Royal Commissions in the Dominion: A Note on Current Political Practice

ROYAL COMMISSIONS IN THE DOMINION: A NOTE ON CURRENT POLITICAL PRACTICE A. BRADY We are unanimous in believing that the appointment of Royal Commissioners is useful (or the elucidation of difficult subjects which are attracting public attention but in regard to which the information is not sufficiently accurate to form a preiimi n.ary to legislation. That this view is generally held is obvious from the fact that the number of Royal Commissions has been greatly increased in recent years. But we have some doubts whether in all cases the practical results achieved have been commensurate with the time, labour. and expense involved. And we are disposed to deprecate the appointment of Royal Commissions on subjects as to which there is no reasonable prospect of early legislation.-Brilish R,porl on Ihe Procedure of Royal Commissions (1910). THE above quotation has a significant application for Canada in 1939. A consequence of the contemporary agitation of opinion concerning our institutions) expressed in the newspapers and on the platform, has been a critical concentration upon the costs of government; among them the costs of the many royal commissions zealously appointed by premiers in recent years. Singularly naive and ill-informed as are some of the current criticisms on the structure and processes of democratic government) it is difficult to deny the right of a citizen to ask questions, even when they border on the absurd, and the question whether royal commissions have a useful function, or whether their achievements are worth the recent expenditure upon them, is far from absurd in view of the fact that the costs of federal royal commissions in the last six years have well exceeded one million dollars. The expenses of some of the principal commissions have been: The Price Spreads Commission ..... . .. .... '" .. National Employment Commission (including registra. tion branch) ...... ... ........................ . Royal Commission on the Textile Industry ......... . Royal Commission on Dominion .Provincial Relations (to June 20, 1938) ............................ . Royal Commission to Investigate the Penal System (to June 23, 1938) ... . .................. . Grain Inquiry Commission .... 284 $220,573 $335,549 $174,335 $209,259 $105,201 $141,468 ROYAL COMMISSIDNS IN THE DOMINIDN 285 While these sums are substantial enough to provoke the question as to whether they have been well spent, it is unfortunately quite impossible to place a quantitative or monetary valuation on the work of royal commissions. General and arbitrary valuations on one side of"the ledger must counter the stark figures on the other. The function traditionally claimed for a commission of inquiry is to gather and interpret significant facts, and on the basis of the deeper probing of the particular issue to make recommendations that will prove a safe guide to future action by governments . It is assumed that a commission should be composed of men either with expert knowledge of the question or with such training and capacity as will enable them quickly to comprehend it and offer sage counsel. The investigatory technique of a royal commission· is designed to substitute for the hurried expedients of harassed politicians a prescription resting on a deeper and more scientific analysis of social phenomena. As such it has had a long and impressive history in England, significantly reaching its zenith in that fertile period of legislation after the Great Reform Bill when the ideas of British politicians were much influenced by the thinkers of the utilitarian school who demanded, with the enthusiastic faith of Bentham, that political action should be made rational.l . But neither in Great Britain nor in Canada are royal commissions simply the instrument of a dispassionate spirit of social analysis, used where expert opinion is requisite and · where its recommendations may be acceptable. On the contrary, in Can,,!-da especially, they have come to be fashioned and determined by the propagandist and other tactics of party government, and to be utilized either in influencing or placating public opinion, or in assisting a government to dodge responsibility for action expected by a portion of the public until there exists perhaps a more suitable alignment of poJiticaJ forces. In brief, royal .commissions are one of the competitive methods of democratic parties; and to consider them otherwise is to ignore the infh~ences which determine their appoin tment at...