Your oped (Jan 13, 2017) focuses on the Mexican border. But the greater danger is to the North. In Canada, since the defeat of the regressive Harper government in 2015, a series of sensible ideas have been implemented; ideas that I am sure the Trumpeters would not want to see waft across the border.
They include a number of steps to enhance the use of evidence to underpin government policies. For example, the Canadian Government has revived the Long Form Census; the information available tin the Form was essential for the establishment of good social policy on resolving social ills like poverty and unemployment and to provide statistical benchmarks.. The Conservative Government abandoned the Long Form in 2010 so there is a gap in overage which makes longitudinal analysis problematic.
A second sign of an evidence based focus is the announcement that very soon, there will be a Chief Science advisor to the Canadian Government. The person appointed will make sure that sound science is pumped in to the policy making process. In addition, bench level scientists are now allowed to speak directly to the media - a practice banned by the Harper administration as well as our won Bush appointees.
In due course, these sensible changes will be adopted in the United States; but not, I fear under a Trump administration.
Sent to New York Times
No comments:
Post a Comment