“Prime Minister Paul Martin’s Liberal government is plagued by rock-bottom morale, excessive spending aimed at bribing Canadians, and a string of ‘stupid’ and ‘foolish’ decisions that aren’t in the public interest…”
You’re getting tired of me saying that aren’t you? But this time it wasn’t me talking. It’s from “the inside”. It was a federal bureaucrat. Let’s hope he has a huge RRSP stashed away and a damn fine lawyer, accountant, and security firm on his speed dial.
Martin’s Liberals plagued with bad morale
report: Federal bureaucracy being driven to ‘breakdown’, says ex-deputy ministerPrime Minister Paul Martin’s Liberal government is plagued by rock-bottom morale, excessive spending aimed at bribing Canadians, and a string of “stupid” and “foolish” decisions that aren’t in the public interest, senior federal bureaucrats were told at a private conference last week.
The grim message came from former deputy minister Harry Swain, who said the federal bureaucracy is being driven to “breakdown” by unnecessary and costly rules brought in by Martin leading up to Justice John Gomery’s report on the sponsorship scandal.
“Ridiculous and surreal impositions are raining on the public service from management theorists and politicians—sometimes the same person—seeking to bury Gomery,” Swain, now executive director of the Canadian Institute for Climate Studies at the University of Victoria, told the bureaucrats.
Swain, according to a copy of his speech obtained Wednesday by The Vancouver Sun, noted that Auditor-General Sheila Fraser had said the sponsorship mess was caused by the breaking—not absence—of rules.
“Two hundred and thirty-eight new rules, plus legions of comptrollers and auditors, will not prevent malfeasance if a prime minister decides that a higher cause justifies playing fast and loose with the rules.”
He also blasted the creation of the super-agency Services Canada, the planned sell-off of $3.5 billion in federal buildings, the exclusion of small Canadian businesses from government procurement, and the massive and unnecessary increase in internal audits and rules following the sponsorship scam.
[…] “All my friends tell me this town has never been so miserable,” said Swain.
[…] AMONG SWAIN’S CRITICISMS:
– Martin took “an axe” to the equalization program simply to send more money to Atlantic Canada for political purposes. And he sent $41 billion to the provinces “to solve the insoluble and wholly provincial problem of [health care] waiting times.” The Martin government’s “real major policy shift,” therefore, has been losing control of spending. “Bucks and bodies are flowing like water here on the banks of the Rideau” River,” he said.
– He slammed new rules requiring that the federal government narrow its purchasing to a smaller group of large companies, thereby forcing smaller firms to work with the main contractors. “What it did, of course, was take tens of thousands of small businesses all across the country—many of them owned by active and politically engaged citizens—and tell them that they now had to slipstream some large company, a company which raised the little guy’s prices by 15 to 30 per cent for the privilege of riding on its standing-offer coattails. Gosh, imagine Liberals inventing toll-gating.”
[…]
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