In mid-November, 1995, I faxed a list of ten questions about current issues and trends in Canadian public participation (see questionnaire) to 50 practitioners (4 - 6 per province) and invited them to contribute to this article. Among the 21 respondents is a mix of government (7) and corporate (5) staff, independent consultants (6), and academics (3). About half are members of IAP3. Responses by province were: British Columbia (3); Alberta (1); Saskatchewan (1); Manitoba (1); Ontario (2); Quebec (3); New Brunswick (4); Nova Scotia (3); Newfoundland (1); National, i.e. Ottawa (2).
Introduction Public participation in Canada can be traced from the late l920s and early 1930s when impoverished farmers and fishermen in rural Nova Scotia educated themselves about community economic development. They mobilized to form credit unions which then funded consumer and marketing cooperatives. The Extension Department of St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, provided leadership for what later became known as the Antigonish Movement. From this movement evolved the National Farm Radio Forum, carried across the country by the Canadian Broadcasting Company. Groups of people gathered in households to listen to issues that were laid out in radio broadcasts and then took action based on their discussions. The international diffusion of the Antigonish Movement led in the mid-'60s to the establishment of the Coady International Institute, named after one of the movement's founders. The Institute trains students from around the world in self-help and joint action, and supports its graduates through regional centres in Africa and India. After World War II, boom-time development, the discovery of the environment by the public and the advent of participatory democracy led to a significant expansion of public involvement, especially on major construction projects. Project managers often experienced public participation as confrontation, especially after Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, which heightened people's awareness of environmental problems. However, in the '60s and early '70s, a few people working on such major environmental issues as river basin planning in the St. John River Basin in New Brunswick, the Qu'Appelle Basin in Saskatchewan, and the Okanagan Basin in British Columbia began successfully using the concepts of public participation. In the '70s, public participation was embraced first by the transportation and electric power industries, on such issues as corridor and route selection for roads, transit and powerlines; and in planning and managing airports by Transport Canada. Later it was adopted in waste management in selecting landfill sites. Next the mining, gas and oil industries saw the light, with most applications in Alberta and British Columbia. In the '80s, the forest industry finally took up public participation. Early reliance on formal hearings and public meetings at the end of a planning process led to a wider range of interactive techniques used earlier in the planning and decision-making sequence. Now, in the '90s, more managers and decision-makers recognize the interaction of economic, environmental and social factors. The number and nature of groups wanting access to public-issues planning and decision-making is exploding. Consensus-building, mediation and conflict resolution approaches are often used in public processes. The role of the stakeholder has become a focus of attention, and lately, has been challenged. And health and education have become important fields for public participation. Of course, acceptance of the value of public participation to decision-making is not universal in business or government. Too often, it is "more used as a symbol of an expanded democracy, i.e. for optics, than for its real purpose of contributing to the decision-making process." Evidence is mounting that the Canadians are becoming disillusioned about participation. This is reflected in a l995 public poll (Ekos, 1995) indicating that most citizens want to be consulted on major issues but are cynical about their ability to influence government decisions. A recently released study by the Canadian Policy Research Network supports the findings of others that citizens are dissatisfied with current approaches to public participation.
Current Issues and Trends With these issues in mind, and with the contributions from the respondents to my questionnaire in hand, I looked at public participation in Canada today. In the inaugural issue of this journal, Jim Creighton (Creighton, 1995) noted pressures for economy and efficiency, the merging of dispute resolution and public participation, the various relationships between staff public participation units and contracting with independent public participation firms, and the role of new technology in our field. U.S. readers will see that their Canadian counterparts are wrestling with many of the same issues, though the results vary from one province to another. To appreciate the diversity in types and levels of public participation in Canada, readers from other countries need to understand that Canada is not a unitary state, like Italy, but a federation of provinces, each of which has a unique history and subculture. The continuous tension between the provinces, and between the provinces and the federal government, is both a cause and an effect of the different types and levels of public participation. This diversity makes it most meaningful to report and analyse our data by province.
Conclusion This survey of the current status and trends in public participation across Canada indicates that the field, while it is at various levels in different provinces, sectors and industries, is becoming more accepted as an essential part of policy, program and project development. Public participation in plans and decisions about education, health care and waste management is widespread and growing across Canada, and participation in natural resource development decisions is increasing in the western provinces. The quality and competence of professional practice is also improving, within the constraints imposed by the economic and political environments in different locations. The current situation in Ontario, however, is troubling. In my experience, good participation drives out bad. For example, what used to be the ritual public meeting at the end of a planning process, which often resulted in an uproar, has largely been replaced with earlier, more systematic and more interactive public participation processes. Furthermore, demonstrations of proactive public programs by one agency, such as Environment Canada, lead to expectations that other federal departments can do the same. Thus, while some industries and sectors lead or lag others, the laggards will be dragged into more participative ways despite their reluctance. When government agencies and corporations realize that the traditional Decide-Announce-Defend process is no longer effective, some start to introduce public participation techniques on an ad hoc basis. Instead, they need to examine how participation fits into the organizational environment and develop a systematic policy, guidelines and revised job descriptions appropriate for their organizational culture. If this is not done, existing staff, often with no public participation training or with a public relations orientation, do what they can, which often is not enough. While external consultants can be effective for specific projects, they do not substitute for the presence of a continuing in-house influence on line managers. Effective public participation requires, I believe, three kinds of communication between proponent and publics: input from the publics to the proponent to educate the latter about the nature of each public and their knowledge and perceptions of the issues; output of technical information about the issues from the proponent to the publics; and exchange of information, perceptions and values between the proponent and the publics and among the various publics--a mutual education process. All 21 respondents for this article focused on exchange techniques. While surveys are mentioned occasionally, few recognize the value of an initial social profile of a community or region as an essential input technique, nor does anyone report on the usefulness of a responsive publication--an informative advertisement or a mailed brochure with a feedback coupon or postcard. The rigid public involvement process described in Alberta would not be possible if its first element was a social profile which revealed the unique features of the publics affected and the need to adapt publications and select meeting techniques appropriately (Connor, 1994). While the pressures for economy and efficiency are understandable, neither will be achieved if (a) an excessively hurried program leads to backlash by the public, or (b) a minimal program provides access for a proposal's opponents to express their views but does not reach out to the proposal's less motivated beneficiaries to register their support. For example, stakeholders are sometimes defined as those whom the proponent views as having a positive interest in a proposal, though at times those who seem to be negatively affected are also included. Typically, these definitions exclude the latent and secondary beneficiaries, yet they too are part of the community or region. I believe that they need to be included in the public participation process by being provided with relevant information in an understandable form and with a low-energy, low-risk means of registering their views. As I look across the current scene, it is encouraging to see public participation becoming increasingly seen as "standard operating procedure." How else can decisions acceptable to those affected be made in a dynamic society? Where segments of government and business fail to see this need, pressure from peers and neighbors and the thrust of events will make it less and less possible for them to keep their heads in the sand. As Canada enters another round of constitutional challenges, informed citizen participation will be a defining element, with new approaches developed to deal with long-standing federal-provincial and inter-provincial issues. Indeed, some provincial premiers have said that their vested interests disqualify them from major roles in this crucial process. If public participation practitioners become involved in this new opportunity to rebuild the country, they may also secure the future of the field and their place in it as Canada commences a new period of participatory democracy.
Acknowledgments I am most grateful to the following who took hours of their time to assemble the insights of years of their experience to make this compilation possible: Bill Ashton, Bernie Bolen, Charles Brassard, Barb Connell, Debbie Cook, Julia Gardiner, Buzz Gibbs, Greg Gillis, Bernice Goldsmith, Shawn Hawkins, David McCreery, Colin MacKinnon, Mike Moffat, Claire Morris, Peter Neily, Brian Plesuk, Jim Simpson, Keith Storey, Nick Tunnacliffe, Susan Turner and Ann Wilkie.
References Canadian Policy Research Network. 1995. Exploring Canadian Values. Canadian Policy Research Network, Ottawa. Connor, D.M. 1994. "A Generic Design for Public Involvement Programs." In Connor, D.M., Constructive Citizen Participation: A Resource Book, Fifth Edition, Development Press, Victoria, B.C. Connor, D.M. and S.G. Orenstein. December 1995. "Combining Conflict Resolution and Public Participation for Challenging Cases." In Constructive Citizen Participation, Vol. 23, No. 3. Creighton, James L. 1995. "Trends in the Field of Public Participation in the United States." In Interact, Vol. 1, No. 1. Ekos Research Associates, Inc. March l995 Rethinking Public Consultation. Ekos Research Associates, Inc., Ottawa.
Ontario Chapter of IAP3. November l995. Public Consultation: Looking Beyond Environmental Assessment. Ontario Chapter of IAP3, Toronto
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