Achi news desk-
One hundred and sixteen of the Alberta government’s 192 ongoing consultations seek public input on topics ranging from how the province should spend money to where trails should be built in parks.
But when CTV News asked Calgarians which ones they know about or participate in, few we found had any knowledge of the engagement process.
“I know of none of them,” said Cory Brazen.
“I haven’t responded to any of them, to tell you the truth.”
That’s not unusual, says political scientist Lori Williams, who warns that it skews the results – and ultimately government policy – towards special interest groups.
“They (special interest groups) are the ones who are going to be aware, they are going to be organized to try to get involved,” said Williams.
“They can skew the results significantly in the particular direction they want, so it’s not really a representative sample of Albertans.”
Alberta’s latest public engagement involves insurance rates.
It was opened to the public on April 26, but was not publicly announced until early May.
Ultimately, Nathan Neudorf, Alberta’s Minister of Affordability, will steer insurance reform.
Neudorf won’t say how much the public comments will ultimately mean.
“I think it will be a factor,” Neudorf said.
“I couldn’t tell you how much it will weigh. … Obviously there are big cost implications, so (we’ll) try to weigh all those things in balance, but it’s important.”
NDP finance critic Shannon Phillips says the public consultation on insurance is just a delaying tactic.
“We’ve seen these kind of half-hearted efforts … surveys and reviews and that kind of thing,” Phillips said.
“What consumers are looking for is affordable auto insurance.”
A big reason people told CTV News they haven’t paid attention to public engagement is that they don’t think they’ll be listened to.
“We’ve come to the conclusion that the government is wasting our time following whatever their intentions are,” said Calgarian Alian Sanders.
“They do whatever they want regardless of what we think.”
Williams says the current government has a history of avoiding public sentiment when implementing new policy.
“We have very high numbers of opposition to parties in municipal politics. Seventy percent. A high number of opposition to changing the Canada Pension Plan to the Alberta pension plan, and a majority opposing the introduction of provincial police,” Williams said.
“Despite what Albertans have said clearly in significant numbers, the government continues to try to move in their own direction — the one they had at the beginning, and they are satisfied using tax dollars to advertise to try to persuade Albertans to go ahead with that.”
Nik Nanos of Nanos Research says sometimes consultations are visible, but it’s still important that people speak up.
“Governments want to change policy, (they say), ‘Let’s do a consultation so we can say we did a consultation,'” says Nanos.
“It also allows governments to say, ‘Listen, you had a chance to have your say. If you don’t show up, that’s your fault, not the government’s fault.'”
Nanos also warns against interpreting the results of a public consultation as the voice of the majority.
“We should never confuse consultation with being representative of what people think,” says Nanos.
“A consultation is only representative of the people who turn up. If nobody turns up, it’s not representative of anything, and for those advocacy groups who do turn up, it’s n representative of them.
“We should not confuse what is said in a public consultation with what the public really thinks. That can only be done through a scientific survey, or as a referendum or plebiscite or something like that. ”
