How about we just call it the harper Service of Canada™?

Why not since: well researched advice by public servants who make recommendations on what’s best for the public are constantly overridden by harper’s political bag boys; public service resources are used forpolitical partisan endeavours; communications to the public are controlledby harper; communications to the public are not intended to inform the public of reality but rather are micro-managed by harper to avoid embarrassing him  and his own; non-partisan appointments are becoming obsolete;  and, public servants are forced to attend partisan functions for harper’s drones who are friendless...

The master strategist isn’t just redefining Canadian identity, he’s redefining our rights and the accountability of our public service – something created as a non-partisan body to serve us without political interference.

But we’ll leave the word “Canada” in there since Canadians are the ones footing the bill for the harper Service.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say public servants are harper servants...yet.  It’ll take a little while – but no as long as one might expect – for the pressure from the harper appointees and those they squeeze near the top to filter down to the bulk of public servants who still believe in their mandates of serving the public honestly and in a non-partisan fashion.

But as harper takes over more control through bullying and ignoring legislation of what is supposed to be an independent body as our service, the very concept of independence will disappear from documents, speeches, communications, internal meetings until public servants forget they were once public servants and go about their jobs believing and never questioning that they are political servants.

And the public?  Who will be looking out for us?

No one.

Last week, the Citizen reported DND will spend more than $600 million on preparing the Nortel site to be its main location in Ottawa...on top of the $208 million the government spent to purchase the Carling Avenue campus... the documents show DND officials were worried last year about how the renovation costs would be perceived. “Media, parliamentarians and Canadians will be focused on the cost to taxpayers for the acquisition of the Campus and the subsequent retro-fit costs,” noted a DND strategy document.

Such concerns were solved when Deputy Minister Robert Fonberg stepped in. Fonberg’s assistant wrote that the deputy minister was concerned about telling the public about the cost. According to an email, Fonberg asked, “Why are we using the $623m(illion) fit up cost? It is without context and will be a lightning rod!”  The cost was removed from public documents about the Nortel purchase.

Minimizing risk to the Conservative government about issues that might raise questions has become a hallmark of federal communications strategies, say critics.

Those damn Liberal public servants!

Taking time away from their cushy, well paid jobs to attend a partisan farewell party!  That’s the Liberals for you.
 

Oh...wait...

The farewell, which nearly 200 communication personnel from various departments were forced to attend was for...Dimitri Soudas?

What?  Couldn’t he Facebook enough of his own friends to attend voluntarily?

The article is in French,

but the gist of it is –

nearly 200 high level public servants were forced to go to a farewell party for Soudas.  They were lead to believe that the “meeting”  had to do with communications in the federal government.  Many thought it would have to do with cuts to departments.

The order of the day was not specified and the notice was sent by the PCO to high level communication managers in all ministries, assistant deputy ministers, and DGs.  Each invitee could bring up to five senior members of their team.

The meeting consisted of what has been described as a completely useless, very general talk given by Jonathan Massey-Smith, head of PCO Comm. Half way through the meeting, Massey-Smith and his assistant delivered a long eulogy on Soudas and gave him a gift.  Then, further torture ensued as the captive audience had to endure another lengthy speech, this time given by Soudas.

Apparently, the invitees could not leave the farewell bit because i twas part of the whole meeting.  Some public servants wanted to leave, feeling uncomfortable because of the way they were forced to attend an obviously partisan event, but didn’t dare.

 
Donald Savoie, author of several books on public administration said it’s the first time he has heard of this being done, adding that while it is essential that public servants work with political employees, neutrality in the public service must be preserved.  It must remain non-partisan by keeping the lines between politics and public service very distinct.  By not informing the public servants what the event involved was, Savoie said, brazen.

No kidding.  It removed the public servants’ right – and responsibility – to decide it this is a function they should attend, and whether or not it crossed that neutrality line they must maintain.

Bloodless coup

Some outcry over Senate stacking, but not a whole lot of outrage over the takeover of our public service.  Scary, that, since an independent public service is supposed to make sure our tax dollars are well spent on our behalf and not to forward the goals of any particular political group, and to protect us from people and groups with self-serving agendas, among other things.

BACK in Canada’s 2006 election campaign, Stephen Harper said that even if his Conservative party won a majority in the House of Commons, he would not have “absolute power”, because the senators, civil servants and judges appointed by the Liberals would hold him in check. During the two Conservative minority governments that followed, he dealt with the Senate and the bureaucracy, using his powers to appoint, hire, fire and sideline to create a Conservative majority in the Senate and slot amenable bureaucrats into senior posts. After winning his long-sought-after Conservative majority in May, he is now turning to the judiciary.  (emphasis mine)

When senior bureaucrats serve political masters rather than the public, we no longer have an impartial, independent public service working for us.  Forget about transparency and accountability.  It becomes a branch of the ruling political party paid for by us, and will bow to their new masters as their main goal is to forward that party's agenda and save that political power from embarrassment, even if it means lying to the public.

Gutsy Lady

Very refreshing to see this after Christiane Ouimet's betrayals and abuses: the head of an oversight agency doing her job while undoubtedly realizing that her findings and recommendations may not  make her popular with the harper regime. 

(emphasis mine)
The Public Service Commission has identified gaps in processes involving political appointments, the political activities of public servants and relations between the public service and the political sphere.

In a report tabled Tuesday in Parliament, the PSC recommended further steps be taken to ensure that external appointments of senior public servants and members of agencies and board are based on merit, non-partisanship and subject to independent oversight.

This could be done by the PSC or by an organization such as the Public Appointments Commission provided for in the Accountability Act.

The PSC report also identifies a need for increased awareness of the importance of non-partisanship. “Work needs to continue on providing greater clarity to public servants through policy or regulation.”

The PSC recommends a change in the law that would allow the agency to investigate any complaint of improper political activity on the part of a deputy department head.

There’s also a need to improved guidance to political staffers on their relationship with the public service, PSC president Maria Barrados told a House of Commons committee. She called for a code of conduct for ministerial staff to provide “clear guidance” on that relationship.

Ms. Barrados' term as president of the PSC is up in May but since no one has been named to replace her, it is likely her term will be extended - if she agrees - should the government fall soon.  Anyone who has seen her in Committees will remember a small, unobtrusive woman who surprises her audience by being unshakable in her commitment to the mandate of the PSC no matter how aggressively she is questioned.  It does not surprise me that her final report emphasizes the need to enforce and protect non-partisanship in the public service.

The sections highlighted do not currently fall under the PSC mandate so it is impressive that in the current climate where watchdogs are under relentless attack, Ms. Barrados identifies areas where partisanship can creep into the public service or expose public servants to political pressure.  While Barrados did not mention the interference of political staffers at Public Works, the last highlighted paragraph relates to such situations.

An independent agency - whether it be the PSC or one created specifically to handle issues Barrados addresses is needed to prevent political interference with departments and agencies that are there to serve the public, not political masters.

The sacrificial lamb has a name.

Michelle D'Auray, public servant.

The Harper government claims a senior bureaucrat gave it the go-ahead to avoid rules governing the look and feel of its Economic Action Plan website.

Right.  Like I said before, harper & Co. can't get rid of all public servants.  They need a few to kick around and blame for their own stupidity and corrupt actions.

Of course harper and Hang-'em-high family man Vic have nothing to back that claim.  In fact, the paper-trail clearly shows that the TB public servant team leader advised against it.

As current president of TB, Stockie Day is trying to justify Toews and harper's actions, claiming Michelle D'Auray, secretary to TB recommended that the exemption be granted.

But guess what?

Day’s office and the Prime Minister’s Office did not respond to requests to produce the d’Auray document.

This blame the public servant is just the latest in harper's half-assed attempt to brush away criticism over violating very clear TB rules that forbid using federal government sites and resources for partisan purposes.   Earlier on, in committee, they tried to say things like the use of Google Map hampered their ability to maintain a common look and feel.

Wow.  Odd how inserting a Google Map function can throw off an entire design, create a new one, and add in a youtube clip of harper playing the piano.

Some people may not think that this particular abuse of tax dollars, and politicizing what is supposed to be a non-partisan public service is no big deal, but it is far from an isolated incident.  We've been paying for many such CPC/harper promotions, and our federal public service has been used as harper's personal marketing team since he took power: oversized checks carrying the CPC logo, public service websites linking to that tiresome piano playing video, unrelated sites linking to federal budgets, the economic action plan, harper's photo popping up all over the place, public servants used to push the economic action plan ad signs, partisan statements on public service sites...

Where is the clout to enforce accountability on politicians who brazenly thumb their noses at the public while stealing their money to do so?

Every time we do nothing more than shake our heads and say, well, it sucks, but that's politics, we give these corrupt actions our stamp of approval through our simple silence.

For all the griping about taxes, you would think more Canadians would be royally miffed at having any political party dip into our pockets to pay for their own marketing needs - and using those tax dollars to misrepresent their deeds, as well.

Appeasing the political masters: the public service of the future?

I have been saying for years that one of the biggest dangers our democracy faces is the undermining of the independence of our public service.  Don Martin wrote a very good column showing why this is true.  If you read nothing else today read that, all the way through.  The last bit is chilling:

But this appears to be an arms-length move done independently to appease the political masters. If so, it will send a shiver deep into departments or agencies orbiting the government’s axis of direct or indirect influence.

If nothing else, Supt. Cheliak could become a polar-opposite example of how the Harper government treats its appointees.  Veterans Ombudsman Pat Stogran is one extreme. He became an angry thorn for a government that promptly denied him a contract extension after one term.

William Elliott may prove to be the other extreme. For doing the government this very big personnel transfer favour, the troubled civilian police commissioner is now officially bulletproof from premature contract termination and may be a very safe bet for an extension.

More and more I hear (from anonymous sources - I always wanted to say that!) that the very language in high level meetings in some departments is changing.  Rather than driving a point home on the delicate nature of a project by saying how it will affect the public they are paid to serve, some - and certainly not all - execs talk about how this will help or hinder the Harper government.  They speak as though this is their mandate.

We can’t fluff this off thinking it’s just a few bad lackeys and the integrity of the PS will hold because the bulk of public servants know why they are there.  While the seasoned public servants are getting fed up (and I believe starting to push back), Babyboomers are set to retire and we’ll have a whole fresh bunch of eager beavers stepping in not knowing any better and thinking their job is to serve the elected government, and that includes making the political masters look good.

Unethical PMs like Harper won’t have to work so hard at twisting things.  The new public service will do it for them.  As Martin pointed out with Elliot, so it will be with most appointees until we no longer have a non-partisan service. 

This is one of the most - if not the most - serious issue we face with Harper.  Everything else - human rights, environmental protection, housing, wages, how our troops are dealt with depend on a public service that can impartially advise and provide services to the public.  If we cannot count on impartial studies and reports, on truth in reporting, on the welfare of the public before all, we are at the mercy of whatever the leader of the day decides Canada should be.  We could get lucky and have an altruistic type who really cares about all of us equally, but the odds go the other way.  People who enjoy using power tend to be the ones who seek powerful positions.