepared to experiment. Perhaps the best test for mediation is in land-use planning. Like it or not, planning has an enormous impact on our largest single investment, our home.
Orwell wrote, “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face…” No, things have not come to such an ugly picture, but we do have government regulation in our face frequently and we do need a respite from time to time to give our faces a rest. Mediation could be that respite.
