ROTHENBURGER: Wouldn’t it be nice if politicians knew what they were doing?

The notion that politicians should be experts only sounds good until we consider the concept more thoroughly. Here’s an example to make my point.

I always cringe when I hear someone say City Hall should be operated as a business. That’s the last thing we should want.

If the City was run like a business we would have none of the major amenities we enjoy, such as parks, trails, swimming pools, playing fields, hockey rinks, the art gallery or theatres. That’s because they’re built for the public good, not for profit. While the goal is always to retire the debt and operate them as close to break-even as possible, they require subsidies from the public purse.

So, all the business expertise in the world wouldn’t get us a result we’d feel good about. We elect people we believe have a broad knowledge of the community, common sense, a vision and a good heart.

Kamloops City council includes a couple of business entrepreneurs, a landlord, a former arts administrator, a retired postie, a retired newspaper reporter, a freelance writer and a farmer. The mayor is a retired government bureaucrat.

None of them, to my knowledge, went into the job with much if any experience in social issues, construction, water systems, climate change, urban planning or any number of other things upon which they must make decisions.

Since there is no portfolio system in civic government, they aren’t involved in the day-to-day running of the city. They basically have two jobs: to offer ideas to their council colleagues and staff, and to vote on plans that come from staff. Their strength is in the diversity of knowledge and expertise they collectively represent rather than intimate expertise in a given area.

Still, wouldn’t we have better government if we only elected people with training in specific relevant areas? For example, if the COVID-19 response was run strictly by scientists, it might be much better than it is.

That would be a powerful endorsement of Technocracy, a theoretical form of government in which scientists and engineers would run the show and, therefore, make fail-proof decisions. It was founded during the Depression by an American named Howard Scott and grew in popularity after the Second World War.

My dad was a Technocrat. He believed strongly that politicians by and large don’t have the expertise to run a government. I remember, when I was not much more than a toddler, going on weekend Technocracy cavalcades with my parents.

Members of the Technocracy movement would strap big signs — with the Technology logo of red and white Nike-like swooshes forming a circle and meaning balance between consumption and production — to the roofs of their cars and hit the road. I don’t remember where we went, or if there were rallies and such but I remember those cavalcades. There must have been meetings, and there were copies of the Technocracy newsletter on our coffee table.

I had no knowledge as a kid about the theories of Technocracy, nor did I care, but as I matured I realized Technocracy is a pie-in-the-sky system that would be totally impractical to implement, and totally undesirable as well.

Though it didn’t rule out limited elections, it’s incompatible with democracy. To my knowledge it’s never been adopted anywhere in the world except in very limited form.

Think of it. There would first need to be some sort of vetting system to determine eligibility. Only Masters degrees and PhDs need apply. Can you say “elite?” And how would we lay people be expected to have the expertise to pick the right experts for the job?

Some would say we haven’t been doing well at choosing our leaders even when we don’t have to assess them for their expertise. Some would go further and say democracy is broken and we shouldn’t be so determined to hold on to it. For most of history, we survived without it anyway.

So why not put the engineers, scientists and bankers in charge and let them have at it? Who would be prime minister — somebody with an MBA, I guess.

The problem with that is that expertise doesn’t guarantee good judgment. Experts are great at telling us what would happen but less effective at telling us what should happen.

Chrystia Freeland will make a fine finance minister because her job is to set a financial direction that is best for Canada based on the aspirations of the country, not to be an accountant. Peter Milobar will, no doubt, acquit himself well in his labour portfolio, and Cathy McLeod will continue to do a good job on indigenous relations.

As for City Hall, civic government works because the job of councillors is to decide on whether or not to spend money to build an outdoor skating rink (as one example), not to design the ice-making system.

Government by amateurs is, as they say, still better than the alternative.

Mel Rothenburger is a former mayor of Kamloops and a retired newspaper editor. He is a regular contributor to CFJC, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a director on the Thompson-Nicola Regional District board. He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group.

by Mel Rothenburger

ROTHENBURGER: Wouldn’t it be nice if politicians knew what they were doing?

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