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This story, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Ottawa Citizen is both more and less worrisome than it looks:
http://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/public-servants-shed-cloak-of-impartiality-at-least-for-the-day
First, some background: Conservatives, going all the way back to John Diefenbaker, in the 1950s, have been very, very suspicious of the public service, writ large; just Google Lester Pearson, Mitchell Sharp and Marcel Massé and you will see why ~ the upper ranks of the national public service looked like an apprenticeship programme for the Liberal Party's cabinet table. That's why Brian Mulroney's "pink slips and running shoes" quip (1980s) resonated with Conservatives then ... and still does.
But, broadly and generally, the symbiosis between the the public service Mandarins and the Liberals was a two way street. The Mandarins always had and still have their own mid to long term plan for Canada which they "sold" to the Liberals at least as much ~ more, in my opinion ~ as the Liberals imposed their policies on the public service. That included the Pearson/Trudeau Liberals' "lurch to the left" in the 1960s and '70s; the public servants were, generally, sympathetic towards, even enamoured with the Scandinavian model of the Social Democratic welfare state. One must recall that public servants in the 1950s, '60s and, amongst the senior ranks, the 1970s, shared one common, defining experience ... not war (although a great many (1 in 12) Canadians put on a uniform, the Second World War was not the "defining" experience the First War had been ... the unifying and defining and, indeed, soul searing experience was the Great Depression. Senior men (they were all men) like Pearson and Sharp watched as the Great Depression destroyed the emerging prosperity of the 1920s and rendered people both homeless and hopeless ... those who have never read nor seen John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath need to watch/read it to have even a slight, remote sense of what the "dirty thirties" were like, but trust me, the Great Depression was far, far more important (socially) that any war.
The Mandarins had a plan, it closely matched the plan the Liberals developed in Kingston in 1960, and it was the precursor of the plan which Pierre Trudeau, Michael Pitfield, Ivan Head and others used when they set about re-ordering Canadian society in a way that owed far more to Prime Minister Trudeau's old teacher at the LSE, Harold Lasky, than it did to Arnold Heeney, Norman Robertson and Gordon Robertson, those exemplars of the Golden Age of Canadian public service and diplomacy.
One of the main outputs of Pierre Trudeau's plan was that the public sector balooned in ways that bothered, in the 1980s and, I believe, still bothers many of the Mandarins.
Essentially, in my opinion, we have a traditional public service, made up of a mix of managers and clerical staff (officers and other ranks, if you like) that helps the government of the day develop and implement policies. But we also have, now, a much larger, unionized, public work force that delivers services and programmes.
There is, of course, a need for public servants to deliver services. Any time, just as one example, the state can use all of it coercive powers against an individual (police, crown prosecutors, prison guards, tax collectors, etc) we ought to insist that they are all 100% public servants and, therefore, 100% accountable to the public. However, those 'public servants' who e.g. deliver mail, deliver air traffic control, (most) scientific research, technical regulations for e.g. radio licenses or the radio licenses themselves, or visas to visitors need not be "public servants" in the same way that a police officer or a policy analyst ought to be. Much of what is now the public sector can be and should be contracted out to the wholly private sector ... and credit is due to (mostly Liberal) governments which have, at least partially, privatized many "public services."
What we are seeing, in my opinion, in the story at the top, is a disconnect between the unionized "work force" and the Mandarins. I think the mandarins were, and still are, largely sympathetic to Prime Minister Harper's agenda ... they set a lot of it, including policies that aimed to curb the power of the too large, unionized "public sector." The too fat, too "detached" from real "public service" unionized "public sector" fought back and it thinks it has won ... I'm doubtful.
http://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/public-servants-shed-cloak-of-impartiality-at-least-for-the-day
Public servants shed cloak of impartiality – at least for the day
LEE BERTHIAUME, OTTAWA CITIZEN
KATHRYN MAY, OTTAWA CITIZEN
Published on: November 7, 2015
Federal public servants heckled a journalist and cheered loudly during a press conference at Foreign Affairs headquarters Friday, then bombarded Prime Minister Justin Trudeau with hugs and displays of affection.
Meanwhile, the largest federal union representing scientists and other professionals in the public service patted itself on the back for its “big win” in helping defeat Stephen Harper.
Some say bureaucrats and federal unions are simply relieved after a decade of the Conservatives, whose relationship with the civil service was strained at best. But the incidents Friday have nonetheless prompted fresh questions about Canada’s tradition of a non-partisan public service.
With hundreds of departmental staff watching, Foreign Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion held a press conference in the lobby of the Lester B. Pearson building to respond to U.S. President Barack Obama’s rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline.
At one point, a reporter asking Dion a question elicited a loud groan from the crowd of employees. The crowd cheered his response.
Foreign affairs officials then mobbed Trudeau as he came forward to greet them. A photo posted by the Prime Minister’s Office on Twitter shows one public servant hugging the prime minister as smiling colleagues wait to meet him.
Trudeau spokesman Cameron Ahmad said government officials “obviously don’t encourage heckling of journalists during press conferences.” Asked about the public servants’ emotional reaction to Trudeau, he said, “We made it clear throughout the election campaign that we want to work collaboratively with the public service.”
Retired ambassador Ferry de Kerckhove, now a senior fellow at the University of Ottawa, said the previous government largely ignored advice from the Foreign Affairs department. He said since the election, officials have been “literally beaming because they felt they were going to be useful again.”
“There’s no question that the victory of the Liberals (is) giving the department a second lease on life,” he said of the warm response for Trudeau. “And if (NDP leader Tom) Mulcair had won, it would probably be the same type of reaction.”
Retired diplomat Daryl Copeland, a fellow at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, agreed that the public service “has taken a terrible beating” under the Conservatives. But he said the crowd’s heckling and cheering was unacceptable. “It was in poor taste and unfortunately provides grist to the mill for those who believe the public service has an agenda.”
Also providing grist was the president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, who on Friday said the union was so pleased at the success of its campaign to help defeat the Conservatives that it will continue with “activism.” PIPSC wants to make sure the Liberals deliver on their election promises to restore a “culture of respect” in the public service.
“Remember that feeling of relief you felt on Oct. 20?” PIPSC president Debi Daviau told delegates at the union’s annual meeting. “When it comes to victories it doesn’t get much better than what we achieved on Oct. 19.”
Donald Savoie, a public administration expert at the University of Moncton, said public servants are gripped by “the euphoria” of working for a government that promises renewed respect.
He said many hope they are returning to their “days in the sun” when public servants worked on policy and were listened to. He likened it to when Pope John XXIII opened the Vatican and liberalized the Catholic Church.
As a result, bureaucrats’ heckling and cheering, and unions revelling in their political campaigns, may not be appropriate but isn’t unexpected.
“Don’t try to make sense of this. School’s out and people are beside themselves with joy,” Savoie said. “Stay tuned, it’s too fresh. Wait until things calm down in a few months.
“I wouldn’t get too worked up because what happened today doesn’t define the public service and its non-partisanship.”
First, some background: Conservatives, going all the way back to John Diefenbaker, in the 1950s, have been very, very suspicious of the public service, writ large; just Google Lester Pearson, Mitchell Sharp and Marcel Massé and you will see why ~ the upper ranks of the national public service looked like an apprenticeship programme for the Liberal Party's cabinet table. That's why Brian Mulroney's "pink slips and running shoes" quip (1980s) resonated with Conservatives then ... and still does.
But, broadly and generally, the symbiosis between the the public service Mandarins and the Liberals was a two way street. The Mandarins always had and still have their own mid to long term plan for Canada which they "sold" to the Liberals at least as much ~ more, in my opinion ~ as the Liberals imposed their policies on the public service. That included the Pearson/Trudeau Liberals' "lurch to the left" in the 1960s and '70s; the public servants were, generally, sympathetic towards, even enamoured with the Scandinavian model of the Social Democratic welfare state. One must recall that public servants in the 1950s, '60s and, amongst the senior ranks, the 1970s, shared one common, defining experience ... not war (although a great many (1 in 12) Canadians put on a uniform, the Second World War was not the "defining" experience the First War had been ... the unifying and defining and, indeed, soul searing experience was the Great Depression. Senior men (they were all men) like Pearson and Sharp watched as the Great Depression destroyed the emerging prosperity of the 1920s and rendered people both homeless and hopeless ... those who have never read nor seen John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath need to watch/read it to have even a slight, remote sense of what the "dirty thirties" were like, but trust me, the Great Depression was far, far more important (socially) that any war.
The Mandarins had a plan, it closely matched the plan the Liberals developed in Kingston in 1960, and it was the precursor of the plan which Pierre Trudeau, Michael Pitfield, Ivan Head and others used when they set about re-ordering Canadian society in a way that owed far more to Prime Minister Trudeau's old teacher at the LSE, Harold Lasky, than it did to Arnold Heeney, Norman Robertson and Gordon Robertson, those exemplars of the Golden Age of Canadian public service and diplomacy.
One of the main outputs of Pierre Trudeau's plan was that the public sector balooned in ways that bothered, in the 1980s and, I believe, still bothers many of the Mandarins.
Essentially, in my opinion, we have a traditional public service, made up of a mix of managers and clerical staff (officers and other ranks, if you like) that helps the government of the day develop and implement policies. But we also have, now, a much larger, unionized, public work force that delivers services and programmes.
There is, of course, a need for public servants to deliver services. Any time, just as one example, the state can use all of it coercive powers against an individual (police, crown prosecutors, prison guards, tax collectors, etc) we ought to insist that they are all 100% public servants and, therefore, 100% accountable to the public. However, those 'public servants' who e.g. deliver mail, deliver air traffic control, (most) scientific research, technical regulations for e.g. radio licenses or the radio licenses themselves, or visas to visitors need not be "public servants" in the same way that a police officer or a policy analyst ought to be. Much of what is now the public sector can be and should be contracted out to the wholly private sector ... and credit is due to (mostly Liberal) governments which have, at least partially, privatized many "public services."
What we are seeing, in my opinion, in the story at the top, is a disconnect between the unionized "work force" and the Mandarins. I think the mandarins were, and still are, largely sympathetic to Prime Minister Harper's agenda ... they set a lot of it, including policies that aimed to curb the power of the too large, unionized "public sector." The too fat, too "detached" from real "public service" unionized "public sector" fought back and it thinks it has won ... I'm doubtful.
, and then say "hey, you had a chance to vote for y, but you didn't, did you?"
