Kevin Brewer recently took me, and by extension, the Peel Watershed Planning Commission, to task for requesting we receive technical advice from our public agencies unfiltered by political levels.
Brewer confuses the professional advice we sought from technical experts on fish and wildlife management, conservation biology, hydrology, and protected areas, with the policy advice we get from entirely different people in the government.
The commission’s essential point stands whether or not political interference actually occurred: as a publicly appointed, independent body, we look to our public agencies for the best technical advice they can provide.
We fully expect that we will receive policy-level advice from other quarters and that we will get a political response to the final plan.
Technical, policy and political advice are each different and each have their place.
Yes, Brewer, the Peel Watershed Planning Commission is indeed following the role set out for us in the UFA.
On a final note, you wrote “shame on commissioner Loeks for publicly criticizing a democratic process.”
This is a curious comment, especially as planning is itself a public process.
I was taught, and I firmly believe, that one of the keystones of democracy is the free exercise of our right to criticize anything - especially the workings of our democracy.
Dave Loeks, Peel Watershed Planning Commission
Whitehorse