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THE PUBLIC SERVICE BARGAIN
Increasingly murky territory and a line that's harder to find
There is an unwritten rule of a non-partisan public service. It offers the government fearless advice and loyal implementation in return for stable, career jobs. Where’s the line? The whole issue of non-partisanship is becoming murky territory for public servants as shown in this anonymous exchange. Social media makes the line between their online personal and professional lives difficult to draw. Add to that political attacks, politicization and polarization, and public servants are struggling to balance their duty of loyalty with the right to engage in free speech and political activity.
A no-man’s land. During the Harper era, Pierre Poilievre came under fire for blurring the traditional line between politics and public service for partisan communications. As employment minister he paid overtime to public servants to make videos promoting the government’s universal child care benefit. (The videos were taken down at some point.)
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Later, as finance critic, he used clips of bureaucrats unable to answer his questions at parliamentary hearings – with the Jeopardy theme song playing in the background – for social media posts.
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Bargain blow up. Jared Wesley, political science professor at University of Alberta, argues the traditional bargain between public servants and politicians, which has been unravelling for years, could finally blow up under new Alberta Premier Danielle Smith.
Smith has threatened to boot a slew of government officials for failing to live up to her vision of Alberta's values. She put the Alberta public service “on notice, all 240,000 of them, that every single decision they make must be put through the lens of putting Alberta first." (By Alberta’s count, it has 230,000 public servants.)
Wesley, who studies the public service’s role in democracy, argues that makes it difficult for public servants to hold up “their half of the public service bargain.”
Smith’s indifference to the bargain could have knock-on effects on public servants across the country. Federal bureaucrats had a taste when Environment and Climate Change Canada took to Twitter to correct false claims that the government is hiring “climate cops” to “trespass” on Western farmland.
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Smith, now as premier with her proposed signature Alberta sovereignty act, means we “could expect a lot more calling her out,” said one longtime bureaucrat.
EMERGENCY POWERS
So, it begins. The Public Order Emergency Commission has begun its long-awaited public inquiry probing the government’s use of emergency powers to end the protests that took over downtown Ottawa streets last winter.
The prime minister, cabinet ministers along with Privy Council Clerk Janice Charette and a parade of other senior bureaucrats will be testifying during the last weeks of the commission, providing a rare look into how decisions are made:
- Rob Stewart, deputy minister at Public Safety Canada.
- Dominic Rochon, senior assistant deputy minister at Public Safety Canada.
- David Vigneault, director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
- Michelle Tessier, assistant deputy minister with Public Safety's national and cyber security branch.
- Marie-Hélène Chayer, executive director of the Integrated Threat Assessment Centre.
- Michael Duheme, deputy RCMP commissioner responsible for federal policing.
- Brenda Lucki, RCMP commissioner.
- Curtis Zablocki, deputy RCMP commissioner and commanding officer of Alberta.
- John Ossowski, former president of the Canada Border Services Agency.
- Michael Keenan, deputy minister at Transport Canada.
- Christian Dea, chief economist at Transport Canada.
- Michael Sabia, deputy minister at Finance Canada.
- Rhys Mendes, assistant deputy minister at Finance Canada.
- Isabelle Jacques, assistant deputy minister at Finance Canada.
- Cindy Termorhuizen, assistant deputy minister at Global Affairs Canada.
- Joe Comartin, former Canadian consul general in Detroit.
- Jody Thomas, national security and intelligence adviser to the prime minister.
- Jacquie Bogden, deputy secretary to the cabinet on emergency preparedness and COVID recovery.
- Janice Charette, clerk of the Privy Council.
- Nathalie Drouin, deputy clerk of the Privy Council
A full list of witnesses can be found here.
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IN PASSING
The Charbonneau Loops: A must-read for anyone interested in contracting when there is no inhouse expertise to provide oversight and only a small pool of vendors.
Two days’ work: Programmer replicates $54-million ArriveCAN app
The populist playbook: Populists like Alberta Premier Danielle Smith succeed when they are able to do three things from the right-wing populist playbook, Jared Wesley writes.
Canadian premium: What we pay more for and why, from air travel to milk.
CRA’s pandemic fallout: The pandemic has rattled the Canada Revenue Agency. Audits have been suspended, workers reassigned and audits of small business now take a year.
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