Who should the public service bureaucrats be loyal to?

Not, as James Travers says, the government of the day.

Perhaps it is simply imprecise word choice on his part, or lack of expanding on his statement, but these lines do not help people understand the non-partisan nature of the public service, nor why it is necessary to respect that the public service serves the public, not the elected government:

Certainly the government of the day has every right to expect bureaucrat loyalty.

No, it doesn’t. While it is the duty of the public service to forward government’s will as directed by the Minister in charge (with the exception of the independent agencies who do not have a Minsiter), it is not a question of loyalty. They serve Canada and Canadians, and must fulfill the elected government’s orders within the boundaries of their mandates and as directed by existing legislation which defines the responsibilities of an independent public service.

It would be more accurate to say that the government of the day has every right to expect bureaucrat cooperation and respect for the acts outlining the responsibilities of public servants.

For the public service, it is not at all (and should never be) an issue of loyalty, but of a committment and dedication to following the rules by which they are bound, regardless of who holds the most seats in Parliament. These rules and acts were developed by all of Parliament, over many, many sessions. They are regularly updated and adjusted as public needs change. Never should they be altered to accommodate the goals of a particular party in power.

If the public service was expected to shift loyalties to accommodate elected governments, there would be no stability in the public service and long term planning would be a waste of time.

Travers is also incorrect in what he says about the rights of Prime Ministers when it comes to public servants:

Prime ministers have as much right to set their administration's tone as they have to expect the bureaucracy to execute government's will.

The statement is a little vague, saying that one right is equal to the other, without really defining the range of those rights, but implying that they are considerable.

Yes, the Prime Minister does have some leeway in setting the tone in departments, but once more, existing policies limit that right to safeguard against any PM using public services to forward their own political agendas. We have already seen many cases of abuse of such policies, especially with the harper government - using public service sites to launch attack ads, changing the look of departmental sites so that they appear clones of the CPC ones, ignoring Treasury Board guidelines and introducing terms such as Harper’s Government rather than the Government of Canada.

After all, democracy demands that mandarins advise, ministers decide. Still, enforced silence and reflex compliance are anathemas to the openness and intellectual argy-bargy that are essential to the creation of effective policies that put the nation on the most beneficial course.

Yes. Travers is correct on that point. And by clouding the accountability and the independence of the public service by saying the government of the day has every right to expect (its) loyalty, Travers feeds the very thing he decries: enforced silence and reflex compliance would be the result of loyalty to governments of the day.

Beowulf Award

The Beowulf Award goes to: Marie-France Cloutier, Razmik Panossian and Charles Vallerand
 H/t to Dr. Dawg 


Three senior managers at a government-funded rights agency rocked by allegations of Conservative meddling have been suspended, including one of its longest-serving employees.

The three were among the staff that had earlier declared non-confidence in the Conservative-appointed chairman and two other appointees on the board.
 
We need to support these three, and any others who stand up to the politicization of agencies that are supposed to be non-partisan.  They risk a great deal in defending the principles they were hired to promote and protect.  Every time someone like them speaks out, they are fighting for everyone's right to do so.  We have a responsibility to guard their backs in any way we can.

Maybe a public servant living in that other Canada wrote this.

You know, the Canada Harper says is better now than four years ago?

“The Prime Minister’s action has not only brought additional talent and expertise to the Senate; it has greatly strengthened our efforts to move forward on our tackling-crime agenda.”

“The opposition has obstructed that agenda in the Senate, most notably by gutting Bill C-15 – a bill proposing mandatory jail time for serious drug offences, and a key part of the government’s efforts to fight organized crime.”
“These five new Senators support all our measures,” said Minister Paradis. “And today, we ask the opposition parties to listen to the victims of crime and to support our measures, too.”

That is part of what appears on Justice Canada’s site.

Like all federal departments and agencies staffed by public servants, the website is supposed to be non-partisan.  At all times.

This is important, because if an elected government is allowed to use it to push its ideology, promote its agenda, or attack the opposition, there is a clear conflict of interest and the very real possibility of presenting biassed information.

Nor should tax payer funded sites such as these be used to promote the interests or attack ads of any one party.

This time, all of us tax payers have paid for this partisan attack ad posted by the Conservatives.  Tolerate this, and next year, we could all be paying for similar ads for the Liberal party.  No elected government can be allowed to manipulate public service websites, or those sites become nothing more than political propaganda.  Useless as a source of information to the public.

Public servants, especially those working in communications, understand this.  That is why it is near to impossible that a public servant wrote that conservative message with the intentions of posting it on Justice Canada’s site.

Furthermore, since the statement made on that site is not accurate considering the Conservatives themselves have delayed and even killed their own crime bills, it is even less believable that a public servant wrote it.  That communications person would have done their research, aimed for accuracy, knowing full well that their words will be closely reviewed and edited by several managers.

With several levels of public service managers reviewing the message, errors would have been caught and it is impossible that the partisan nature of the message would not have been caught and addressed.  Unless the message came from the top.  The political top.

"This is a concerted effort on the part of this government to politicize the public service," said Liberal MP Marlene Jennings. "This is not the first time, it is reprehensible and it has to stop." Jennings lodged her complaint with Privy Council Clerk Wayne Wouters over a press release posted on the Justice Department's website

...She wants it removed and Wouters to investigate whether public servants wrote, approved and posted it, or if it was prepared by political staff and posted under their orders. She also wants to know if any bureaucrats objected.

An investigation sounds appropriate.  But with attack after attack on public servants who have been brutalized for trying to do their jobs, will any come forth?  I hope so, but then it’s easy for me to say since I’m not the one risking my job.

More public servants are coming forth, but with the threat of cutbacks in the public service, and a scarcety of jobs in the private sector, they take a great risk in offending their political Minister.

This is why I keep saying we need to support our public servants when they stand up against those who would rather they remain silent.

They work for us.  We should help them do so without threats or harassment.