NO place to hide: the unfeasibility of using an independent expert commission as a blame‐avoidance mechanism in Westminster polities ‐ the case of the Ontario Health Services Restructuring Commission

Abstract

Abstract: The argument presented in this article is that the appointment of an ad hoc expert commission to carry out governance is unlikely to depoliticize difficult restructuring issues or to deflect blame from governments dealing with such problems in Westminster‐style polities. Unlike in American‐style presidential systems and parliamentary systems with proportional representation experiencing frequent minority governments, such commissions can never be truly independent as there are no serious checks on the government's ability to remake the agency, its mandate, its composition, nor even any barriers to the government's premature termination of an ad hoc expert commission's authority. When governments in a Westminster‐style polity seek to establish the appearance that such a commission is an independent agency of governance they must work at cross‐purposes to the basic rules for insuring accountability by giving such a body a very vague mandate. This will almost certainly lead to disputes between political actors and the commission over its powers and refocus blame on the government. The ministers of a government employing this strategy must also be extraordinarily careful so as not to engage in any activities that would undermine the ad hoc expert commission's already fragile claim to autonomy, otherwise the blame focused on the government will magnify even further. The difficulties involved in employing an ad hoc expert commission as a means to depoliticize decisions and as a blame‐avoidance strategy for governments in Westminster‐style polities are illustrated in the Ontario government's experience with the Health Services Restructuring Commission (hsrc).