Other difficulties may arise when governments attempt to produce their
own performance plans. One is the danger that the performance plan may
become an object of political contention rather than an instrument for
building social consensus. A plan that is closely associated with a current
government will, if it is taken seriously at all, be criticized by opposing parties,
for its inattention to certain indicators, the timidity of its targets, or the
unreliability of data used to assess progress.8 The Alberta plan anticipates
this difficulty and includes an attestation by the provincial Auditor General
about the methods used to collect and report data (Alberta Treasury 1998).
However, this is only a partial solution to the danger of politicization. Plans
produced by apparently nonpolitical commissions may not attract such
attacks. Furthermore, the consultations that commissions may undertake in
an effort to legitimize their plans may prove to be more effective in building
agreement on priorities and indicators.
Within the Canadian government, the task of selecting social indicators
is also complicated by continuing tensions in federal-provincial relations.A
decision by the federal government to set benchmarks in certain policy areas
might be construed as a more vigorous assertion of federal authority in
those areas. In some fields, the federal government is also negotiating with
provinces about the devolution of program responsibilities. These negotiations
have been partly premised on the notion that rules about the use
of federally provided funds might be loosened if provincial governments
succeed in achieving stipulated outcomes. A decision by the federal government
to select social indicators and specify targets as part of a governmentwide
performance plan might affect these negotiations. The result may be to
encourage a more incremental, sectorally based approach to the selection of
governmentwide performance measures.