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Politicians dare not forget the humanity in policy
Bureaucratic brainstorming and streamlining will only get you so far.

thestar.com
June 30, 2016
By Martin Regg Cohn

Police caution us that sudden U-turns can be dangerous for drivers.

Politicians, on the other hand, understand that well-executed U-turns can be lifesavers.

Not just for the cabinet ministers driving controversial policies. Also for the ordinary people on the receiving end of their sometimes accidental deliberations.

Three recent reversals by the Ontario Liberals reveal a pattern of decision-making (and unmaking) that suggest a left-leaning government still trying to get it right. Call them what you will - U-turns, turnarounds, course corrections, climb-downs or flip-flops:

By any measure - and by any budget measure (supposedly a matter of parliamentary confidence) - that’s a lot of backing down. Or back and forths.

Each decision came after months of bureaucratic deliberations and political considerations, but was ultimately undone. And enriched.

Either this government is remarkably open-minded, or just can’t make up its mind. More likely, the Liberals are trying to have it both ways - balancing competing interests while trying to balance the budget after years of multi-billion-dollar deficits.

Autism has bedevilled the province for years. Funding was never nearly enough to satisfy parents who, understandably, want the best for their children from therapy that doesn’t deliver predictable results.

Parental stories of disappointment lend themselves to opposition criticism and media crusades, raising the stakes and reducing the possibilities for compromise. When the government finally got around to boosting funding by $333 million in March, it argued for greater coherence in a field where success can be hard to measure.

But there was a tradeoff - a new cut-off for children age 5 and older seeking therapy after languishing for years on waiting lists. That sparked outrage among parents who felt betrayed.

As minister of children and youth services, Tracy MacCharles defended the policy until the day she was dropkicked from cabinet this month. Her successor, Michael Coteau, dropped the age cut-off on Tuesday, announcing that therapy would be provided for children as needed - thanks to an extra $200 million in funding. In the aftermath, parent groups and opposition parties declared victory, allowing the government to avert any more public defeats.

Welfare reform is no less complicated than autism therapy, but the zigzags go way back in time.

Former judge George Thomson was appointed Wednesday to head an income security working group - the same judge who chaired a 1989 Social Assistance Review Committee that recommended sweeping welfare reforms, later adopted by the NDP government in the early 1990s, then dropped by the PC government that followed.

Former premier Dalton McGuinty appointed his own expert welfare panel, headed by former New Democrat Frances Lankin and ex-StatsCan chief Munir Sheikh, who in 2012 recommended undoing what the Tories undid. While many recommendations were adopted - boosting payments and reducing penalties for recipients with other income or assets - the most ambitious goal to streamline social services met stiff resistance.

Now, by circling back to Thomson, allowing him to pick up where he left off decades ago, the government is setting aside much of the Lankin-Sheikh report. It is another in a long line of welfare reversals by government of all political stripes going back years.

On drugs, by contrast, an April decision to cancel planned increases in deductibles was perhaps the most surprisingly rapid turnaround in recent memory.

A good news budget announcement granted free prescriptions to an additional 170,000 poorer seniors, by raising the annual income cut-off for singles from $16,018 to $19,300. But it was drowned out by the bad news - an extra $1 per prescription for better-off seniors, who would have to pay an extra $70 deductible for their drugs (up from $100). Fair tradeoff?

The blowback was predictable. The backing down came suddenly. Within days, Premier Kathleen Wynne announced the government would reconsider, and within weeks it recanted - rescinding the increased deductible.

All of these government concessions and compromises come at a cost. Luckily for Wynne, government revenues are rising - giving her more fiscal room to bolster social programs.

Does Wynne get it wrong more often than not? Or does she deserve credit for fixing her mistakes fast?

One lesson she is learning, with the next election two years away, is that bureaucratic brainstorming and streamlining will only get you so far. The politics of policy also require a strong dose of humanity.