William Watson: Ottawa needs to inventory its walking-dead policies

Skip to Content News Archives Economy Defence Energy Oil & Gas Renewables Electric Vehicles Mining Commodities Agriculture Real Estate Mortgages Mortgage Rates Finance Banking Insurance Fintech Cryptocurrency Defence Work Wealth Smart Money Wealth Management Investor Personal Finance Family Finance Retirement Taxes High Net Worth FP Comment Executive Women Puzzmo Newsletters Financial Times Business Essentials More Innovation Information Technology FP500 Podcasts Small Business Lives Told Tails Told Shopping Financial Post Store Obituaries Place a Notice Advertising Advertising With Us Advertising Solutions Postmedia Ad Manager Sponsorship Requests Classifieds Place a Classifieds ad Working Profile Settings My Subscriptions My Offers Newsletters Customer Service FAQ News Economy Energy Mining Real Estate Finance Defence Work Wealth Investor FP Comment Executive Women Puzzmo Newsletters Financial Times Business Essentials This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.HomeFP CommentWilliam Watson: Ottawa needs to inventory its walking-dead policiesValue-for-money evaluations need to replace surveys that ask program beneficiaries if they like getting money and resources from OttawaLast updated 20 minutes ago We want a living democracy, not a living-dead one. Photo by File/PostmediaNew museum policies about whether or not to display the remains of people who have been dead for several thousand years — Egyptian mummies, mainly — have taken wokeness to what let’s hope is its literal, um, dead end.THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLYSubscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.Exclusive articles from Barbara Shecter, Joe O'Connor, Gabriel Friedman, and others.Daily content from Financial Times, the world's leading global business publication.Unlimited online access to read articles from Financial Post, National Post and 15 news sites across Canada with one account.National Post ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on.Daily puzzles, including the New York Times Crossword.SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLESSubscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.Exclusive articles from Barbara Shecter, Joe O'Connor, Gabriel Friedman and others.Daily content from Financial Times, the world's leading global business publication.Unlimited online access to read articles from Financial Post, National Post and 15 news sites across Canada with one account.National Post ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on.Daily puzzles, including the New York Times Crossword.REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLESCreate an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.Access articles from across Canada with one account.Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments.Enjoy additional articles per month.Get email updates from your favourite authors.THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK.Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.Access articles from across Canada with one accountShare your thoughts and join the conversation in the commentsEnjoy additional articles per monthGet email updates from your favourite authorsSign In or Create an AccountIn last week’s Spectator magazine, Gareth Roberts wrote about such policies both at Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Museum and our own Redpath Museum at McGill University in Montreal.This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.Kelvingrove is concerned about consent. So far as anyone knows, the mummies did not consent to the public display of their remains — although they also did not not consent, and their societies may have put less emphasis on post-mortal privacy than we do.Get the latest headlines, breaking news and columns.By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc.A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder.The next issue of Top Stories will soon be in your inbox.We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try againAt Montreal’s Redpath Museum, Roberts reports, a sign informs visitors that “by displaying (mummies) in showcases like objects for centuries, museums have greatly contributed to the dehumanization of these individuals. In pursuit of decolonization and the creation of a space of well-being and care” the museum has removed them from its exhibitions.Personally, I do always find it jarring when I run across mummies in museums. And I understand the bit about privacy. I’m not sure I’d want what will be left of me displayed in a case in 5026.But display is not dehumanizing. Quite the opposite. Few things are more humanizing. You can’t look at the leathery, shrivelled faces — barely faces at all, most of them — and not have your Hamlet/Yorick moment, when Hamlet holds up the former court jester’s skull and says “Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him … a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath borne me on his back a thousand times …” Dust we were and dust we will become. It’s one of the most human realizations possible and involves nothing but respect and fellow feeling for the deceased.This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.As for the pursuit of decolonization, the Egyptians themselves had no recorded qualms about colonization or, for that matter, slavery. Do we think the pyramids were built with unionized labour? You see silliness on stilts everywhere these days. But these guidelines are among the highest stilts yet.It must be the Halloween vibe but I found myself thinking about these mummy issues when reading John Lester’s piece elsewhere in FP Comment about how Ottawa needs to do value-for-money evaluations of its hundreds of programs in order to figure out which are effective and which are walking-dead (my phrase, not his).Current federal legislation already allows value-for-money evaluations but, like modern-day museums, Ottawa seems queasy about picking over legislated detritus to see what still works (assuming it ever did) and what doesn’t. It’s far more convenient for governments’ reputations to do benefit evaluations where you survey program’s beneficiaries and ask whether they enjoy receiving the benefits they do. Not surprisingly, most say they do and “Please, sir, I want some more.” What needs to be evaluated instead is whether what recipients get out of the program provides enough public benefit to justify what taxpayers have had to pay into it.This advertisement has not loaded yet.This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.Ottawa is currently evaluating its system of evaluation so the time is right to up the rigour. The early days of a new government allow it to bring skeletons out of closets and get away with blaming Justin Trudeau. But best move quickly. We’re getting on to 20 months of Mark Carney, which is not so early anymore.I have only two reservations about value-for-money evaluations. The first is that value is sometimes hard to assess. Take DEI. The people who get jobs they wouldn’t have without DEI clearly benefit. How many such people are there and how much of an improvement are their new jobs over what they would have had? How do you calculate that? At the same time, people squeezed out by DEI are worse off. By how much? And how would you calculate that?Of course, the declared purpose of DEI is to change the face of the federal work force so there’s presumably some value to the country at large if that happens. How do you measure it? And how do you measure the disappointment of old-fashioned liberals who would prefer to live in a country where race, gender and so on don’t play any systemic or even systematic role in government hiring?This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.One of the first things I hope would disappear if more robust evaluations became the order of the day in Ottawa is the Gender+ analysis that accompanies every federal budget. It tries to anticipate the impact of any new policy on different genders and other groups though, since in most cases there’s almost no data, what’s provided are finger exercises any intern could do. No offence to interns but it’s a waste of time done only to satisfy the identity wing of the Liberal caucus.The other problem in moving to more formal value-for-money evaluation is its possibly neutering effect on politicians. Lester says we don’t currently have such analysis because politicians understand it “would limit their discretion to use spending to win elections.” Doubtless that’s true. On the other hand, in a democracy politicians are the responsible parties. Faceless evaluators can provide them and the public with information about programs’ likely or actual effects but politicians need to call the shots.We want living, not walking-dead, democracy.This advertisement has not loaded yet.Notice for the Postmedia NetworkThis website uses cookies to personalize your content (including ads), and allows us to analyze our traffic. Read more about cookies here. By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.