Transcript
Transcript: Understanding Deliberative Public Engagement
[00:00:00 Title page. Text on screen: What is Deliberative Public Engagement?]
[00:00:04 Dr. Margot Hurlbert appears full screen. Text on screen: Dr. Margot Hurlbert, Professor, Canada Research Chair, Tier I, Climate Change, Energy and Sustainable Policy.]
Dr. Margot Hurlbert: Hi, I'm Dr. Margot Hurlbert. I'm a Canada Research Chair in Climate Change, Energy and Sustainability.
[00:00:11 Split screen: Dr. Margot Hurlbert and title slide: Image of a field of ripe wheat overlaid by text. Text on slide: What is Deliberative Public Engagement? Canada School of Public Service; October 16, 2024; Margot Hurlbert, Professor and Canada Research Chair; Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy; University of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada.]
Dr. Margot Hurlbert: And I'm speaking today on: What is Deliberative Public Engagement.
[00:00:17 Split screen: Dr. Margot Hurlbert and title slide: Image of a field of ripe wheat overlaid by text. Text on slide: Land Acknowledgement; We are situated on Treaty 4 and Treaty 6 lands. These are the territories of the nêhiyawak (Cree), Anihšināpēk (Saulteaux), and Dakota, Lakota, and Nakoda, and are the homeland of the Métis. Today, these lands continue to be shared territory of many diverse peoples from near and far. We recognize the contribution that engaging in Reconciliation brings to our life as a campus community that is situated on these lands. Johnson-Shoyama is committed to making Reconciliation a part of all interactions amongst Indigenous and non-Indigenous students, staff, and faculty and with our neighbours off-campus.]
Dr. Margot Hurlbert: I want to acknowledge that I am on Treaty 4 and Treaty 6 territory in the traditional homeland of the Métis.
[00:00:23 Split screen: Dr. Margot Hurlbert and slide. Text on slide: Outline: What is Engagement and Why is it Needed? – in an era of polarization and distrust; Policy Framing; What is Engagement?; Social Learning; Why is Engagement needed?; How to Engage?]
Dr. Margot Hurlbert: I'm going to speak a little bit about what is engagement, why it is needed in this era of polarization and distrust. I'll speak a bit about policy framing; engagement; social learning; why engagement is needed; and how to engage.
[00:00:40 Split screen: Dr. Margot Hurlbert and slide. Text on slide as described.]
Dr. Margot Hurlbert: So, the problem we have to address today is this ongoing debate about whether policy problems should be addressed technocratically or whether they should be the subject of politicization, and public engagement. Sometimes you hear that word that we should make evidence-based policy decisions; sometimes it's based on technocratic decision making; so here we're going to talk a bit and think a bit today on politicization and problem solving.
[00:00:40 Text on slide as described above, plus: But politicization does not always lead to problem solving. Nor is it always necessary. We address the question: Under what circumstances should problems be politicized, and what is the effect of such politicization?]
Dr. Margot Hurlbert When is public participation needed, and when is it not necessary?
[00:01:18 Split screen: Dr. Margot Hurlbert and graphic slide. The slide shows a timeline, and colour coded lines leading from present day conditions to possible outcomes by characterizing development pathways. Text on slide: Complex Messy Polarized Problems; There is a rapidly narrowing window of opportunity to enable climate resilient development; Multiple interacting choices and actions can shift developmental pathways towards sustainability.]
Dr. Margot Hurlbert: So, my background is on climate change and technology and power production, so I've been fascinated on how we're going to address climate change. Many of my examples today come from that field and work that I've done with the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change, the WMO, about addressing the policy gap on getting our emissions to net zero.
[00:01:44 Dr. Margot Hurlbert appears full screen.]
Dr. Margot Hurlbert: So, my work started in Saskatchewan where I'm based, and back in 2005 when I started this work, climate change in rural Saskatchewan didn't engage people and farmers, particularly in discussion.
[00:02:00 Split screen: Dr. Margot Hurlbert and slide. Slide shows a table titled: Complex, messy, interdisciplinary policy problems.
Dr. Margot Hurlbert: So, policy framing is a crucial aspect of engaging with people on the policy problems that they're interested in. Drought and flood spoke to agricultural producers, but climate change did not. So, drought and flood are sub policy problems, connected policy problems to the bigger policy problem of adapting to climate change.
[00:02:27 Dr. Margot Hurlbert appears full screen.]
Dr. Margot Hurlbert: In another completely different area, nuclear technology, which is part, potentially, of the solution of power production to achieve net zero, has some very similar policy framing issues around, first of all, nuclear energy, but also radiation, and radiation exposure. So, breaking policy problems down into sub policy problems and engaging on, instead of the big complex policy problem all of the time, the sub policy problems is a way to think about public engagement in policy making.
[00:03:07 Split screen: Dr. Margot Hurlbert and slide. Slide shows a diagram of the Ladder of Participation, which consists of two curved ladders, joined in the middle. The top and bottom of each ladder are labelled as Quadrants 1 to 4. Quadrant 1: Moderately structured, Values or science uncertain; Quadrant 2: Structured problem, Technocratic policymaking; Quadrant 3: Moderately structured problem, Values or science uncertain; Quadrant 4: Unstructured problem, Messy, wicked problems.
Dr. Hurlbert circles Quadrant 2, then connects it to Quadrant 4.]
Dr. Margot Hurlbert: So, I came up with this split ladder of participation as a mechanism for thinking about how to engage with people. In the bottom right-hand corner are structured policy problems that don't have uncertainty in either people's value systems, or in the science. So, climate change has uncertainty in the science and people's values about how to adapt or to reduce emissions. So, it's the opposite of the structured policy problem, it's a complex, wicked problem in the top left-hand corner of this split ladder.
[00:03:48 Dr. Margot Hurlbert appears full screen.]
Dr. Margot Hurlbert: But structured problems like not using toxic chemicals, like DDT, those decisions have been made historically, they're in our regulations. There's no need to engage with people and revisit those structured decisions where the science is clear, and the values have been ascertained.
[00:04:09 Split screen: Dr. Margot Hurlbert and slide titled: Thinking theoretically about uncertainty, conflict and engagement. Slide shows a list and a vertical bar that goes from green at the top to red at the bottom. Text on slide from top: Citizen control, Delegated power, Partnership } Citizen Power; Placation, Consultation, Informing } Tokenism; Therapy, Manipulation } Nonparticipation; Arnstein's; Ladder of Participation (1969); Romanticizes participation.]
Dr. Margot Hurlbert: So, the split ladder is a build on from a very ancient 1969 Ladder of Participation of Arnstein, which romanticized participation where citizens should always be engaged, kind of in the old Greek sense of public engagement, of every decision made by the body politic being engaged with the public. And we know that's not the case. So, the 1969 ladder you're seeing, if there wasn't public participation, it was tended to be viewed as manipulation or therapy. But if there was participation, it was completely citizen's control.
[00:04:50 Split screen: Dr. Margot Hurlbert and slide. Text on slide: Building and maintaining trust follows the asymmetry principle; Kim et al. (2014); What is Community Engagement? Slide shows an arrow pointing upwards at a 45º angle, while another line forms steps upwards, then across to become a dashed line, then dropping straight back down.]
Dr. Margot Hurlbert: So, the split ladder tries to correct this Arnstein's ladder, that's been used a lot in thought around public participation and recognize that we build people's trust. But if we do something that is not trustful to them, if they feel that we are being paid by the nuclear industry, then they will distrust what we say.
[00:05:20 Dr. Margot Hurlbert appears full screen.]
Dr. Margot Hurlbert: So, we want to build people's trust in our engagement, but not have that cliff edge of losing people's trust.
[00:05:30 Split screen: Dr. Margot Hurlbert and slide titled: The split ladder of participation. Text on slide: -Complex earth and socio-ecological system (SES) problems such as climate change and just transitions are not always regarded as holistic, interconnected SES problems, nor are they addressed as such by policymakers which itself advances technocratic response to policy problems. The Split Ladder was created in part to address this issue of policy framing.
-Establishes a framework based on problem framing – based on scientific uncertainty, social learning, and public engagement.
- The Split Ladder of Participation (Hurlbert & Gupta, 2015) was developed to conceptualize the relevance and impacts of participation on different policy problem types (ranging from structured problems with little disagreement on science and values to unstructured policy problems with disagreement on science and values) together with differing communication styles, levels of trust, and nature of learning and governance needed.]
Dr. Margot Hurlbert: So, that's where the split ladder idea about policy framing and using participation where necessary, and how necessary, came into being, because solving climate change is a complex problem. But engaging with people solely on that wicked complex problem of climate change isn't necessarily in their interests and, increasingly in our polarized world, not something that people are interested engaging on.
[00:06:03 Dr. Margot Hurlbert appears full screen.]
Dr. Margot Hurlbert: So, we break our policy problems into smaller components to engage with people based on their interest, their time.
[00:06:13 Split screen: Dr. Margot Hurlbert and slide titled: Window of opportunity and participation. Slide shows an arrow pointing downwards consisting of the following, from top:
Unstructured problems.
Multiple streams.
Policies: Paris Agreement Renewable Subsidiaries Insurance.
Problems: Climate change – just transitions – disaster risk reduction.
Politics: UNFCCC – Nation States – Cities.
Early Warning System
GHG Accounting
CO2 Price Insurance
Renewable Subsidies
Structured Problems
Text on slide: Policies however are not actors in and of themselves, but dependent on the support and attention of policy actors. Elected officials, and bureaucrats under their direction, are directly responsible for policy making by setting the agenda, specifying alternative policy choices, legislating and implementing decisions. For Campbell, policy change occurs through interactions between theorists who come up with ideas, framers who transmit ideas like gatekeepers (bureaucrats, academics), constituents representing public sentiments (voters) and brokers who transport ideas (acting as public relations experts, advisors, think tanks and epistemic communities) (Campbell, 2004). Policymakers choose solutions that match their own intuitive understandings and discursive approaches.
Policy makers choose between a menu of principles and interests; such choices may reproduce injustices or solve socio-economic problems of implemented effectively.]
Dr. Margot Hurlbert: And keeping in mind there's a window of opportunity when policy can be changed and structural social learning can happen, and it's not always open. So, sometimes the window of opportunity is open, whether because our politicians have opened up the space for legislation or regulation change, or there's been an election, or policy entrepreneurs, the groups that are striving for making environmental change, have opened up the discursive space.
[00:06:48 Dr. Margot Hurlbert appears full screen. Text on screen: Dr. Margot Hurlbert, Professor, Canada Research Chair, Tier I, Climate Change, Energy and Sustainable Policy.]
Dr. Margot Hurlbert: And sometimes that policy window isn't opened, so we want to consider that when we're thinking about where to engage in these complex problems.
[00:06:59 Split screen: Dr. Margot Hurlbert and slide. Slide shows a diagram of the Ladder of Participation which consists of two curved ladders, joined in the middle. The top and bottom of each ladder are labelled as Quadrants 1 to 4. At the top between the ladders is High participation; at the bottom is Low participation. Going from left to right, starting at the bottom, left-hand corner:
-In red, off to the side of Quadrant 1: Politicization is needed, but is manipulated, populist policies are generated.
-Following Quadrant 1 upwards to Quadrant 4, the ladder lists the following: Moderately structured, Values or science; Manipulation; Therapy; Placation; Information; Consult, test ideas, seek advice (in the middle where the two ladders are joined); Discuss different perspectives; Debate on diff. values; Consensus may be out of reach; Unstructured complex problem, Dialogue and discourse.
-In red, off to the side of Quadrant 4: Politicization needed but may not yield short-term results.
-In red, off to the side of Quadrant 2 (bottom right-hand corner): No politicization needed; Monitoring and evaluating; Policy effectiveness is enough.
-Following Quadrant 2 upwards to Quadrant 3, the ladder lists the following: Structured problem, Technocratic policymaking; Take decisions; Delegated power; Educate; Information; Consult, test ideas, seek advice (in the middle where the two ladders are joined); Increasing citizen power; Seek consensus; Achieve consensus; Self-management; Moderately structured problem, Values or Science, Double loop learning.
-In red, off to the side of Quadrant 3: Politicization needed – revisiting assumptions, improving communication skills, trust building can help to make policies that solve problems.]
Dr. Margot Hurlbert: Initially, when the split ladder was created, Arnstein's manipulation and therapy in the bottom left-hand corner was somewhere where we, as engagement specialists, didn't want to be. Where we were in therapy, manipulation, or placation. But that actually has changed with the new visioning of the Split Ladder of Participation where sometimes we have to attract interest in policy problems. So we're using social and behavioural science in order to attract interest in people to engage in whether it's low dose radiation that they get in their X rays and their health field, and how that relates to the regulations we have around radiation exposure in order to make new policies and regulations around the new generation, four small modular nuclear reactors
[00:07:58 Dr. Margot Hurlbert appears full screen.]
Dr. Margot Hurlbert: that are being considered by Saskatchewan, Alberta and Ontario at this time and potentially could be polarizing in the future.
[00:08:09 Split screen: Dr. Margot Hurlbert and slide titled: Opening up the climate discussion through innovation in public engagement. Text on slide: In the transition to a low carbon economy, all aspects surrounding energy production and consumption must undergo an intense period of innovation.
Public participation in energy policy requires innovation due to:
-low levels of trust from citizens
-shifting norms in how energy decisions are made (and who they are made by).]
Dr. Margot Hurlbert: So, opening up the climate discussion, innovation space through public participation,
it's an art and a science. And we don't want to be too theoretical, but thinking about the theory and how people's values and how the science and uncertainty is reflected in our media and in people's space of engagement and who we're engaging with allows us to think about why we're doing engagement, why we're trying to increase levels of trust with people, and where we need to shift norms and have some energy decisions made and policy decisions made into the future.
[00:08:54 Split screen: Dr. Margot Hurlbert and slide titled: Engaging People in Science and Policy. Text on slide: Two fallacies:
-Arnstein romanticizes participation
-The information deficit model persists, now the nomenclature is “transformative” science.
-Experts simply providing information to people to “fill in their information deficit” has resoundingly been disproven as successful. (Slovic, Finucane, Peters & MacGregor, 2004; Kahan, Slovic, Braman, Gastil & Cohen, 2007; Dauer, et al., 2011).]
Dr. Margot Hurlbert: So, from my slides I want you to take the message that we're not romanticizing participation, but in today's world of polarization, it's necessary to think about strategically how we are informing people and having their input into our policy and our policy changes. And how experts technocratically can advise on policy. But there's an interesting relationship between experts, policymakers, and people's input into those policy.
[00:09:31 Dr. Margot Hurlbert appears full screen.]
Dr. Margot Hurlbert: So, part of the issue around polarization is what I call a paradox.
[00:09:38 Split screen: Dr. Margot Hurlbert and slide titled: Paradox. Text on slide:
-A paradox is a word/phrase/statement that means one thing to one group of people, and something else to another group of people.
-Examples: “inherently safe”; “resilience”;
Dr. Margot Hurlbert: And from this it's something that the language of engagement makes sound good, or sound secure, but actually means something very different to people when they hear it. An example of this is “inherently safe”. When you use those words to the public, it means something really good and really engaging with them. But actually, in the engineering world, “inherently safe” has a very specific meaning that's quite different from what the public say.
[00:10:11 Dr. Margot Hurlbert appears full screen.]
Dr. Margot Hurlbert: So, we want to think about that and not fall into that trap of losing trust because we've been engaging and using some words coming from engineering that actually don't mean what the public is hearing them say.
[00:10:29 Split screen: Dr. Margot Hurlbert and slide titled: Policy Paradox. Text on slide:
-Politics and resultant policy is not always logical and rational.
-Identify goals
- Specify alternatives
-Predict and evaluate consequences that are often contextual
-Select “best” policy
-Politics is creative and social
-Multiple meanings
-Strategic.]
Dr. Margot Hurlbert: So, a policy paradox is where we're actually using those words in politics that have multiple meanings and where they resonate with people but mean something very different to the people that are hearing them. So, this is kind of the danger zone on where we don't want to be engaging because we potentially fall into a trap of being caught into that paradox politicization and lose trust of the people that we're engaging with in policy.
[00:11:02 Split screen: Dr. Margot Hurlbert and slide titled: Politicization and Participation. Text on slide:
-Where there is consensus on science and values, there is no need to politicize an issue.
-Where there is no consensus on science and values, politicization is needed, but may not lead to problem solving in the short-term. Here, a broader set of values is needed (Constitution) to ensure that problem solving does not infringe too much on people's rights.
-Where there is either consensus on science or values, politicization, if symbolic will lead to non-decisions and reproduction of injustices – social if the problem is seen as ecological, and ecological if the problem is seen as social.
-Where there is either consensus on science or values, and there is genuine stakeholder discussion and politicization of discussion, social learning and problem solving is possible.]
Dr. Margot Hurlbert: So, politicization and participation and this idea about how to engage can both be used to assess how we've engaged in the past, but also to create a strategy of how we're going to engage into the future based on that uncertainty of science, but also on that uncertainty of social science, or the values that people have in relation to a topic such as climate change or something equally complex, or with multiple meanings.
[00:11:42 Split screen: Dr. Margot Hurlbert and the Split Ladder Participation slide with additions, as follows:
-At the top between the ladders is High participation, High problem solving; at the bottom is Low participation, Adaptive management.
-Bold arrows point downward along the sides of Quadrants 1 and 2.
-Bold arrows point upward along the sides of Quadrants 3 and 4.
Going from left to right, starting at the bottom, left-hand corner:
Off to the side of Quadrant 1: Low trust, low problem solving.
Following Quadrant 1 upwards to Quadrant 4, the ladder lists the following:
-Moderately structured values, zero loop learning
-Problem exacerbated
-Manipulation
-Placation/Therapy
-Inform (an arrow reading “Invite participation” points upwards from here)
-Interdisciplinary Science
-Social learning (the two preceding are in the middle where the two ladders join)
-Discuss Epistemologies
-Debate on diff. values
-Agree plural approaches (an arrow reading “Disagree, no solution” points downward from here)
-Inter-disciplinary innovation space (an arrow points downwards to Quadrant 2's Educate)
-Unstructured complex problem, Dialogue and discourse, Triple loop learning.
Off to the side of Quadrants 2 and 3 (bottom right-hand corner to top): High trust, high problem solving.
Following Quadrant 2 upwards to Quadrant 3, the ladder lists the following:
-Structured problem, Technocratic policymaking, Single loop learning
-Take decisions (an arrow reading “Wrong decisions, problem diagnosis incorrect” leads from here to Quadrant 1's Manipulation)
-Delegated power
-Educate (an arrow pointing upwards reads “Increased citizen power)
-Interdisciplinary Science
-Social learning (the two preceding are in the middle where the two ladders join)
-Increase citizen power
-Debate different approaches
-Achieve consensus
-Self-management (an arrow points From Quadrant 4's Inter-disciplinary innovation to here)
-Moderately structured science, Double loop learning
Hurlbert and Gupta, 2024; Hurlbert and Gupta, 2015.]
Dr. Margot Hurlbert: So, the new Split Ladder of Participation actually took all of the times the split ladder was used by academics, or people publishing it, and recognizes that those wicked, complex, top left-hand problems is where we want the debate to happen. And where we want to move people is into the social learning, where we as people learn together by listening and hearing one another and engaging in interdisciplinary science. And if we have enough engagement, we can actually move policy problems into that structure where we agree on values, we agree there's a consensus – and that's not 100% on the science – and we write regulations, make policy and take decisions.
[00:12:33 Dr. Margot Hurlbert appears full screen.]
Dr. Margot Hurlbert: So, it's that constant kind of interaction. And one way, I talked at the beginning about radiation, that we've experimented with is in using dose in perspective with natural radiation around us. And we've thought about: how do we attract interest? Because most people aren't interested in learning about radiation.
[00:12:56 Split screen: Dr. Margot Hurlbert and slide titled: How do we communicate, considering emotion, affect, context, bias, trust, and interest? Slide shows images of “Radiation Safety Program” and “Our Dose in Perspective” safety posters, and a comic book style image of “The Invincible Atom Eve”.]
Dr. Margot Hurlbert: And engaging with science fiction and the humanities and creation of an “Atomic Eve” as a way to engage with people, spark interest, not placate or manipulate,
[00:13:08 Dr. Margot Hurlbert appears full screen.]
Dr. Margot Hurlbert: but start a discussion around some of these issues.
[00:13:14 Split screen: Dr. Margot Hurlbert and slide titled: Just Energy Transitions; Results of Focus Groups for Transitioning Power Production Systems to Address Climate Change; Discussions about “cost”. Background of slide shows several featureless human-like figures apparently in discussion. Foreground shows a series of concentric circles overlaid with images of a gravestone; energy generating wind turbines; a smokestack; hands holding some earth with a plant growing from it. Text inside each circle, from the innermost out: Levelized cost; Cradle to Grave; Life Cycle of Technology; Entire Economy: welfare and jobs; Future Generations.]
Dr. Margot Hurlbert: Also, thinking about inclusive voices, where we talk to people about climate change, and we used all of the concerns we heard without excluding any of the concerns is a methodology.
[00:13:28 Split screen: Dr. Margot Hurlbert and slide titled: Conclusion. Text on slide:
-Stakeholder participation and politicization do not in themselves guarantee that minority rights, or rights of nature will be protected. Such protection needs to be guaranteed by constitutions at national and global level. The former is easier than the latter.
-Where there is no agreement on either science or policy, politicization is needed but not sufficient. Even so, inadequate politicization can lead stymie learning and accentuate polarization. This is also affected by the availability of policy windows.
-As we are moving into the world of increasingly unstructured problems, we need overall values that both bind us and empower us to live in a safe and just world. And we need statesmanship.]
Dr. Margot Hurlbert: So, in conclusion, stakeholder participation, politicization don't in themselves guarantee minority rights or the right of nature will be protected. And that's why constitutions are so important, and we have constitutions.
[00:13:44 Dr. Margot Hurlbert appears full screen.]
Dr. Margot Hurlbert: So, what I want to make very clear is that the duty to consult, and the rights of Indigenous people are protected by constitutions. And so, those engagements are something that are constitutionally protected. And we don't want to fall into the trap of thinking that when I'm talking about engagement and the split ladder, that that somehow overrides the Indigenous and the constitutional obligations of consultation and free prior informed consent. Okay? So, remembering that is key.
[00:14:30 Split screen: Dr. Margot Hurlbert and slide titled: Public Attitudes, Conflicts, and Social Learning. The slide is made up of two columns: Public Judgement and Public Opinion.
Text on slide under Public Judgement:
-Emphasis on values and ethics
-Mature and stable
-Full context thinking
-Reconciliation of risks and benefits
-Understanding and acceptance of the consequences
- Relies on relevant and useful information
-Fair weighing of alternatives
-Higher level of engagement in the issue or opportunity
Text on slide under Public Opinion:
-Emphasis on the “facts”, laws and rights
-Volatile
-Compartmentalized thinking
-Emphasis on risks
-Consequences are not considered or addressed
-Relies on incomplete information
-Knee jerk response
-Little or no engagement in the issue or opportunity.]
Dr. Margot Hurlbert: And, as policymakers, also knowing that public judgment is really where we want to be, not a public opinion. But in public judgment, we've got an emphasis on values and ethics. It's a place where we recognize that consensus doesn't mean 100%. There will always be opponents to complex problems and their solutions.
[00:15:00 Dr. Margot Hurlbert appears full screen.]
Dr. Margot Hurlbert: But having a fair weighing of alternatives, a good discursive space is where, as communicators, as engagement people, we would like our outcomes to be, so we have some goals and some objectives. When we think about public judgment versus that public opinion, that we often get into that trap.
[00:15:21 Split screen: Dr. Margot Hurlbert and slide titled References. Text on screen:
-Hurlbert, M. 2022. “Indigenous Water and Mother Earth” in Rouillard, J., Babbitt, C.M., Challies, E., and Rinaudo, J.D. Water Resources Allocation and Agriculture: transitioning from open to regulated access. IWA Publishing.
-Hurlbert, M., Gupta, J. 2015. The Split Ladder of Participation: A diagnostic, strategic, and evaluation tool to assess when participation is necessary. Environmental Science and Policy. 50, pp. 100-113. (Case studies in Canada, Chile, and Argentina)
- Hurlbert, M., Gupta, J. 2024. The Split Ladder of Participation: A literature review and dynamic path forward. Environmental Science and Policy.
-Gupta, j. et al. ... Hurlbert, M. (70 authors) Forthcoming. A just world on a safe planet: Earth system boundaries, translations, and transformations. The Lancet Planetary health. D-22-00365R2
- Gupta, j. et al. ... Hurlbert, M....2023, Earth system justice needed to identify and live within Earth System Boundaries. Nature Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-0201064-1
-Hurlbert, M., Shasko, L., Neetz, M. 2022 Addressing Risk Perceptions of Low Dose Radiation (LDR) Exposure. Dose Response. 20(2) https://doi.org/10.1177/15593258221088428
- Hurlbert, M., Condor, J., Shasko, L., Landrie-Parker, D. 2022 Diverse Risk Perceptions of lowDose Radiation of People Living Near Nuclear Power Stations in Ontario, Canada. Journal of Nuclear Energy and Power Generation Technologies 6, doi:1011131/JNEPGT-22/1000011
-https://www.agialpress.com/articles/diverse-risk-perceptions-of-low-dose-radiation-of-people-living-near-nuclear-power-stations-in-Ontario-Canada.pdf.]
Dr. Margot Hurlbert: So, thank you for the opportunity to present. There are some references here if you want to delve further into any of this information.
[00:15:33 Animated speech bubble appears. Text in bubble: How does the “split ladder” concept relate to democracy?]
[00:15:38 Dr. Margot Hurlbert appears full screen. Text on screen: Dr. Margot Hurlbert, Professor, Canada Research Chair, Tier I, Climate Change, Energy and Sustainable Policy.]
Dr. Margot Hurlbert: So, the split ladder is set to function in a democracy where people's engagement in policy and policy making is valued and important but recognizing that we elect political leaders who make decisions in our delegated voting patterns. So, it's unrealistic to expect that every single decision is made with the participation of people. And that's why we have structured policy problems where they're based on evidence, the values are somewhat set, and politicians make decisions, pass legislation, regulation and policy and effect it without public participation.
[00:16:30 Animated speech bubble appears. Text in bubble: Which governments are leaders in public participation?]
[00:16:35 Dr. Margot Hurlbert appears full screen.]
Dr. Margot Hurlbert: I love this question because I really don't think there's one government that gets this right all the time and always. So, from my perspective, thinking about the split ladder, just as a way of thinking about when and how to engage, allows us to build a strategy or a plan into the future. And think about that social learning and the differences in science, but also values and why we're engaging in what our outcomes are looking like. So, I don't think – even myself when I do a lab experiment in this – and you never get it right at the beginning and nor do governments. So, I do think that some governments have done better perhaps, and I have to use climate change as my example.
So, some of the northern European governments have thought about climate change since the time when we had gas shortages in the 1970s. They've been worried about excess energy reliance and that was a policy problem that related to the climate change problem, so they started addressing it back in the 1970s. But that's one topic, one problem, and one example, so I don't think that there's a government who's a leader in public participation. I think different governments have had very good experience and done some great things with public participation depending on the policy problem. But that's also why policy mixes are really important to think about and not one single policy in isolation.
[00:18:17 Animated speech bubble appears. Text in bubble: What are the top wicked problems in Canada requiring participation today?]
[00:18:22 Dr. Margot Hurlbert appears full screen.]
Dr. Margot Hurlbert: Well, from my perspective, it's climate change. The fires that have happened, the flooding and the droughts that we've been having here in the prairie provinces in the last four and five years really bring this to the fore as well as some of the hurricanes that are happening in the United States. And then the other area, which is not my area, that might be qualifying for a complex problem is that of health care. So those, in my opinion, I'm sure there's more.
[00:18:51 Animated speech bubble appears. Text in bubble: What is an example of when governments deliberated well with citizens?]
[00:18:56 Dr. Margot Hurlbert appears full screen.]
Dr. Margot Hurlbert: So, I'm going to use a Saskatchewan example. And in Saskatchewan we had command and control environmental regulation maybe 10 years ago. And they really weren't working, partly because we couldn't afford to have all the people necessary to go out and enforce environmental regulations. So, there was a movement to results-based regulation and it took a long time. There were lots of consultations in order to bring about the legislation and then the regulations and have very specific ways of doing it.
So, no one was happy. Again, it's an example where you had public judgment as opposed to public opinion. But it was a change that had to happen. And a lot of social learning of environmental groups and government bureaucrats happened during the process, which was quite long. I'm sure there's other examples provincially and federally as well.
[00:19:58 Animated speech bubble appears. Text in bubble: What are your top three takeaways about participation for public servants?]
[00:20:02 Dr. Margot Hurlbert appears full screen.]
Dr. Margot Hurlbert: Yes, first of all, participation: it's more than just a job for public servants, really. It's an ecosystem. So, academics; think tanks; civil society organizations; they all engage in a bit of participation. And I think thinking about it that way and learning from one another is really important.
There's also a science around social learning and engagement. And, as an academic, I am not advocating a particular policy for climate change, but I'm really creating a laboratory where people can think about what's working in responding to droughts or floods, and what isn't working. What works for engaging people in a discussion, and talking about something like nuclear, or mining lithium, or mining uranium in Saskatchewan, and what it would take in order to address concerns and what they would advise in order to do that. So, it's really a deeper science than consultant communicators. And I think thinking about that too is important.
And then the third one is our survey work shows that scientists are trusted communicators in government. We have government scientists, industry, and academia. So again, working together on solving these complex problems, which aren't going to happen overnight, is really important. And I think those scientists help prevent that toxic environment that can happen when we disagree on certain issues.
[00:21:52 The CSPS animated logo appears onscreen. Text on screen: canada.ca/school.]
[00:21:58 The Government of Canada wordmark appears, and fades to black.]
