Would The Real Democratic Process Please Stand Up!
By: Dante Prudente
On Tuesday January 31st I had the opportunity to attend a Special Council meeting with respect to water fluoridation in Halton Region. The motion was put forward as to support the municipalities’ Chief medical officers’ recommendation to continue the practice of water fluoridation. It was clear that there was clear division within councilor’s right from the onset. Through the morning I heard testimony from the pro-fluoride camp mostly consisting of doctors, government officials (Health Canada) and professional associations (Dental Associations) with vested interests in the continued use of fluoride and water fluoridation. On the other side (anti-fluoride) we heard from concerned citizens, nutritionists, special interest groups and a water treatment specialist. From the questions that the individual councilors were asking it was clear which councilors were on whose side and I couldn’t help think that the vote was decided before the “special meeting” was even started.
As the evidence came forward from each camp it was clear that the majority of councilors had very little interest in weighing any evidence presented. In fact, most of it they had heard before. Supporting documents by the pro fluoride advocates had been presented to the council members before hand. The anti-fluoride councilors slammed the so called professionals with questions they could not effectively answer; each Professional passing the buck to some other body. Studies chosen to support fluoridation were carefully selected to support the fluoride cause as we all know there are studies that say the exact opposite. The Pro fluoride councilors fed obviously, “pre-arranged questions” designed to make the experts look very credible. Questions from both sides of the debate coming from the councilors were directed primarily at so called “credible experts”. Unfortunately, when individual residents got their 5 minutes to speak no questions were asked, leaving me with the feeling that residents’ interests were less important than those of government officials (Health Canada) and Industry (Professional Associations, Doctors and dentists). I say this in no way to belittle the efforts of anti fluoride councilors in Halton regional council. They did a very good job.
However, in the end what conclusion could an objectionable spectator conclude? I am sad to say the state of politics today is less about “truths” and more about what we can prove using dialectic and engineered consensus. If it is the governments function to “govern” the people then the government plays a key role in sanctioning the authority of such bodies as Health Canada. Support for the validity of Professional Associations and their patrons in this case, doctors, dentist, scientists etc is accepted by means of an engineered consensus - paid for by and large by industry. But where does the average citizen have a say in all this? If decisions are made by government solely on the weight of government appointed bodies and paid corporate advocates such as “professionals and their associations” then the average citizen’s rights to representation has been high jacked. All industry has to do is advertize the validity of their authority and lobby government to accept that authority to gain enough power to influence governance in “their” favor. This debate was decided by those who had enough influence to buy authority and not through legitimate facts or the best interest of the public. If this is true then democracy is dead. Or perhaps it was never really there in the first place.
