Beyond The Commons

Aaron Wherry covers all the goings-on in and around Parliament Hill. Follow Aaron on Twitter: @aaronwherry

Categories: Beyond The Commons, Capital Read

BTC: Hypothetically speaking

by Aaron Wherry on Thursday, September 18, 2008 11:00am - 35 Comments

Would Gerry Ritz still be the Agriculture Minister if he’d been caught joking about 17 Canadians dying in a bus crash? What about if it was the deaths of 17 Canadian soldiers? Or if the deaths had simply been more centralized around a single place (a la Walkerton)? If the answer is no to any of those scenarios, what makes this situation different?

Later… What’s remarkable about this is not that it’s a controversy, but that it’s so minor, or misdirected, a controversy. And how difficult that is to reconcile with the facts.

Let’s review. Seventeen Canadians have died. A leading medical journal has cited government negligence. And the government minister leading the response has been caught joking about the situation.

That third part is actually the least significant. If you apply the first two points to any number of other scenarios, the consequences are already very different. The reaction is very different.

In this case, though, the deaths are abstract. They aren’t focused on a single event. The names of the dead have not been widely reported. The details of their demise are not known. There are no pictures to go with the story. There is no single place or town to talk about or use as a stand-in for wherever you live.

More people have died as a result of this outbreak than when Walkerton became synonymous with bacterial tragedy. But whereas Walkerton remains a sensitive matter and a mark of shame—accepted as symbolic of so much—this story had all but disappeared from the campaign until Canadian Press broke news of Ritz’s comments. The seventeenth death was confirmed just two days ago, but it was mentioned only in passing, attached to no name or personal story.

Again, apply the basic facts to any number of other situations and almost everything about this story changes. And while you can explain, as above, why that is how it is, it’s difficult to explain why that’s at all just.

Tags: Election Watch, Gerry Ritz

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RyanD

Style are you suggesting Ti Guy is guilty of a non sequitur, a false equivalency or a logical fallacy? I don’t see option1 there. I guess you could argue for false equivalency (I wouldn’t) but I’d need to hear more specifics. As for logical falacies- which one? I don’t really see any. Not sure I see the irony but explain further and I suppose I could be persuaded (I like to keep an open mind ya know).
Style

Well, he’s arguing that believing that a civil servant leaked the jokes for a particular purpose is equivalent to believing in UFOs. Suggesting he thinks it’s unreasonable to use the information we have to draw a deduction about what this motive would be. Or there is no connection between the two statements.
http://pacificgazette.blogspot.com RossK

<bjwl, way upthread said:

“But this case is selective outrage. The comments were so deplorable the people who were offended by them waited weeks before saying anything and than decided to use them as a wedge issue in order to influence an election.”

Perhaps.

But…..

Given that things like the shift to self-regulation at meat processing plants is a policy shift that was made willfully and with forethought by the Harper Government, perhaps the time has also come to start unleashing a little outrage that is not nearly so selective.

OK?

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RyanD

Style- I guess I see what you are saying but I think there is some reasonable connection to his statements. First we can’t draw a deduction about UFOs or public servents any such reasoning would be inductive not deductive. Second I think he was suggesting that since we have no idea who leaked the info we have no idea of their motives and can only speculate. This is comparable to UFOs which we have little or no direct observation of thus all our knowledge is purely speculative and consequently unreliable. In both cases we lack anything beyond guess work (possible very good guesses mind you) and thus have no real knowledge.
Style

Thanks RyanD, but this is deductive reasoning, using premises to argue to a conclusion that is no more general than the premises. I am not arguing from a specific instance that civil servants are of a particular type. I take the premise that some civil servants may have motivations other than the public interest. But then combine that premise with other direct observations to suggest a specific conclusion: it is possible that a CFIA employee leaked these jokes to protect the current working practices of the CFIA, even though the CMAJ suggests that moving toward greater industry involvement in regulation could improve public safety.

Motives are unobservable, but we send people to prison based on conclusions about their motives. I think Ti-Guy was just making a funny about how ridiculous it is to enquire into motives – it’s like talking about UFOs! I’m not sure how far to push the motives argument, but it seems like an interesting enough way to refocus on an actual conflict between the government and a union over a policy decision that has consequences for public health. And where the union may not have the better side of the argument.
RyanD

Style- fair enough on your last point but unfortunately it still isn’t a deductive argument. In deductive reasoning the conclusion is a logical requirement of the premises (ex. If I am human and all humans have a heart then it is logically unavoidable that I must have a heart). This is not the case with your argument. You are using Inference to the best explanation (as far as I can tell) which is a type of inductive reasoning. You see an effect (leaked information) you see that the most likely cause is a disgruntled civil servant thus you infer that effect a was likely the result of cause b. And all of this matters very little to the debate at hand but it is interesting to me anyhow.
http://pacificgazette.blogspot.com RossK

Style, above said:

“…even though the CMAJ suggests that moving toward greater industry involvement in regulation could improve public safety…..

Very nicely played, indeed. Especially if one is playing a game called ‘taken out of context’.

However, those not interested in playing games may wish instead to read the CMAJ’s entire editorial here (pdf).

Or, at the very least, they could read the following complete and consecutive paragraphs from the editorial to get a full measure of the CMAJ’s POV regarding the changes to public health policy instituted by the government of Stephen Harper that have nothing to do with the arguments of ‘unions’.

“The listeriosis epidemic is a timely reminder that the Harper government has reversed much of the progress that previous governments made on governing for public health. Following the 2003 SARS epidemic and subsequent recommendations of the National Advisory Committee on SARS and Public Health, the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) was created and given its own minister in government — a direct line to the prime minister. But in 2006, among Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s first acts was to eliminate the PHAC minister and public health’s seat at the Cabinet table. His government also left the chief medical officer of health within the ranks of the civil service, working under the minister of health. In so doing, it left our country without a national independent voice to speak out on public health issues, including providing visible leadership during this crisis.

And listeriosis may be the least of it. The same November 2007 Cabinet decision that handed self-inspection to the owners of meat plants did the same for operators of animal feed mills and cut back the avian influenza preparedness program. Yet bad animal feed led to the epidemic of bovine spongiform encephalitis (mad cow disease), and in an influenza pandemic tens of thousands of Canadians may die. Listeriosis pales in comparison. Overall, it would seem that, as a country, Canada is far less prepared now for epidemics than in the past.

Alternatively, of course, folks could just read the entirely in contexttitle of the Editorial which is, “Listeriosis is the least of it.”

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Style

Ryan, there are both deductive and inductive inferences. But “draw a deduction about” is a lousy phrase that I am happy to replace with “infer”. Thanks for your careful editing, I look forward to seeing your published edition of my comment. Could I suggest a moleskin jacket?
RyanD

For you Sir only the best! Moleskin it is! Ha ha ha! I do love to edit!
Style

RossK,

Although this editorial is harsher than the accompanying editorial I linked to, this one also notes that “self-inspection systems have worked very well in other countries”.

It then lists out several reasons the pilot project at Maple Leaf was a disaster:
- sampling procedure still not finalized
- national standards remain too low (these have been too low since 1998)
- left the Chief Medical Officer in the public service
- cancelled the independent Public Health Minister

So, two things that are Tory actions (not finalizing the sampling procedure and cancelling the PH Minister) and two more things that are a continuation of Liberal policy (particularly the lax standards). The editorial does not condemn self-monitoring and puts a lot of emphasis on the lousy standards. These two things interacted disastrously.