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Canadians need to know how much money Big Pharma gives health-care providers, but this information is far too difficult to find
Thursday, 07 March 2024 02:35 Written by theconversation 
Joel Lexchin, York University, Canada
Drug companies often give payments to physicians, other health-care workers and health-care organizations for things like consulting fees, sitting on advisory boards, speaking at sponsored events or funding research, as well as meals and travel expenses. However, in Canada, it’s difficult to know how much was paid to whom.
Prominent on the website of Innovative Medicines Canada (IMC) — the organization that represents the research-based drug companies operating in Canada — is the statement:
“As part of our commitment to high ethical standards and enhancing trust, Innovative Medicines Canada has developed a Voluntary Framework on Disclosure of Payments made to health-care professionals and organizations.”
Based on that commitment, starting in 2016, 10 companies — fewer than one-quarter of IMC’s members — have been reporting how much in total they gave to doctors and organizations.
In order to maintain faith in the integrity of treatments that doctors and other health-care providers and organizations offer their patients, it’s vital that the public knows that the choice of therapy is based on the patient’s best interest and not on the interest of the company that makes the drug.
Lack of transparency
When the disclosures began, the president of IMC said the revelations were only the first step in increased transparency, and that more companies were expected to disclose payments in the coming years. However, since that time, there has not been an increase in the amount of information disclosed nor in the number of companies participating.
In fact, two companies have stopped disclosing information altogether so now only eight companies out of the 48 that belong to IMC make even these minimum disclosures. Another company has not disclosed payments since 2021. The IMC website still lists 10 participating companies.
The disclosures are not centrally collected by IMC; anyone interested has to hunt around on the individual companies’ websites to find the reports. Of course, there are no penalties for failing to disclose because it’s voluntary.
What do we know from the information that has been disclosed? Over seven years (2016-2022) the 10 disclosing companies gave over $236 million to doctors and almost $213 million to organizations.
Which doctors and organizations have received these payments, what have they done to earn the money? We don’t know, because the disclosures don’t name names or give the specific purpose of the payments. And since names are withheld, the amounts given to individual doctors or organizations are also not available.
Transparency in other countries
In asking for the disclosure of so little information, IMC is unique among pharmaceutical industry associations in high-income countries. Disclosure systems in Australia, most European countries, Japan, New Zealand and the United Kingdom are run by their respective industry associations. In some cases, they are still voluntary and there are also weaknesses in what they reveal — for example individual doctors can opt out of being named.
But they all also require that companies provide far more information than IMC does. The European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations requires all member companies to disclose the names of professionals and organizations that have received payments or other transfers of value from them. They have to disclose the total amounts of value transferred by type of activity such as grants, consultancy fees, travel payments and registration fees to attend a medical education congress.
These disclosures can tell us a lot about how companies and health-care professionals interact. In the four years up to September 2015, 42 Australia-based companies sponsored 116,845 events for health professionals, on average 608 per week with 30 attendees per event. The median cost per event was $263 and over 90 per cent included food and beverages.
France, Denmark, Greece, Romania, Latvia, Italy, South Korea and especially the United States with its Physician Payments Sunshine Act go even further and have legislation making reporting a legal requirement.
The U.S. Sunshine Act mandates that pharmaceutical and medical device companies report gifts or any other transfer of value of US$10 or greater to physicians and teaching hospitals. The types of payments that need to be reported include consulting fees, honoraria, gifts, entertainment, food and beverages, travel and lodging, education, research, charitable contributions, royalties or licenses, ownership or investment interests, speakers’ fees and grants.
All of this information is publicly available in the Open Payments database maintained by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
A key feature of the Open Payments database is the requirement for companies to name the product(s) that their payments are tied to. This feature has allowed researchers to examine links between doctors’ payments and prescribing. As a result, we know that a $20 meal — not much more than the price of a Quarter Pounder, fries and a Coke at McDonalds — is enough to increase prescribing of the drug(s) made by the company providing the meal.
Ontario was poised to go even further than the Sunshine Act. Before the 2019 election, the government was finalizing regulations for Bill 160, which would have required that all drug and device manufacturers that provided a “transfer of value” to individual health-care practitioners and health-care organizations, including patient groups, report those transfers to a public registry. The election of a Progressive Conservative government killed that initiative.
Canadians deserve more transparency about pharma companies’ payments to health-care providers. Multiple studies, including one that I participated in, have looked at what happens when doctors take payments from drug companies. Their prescribing almost never improves. It either stays the same or, more worrisome, it gets worse. Canadians need to know what Big Pharma is paying to whom, since these payments may not be to the benefit of patients.
Joel Lexchin, Professor Emeritus of Health Policy and Management, York University, Canada
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Canada should provide Indigenous languages with constitutional protection
Thursday, 07 March 2024 02:34 Written by theconversation 
Di Rao, University of Waterloo
Funding for the Canadian government’s legislation supporting Indigenous languages is set to expire in 2024, and so far, there has been no serious mention of extending or renewing the funding in Parliament.
In 2019, the federal government passed Bill C-91, An Act respecting Indigenous languages, which aimed to revitalize and strengthen Indigenous languages in Canada and recognize their historic oppression. The government promised to allocate $334 million over a five-year pay period.
As we approach the end of that funding period, doubts and pessimism surrounding the legislation’s efficacy continue to abound. And the lack of concrete constitutional guarantees, community credibility and long-term funding has rendered the government’s efforts largely ineffective.
Legislation faces criticisms
Bill C-91 was developed by the Department of Canadian Heritage in collaboration with the Assembly of First Nations, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (ITK) and the Métis Nation of Canada.
The purpose of the legislation was to affirm Indigenous Peoples’ rights through language preservation, recognized by section 35 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. However, it has faced criticism from the beginning.
The ITK labelled the bill “colonial,” saying it was largely unreliable with no mechanism to guarantee the allocation of funding by the federal government.
The organization withdrew from collaborating on the legislation, and ITK president Natan Obed said: “the absence of any Inuit-specific content suggests this bill is, yet another legislative initiative developed behind closed doors by a colonial system and then imposed on Inuit.”
Experts have also criticized the legislation for not clearly outlining Indigenous language rights. Despite promoting the revitalization of Indigenous languages through community consultation, Bill C-91 lacks substantive guidelines on how to conduct Indigenous consultations for improving language initiative programs in Canada.
As a consequence, the legislation remains largely performative, and serves more to reconcile settler guilt and complicity for past linguistic oppression of Indigenous people, rather than create any substantive programs for Indigenous language revitalization.
Inadequate funding
Garry Anaquod from the Saskatchewan Indigenous Culture Centre, said that even though Indigenous language programs are better funded than in past years, it is still “never quite enough.” Anaquod argues that in order to revitalize Indigenous languages, funding needs to cover the wages of Indigenous language teachers, the production of Indigenous dictionaries and the extension of Indigenous immersion programs across Canada.
The 2017-2019 Indigenous Languages legislation promised to allocate 89.9 million dollars. By comparison, Bill C-91’s 334 million dollars certainly seems like a step up.
Even so, funding remains scarce and insufficient for wide-scale Indigenous language revitalization. Indigenous language programs across Canada still report experiencing financial undercuts and institutional barriers when it comes to applying for government funding.
Language Initiative Programs are community programs, advocacy groups and non-profit organizations devoted to strengthening Indigenous languages in Canada. Currently, there are 33 prominent programs in Canada listed by the Foundation of Endangered Languages Canada.
Examples include The Blackfeet Community College which provides access to educational programs, resources and skills training alongside the promotion and practice of Blackfeet culture and language. Another one is the Gwich’in Social and Cultural Institute which holds annual language immersion programs to teach the Gwich'in language while providing training for traditional skills such as hunting, fishing, medicine and survival.
Online software such as Algonquian Linguistic Atlas provides a linguistic atlas of Algonquin languages in Canada. The above mentioned Language Initiative Programs are all prospective candidates for Bill C-91’s funding parameters.
Overcoming institutional barriers
In addition to insufficient funding, the legislation provides the government with a greater say than Indigenous communities when it comes to allocating money. Funding must be approved by the Ministry of Canadian Heritage and Multiculturalism.
Funding provided through Bill C-91 is on an application basis and must be approved by the Department of Canadian Heritage. While funding is conjointly reviewed alongside The Office of the Commissioner of Indigenous Languages (an independent commission which aims to support Indigenous languages initiatives), the Government of Canada retains a heavy onus on how much and how long funding will sustain these language initiatives.
This can possibly lead to an asymmetrical version of language reconciliation as Indigenous organizations must reconcile themselves to the Crown’s power to obtain funding for the desired language program. The current government funding regime must be scrutinized as practical and bureaucratic constraints limit program output and mute the redistribution of financial instruments to support Indigenous languages and heritage.
Future Indigenous language legislation must remove such barriers when distributing funding for language program initiatives. The government must work with Indigenous community leaders and language organizations on an equal footing to determine how and where money is allocated.
While the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms has traditionally protected language rights in Canada, it has been drawn to favour official languages English and French. Indigenous languages have been relegated to receiving piecemeal support from small grant programs and excluded from receiving similar constitutional protections.
Since the Charter was implemented in 1982, it has gone through several revisions. Granting Indigenous languages constitutional protections under section 25 of the Charter may be a starting point. That could provide a strong legal foundation to provide meaningful support that can preserve and revitalize Indigenous languages.
Di Rao, PhD Student, Political Science, University of Waterloo
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Four arrested as severed body parts of man and woman are discovered in NewYork park
Thursday, 07 March 2024 02:21 Written by lindaikejisblog
Four people have been arrested after severed body parts of a man and woman were found scattered on Long Island, New York last week, as authorities keep finding more remains. Police believe the newly-discovered remains belong to the same two people whose body parts were uncovered on February 29 in Southards Pond Park in Babylon, the police statement said. The first body part was found Thursday morning by a girl walking to school with a group of friends on Siegal Boulevard which is on the east side of Southside Park in Babylon, Suffolk County. The girl on her way to school called her dad after spotting a dismembered left arm in the bushes. Her father went to the scene, then called the police to report the discovery. On Monday night, battering ram-wielding officers busted through the front door of one of the units on Railroad Ave sometime around 10:30 p.m. “They had bashed in the door, and there were a bunch of people standing inside the house, cops talking to my neighbors. They had already taken some people away.”
Police raided a home on Railroad Avenue in Amityville late Monday evening, March 4, and even though the police didn’t find any human remains at the home, they found more dismembered limbs hidden in Bethpage State Park and miles away in a wooded area of West Babylon, the Suffolk County Police Department said in a statement Tuesday, March 5.
Investigators haven’t publicly identified the victims, but said in the release that the assortment of limbs belong to a 59-year-old woman and a 53-year-old man, both of whom lived at the same address in the city of Yonkers in Westchester County.
“Based on the investigation, this appears to be an isolated incident with no threat to the public,” the release added. “The investigation is continuing. “
Officers in charge refused to mention a possible motive for the killings but said they are looking into whether the murders were linked to a possible love triangle.
“There were detectives and police going into my neighbor’s house, so I came over to see what was happening,” a neigbor told the NY post.
“Cops were here all night,” she told The Post. “I watched as long as I could stay awake, and when I woke up in the morning, they were all still here.
“One of them finally told me what they were looking for [and] what this was about,” she said. “I was terrified. I just stopped asking questions.”
Police were still searching the property as at Tuesday afternoon.
Officers then swept the area and more limbs and two unattached heads were found.
School principal and teacher wife accused of having threesome with underage female student
Thursday, 07 March 2024 02:15 Written by lindaikejisblog A school principal and his wife, who is a teacher, stand accused of having a threesome with a teenage girl they allegedly abused. Authorities in Oregon, United States, claim the girl was molested by David Alan Wakefield, 60, and Rachel Jean Wakefield, 54. The pair are now facing over 30 charges between them. The former Christian school principal and his wife, also a teacher, were accused of seducing the unnamed individual. Officers believe other students could have been involved with the married couple over a period of four years. Clackamas County Sherriff's office confirmed Mr Wakefield faces 20 charges while Ms Wakefield faces 10. The girl, who was 14 at the time of the alleged abuse, claims David had been an athletic director at Damascus Christian School while Rachel served as a substitute teacher at the time. The couple has not admitted to anything, with their lawyer Zach Stern releasing a statement and confirming the couple denied the charges. He said: "Dave and Rachel Wakefield have been valued members of the Clackamas County community for their lives. "They deny the charges and look forward to the day when the truth comes out." A Facebook post from the Damascus Christian school confirmed they are "heartbroken" by the charges. It read: "Although this couple have not been connected to the church or school for some time, Damascus Community Church and Christian School still take these reports very seriously and the safety of our students and staff is a top priority. "If requested, we will fully cooperate with law enforcement and the courts during this process. If you have any additional information regarding these charges or other allegations, we encourage you to contact the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office directly." The couple were arrested on Wednesday, February 28, and were booked at Clackamas County Jail. They posted bail of $100,000 (£78,000) and were freed.
Popular News
State of Georgia using extreme legal measures to quell ‘Cop City’ dissenters
Tuesday, 05 March 2024 05:07 Written by theconversationAteqah Khaki, The Conversation and Vinita Srivastava, The Conversation
Earlier this week, nearly five dozen people appeared in a courtroom near Atlanta to answer criminal racketeering and domestic terrorism charges brought against them by the state. The charges are related to what’s commonly known as “Cop City,” a $90-million paramilitary police and firefighter training facility planned for 85 acres of forest near Atlanta.
The Atlanta Police Association saw a need for such a facility at the start of the 2020 Black Lives Matter uprisings and started to fund raise. Many corporations have contributed to the plans for a world-class police training facility.
Georgia prosecutors are calling the demonstrators “militant anarchists.” But many of those charged say they were simply attending a rally or a concert in support of the Stop Cop City movement.
The protesters, their lawyers and their supporters, who rallied outside the court this week, say the government is using heavy-handed tactics to silence the movement. The RICO charges brought against the demonstrators essentially accuse them of being part of organized crime and carry a potential sentence of five to 20 years in prison.
Legal experts worry about the type of precedent this might set for our right to protest. It’s a case a lot of people are following nationally and internationally, for that reason.
In this week’s Don’t Call Me Resilient episode, we speak with one of the leaders of the Stop Cop City movement. Kamau Franklin is a long-time community organizer and the founder of Community Movement Builders. He is also a lawyer — and was an attorney for 10 years in New York with his own practice in criminal, civil rights and transactional law. He now lives in Atlanta.
Also joining us is Zohra Ahmed, assistant professor of law at the University of Georgia. A former public defender in New York, she, too, has been watching this case closely.
“In 2020 when people were talking about…defunding the police …the state…instead of doing any of that, decided to double down here in Atlanta and bring forth the idea…of a Cop City, a large scale militarized police base meant to learn tactics and strategies on urban warfare, crowd control, civil disbursement which was meant to move against community organizers and activists. The idea of Cop City is that it’s not only going to train the police in Atlanta, but it’s going to train police across the state and across the country and have international connections…so that different policing agencies are learning similar tactics and strategies and exchanging ideas on how to suppress. - Kamau Franklin
Read more in The Conversation
Resources
Disarm, Defund, Dismantle: Police Abolition in Canada, edited by Shiri Pasternak, Kevin Walby and Abby Stadnyk
Practicing New Worlds: Abolition and Emergent Strategies, by Andrea J. Ritchie
"The Fight Against Cop City” (Dissent Magazine)
“How Georgia Indicted a Movement” (The Nation by Zohra Ahmed and Elizabeth Taxel)
The Companies and Foundations behind Cop City (American Friends Service Committee)
“Georgia State police return home after two-week Israeli training” (The Jerusalem Post)
Listen and follow
You can listen to or follow Don’t Call Me Resilient on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen to your favourite podcasts.
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., including any ideas for future episodes. Join The Conversation on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok and use #DontCallMeResilient.
Ateqah Khaki, Associate Producer, Don't Call Me Resilient, The Conversation and Vinita Srivastava, Host + Producer, Don't Call Me Resilient, The Conversation
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
10 reasons why Canadians are still dissatisfied with the economy, despite the upswing
Tuesday, 05 March 2024 05:00 Written by theconversation 
Anup Srivastava, University of Calgary; Felipe Bastos Gurgel Silva, University of Missouri-Columbia; Luminita Enache, University of Calgary, and Manuela Dantas, California State University, Northridge
The COVID-19 pandemic is no longer a global emergency, Canada’s GDP outperformed expectations in 2023, the economy seems to be heading for soft landing after a period of stagnation, inflation is winding down and unemployment has decreased to 5.7 per cent in January 2024 — close to pre-pandemic levels.
Despite these positive economic indicators, recent surveys suggest Canadians are dissatisfied with the direction of the economy. An overwhelming 84 per cent of Canadians believe the country is already in a recession, with 73 per cent anticipating one within the next year. Young people, in particular, are fearful of the future.
This discrepancy prompts the question: Why are Canadians’ sentiments so at odds with economic indicators? As economists, we have identified several reasons that explain why this gap exists.
1. Growing socio-economic divide
Income and wealth inequality are both growing at an alarming rate in Canada. The wealthiest 20 per cent now account for more than two-thirds of net worth, compared to the 2.7 per cent held by the bottom 40 per cent.
The top 20 per cent accounted for 40.3 per cent of net disposable income in 2023, while the bottom 20 per cent accounted for just 6.1 per cent. The top one per cent of earners, meanwhile, have grown even richer.
In contrast, the number of people in the low-income cutoff group keeps increasing. Net saving for the lowest income households decreased by 9.8 per cent in the third quarter of 2023 compared to the previous year.
2. Debt servicing burdens
Since the onset of the pandemic, net savings have deteriorated for all except those with the highest incomes, as renters and lower-income families tend to spend more than they make on necessities.
Canada currently holds the highest amount of household debt as a percentage of disposable income among all G7 countries. With the current high interest rates, the burden of interest payments for households as a percentage of disposable income recently reached its highest level in 12 years.
3. Interest rates
The average disposable income for the top 20 per cent of Canadians is increasing at the fastest rate of any income group. This means those with financial assets benefit from rising interest rates, while those at the bottom suffer from the burden of greater debt service.
4. Housing costs
Skyrocketing housing prices have outpaced income and mortgage rates have gone up dramatically, resulting in the lowest home affordability index in the last 40 years. The dream of home ownership seems more distant than ever for many.
5. Impact of inflation
Although Canada’s inflation rate shows signs of slowing, it still remains fairly high. It reached a 39-year high of 8.1 per cent in June 2022, hitting those in low-income groups the hardest.
6. Growing corporate concentration
Canada’s most concentrated industries have become even less competitive, and the number of highly concentrated industries is growing. Profit margins and markups of already profitable firms is increasing.
This trend negatively impacts consumers and broader society by reducing industry dynamism, resulting in fewer choices and higher costs.
We are seeing this currently play out in the grocery sector, where a lack of competition has resulted in higher food prices. This is the same reason why airplane tickets and cell phone bills remain higher in Canada than in comparable countries.
7. Mental health struggles
The proportion of people reporting very good or excellent mental health decreased to 59 per cent in 2021 from 72.4 per cent in 2015.
The prevalence of some chronic conditions, including high blood pressure, heart disease and obesity, increased from 2015 to 2021 as well.
Financial anxiety, pandemic-related stress and other issues are making Canadians feel angrier in general, which affects their outlook on life and the economy.
8. Long COVID
While the impacts of the pandemic are slowing down, long COVID is still a significant issue for many. One in nine people who contracted COVID-19 suffer from symptoms, including brain fog, cognitive impairment, fatigue and shortness of breath, that affect their health and well-being.
It is shortsighted to assume we have all recovered equally from the pandemic when some people are still being affected by it.
9. Higher education funding cuts
College education has historically served as “the great equalizer” and an instrument of intergenerational social mobility, but in the face of declining government support for post-secondary education, this may no longer be the case.
The financial situation of many colleges is increasingly precarious, meaning post-secondary institutions could end up raising tuition fees or rely more on international students to meet their budgets, both of which affect domestic students.
Students from the lowest economic stratum will increasingly find it difficult to trade the security of a job right out of high school for the high cost of a university or college degree. This, in turn, will reduce their chances to move up in the socio-ecnomic ladder.
10. Youth struggles
Youth across North America are more anxious about their future, concerned about their mental health and educational prospects and more disillusioned by politicians than previous generations.
Despite being resilient and pragmatic, Gen Z are pessimistic about the world around them and the future ahead. They worry about their financial security, with high costs of rent and groceries.
A 2023 survey from the Globe and Mail found that nearly three-quarters of Gen Z disagreed that, as a generation, they would surpass their parents. Fifty-six per cent feel afraid, sad, anxious and powerless about climate changes, while 78 per cent reported that climate anxiety is impacting their mental health.
Navigating the disconnect
While more than 40 per cent of Canadians hope for positive outcomes in 2024 and the macroeconomic indicators show prosperity, there exist numerous factors causing dissatisfaction in large swathes of the population in Canada.
Managers, business leaders, policymakers, government officials and economists should all care deeply about this issue. Over-relying on aggregate indicators — like macroeconomic prosperity — while making strategic, investment, hiring and financing decisions could lead to unexpected outcomes and challenges.
For example, a real estate company might decide to invest in a large, low-end housing project based on economic numbers. While the initial logic may seem sound — if the economy is doing well, that there should be a huge demand for housing — issues might arise if the target population is financially strained and unable to afford the housing.
A comprehensive understanding of the mindset, risk preferences and motivating factors of key customers, stakeholders, investors, employees and voters is essential for making well-informed decisions that benefit all parties involved.
Anup Srivastava, Professor and Canada Research Chair, Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary; Felipe Bastos Gurgel Silva, Assistant Professor, Trulaske College of Business, University of Missouri-Columbia; Luminita Enache, Associate Professor of Accounting and Future Fund Fellow, Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary, and Manuela Dantas, Assistant Professor, Department of Accounting, California State University, Northridge
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
US Supreme Court Strikes Out Case Against Trump’s Presidential Bid
Tuesday, 05 March 2024 04:39 Written by OASESNEWS
The ruling arrives at a critical juncture, on the eve of the Super Tuesday primaries, which are anticipated to solidify Trump’s lead in the race for the Republican nomination.
Doug Ford’s political judicial appointments: Good or bad for justice and democracy?
Wednesday, 28 February 2024 05:04 Written by theconversationOntario Premier Doug Ford has defended appointing two former senior political staffers to a committee that helps select provincial judges, saying he would not appoint a Liberal or New Democrat.
The controversy surrounds Ford’s intention to appoint “like-minded people” to Ontario’s Judicial Appointments Advisory Committee (JAAC), which submits a shortlist of candidates to the Attorney General of Ontario for appointment as judges.
It is composed of seven lay members from the public (appointed by the government), three provincial court judges (appointed by the judiciary) and three lawyers from legal organizations (selected from lists submitted to the Attorney General).
Commentators expressed concern that patronage appointments to the JAAC could politicize the appointment system. Ford says he would seek to appoint “tough judges, tough JPs [Justices of the Peace] to keep guys in jail,” adding, “that’s part of democracy. You voted a party in.”
The Federation of Ontario Law Associations said Ford’s comments “reflect a juvenile understanding of the role of an independent judiciary.” Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie warned of a “U.S.-style politicization of our courts” and NDP Leader Marit Stiles also warned of “politicization of the judiciary.”
Do these kinds of appointments add a welcome dose of democratic input into the judicial process (by the appointment of judges who reflect the elected government’s worldview)? Or do they signify unhealthy politicization of the judiciary? Both perspectives have some merit.
Judicial legitimacy
The judiciary relies on public legitimacy to undergird its decisions. A number of those decisions involve a degree of discretion and are not simply mechanical applications of the law, particularly in criminal law.
If the judiciary strays too far from the general currents of public opinion when making such decisions, confidence in the judiciary could be eroded. Therefore, appointing individuals to the JAAC who may have links to the party in power and are sympathetic to their politics isn’t necessarily troublesome.
If a new government appoints judges with a somewhat different worldview than the previous government, that is acceptable and even healthy — so long as the process emphasizes legal knowledge and fairness, and not partisan considerations.
Part of my concern, though, is that Ford’s comments about having high-profile Conservatives on the JAAC and appointing “like-minded judges” gives the impression that candidates affiliated with the provincial Progressive Conservatives may be favoured in the appointments process.
Injecting partisan considerations into the appointment process has a number of negative consequences. The appointment system can be viewed as unfair and high-quality candidates may be overlooked or even discouraged from applying.
While appointees linked to the party of appointment can be excellent judges, research suggests that partisans tend to make up a higher portion of appointees perceived to be of lower quality. Making partisanship a priority may reduce the potential to diversify the bench. This, in turn, could reduce how representative of broader society the bench is, and limit the range of experiences that breathe life into the law.
These problems have been pointed out in regard to patronage in judicial appointments by the federal Liberals and Conservatives, along with the fact that they rarely appoint individuals linked to opposition parties.
Even if the Ford government’s goal is not to appoint party affiliates, but simply individuals perceived to be “tough on crime,” his failure to emphasize that those judges would still be required to apply the law fairly and impartially can undermine faith in the judicial process.
Assessing the impact
Despite the serious reservations identified above, I remain less concerned than some others about how this will play out. Judges and lawyers compose nearly half of the JAAC, making it unlikely that unworthy candidates will be shortlisted for appointment.
Moreover, judicial independence does not require that the selection process be independent from government. Having a selection committee composed of members of the legal community and lay people is a positive development, as they can help emphasize quality and provide some buffer against a politicized appointment process.
However, the core of judicial independence requires governments not being able to punish or reward judges for their decisions once on the bench — something that is robustly protected in Ontario. Trial court decisions can also be appealed to a higher court and judges themselves are subject to an independent complaints system.
Finally, the Ford government will likely find that choosing judges who decide cases consistently in a certain direction is a difficult task. Not only do judges have guarantees of independence, but once appointed, professional norms tend to lead judges to impartially apply the law (as best they understand it) to the facts.
Often, the requirements of legislation or precedents will require a decision that governments (or even the judges) do not like. In cases where judges have some latitude (excluding evidence, bail, sentencing, etc.), research on judicial behaviour below the Supreme Court-level suggests that one cannot assume former prosecutors or Conservative appointees are going to be “tough on crime” as envisioned by Premier Ford.
Overall, if there is some incremental change in outcomes from newly-appointed judges in line with shifts in the electorate, that is a healthy feature of our liberal democratic system of government. This holds true provided the judges were recommended by a selection committee; there is a strong system of judicial independence and judicial decisions are constrained by fair and impartial application of the law. My guess is that progressives and conservatives would both agree with that, depending on who is in power at the time.
Troy Riddell, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Political Science, University of Guelph
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
