A commission to study the studies

Strike up a study, a review, a task force, a brass band.

When in doubt, the cry issues forth from the McNeil government: “Commission a commission, seek counsel of a council, task a force” or different words to that general effect.

And off they go in search of experts, neo-experts, bored Liberals or whoever will take a good old time to produce a report. Half the government’s reviews are remakes, half are ignored, and the other half are cover for what the government was going to do anyway. The rest are pure gold.

Some months, or years, after inception, the task force, commission, etc., offers a report and a list of ambiguous recommendations not to solve the problem but to address it. “Hello, problem.”

This past week two notes brought all this to mind. The first was the Sept. 21 recall of the legislature, complete with a throne speech.

The speech provides an opportunity to disguise inaction as action by way of a review of (insert vexing issue here).

The second note was a tidy pre-emptive strike on a Liberal promise to review forest harvest practices. The government has not announced the review so the Ecology Action Centre beat it to the punch. The EAC told the province how to go about it and thereby established a high benchmark against which the government review, if and when initiated, will be measured. Well done. The promised forest practices review falls into the category of a remake. There’s a 10-year natural resources strategy that covers forest harvest practices, but a loophole was produced to rid Nova Scotia of its troublesome trees. Clear cutting on Crown land makes Sherman’s march to the sea look like a country outing.

Befitting of a column of this nature – no pun, really – no study, review or research of government’s record of reviews and the like, was undertaken. The following comes off the top of a head that increasingly produces fewer memories. Among the first of the reviews commissioned by the McNeil Liberals was a useful one – an exhaustive study of taxes and regulations. Laurel Broten singlehandedly produced the report, which recommended precise and bold action on taxation and scared the bejesus out of the government. The lesson was learned. One-person commissions risk single-minded determination and decisive recommendations.

We can’t have that. (I was paid well to assist Ms. Broten with some of the words for her report.

Given its length, it is reasonable to conclude she added more.) A minister’s panel on education produced a report called Disrupting the Status Quo, which led to Nova Scotia’s Action Plan for Education, ominously subtitled The 3 Rs. This plan, in turn, spawned a task force on training, education and work.

Nova Scotians awaited the government release proclaiming creation of a new industry: independent reviews, studies and reports on public education.

The library of documents confirmed the sad new reality. The philosophy of knowledge and learning that informed virtually every civilization from ancient Greece through the Enlightenment and beyond is not merely past, but passe.

The purpose of education is now to “help students become more career ready.” Education, it seems, no longer needs to produce citizens of the community, the state or the world. Too bad.

This at a time when understanding the global context and its diverse cultural makeup was never more relevant.

The greatest challenge for the generation now in school – climate change – escaped the attention of the reviewers and so is absent from school curricula. How were all those reports written with that elephant hogging all available space on the boardroom tables?

There is a commission redesigning electoral boundaries.

The government can only hope its overdue work satisfies the courts that deemed current boundaries unconstitutional. That ruling came before Nova Scotians voted in constituencies that failed the judicial test. Electoral expedience ignored the fundamental law of the land.

What we need now is a study of the studies. The value of the tome that issues can be determined by throwing it in the ocean and measuring the water’s rise.

Thanks Archimedes. If he’s not mentioned in school anymore, there’s always Google.