Do you "know the North?".

AuthorCirtwill, Charles
PositionThink Tank - Northern Policy Institute - Column

I give a lot of talks about what is going on in Northern Ontario. Those sessions require me to cite data, lots of data: demographic data, health data, education data, economic data, and more.

One of my favourite experiences is the quiet visit after the talk by some local expert. Often a subject expert or a local councillor or public servant. They almost always want to assure me that while they understand that the data I have just described applies to the region, or the district, or the province, it just doesn't apply to their community.

Things are different here, their situation is unique. If I just talk to them, they will be able to demonstrate that the numbers are wrong, that they (and sometimes only they) know what is really going on. I always try to take them up on the offer. Sometimes hard numbers collected locally do indeed demonstrate that there is a different local trend or a unique twist on a larger problem.

More often than not, however, the "evidence" supplied to demonstrate things are "different here" is about their cousin Bob, their neighbour Mary, or the local pharmacist and how they just were not able to make a go of things. Not data, but anecdotes (well, it actually is data, of a type, just not robust enough by itself to prove anything).

This is a very human thing, extrapolating our own experiences and assuming that the rest of the world, or just the people next door, look and act exactly the same way. In the realm of public policymaking this tendency gives rise to something called executive paternalism. Someone in a position of authority decides that the government should do something because what they have heard, and therefore what they know, suggests they should. This process is the bane of data-driven decision-making. We do things not because we know they will work, or have worked in the past, but because they sound good to someone with the authority to make them happen. The problem is we rarely look back to see if they were right.

We do this, our governments do this, not because we (or they) are bad people intent on pulling a fast one. We do it largely because we don't know any better. The data isn't readily available at the time the decision has to be made, or the data that is available isn't complete. In effect, we make the best decision we can with the information available. Unfortunately, as the saying goes, garbage in, garbage out. Sometimes the...

To continue reading

Request your trial

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT