As on other occasions e.g. the electoral reform plebiscite and the
School Closing plan, we have said that the P.E.I. government is giving a
bad name to its own consultations.
When you rush public consultations we ask: Are you implying that the issues at hand are not important or are you saying that the people’s knowledge and opinions are not important?
Or are you saying both of the above?
We say again: no government can afford to add to Islanders’ long-held
mistrust of government consultations.
To be fair: we have had some wonderful government-initiated
consultations, for example the Carver Commission on the land and the
original consultations (2015-16) on the Water Act. However this second
round on the Water Act is too rushed to allow people to delve into the
various sections of the proposed Act. The community needs reasonable
time for study of this new document: to appreciate the positive aspects
of the act and to identify and raise red flags about any loopholes.
We notice that the current government has a tendency to release a number game-changing policy documents within days of each other. The P.E.I. Energy Strategy and the final draft of consultants’ recommendations for a P.E.I. Climate Change Mitigation Strategy were made public on March 17, 2017, practically coinciding the release for Water Act draft.
Marie Burge,
for Cooper Institute
