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This week, Canada’s Public Policy Forum released Growing Up: Ontario’s Condo Communities Enter a New Era. The report contains over 100 recommendations to renew the Ontario Condominium Act, 1998. It is also a clear example of how and why collaborative policymaking works.

Condo corporations are self-governing communities. They raise revenue from their members (condo fees), elect their own leaders (boards of directors) and make their own rules (bylaws). About 1.3 million Ontarians live in condos and the Act defines how these communities work.

The decision to renew the Act posed a serious challenge for the Ontario Ministry of Consumer Services, which administers it. The issues are often very complex, ranging across finances, building management, governance, dispute resolution and consumer protection — and the prospect of dealing with all of them at once was daunting.

Moreover, the stakes are very high. For most owners, their condo is not only their home, it’s their biggest asset. From an economic perspective, condos are a multi-billion dollar industry that employs tens of thousands of people, from lawyers and managers to builders and cleaning staff.

At first, Ministry officials considered using a conventional consultation process to overhaul the Act. This might have included a series of town hall meetings and, perhaps, an online portal where people could post their views.

In such a process, people and organizations present their views, while the government listens. Once the hearings are done, the minister goes behind closed doors to consider the arguments and make decisions.

But consultations can be risky processes for governments — especially on complex issues like this. In such a process, the participants’ main goal is to influence decisions that eventually will be made behind closed doors.

But influence is a zero-sum game; as one participant gains influence, the others lose it. This creates a highly charged, intensely competitive environment, where participants tend to press their case as hard as they can — and use whatever tricks and devices are at their disposal to create a sense of urgency around their cause.

As a result, positions become polarized, making it very hard for a government to find and defend common ground. It also means that, in the end, there will be winners and losers — and that makes governments very uneasy.

When issues reach a critical level of complexity, traditional consultation is not the answer. The policy process requires public deliberation.

On reflection, the Ontario government opted for a very different kind of process and approached the Public Policy Forum to design and carry it out. The process began with a consultation phase, including town halls, online submissions, and more. Not surprisingly, we heard from a lot of angry owners who wanted condo managers, boards of directors and “condo lawyers” brought to heel. These groups had their own views on the owners — and each other.

Had the process ended there, the government would have been forced to make choices between some polarized and exaggerated positions. There would have been winners and losers and the whole affair would have given opposition parties lots of ammunition to throw at the government.

But the process didn’t end there. Once people had their say, Minister of Consumer Services Tracy MacCharles invited stakeholders to join in a facilitated discussion. The issues and options raised in the first stage were organized into five basic categories, and a working group was set up for each one. The groups included experts from all sides of the condo community.

In addition, a 12-member panel of experts provided a forum for “sober second thought.” The panel reviewed the recommendations from the five working groups to ensure their decisions were effective, balanced and affordable.

Now, if some politicians fear consultation, many fear deliberation even more. They worry the discussion may degenerate into angry name-calling and policy gridlock — or worse, produce bad policy that the government would be expected to implement.

None of this happened. While the discussions were sometimes difficult, people on all sides rallied to the challenge. They were respectful, reasonable and hard-working. The result is a comprehensive, balanced and ambitious set of recommendations that has been endorsed by all sides. Now the government can proceed with drafting legislation based on the results.

As for the opposition parties in the legislature, it will be very difficult for them to attack such legislation, because it will be based on the work of the entire condo community, rather than the government.

The big lesson for policymakers is that, when issues reach a critical level of complexity, traditional consultation is not the answer. The policy process requires public deliberation. As we found in the condo process, this is about far more than weighing evidence. It involves making trade-offs, setting priorities and balancing values.

If the government had tried to make these choices for the community, it would have divided them, creating winners and losers. By contrast, letting the community make these choices together produced compromises that were seen as legitimate, fair and effective. The participants accepted them because they felt they had a meaningful say in the process.

As for the fear that this kind of discussion is risky, it’s exaggerated. A well-designed process has many checks and balances. More importantly, when a process rewards people for working together to solve issues — rather than pitting them against one another — they respond by becoming more reasonable and accommodating.

Who knew?

Don Lenihan is senior associate at the Public Policy Forum in Ottawa. He is an internationally recognized expert on democracy and public engagement, accountability and service delivery, with over 25 years of experience in the field. He is the author of numerous articles, studies and books. Don’s latest book, Rescuing Policy: The Case for Public Engagement, is published by the Public Policy Forum.

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