Abstract

Justice Emmett Hall's landmark 1964 Royal Commission report is remarkable as, among other things, a very early Canadian example of successful knowledge brokering. It predates by about three decades even the earliest discourse in Canadian health research circles about knowledge translation (KT), knowledge transfer, knowledge exchange, knowledge brokers and the like. And yet the tomes contain some wonderful examples of bringing research evidence to the attention of policy-makers, and of translating that evidence into a form easily digestible by them and by the public (surely the sign of a successful knowledge broker). Not everything he recommended ended up as policy, but some important things did.