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Major Studies of Drugs and Drug Policy | ||||
Canadian Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs | ||||
Volume I - General Orientation |
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Chapter 2
Our
Work
Designing, developing and
implementing public policy is the very essence of the role of government, of
political life in the broad sense. This fundamental activity presupposes a
choice between various alternatives and, in a democratic system, an explanation
and justification of the choice that has been made. A public policy, regardless
of its object, stands at the confluence of various influences: partisan
political considerations of course, economic considerations as well, even
increasingly so. However, if it lays claim to a certain degree of rationality
and citizen support, a public policy must also be based on rigorous and
objective data, preferably from scientific research, and on an understanding of
society's expectations and resistance. Lastly, a public policy, in our view,
should be founded on, and at the same time promote, guiding principles. By
that, we mean a clear and express vision of the principles that guided the
choice among various alternatives and that reflect a conception of government
and of the relationship between government institutions and civil society. From the outset, our Committee chose
to remain above partisan issues. This is the advantage of belonging to the
Senate, which makes it possible to take, on various questions, a more objective
view not influenced by concern for re‑election. Economic considerations
affected us in two different ways. The first, a trivial matter, was related to
the budgets allocated to us, which necessarily limited the scope of our work,
the second to the economic impact of various public policy options which are
discussed in Chapters 18 and 21. Our work thus focused on the other
three sources that should influence a choice of public policy on illegal drugs:
knowledge, public opinion and guiding principles. At the Committee's public hearings,
the Chair presented the research program as follows: In
order to fully satisfy the mandate conferred upon the committee, the committee
has adopted an action plan. This plan centres around three challenges. The
first challenge is that of knowledge. We will be hearing from a wide variety of
experts, both from Canada and afar, from academic settings, the police, legal
specialists, medical specialists, the government sector and social workers. (…) The
second challenge, surely the most noble challenge, is that of sharing
knowledge. The committee hopes that Canadians from coast to coast will be able
to learn and share the information that we will have collected. In order to
meet this challenge, we will work to distribute this knowledge and make it
accessible to all. We would also like to hear the opinions of Canadians on this
topic and in order to do so, we will be holding public hearings in the spring
of 2000 throughout Canada. And
finally, the third challenge for this committee will be to examine and identify
the guiding principles on which Canada's public policy on drugs should be
based. [1][1] This chapter describes the various
measures we took to ascertain the state of knowledge and public opinion on
cannabis and to determine guiding principles. Chapter 3 presents our
guiding principles in detail, while Parts II and III outline all the
information we were able to gather. First, however, a few words on two working
principles which we considered essential to the complete realization of this
Committee's mandate. [1][1]
Senate of Canada (2001) The
Proceedings of the Special Committee on Illegal Drugs. Issue No. 1,
page 23. |