"Secrecy Serves to Entrench Incumbents"

Below is Excerpt 2 from a lecture given by renowned economist Joseph Stiglitz
On Liberty, the Right to Know, and Public Discourse:
The Role of Transparency in Public Life


I have already called attention to several of these adverse effects: Secrecy provides the fertile ground on which special interests work; secrecy serves to entrench incumbents, discourage public participation in democratic processes, and undermines the ability of the press to provide an effective check against the abuses of government. But the adverse effects are more pervasive.

To maintain secrecy, often the circle of those involved in decision making is greatly circumscribed; those who are able to provide valuable insights are cut out of the discussion. The quality of decision making is thereby weakened. There is, again, a vicious circle. With more mistakes, public officials become more defensive; to protect themselves, they seek even more secrecy, narrowing in the circle still further, eroding still further the quality of decision-making.

Public programs may be designed not on the basis of the impact that they have, but on (government officials’ beliefs about) the perceptions of those impacts. Those perceptions will be affected by the information that is publicly available; program design may be as sensitive to those perceptions (and the extent to which they can be controlled) as to their real impact.

There is still one more, related effect: as the space of informed discourse about a host of important issues gets circumscribed, attention gets focused more and more on value issues. It takes an enormous amount of information to make judgments concerning complex economic issues. It takes far less (or a far different kind of) information to come to a view concerning abortion or family values. Thus, secrecy has distorted the arena of politics. The adverse effects of secrecy are multiple: not only are important areas of public policy not dealt with effectively, but also debate focuses disproportionately on issues which are often far more divisive.

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Without a doubt the Dunderdale government will seek naturally divisive issues such as hating Ottawa or Quebec in order to avoid real debate on issues such as Muskrat Falls.

This government and it's Secrecy Act are very dangerous to the well-being of our society.

Loss of Millions $$$ from Health Care - Secret Committee

Do you want to witness wastage of our health care dollars?

An open request to the Auditor General: Please review the workings, processes, and results of the interchangeable drug review advisory committee.

This committee consists of individuals appointed by the Minister of Health and must comprise of 2 pharmacists, 2 physicians, the Deputy Minister, and other persons the Minister may wish to appoint.

When a drug comes off patent and generic equivalents are made available - this committee reviews submissions by generic drug companies to have their products listed on our formulary. These drugs which range between 50-60% of brand price have the potential to save tens of millions of dollars a year.

First you must understand that in order for a generic to be permitted for use in Canada - Health Canada reviews the scientific data and confirms that the generic is safe. Once that has occurred any pharmacy in Canada can purchase the drug and dispense it under various private insurance plans and cash paying customers. In fact these new generic equivalents are almost immediately available in our hospitals - and quite often are dispensed to a patient when in hospital - only to be unavailable at a retail pharmacy when they are released.

Newfoundland and Labrador is notoriously slow to list many of these generic equivalents as they become available. This money is wasted and over the years the tens of millions could be hundreds of millions. In some cases one month delay equals over $100,000 loss of health care dollars.

So how is it that other provinces in Canada are dispensing a generic equivalent under publicly funded drug cards and hospitals in our province are dispensing this same drug - but this "committee" has not cleared it for retail pharmacies - costing us tens of millions of dollars?

The review committee sits in private and the deliberations are secret. The minutes are not available to the public.

Will the media attempt to find the answers to this gross wastage of health care dollars? Will the Auditor General review this situation and report to the House of Assembly what is going on?

Will the Opposition parties step to the plate?

This is a serious and ongoing issue - that is being kept from public scrutiny.