This is ridiculous.
Every new federal civil servant from coast to coast is being sent to Ottawa on a two-day, all-expenses paid trip to give them a “big picture” understanding of how government works.
The trip is mandatory for all new employees as well as anyone contracted to the federal government for more than six months — everyone from mailroom clerks and agricultural ministry workers to new Mounties.
The first trips are scheduled to start in three weeks, organized under a government branch called the Canada School of Public Service.
What isn’t mentioned in the article is that the ridiculousness is just “business as usual” for the civil service. Bureaucracies across all levels of government seem addicted to the practice of transporting government employees long distances at taxpayer expense to gather together before centralized sheets of paper.
update – In the comments, Bruce clarifies;
This lunacy was brought in by the Martin government, finalized by Treasury Board prior to November 28, 2005. Follow the link.
update 2 – Looks like there’s a pretty good chance the program will be axed under the Conservatives. Liberal MP Hedy Fry seems unhappy about that. A very good observation by NDP MP Peter Julian;
Julian said government would be better off spending money to send senior decision makers in the civil service out to the regions to see how their policies affect the public, “rather than have new members of the public service going to Ottawa where they are essentially inculcated into the kind of atmosphere we have in Ottawa,”
Well said.
it is waaaaaaaaaaaaay beyond ridiculous.
Someone in Ottawa is stuck on stupid in a very, very big way.
Time to get on the email with my MoP
Air Canada must need an indirect subsidy. I would like to know who created this program. Is it a leftover from the past (fits the pattern) or a new creation by the current government (not something that they would likely endorse) or is it something invented by the civil service on it’s own without any higher (parliamentary) approvals.
Whose idea was this? Sounds like John Baird’s department, except John Baird wouldn’t willingly do something this stupid.
I think and hope this was entirely the doing of a committee of dual-surnamed pansycrats…
Why Ottawa? Why not the Canadian Consulate in Hawaii? Ooops, they do that already. \sarcasm off
This has been going on for years. Thank heavens people are finally noticing.
And yes–they fly Air Canada.
What a complete farce and waste of taxpayer money. The same results to this lame “overview” could be achieved by a two hour Power Point presentation in the cafeteria. It’s the kind of lame time killer that most people snooze through anyways. But, then, it does serve as an orientation to the core essence of civil service work, the over-organized and wasteful uselessness of so much of it.
People I know often describe such meetings, both gov’t AND private , as a huge waste of time and money. The meetings are usually used to create and perpetuate “something”, using the following Catch Phrases, self promoting titles, ect;
Consultant
Expert
Leading
Human developer
Seminar
Orientation Session
Workshop
Guest Speaker
Retreat
The ones I know, in a weak moment, in confidence, would say all of the above are longhand for; $Million Dollar$ waste of time BULLSHIT Party.
Actually the most insidious device used to promote BS meetings in the federal civil service came after Treasury Board severely curtailed attendance at “conferences” about 15 years ago. That immediately led to the development of something called a “POWPM” … acronym for “Program Oriented Work Planning Meeting”. The difference between a POWPM and a conference? Nothing, except since it was no longer NAMED a conference, it fell outside of the TB prohibition.
IIRC, I received my orientation into how the government works in the sixth grade.
Can’t be done!
“Educate” a civil servent?????
“Tis to laugh !
Ha!
“cetralized sheets of paper”
LOL !!!
seriously though, this is utterly unconscionable.
in the era of internet live video, conference calls, bla bla bla there is no way any need for this kind or perk freebie.
how many of them are going to find a way to trade in their 1st class ticket to economy, pocket the difference, then get bumped back into 1st class for some reason known only to bureaucrats ???
now, all you fans of harperist conservatists take a bow. things are right on track !!! THE BUREAUCRATS ONLY SPEND WHUT THE MINISTRIES GIVE THEM. THE WAY TO CAN THIS IS TO LET IT BE KNOWN THAT EVEN IF IT WAS APPROVED BY THE PRIOR LIEBERAL GOVERNMENT, IT WILL BE MOST FROWNED UPON AND WILL IMPACT OF FUTURE BUDGETS VISA VIE ‘GEE GUYS, LOOKS LIKE YOURE GETTING MORE THAN YOU NEED, TIME TO CUT CUT CUT !!!’
Robert, a minority gov’t isn’t going to take the big axe to the civil service. Too risky. Gotta have a majority first.
As for funding civil servants’ travel, the two day junket is an unnecessary expense. They should instead focus on paying for relocation costs for new hires so that more folks who qualify can apply all over the country for positions, not just locally. It pisses me off that I’m only allowed so far to apply where I reside, a little city in the east (that’s going to change very soon, thanks to the Tories, who see the stupidity of some of the “who can apply” nonsense the Liebrano$$$ brought in).
As a retired public servant ( woops! Now must be called a public administrator), I can guarantee you this is just one of many thousands of cockeyed ideas dreamt up by nitwits in Ottawa’s ivory towers.
It MAY have some merit, though. No one, and I mean no one, ever pays attention to those mind-numbing, sleep-inducing presentations frequently put on at the local level. Everything from “How to write a letter” to the ill-fated “One tonne challenge” to “how to wash your hands” are some of the many that immediately come to mind.
It’s a crying shame and nobody seems to be able to stop it.
Welcome to the Circumlocution Office, sirrah. (Dickens)
Conservatives are unable to shrink government but unwilling to improve it: they expand it while they disavow it. So we get bigger, more incompetent government… more» via arts and letters daily…
Warning: Longggg essay by a prof/intell from Boston College, …-
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2006/0607.wolfe.html
Rebuttal?
According to an Ottawa Citizent article, the program has been in effect since mid-May which makes it a Tory initiative. Couple that with the fact that at about the same time an all-party committee voted in favour of allowing MPs to use their per diem towards mortgages for Ottawa residences and one has to wonder if this government will have any more respect for taxpayers money than the previous government.
potatohead: “According to an Ottawa Citizen article, the program has been in effect since mid-May which makes it a Tory initiative.”
Wrong. Civil servants didn’t magically become Tory civil servants when the Tories came to power. The article clearly states this is an initiative of the Public Service Institute, not the Tories. Civil servants are overwhelmingly Liberal and Bloc supporters.
Given that the left has to make up stuff to criticize the Tories, we can assume Harper is safely on his way to a majority.
“one has to wonder if this government will have any more respect for taxpayers money than the previous government.”
Quantifiably wrong. Paul Martin increased federal spending 15% in one year! Harper significantly reduced that figure and is therefore quantifiably much more respectful of taxpayer money.
The program may have been in effect since mid-May, but we are talkng government initiative here, meaning it was probably in a planning state long before the election and implemented in May. It would be interesting to see where the approval came from. Also, I had not heard of the per diem change, where can I find the back up for that one?
jwp: Expenses are here:
http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/pubs_pol/hrpubs/tbm_113/c_e.asp
In Ottawa the per diem would be, without receipts:
“Meals and incidentals – 100% – $75.40”.
Hotel room is on top, with receipts.
Mark
Ottawa
Well…
I am a civil servant (not writing this from work, thanks for asking).
Took a course at the School – one of the basic intro courses offered as professional development. While it was really well managed, it was a basics civics 101 course (grade 10??). Everyone from admin personnel, to managers, to people with PHDs were going. Which begs the question… if some people who could teach the course are made to go…. why bother? It is not a wise use of public resources, and the $1500 it took to send me to Ottawa for 3 days was not worth it.
(Aside: lots of snark here about the public service. Contrary to popular belief, the majority are very dedicated to their work and put up with a lot of …. interesting pressures, same as everyone else. We are a big target – fine – but grow up and realize that every workforce has its strengths and weaknesses, even in the *perfect* private sector… where I also used to work, and saw more waste than in the public service…)
Thanks Mark. I agree with eoin (who must be on an EDO) that irrelevant of private or public, these POWPM’s are a waste and having also managed in both sectors have seen lots of waste in other areas. The crux of the matter however specifically relates to this particular issue, which is exceptionally dumb. It is virtually impossible in an employer of this size to weed out all wasteful programs, however this one is monumentally silly and should not have seen the light of day.
eoin–I totally agree with you. Most civil servants I know are much more dedicated than the MPs we elect! I have heard stories of how hard they fight to keep their departments ‘clean’–as in Allan Cutler. The abuse they put up with if they open their mouth. Losing pensions if they dare to be a whistleblower. There are bad apples in every barrel–sadly we only hear about them, not about the majority who work harder than most for our government. I myself have no idea how anyone can put up with the garbage.
Now, if we want to talk corruption–it is not the civil servants who made these rules. If I was paranoid I would think this was an effort to keep Air Canada flying!
Well, whether it was planned by the previous government or it’s a program dreamed up by the institute it’s still the taxpayer that foots the bill and, having been implemented in May, it’s been indirectly sanctioned by this government.
Respect is not “quantifiable”. You either have it or you don’t. Using taxpayers’ money to subsidize mortgages is hardly is sign of respect.
Eoin, your comparison to the private sector is the usual public service misdirection.
The difference here, public folks are paid with money forcibly taken from them. Private sector folks are paid with revenue that is contributed to the company volantarily and therefore need not be forth coming in the future in most cases.
Second the bureaucracies of private sector have far less direct impact on peoples lives than do public sector.
Third I read somewhere around election time, I don’t have the article but the Federal employees union had vowed to go to war with Harper government. Could this be a tactic in the war plan dreamt up in some upper level union conclave?
Well, whether it was planned by the previous government or it’s a program dreamed up by the institute it’s still the taxpayer that foots the bill and, having been implemented in May, it’s been indirectly sanctioned by this government.
Respect is not “quantifiable”. You either have it or you don’t. Using taxpayers’ money to subsidize mortgages is hardly is sign of respect.
Just so you know eoin I do believe every large organization needs a bureaucracy, they make the trains run on time as the saying goes but this stuff just goes to far. Further more through out history public servants can be a problem.
More than one Monarch has testified to that.
eoin – at least in the profit motivated private sector waste eventually gets punished by the creditors or shareholders. Bankruptcy eventually puts an end to the waste as it should. And, if you are a private company you can fire the dead weight off of your payroll as you should. That’s very difficult to do in the public sector.
There is a lot of the public sector that is just pure political awards where pigs at the trough get entrenched. Yes, there is a need for the public sector, but, there are many public sector jobs that can and should be privatized. I’ll start with garbage collection in a lot of big cities. Add your own.
The most over-taxed loser states, as this week’s blow up in New Jersey exemplifies, are the one’s with the biggest public employee percentages.
The best government is a very very small government. Time to clean sweep the whole bunch and start from scratch.
Sorry to go OT,
But this is important/intersting enough.
Once again, Canada opts out of missle defense
So how does this explain that Harper is Bush Lite? The Commie-bootlicks will think of something.
I know, that way, the North Korean little-dong missles will land on Vancouver and voila! 2 million less Liberal and NDP voters!
eoin,
Speaking from experience I’d agree that many if not most civil servants work very hard and very competently.
The trouble is that often what they are working so diligently at is a complete waste of time (or worse).
I might add Unions also do this with a sickening regularity.
Most workers like myself, try to avoid these like the plague.
At least sometimes where sent to a real school program. An example would be a course on refrigeration if one is posted to an ice arena.
The Union wonks have no shame. They go to Vegas every years on my dues. Being its CUPE. There probably attending anti Jewish rallies. A third of the Union leadership, belong to the “Religion of Peace”.
Which goes to show the loathing most workers have for it. Most never even attend one meeting. Let alone run for an office. Besides management owns the complete shebang. Its entirely compromised.
I also noticed how many end up in warm climes for the winter on the workers dime. Like shop stewards.
Just another way to waste money & more perks for the Administration. It also is used as a means of division. Have certain pets get more accreditation to move them over others. As well, it creates a caste system.
Those educated & the less than human (managements view) workers, are seen as two groups with a gulf between them. An artificial one using this organ of the civil service.
Eoin and others, at the risk of pissing some people off I’d say the biggest problem with the civil service (both sides of the border and several levels of government) is that once you are in it is a life job. You have to really screw the pooch to get fired and if you’re union then it is even harder. We’ve all stood in that line where the clerk does one person to every three the next line processes. The efficient ones never get rewarded other than the sense of personal satisfaction of doing a good job. and the good ones are there, just not in my line.
Generally, governments come and go but the core of the bureaucracy stays the same. They are the ones that will drag their feet at changes until there is a new minister, government or they retire.
I’d better shut up now otherwise my passport renewal will take even longer…
Headline of the day (yesterday):
“Consulting With Canadians: New Consultations”
http://www.gc.ca/whats/whaind_e.html
Feel better about your federal government now?
Mark
Ottawa
I mean, who the hell sat down and decided that this was worth millions of dollars? And on an annual basis no less. How the thought even developed is beyond my comprehension. And the fact that it blossomed from a mere thought to a real life, money-squandering, asinine program may yet make my head explode as I struggle to process how this could have happened.
What possible value is there in this that could not be achieved by any number of less expensive means? And as much as I respect any working individual, why in God’s name is it important for the mail clerk to have “a big picture understanding of how government works.”?
And yet, it is extraordinarily ironic at the same time. The goal is to demonstrate how government works. Well, a large part of government is the inefficient use of taxpayer’s money and…
… well you see where I’m going. I wonder if just telling new employees about how this ridiculous program developed and why it was approved would be orientation enough to how our government works?
Steve – not quite the way I see it. If a corporation writes off business travel, it is an expense which reduces their profits. It’s not a subsidy, it is simply less money made on which to pay taxes. You may cry “semantics”, but I don’t think so.
And what is written off as travel expenses by corporations tends to be more reasonable. Why? These people are responsible for their profits and are generally paid more when profits are higher and therefore more taxes are being paid. Writting off a $100 hotel doesn’t mean a $100 tax savings, it means $100 less profit.
Membership (in government) has its privileges. Same people that decry earned prosperity among capitalists grant themselves unearned privileges based on the expropriated spoils of the capitalist system.
This policy has the approval of the Treasury Board (unions had nothing to do with this policy), so even if it wasn’t created by the Cons, it was approved by them. Half of the money for these junkets is supposed to come from the local units and it will have an effect on training and hiring. No public servants I have spoken to are impressed by this policy.
The problem with the civil service is that it’s a monopoly. Perhaps the only monopoly we still allow in modern societies. There are competing political parties, competing business, competing religions, what have you. Only the civil service has no competition, and that produces bureausclerosis. That’s why whenever possible, services currently provided by the state should be devolved to the free market.
I would urge all to write their MP and voice their displeasure regarding this travesty. I already have. This is simply another School of Indoctrination whereby newbies are educated in the “Liberal” way of governmental ineficiency and mismanagement.
Several years ago there was a power outage in the East whereby approx. 40,000 civil servants were off work for several days. Did anyone notice? If any business could successfully operate several days without that many employees, then pink slips are in order.
Harper needs to hire an axeman to clean house in the Federal Civil Service. I am sure he would find a few billion dollars that could be put to better use elsewhere.
All this bitching reminds me of the usual morning grunt on coffee row. How about some action to stop the federal foolishness? Start with threatening your MPs. In principle, they won’t give a shit, but since most people on this blog are probably active Conservatives, and since only Conservative MPs can do anything about it, there’s some potential for coercion and threats. Make a public stink too – outside of the limited coverage of SDA where you’re preaching to the choir.
BTW, jolly little federal fun fests are a long-standing tradition. About 30 years ago, I met a group of civil servants returning from a French training exercise in (wait for it) Banff. None of them had learned to so much as fart in French, but they told me that they had a great trip.
I give this a week before the conservatives quash it. Nothing to see here folks, move along, move along.
Continuing the tour of the Liberal mausoleum, to your left you will see the cost of the investigation into Adscam,at $7.6million.
That means that if each dollar wasted by the Liberals on Adscam and the cleanup it cost were a voter, roughly 30% of all Canadians (40% of all adults) would be drunk right now. A number that, strangely enough, many statisticians call “surprisingly accurate” for a friday summer evening.
That’s one of the reasons I left the civil service for academics… and then found out that the university is an institution not unlike government, but where things move much slower.
There are a lot of hard working academics out there, but the current system where tenure = retirement, doesn’t help when we (young academics) are trying to change the status quo.
Much like the Federal civil service, there will be a huge turnover when the boomers retire, and that is a great demographic window to start chiselling away at the bureaucratic culture (not all of it is bad) to make changes for the better.
Cheers!
Leto
“That’s why whenever possible, services currently provided by the state should be devolved to the free market.”
Posted by: Vitruvius
Yeah, right. Normally when jobs are contracted out to private service providers there is little or no cost savings, workers get paid less, and the quality of the service goes down. Examples? Look at BC: Highway maintenance, hospital food services and hospital cleaning. Wages went down…in the case of hospital cleaning staff by around 30%; quality of service went down…spotty snow removal on highways, inedible food in hospitals and cleaning done so poorly that infectious outbreaks in hospitals increased significantly. Cost saving? Who knows. These figures can be easily manipulated.
Only the owners of private service providers truly benefit from contracting out.
I think you may find, Leto, that endemic bureausclerosis will infect today’s youth too, once they are in the driver’s seat. I hope I’m wrong, and even to the degree I’m not, I wish you strength in your mission. Perhaps, even if you can’t solve the monopoly problem, at least you may become famous for inventing some sort of bureau-stent.
This lunacy was brought in by the Martin government, finalized by Treasury Board prior to November 28, 2005. Follow the link:
Follow the link:
http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/pubs_pol/hrpubs/TB_856/ltd-afp01_e.asp#b1
and you will find the TB Secretariat document, to take effect on Jan 1/06, note on bottom that it was LAST AMENDED on Nov. 28/05. On THAT document, scroll down to par. 3.8 and click on “Directive on Administration of Required Training” and you will find references to identifying these with newly hired employees blah blah blah. Match these with the identical references on the website of the Canadian School of Public Service, and there you go.
Another Lib-left boondoggle, hopefully to be soon quashed by PMSH.
Then tell me, Iberia – why is it that in the American system, the private sector hospitals provide the most up to date equipment and fastest service – while the state hospitals are generally considered to be the choice you make when you can’t afford something better.
Iberia, i live in B.C.
The comment you made about B.C. highways is not factual.
I travel a lot, and i have seen much worse conditions in other provinces. The nonsense you espouse is typical of those who cant remember what it was like a few years ago.
Kate:
I think you answered your own question…state hospitals are for those who can’t afford something better. No doubt the extra money required for private hospitals goes into purchasing new equipment and better wages for the medical staff.
As an aside, here is an interesting comparison of the American and Canadian health systems:
h(etc.)//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_and_American_health_care_systems_compared
Which system is better? I guess that depends how rich you are.
Lee:
I have lived in BC 17 years. I not comparing BC to any other province and in fact, it wouldn’t be fair to compare the various regions in BC to each other because they are so geographically different. However, in my region (Victoria/southern Vancouver Island) I have noticed that the roads are not repaired or plowed (the odd time we have snow) as well as they were in the early 90’s. That’s my opinion, and my memory is just fine, thanks.
Kate:
Further my comment above, to say that US private hospitals are better than the public ones is disingenuous because the purpose and funding is different. Moreover, it’s not simple or easy to compare the US health system to the Canadian system. A private service provider in a Canadian hospital has only one major thing in common with a private American hospital: the owners of these enterprises make lots of money.
Where’s the big cost? The majority of these people will only be comming from Hull.
Iberia, I live in the Cowichan Valley, Vancouver Island (thats the other side of the Malahat) and our highways are well looked after now.
The Vancouver Sun is reporting this morning that the Torys are reviewing the program with the intention of cancelling it: tinyurl.com/fmunv