Federal Public Service - The silent Government Executioner

Sylvie Lemieux

The 2011 Tory budget proposed deep, unacceptably deep cuts to Canada’s Public Service.

The cuts would extend way beyond the reduction of past due date programs or the re-engineering of cumbersome processes. Major new cut-backs were being proposed for instance:

 

 

  • starting in 2011–12, severance benefits on resignation and retirement would no longer accrue to federal public sector executives
  • all programs and departments would be cut by some $4 Billion, supposedly through attrition

The Public Service has been asked to keep mum during the present election. During my canvassing, a number of civil servants have been quite blunt: there is a gag order on the public service during this election.

How else can one explain the pressure on civil servants to have no opinion, to have no sign on their lawn, not to be able to volunteer? How can these directives be compatible with Canada’s freedom of speech and democracy? Don’t they represent yet another symptom of system abuse directed at the Public Service?

I believe it essential to our democratic values that all public service employees be protected from elected or other officials overstepping their authority. It’s a basic matter of protecting the civil rights of public servants in this country.

There is no doubt in my mind that Canada recovered quicker than most other countries from the economic crash of 2009 because good and strong business rules administered by the Canadian Public Service –for example CMHC’s mortgage rules- effectively prevented private companies and the government from copying the reckless US mortgage model that led homeowners, in their tens of thousands, to think they could own a house with little to no capital.

The last Government had little to do with Canada’s promptness to recover from the 2008 market crash. The resiliency of our economic and financial institutions was built over many decades. The Conservatives simply came aboard the “train”, they certainly didn’t plan or build it.

The proposed “across the board reduction” to the Public Service will prove short sighted. We shouldn’t forget it was the public service that largely built the “train”.

There was little originality in the Conservative Action Plan. Infrastructure programs have been in place since 2002 and the gas tax was established in 2005 as a measure to fund infrastructure projects for sewage, water and road upgrade projects.

More needs to be done for a more prosperous economy. That’s why I support a strong and efficient Public Service and encourage it to continue to act on behalf of all Canadians. Civil servants are the engine that delivers the programs that Canadians want and hope their elected officials will introduce. The mistreatment of civil servants by the Conservative government extends to the public service the same shameful contempt that it showed for Parliament.

I’m therefore deeply concerned at the number of organizations or watchdogs whose staff have been fired, forced out, publicly maligned, or who have resigned in protest by the conservative government. Their list includes:

  • Canada Firearms Program (Chief Supt. Marty Cheliak, Director General)
  • Canadian Wheat Board (Adran Measner, President and CEO)
  • Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (Linda Keen, chair)
  • Foreign Affairs (Richard Colvin, diplomat)
  • Military Police Complaints Commission (head, Peter Tinsley)
  • Ombudsman for the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Forces (Yves Coté)
  • Parliamentary Budget Officer (Kevin Page) (funding cut)
  • RCMP Police Complaints Commission (Paul Kennedy, chair)
  • Rights & Democracy (International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development – Rémy Beauregard, President)
  • Statistics Canada (Munir Sheikh, Deputy Minister)
  • Veterans Ombudsman (Col. Pat Stogran)
  • Victims of Crime, Ombudsman (Steve Sullivan)

This is unacceptable.

Canadian civil servants should not face reprisals for the exercise of their functions. They were there for Canada’s economy during the last crash. They stood by Canadians when information were requested and was not forthcoming from the last few governments. They have proven their worth again and again.

I know my fellow Green candidates in the Ottawa region join me in demanding better protection for public servants so they can continue to bring out important information to Canadians, to maintain the robust processes that regulate our economy and guard it against greed or folly, and in demanding that severance pay not be touched by any future budget and that, if and when restructure is needed, it will be carried out intelligently rather than mechanically in the form of across-the board cuts.

Thank you for your dedication and service.

Sylvie