May 2000 Fraser Forum: Think Tank Business is Booming
One of the more bizarre initiatives to come out of the federal government since the last Royal Commission is the Policy Research Initiative (PRI) launched in July 1996 by the Clerk of the Privy Council and Secretary to the Cabinet. The federal government decided that "to strengthen policy capacity has become a central issue in Canada's federal public service." Two challenges were identified: a complex "policy environment" that requires "greater co-operation and horizontality," and "policy development [that] has become more reactive than proactive, resulting in a weakened capacity to deal with longer-term strategic and horizontal issues." To meet these challenges, the government launched a glossy new magazine called Isuma, which has been variously described as a cross between Vanity Fair and the Harvard Business Review, and GQ or Vogue and Architectural Digest. This initiative is supported by 31 federal partners from which they receive funding and "in-kind contributions from existing budgets."
On the surface one might think that the goals are laudable. What is wrong with encouraging research? What could be better than having cooperation between various think tanks and government?
The problem lies in the unstated ramifications of such partnerships and in the misallocation of what is needed most for the country. As Leslie Pal notes in his book Interests of State, governments launch initiatives so they can pursue their policies: "organizations that demand more government intervention can become allies of state managers whose own interest lies in program expansion."1 Environmental groups, women's groups, and even citizens' groups obtain funding from government because it gives credibility and force to government's own policy preferences. The same can be said for so called "independent" think tanks whose primary budget comes from government contracts.
Public policy research is conducted broadly on three levels in Canada. There are private companies who do research in-house or contract out work to other companies in the form of data analysis and collection, such as polling and survey companies. There are various government departments and agencies that compile data as well as provide policy initiatives, such as Statistics Canada. In addition, most government departments, especially the Treasury Board and the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), conduct public policy research. Then there are private research institutions, such as The Fraser Institute, that obtain funding from a variety of sources, none of them government, to conduct policy research.
As a result of research conducted by The Fraser Institute, C.D. Howe Institute, and others, public attention has been directed towards pressing national problems such as the debt and deficit, unfunded liabilities, and bracket creep, among others. One consequence of this attention has been a reduced public sector. In turn, this has resulted in an unintended consequence: several former government researchers have set up think tanks. These disenfranchised government researchers have created a new hybrid public policy research institution that seeks government funding as its primary source of income.
In the last few years, think tank activity has mushroomed, and no where has the growth been more apparent than in Ottawa. According to Herman Bakvis, the author of one of the last big Royal Commissions who now studies the "think tank sector," there are about 38 independent (or at least non-university affiliated) think tanks in the country,2 sixteen of which (or 42 percent) are based in Ottawa. Of these based in Ottawa, 30 percent receive 85 to 95 percent of their funding from government. Only 10 percent receive no government funding. The picture is much different for think tanks operating outside of Ottawa, where 50 percent receive no government funding.
It is "think-tank alley," or those inside-Ottawa think tanks, to whom the Policy Research Initiative is directed. And the researchers are there, and seeking increased government funding through initiatives such as the PRI. Indeed, at a recent conference of think tanks that I attended, on more than one occasion participants lamented the Chrétien government's failure to appoint Royal Commissions during its mandate.
At another recent conference, one representative of the PRI stated that the most pressing national issue was that think tanks in Canada were not co-operating with each other. The absurdity of such as statement could not be more patently obvious: national unity, the fall of the dollar, the national and provincial debts, the brain drain - this individual considered all these less important than think tank co-operation! For that wise gem the federal government and its agencies have poured nearly $3 million annually into the PRI - and will continue to do so because their self-described "independent think tanks" are churning out studies to justify their existence. As well, these "think tanks" benefit directly from the Isuma publication, and PRI-sponsored conferences as outlets for their work.
Notes
- 1Leslie A. Pal, Interest of State: The Politics of Language, Multiculturalism and Feminism in Canada, Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1993, p. 43.
- 2Herman Bakvis, "Policy Capacity in the Era of Virtual Government: The Role of Think Tanks." Paper presented to the Think Link Conference, March 25, 2000, Calgary.
info@fraserinstitute.ca
4th Floor, 1770 Burrard Street, Vancouver, BC, Canada, V6J 3G7
Tel: (604) 688-0221 Fax: (604) 688-8539 Book Orders: 1-800-665-3558 ext. 580
You can contact us at the above email address for any comments or information requests. Please report any dead links or technical problems.