Friday, May 4, 2018
EDITORIAL – There’s nothing new about ‘unintended consequences’: degrees of acceptable remiss
WEST SHORE VOICE NEWS EDITORIAL, by Mary P Brooke
There is absolutely nothing new about ‘unintended consequences’. Life has always been that way, as no one can ever foresee all the impacts and outcomes of their decisions.
That’s why a democratic society tries to wisely select elected leaders who — when the chips are down and things are in crisis — they can be trusted to make the best possible decisions with the information that is available. Every significant decision in life is made without all the information available.
Bold leadership is respected because a person or group has or will demonstrate the vision, background knowledge, and confidence (of both those who are affected and those who share the responsibility) to make tough decisions with the least negative impact overall.
So this trend to using the ‘unintended consequences’ buzz phrase is becoming a bit tiresome. When used to try and placate a populace or citizenry when things go wrong, the degree to which the ‘unintended consequences’ buzz line is used is often equivalent to the degree that inadequate forethought was put into whatever happened. We don’t hear a fallback to ‘unintended consequences’ when it’s a natural disaster (like a wild windstorm, a dangerous flood after heavy rains, or forest fire by lightning). We do hear a sort of mea culpa request for forgiveness when there’s some degree of realization that more could have in fact been done or foreseen ahead of the crisis — but that doesn’t always feel clean.
No one will ever get it 100% right. But if a politician or community leader spices their explanation with ‘unintended consequences’, it’s a clue they already realize there’s something else that should have been considered. A simple apology for a genuinely poor outcome (beyond their control, and simply seen as that) seems less disingenuous as “gee, now we see we could have done better”.
Let’s look at some of the biggies in the news lately: the awkward introduction of the BC Speculation Tax, and the promise to eliminate the MSP through implementation of the new Employer Health Tax (EHT). The backlash is not just political for obvious reasons. In the BC Speculation Tax debacle there is lack of fulsome thought about why and how people own property. And with the MSP shift to EHT some simple number crunching should have revealed that almost everyone will — for example — still pay for health taxation through the municipal and school district taxes that will increase.
Headshaker here is that the NDP government missed by a country mile the need to assuage the BC Liberals’ aversion to taxation on those who are financially successful. Had the BC Budget been unveiled with a straightforward method whereby within the income tax system everyone pays even the smallest amount for health care (say, even just a few bucks per year — and not requiring the completion of forms for exemption), they might be avoiding pushback from the anti-tax sector. To see that now does not qualify as not seeing unintended consequences — it shows a serious lack of political savvy, or at the very least an overconfident sense of political bravado — which is worse?
By comparison, where you’re not hearing any mea culpa is in the introduction of the new federal cannabis legislation. A great deal of work is being done federally, provincially and municipally to try and chase down all the bits that could go awry. The magnitude of the impact of cannabis regulation is so great that no one will likely dare admit later on to have not seen “unintended consequences”, because there certainly will be. There will be vehicle crashes as a result of TCH-impaired driving, youth under the legal age will still get their hands on the substance, and brain health impairment will be found years later in some users (especially those who start young … this is backed up by science).
The message here is to not fool ourselves about the complexities of moving forward in life. Nothing will be perfectly executed. But a modern educated society deserves better than politicians and governments who say ‘oops we’ll do better next time’. Leaving the price to be paid by those who’ve been shortchanged or harmed deserves more than a platitude.
Elected officials are expected to do their very best to get it right (or close to right) at the outset. In that sense, the trend of recent years for the federal government and notably this current BC NDP minority government to consult extensively is not a bad thing. Political ideology will still colour the final choices made, but if we can still count on some good measure of professional management in government, any serious red flags will likely be found before they are unleashed.
The BC government still has time to revise their speculation tax that has rankled many property owners, and to replace the Employer Health Tax with something less onerous on business, municipal taxpayers and school districts. That sure would take the steam out of opposition toward them come next provincial election and do most of the rest of us a financial favour.
This article was first published in the May 4, 2018 print/PDF edition of West Shore Voice News
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