Joe Garcea Beth Bilson Jack Vicq

U of S profs in demand to shape public policy

By Dale Worobec

For a few months last year, Political Studies Prof. Joe Garcea knew how it felt to be one of the most unpopular political figures in rural Saskatchewan.

Garcea chaired the provincial Task Force on Municipal Legislative Renewal, which produced an interim report in early 2000 advising a dramatic reduction in municipalities

In a series of public meetings following the interim report, Garcea and other task force members faced crowds of angry rural politicians and residents who opposed the recommendations. At one point, opponents actually burned Garcea in effigy.

"There was some controversy at certain points in the process," Garcea admits with a slight smile.

Nonetheless, he is one of many academics who believe the U of S has an increasingly important role to play in conducting research and analysis for governments and other organizations.

Jack Vicq, a retired professor and former Associate Dean in Commerce, headed the Provincial Income Tax Review Committee in 1999. In years past, he also completed a property tax study for the City of Saskatoon, was involved in the changing of the former Revenue Canada to the current Canada Customs and Revenue Agency, and even worked for a two-year stint in the mid-80s for the province’s Finance department.

"I think this kind of involvement improves you as a teacher and a communicator with students. Certainly, when you teach in the same area, it’s more likely that students will see you as somebody doing more than just talking about it," says Vicq.

Vicq and Garcea both acknowledge there is a growing demand for U of S academics to participate in policy-relevant research and analysis for government and non-profit groups.

"One of the reasons is that governments have reduced some of their in-house research capacity, because of cutbacks in the civil service. Secondly, they have found it a challenge to staff research and analysis units with people who have competencies in a large number of issues," says Garcea.

"Many governments have decided that a good alternative is to either fund research at universities, or bring academics into a research or analysis exercise — either within the bureaucracy itself, or in special task forces or commissions," he says.

In Saskatchewan, the relative scarcity of private sector expertise is another concern, notes Vicq.

"This is a province of one million people. In Toronto or Calgary, the private sector has more of the expertise than it does here. In Saskatchewan, we don’t have think tanks. We don’t have a C.D. Howe Institute, or Fraser Institute, or Canada West. We have universities."

Vicq says another factor is that governments — particularly when dealing in controversial policy areas — also know the public tends to place a higher degree of trust in the objectivity of academics.

"Even when we were setting up our room for the public hearings, we were concerned that our main staff person from the department of Finance wasn’t front and centre with us. That was a concern — we didn’t want to look like all we were doing was collecting data and opinions, and then feeding the government what they wanted to hear," says Vicq.

"And it does help for governments to appoint committees so that — while getting a well-thought out report — they can avoid some of the criticism that comes from it," he adds.

Being involved in major public initiatives can be an unparalleled opportunity for academics to gain insight that would otherwise be difficult to obtain, says Beth Bilson, Dean of Law at the U of S.

Bilson was recently appointed to head a federal task force that will examine the pay equity provisions of the Canadian Human Rights Act.

"From the point of view of academic interests and research interests, this is the equivalent of a scientific laboratory. So, when you come to comment on issues in the context of academic research, you have an understanding of the dimension of them that’s difficult to come by otherwise," says Bilson.

Particularly in a law school, Bilson adds, there is a sense of responsibility to act as a public resource.

"We’re a source of disinterested expertise — we’re not involved with clients, and individual members of the faculty will have a fairly deep understanding of various issues. So, we’ve had two chief commissioners of the human rights commission, a chair of the law reform commission, a chair of the review of environmental impact assessment legislation, a chair of the review of trade union legislation, and of course you’ll hear my colleagues on the radio all the time, or at various public lectures and workshops."

Bilson also notes that from a Dean’s point of view, an active faculty is desirable for a number of reasons. Besides building alliances with governments and other organizations that can employ graduates, the continued involvement can also raise the profile of the faculty and the entire university.

According to Vicq, the U of S needs to ensure it has the right structures in place to handle the increasing demands on academics from outside the university.

"When I was a full-time prof, I worked with the city of Saskatoon on a property tax study and, rightly or wrongly, the money involved went directly to the college."

"And I think that’s the fairer way to do it," says Vicq.

The university needs to ensure its overhead is identified — and that overhead is compensated for - when people accept various contracts, he says.

"I had been arguing as associate dean that we had to put a fence around some of the so-called business advisory services, some of which is posed as research."

"We have to watch the time of our faculty members. I think the university thinks they do have some structures, but I’m also sure that things go on that (the administration) doesn’t know about," says Vicq.

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