Report

DELEGATION MEMBERS AND STAFF

From 23–25 July 2015, Senator Wilfred Moore, Q.C., Vice-Chair led a delegation from the Canadian Section of the Canada–United States Inter-Parliamentary Group (IPG) to the annual summer meeting of the National Governors Association (NGA) in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. The other delegate was Senator Scott Tannas. The delegation was accompanied by Ms. June Dewetering, Senior Advisor to the Canadian Section.

THE EVENT

Founded more than a century ago when President Theodore Roosevelt gathered state governors in order to discuss the nation’s resources, the NGA is the collective voice of U.S. governors from the 50 states, three territories and two commonwealths. It is also a public policy organization that represents the governors on Capitol Hill and before the U.S. Administration on federal issues that affect them, and that develops and implements solutions to public policy challenges.

The NGA, which meets in the winter and summer each year, is supervised by a chair, vice chair and nine-person executive committee, and governors participate on five issue-related standing committees – Economic Development and Commerce, Education and Workforce, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security and Public Safety, and Natural Resources – and, on occasion, on special ad hoc bipartisan committees and task forces. At the 2015 summer meeting, each of the five standing committees held a session.

The theme for the NGA’s activities in 2015 – including the winter and summer meetings – is “Delivering Results.” This initiative has been selected by NGA Chair Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper. Next year, Utah Governor Gary Herbert will chair the NGA, and his theme is “States: Finding Solutions, Improving Lives.”

DELEGATION OBJECTIVES FOR THE EVENT

Members of the IPG’s Canadian Section have been attending the NGA’s winter and summer meetings for several years. At this meeting, delegates spoke with a number of governors, including Governors Steve Beshear (Kentucky), Terry Branstad (Iowa), Kate Brown (Oregon), Jack Dalrymple (North Dakota), Maggie Hassan (New Hampshire), John Hickenlooper (Colorado), Dannel Malloy (Connecticut), Earl Ray Tomblin (West Viriginia) and Gina Raimodo (Rhode Island). At the meeting’s opening session, Governor Hickenlooper recognized the presence of the IPG delegation.

Their interactions with governors and others enable Canadian members of the IPG to achieve better the aims of finding points of convergence in respective national policies, initiating dialogue on points of divergence, encouraging exchanges of information and promoting better understanding on shared issues of concern. Moreover, the NGA meetings provide the IPG’s Canadian Section with an important means by which to provide input to, and gather information about, state-level issues that affect Canada. It is anticipated that the Canadian Section’s attendance at the NGA’s winter and summer meetings will continue.

ACTIVITIES DURING THE EVENT

The NGA’s 2015 summer meeting included the following plenary and committee sessions:

·Delivering Results (opening session)

·Innovative State Strategies for Tourism and Economic Development (joint committee session: Economic Development and Commerce, and Natural Resources)

·Taking Action to Address the Nation’s Opioid Crisis (joint committee session: Health and Human Services, and Homeland Security and Public Safety)

·Skills for the Future: Career Pathways Accelerating State Economies (committee session: Education and Workforce)

·Health Care Transformation (closing session).

This report summarizes the key points made at the sessions.

DELIVERING RESULTS

Peter Hutchinson, Accenture Public Services Strategy

·“Delivering results” is about making the “extraordinary” the “ordinary.”

·“Results” are the difference between what people expect to be delivered and what is delivered.

·If people are doing everything except “the main thing,” then they are not “getting the job done.”

·In delivering results, it is important to keep “the main thing” the main thing on which everyone is focused.

·If people are put in a position to experience the consequences of their actions, they will “get the job done” and achieve results.

·It is not enough to “get the job done”; to “deliver results,” it must be communicated that the job was done and that the results were delivered.

·Private- and public-sector providers of goods and services should look for opportunities to connect with the people who are served; with technology, these connections are increasingly easy.

·Means should be found to make it easier to “do the right thing” and harder to “do the wrong thing”; incentives should be designed to bring about the desired result.

·At times, it is hard to predict people’s behaviour; people voluntarily comply with tax requirements, and recycle perhaps because of social pressure rather than legal obligation, yet often they do not follow posted speed limits, perhaps because of peer pressure to speed up.

·It is important to focus on asking the right question; for example, consider the following two questions:

§Which school has the highest test scores?

§Which school “moves” their students the farthest?

·Data should be used to determine whether a positive difference is being made for the people who are being served.

·Leaders change things to make them better.

·People are elected not to maintain the status quo, but rather to make things better and, ideally, to make the “extraordinary” the “ordinary.”

INNOVATIVE STATE STRATEGIES FOR TOURISM AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Robert Nutting, The Pittsburgh Pirates

·It is important to build a culture of customer service every day.

·Sports teams can attract tourists, and they both support and bring about economic development; the multiplier effects are significant.

·Often, sports teams are active in the community.

David Allen, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation

·American sportspeople have significant economic impacts.

·The United States needs a healthy landscape of private and public lands.

·Land, water and wildlife resources are renewable, but they must be managed responsibly.

·The public and private sectors need to work together in developing land management plans.

·Rural life matters, and the United States cannot afford to lose its rural areas.

R. Cooper Shattuck, The University of Alabama

·The phrase “think green” entered public discourse about 35 years ago.

·In order for natural resources to be appreciated, people need to be able to access them.

TAKING ACTION TO ADDRESS THE NATION’S OPIOID CRISIS

Mary Bono, Collaborative for Effective Prescription Opioid Policies

·Opioid use and abuse are serious public health issues, although there are many programs available to help users and abusers.

·There is a need to provide access to clinically necessary treatments and affordable recovery options, as well as to overcome the stigma associated with recovery.

·Support for those who have overcome opioid use and abuse should last a lifetime.

Debra Houry, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

·Heroin use is part of a larger substance abuse problem, and is having unintended consequences, such as HIV and hepatitis C outbreaks.

·Public health and law enforcement agencies, and communities, came together and were successful in reducing car crash deaths by more than 50%; the same can be done regarding drug overdoses.

·The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Prescription Drug Overdose Prevention for States initiative is a funding opportunity for state health departments; resources and support will be provided with a view to preventing prescription drug overuse, misuse, abuse and overdose.

·Some state-based interventions in the area of opioid use are improving outcomes, and these states’ best practices should be provided to other states.

·Opioid prescribing guidelines will be released.

·Prescription drug monitoring programs should be made easier to use.

Patrick Glynn, Quincy Police Department

·People who are abusing drugs have a disease and should be treated as such; they may commit criminal acts, but they are not criminals.

·The PETER Theory should be used:

§prevent;

§educate;

§treat;

§enforce; and

§reduce.

·Sources of prescription opioids include physicians, family members and friends.

SKILLS FOR THE FUTURE: CAREER PATHWAYS ACCELERATING STATE ECONOMIES

Secretary Thomas Perez, U.S. Department of Labor

·Attention should be paid to “disability” employment, or to employing disabled persons; the focus should be the last seven letters of the word “disability,” rather than the first three letters.

·U.S. employment opportunities abound, and there are job openings in a variety of sectors.

·There is a need to ensure a skills superhighway, with appropriate “on” and “off” ramps.

·Apprenticeships are a “tried and true” method of workforce development, and Germany’s apprenticeship system is a particularly notable model.

·Apprenticeships have application in a range of sectors, including skilled trades, information technology and health care.

·Apprenticeships are like college without the associated debt, and community colleges are the “secret sauce” of success.

·The best way to reduce recidivism is to ensure that people have the skills they need to obtain gainful employment.

·Training should be demand-driven, with curricula designed by educational institutions in cooperation with employers.

Crystal Bonds, City College of New York

·Youth should have pipelines from school to the workforce.

·The demands of the 21^st century workforce are changing, and science, technology, engineering and mathematics education is more important and more prevalent than ever.

·All students should be exposed to a wide body of knowledge.

·There is a need to train people for the jobs that have not yet been created.

Harold Levy, Jack Kent Cooke Foundation

·The cost of education is high.

·There are a great many extremely talented students in community colleges.

·Some low-income students do remarkably worse than high-income students of equal ability, and some capable low-income students do not see themselves as going to college; as well, low-income students may not attend the best school to which they are capable of gaining acceptance.

·Low-income students may take longer to complete college, and they are less likely to attend graduate school.

·Educational outcomes have security implications; consider, for example, that defence sector workers need a security clearance, which requires them to be American-born; as well, they need to be educated in such fields as science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

HEALTH CARE TRANSFORMATION

Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

·Improving the quality and value of health care are important goals.

·For far too long, the United States’ health care system has failed to put the patient first; that said, some progress is being made, with increased safety in hospitals, a reduced rate of readmission and assurance that those with pre-existing health conditions cannot be denied health insurance coverage.

·Empowered and knowledgeable “consumers” should be at the centre of their health care.

·Health care providers should be paid for the value, rather than the volume, of health care provided; incentives should focus on quality, and the fee-for-service model should be changed to a model that pays for outcomes.

·People with substance use issues should be connected with needed treatments.

·Opioid prescribing practices should be, and are being, improved.

·The revolution in biomedical research will lead to fundamental changes to health care.

 

Respectfully submitted,