Why we're so nasty (society, not us personally — we're great). Jen gets a free bike and Matt wants an antique rifle. Why PP is going to steamroller the elites. And more!
Interesting discussion on "nobody wants to do the work to fix things". That's because many of these things will take multiple years of consistent delivery of effort. Setting the policy is the easy part. The effort must come from the civil service and may need to span a government term. Projects and program delivery are fraught with risk and politicians have the attention span focused on the next election cycle. So senior civil servants are focused on managing the minister and nothing gets done.
Would be nice if the civil service would do anything. Is there an incentive/reward system that would encourage this happy result? As I recall from the time I served there the incentive was by default to avoid mistakes (aka embarrass the Minister) since there was no promotion/reward structure in place to encourage actually accomplishing anything. Better to plan and polish and dream up contingencies and responses.
Well, the incentive is that if the Minister says he wants a fix figured out, you do that, or get fired. So, they asked for a report on what was wrong with care homes, and 20 years ago, the civil service functionaries wrote one that pretty much said "they need more money to increase the staff/person, and reduce the number of people per room" ... but the civil service couldn't take up a collection, it was up to the political level to produce the money.
And they did not. For the whole 20 years and multiple governments. I really don't think you can blame the civil service for the state of care homes that killed so many thousands.
With more than 300,00 people in Canada's civil service what sort of incentives/rewards do you think is necessary? Gift certificates for books or meals? Coffee cards? Hockey tickets? A foosball table or dart board in every office? Is their pay and benefits insufficient for adults who applied for the job in the first place? 300,000 people are not doing anything? That's what you believe?
You seem to imply they are all overgrown children who must be bribed to be productive. Like any workplace it has downsides but also ups. And every time there is a shift or change high in the hierarchy they get to shift and change with it or leave. But to say it would be nice if they would do anything without exactly saying what it is you think they should be doing is simply whining. If you already think you know why it's happening, why do you think bribery would work?
I can only report on what I observed. No implications intended. With the strong civil service unions anyone who tried to stand above the herd got pulled back because he/she/whatever made the others look bad. This is not unique to public sector unions BTW.
When program managers and administrators can’t hire/fire - public service commission does this - or budget - Treasury Board does that - and the ironclad salary scale progression rules, what tools do they have? The only solution I can see is privatize as much as possible. Then at least the actual “good” will have a chance to overcome the never reached “perfect” FWIW
How big a staff under one minister? How about the thousands that do not work for the PMO or a minister or some other high mucky muck type in Gov? While I have never directly worked for the gov, I have worked within public sector unions. And independent shops. As soon as someone has a beef, their beef is bigger and more unfair and unjust than anyone else's. It's only what they observe. Oh yes, all unions have that caveat right at the top of the books, "anyone who tried to stand above the herd got pulled back because he/she/whatever made the others look bad."/s TG privatization in the civil service won't happen. There would be full-scale layoffs to start. Those who reapply and are rehired will have to be satisfied with a serious cut in pay and benefits, possibly hours would be toyed with—work 3.5 hours at this office, then 3.5 course at a different office. Travel time between offices is your hook. But if you don't accept the hours you won't make enough to pay rent and eat. Privatization is all fun and games until you factor in real people. Even the good, especially the good, with say FTN.
Matt / Jen, I absolutely think that you let the federal government off too lightly on the issue of hiring of the racist goof for anti-racist work [truly disgusting and, in my view, truly typical].
You assert that this was bad staff work (or non-work) on the vetting process. That would PERHAPS make some sense except that a) the Minister himself was warned by Liberal MP Anthony Housefather about said goof; and b) his tweets were absolutely available to pretty much anyone who was interested for months - well, years actually. That leads me to three possible conclusions: 1) they bureaucrats simply didn't do ANY vetting but - perhaps - said that did; 2) the bureaucrats, perhaps even the Minister, actually agreed with the position of said goof; or 3) rank, total, absolute, fireable incompetence.
My questions are: a) which of the three possibilities that I have enumerated are correct? and b) who has been or will be fired?
As a Canadian citizen who has watched this government, I can tell you that I believe that all of options 1), 2) and 3) are simultaneously correct and I absolutely do not believe that anyone will carry the can and lose a job for this, certainly not the Minister for that would smack of Ministerial responsibility and we all know that this government does not believe in that concept, nor in the concept of capability or responsibility being something that is expected of the bureaucracy, let alone something that should result in anyone being fired.
A thought...are we reliving the 1920's? Faith in authority is gone. People just want to forget everything in the recent past, and be free to do anything regardless of consequence? The civil part of society seems to have taken a holiday, and those that aren't partying are filled with rage at just about anything...but are making no attempts to balance it.
The Titanic, World War 1, and the Spanish flu changed how the world functions, and society as a whole, immeasurably. Between COVID, and the recession, it feels like we're living the same thing all over again.
The PP handshake story is so, so dumb. The guy has such a tiny, tiny following, I doubt PP knew who he was. The journalists pearl-clutching about him and his group are their main source of publicity! I don't think I would have ever come across him or his group but for the endless stream of scary articles warning about them.
Good luck with the Garand. A magnificent tool which was far superior to the other WW II weapons. Get one quick if you can. A semi auto war weapon with an en bloc 8 round “clip” ( one of the few instances where the term clip is accurate) is a prime candidate for the next Canadian secret Order in Council civilian disarmament initiative.
Possibly-relevant (to the discussion of "steamrolling") article at Salon about how Trump steamrolled everybody by saying aggressive, provocative, insulting things that nobody in a similar position ever said before.
Success with that depends upon the Enemy (there's no other word for this kind of politics) being surprised and set on a back foot by the audacity of it. It's wearing thin. I'm not sure if rival politicians are just going to say "Auugh! You have called me a socialist tyrant! I have no reply and can only sputter, then concede!"
I think a journalist just has to ask "Who's more elite than Harper's right-hand man of many years? You weren't just in the room, you were in every room."
I once owned a Garand. It was refurbished at the Augusta Arsenal in 1950 and preserved in cosmoline. She was the nicest rifle l ever shot, was expensive to feed though. Wish l still had her. =(
No worries on the podcast running a bit late. It is worth waiting for. Just for your SA, I using the podcast more now than YouTube. I can download the podcast and take it with me, and listen while I do other things.
Interesting discussion on "nobody wants to do the work to fix things". That's because many of these things will take multiple years of consistent delivery of effort. Setting the policy is the easy part. The effort must come from the civil service and may need to span a government term. Projects and program delivery are fraught with risk and politicians have the attention span focused on the next election cycle. So senior civil servants are focused on managing the minister and nothing gets done.
Would be nice if the civil service would do anything. Is there an incentive/reward system that would encourage this happy result? As I recall from the time I served there the incentive was by default to avoid mistakes (aka embarrass the Minister) since there was no promotion/reward structure in place to encourage actually accomplishing anything. Better to plan and polish and dream up contingencies and responses.
Well, the incentive is that if the Minister says he wants a fix figured out, you do that, or get fired. So, they asked for a report on what was wrong with care homes, and 20 years ago, the civil service functionaries wrote one that pretty much said "they need more money to increase the staff/person, and reduce the number of people per room" ... but the civil service couldn't take up a collection, it was up to the political level to produce the money.
And they did not. For the whole 20 years and multiple governments. I really don't think you can blame the civil service for the state of care homes that killed so many thousands.
With more than 300,00 people in Canada's civil service what sort of incentives/rewards do you think is necessary? Gift certificates for books or meals? Coffee cards? Hockey tickets? A foosball table or dart board in every office? Is their pay and benefits insufficient for adults who applied for the job in the first place? 300,000 people are not doing anything? That's what you believe?
You seem to imply they are all overgrown children who must be bribed to be productive. Like any workplace it has downsides but also ups. And every time there is a shift or change high in the hierarchy they get to shift and change with it or leave. But to say it would be nice if they would do anything without exactly saying what it is you think they should be doing is simply whining. If you already think you know why it's happening, why do you think bribery would work?
I can only report on what I observed. No implications intended. With the strong civil service unions anyone who tried to stand above the herd got pulled back because he/she/whatever made the others look bad. This is not unique to public sector unions BTW.
When program managers and administrators can’t hire/fire - public service commission does this - or budget - Treasury Board does that - and the ironclad salary scale progression rules, what tools do they have? The only solution I can see is privatize as much as possible. Then at least the actual “good” will have a chance to overcome the never reached “perfect” FWIW
How big a staff under one minister? How about the thousands that do not work for the PMO or a minister or some other high mucky muck type in Gov? While I have never directly worked for the gov, I have worked within public sector unions. And independent shops. As soon as someone has a beef, their beef is bigger and more unfair and unjust than anyone else's. It's only what they observe. Oh yes, all unions have that caveat right at the top of the books, "anyone who tried to stand above the herd got pulled back because he/she/whatever made the others look bad."/s TG privatization in the civil service won't happen. There would be full-scale layoffs to start. Those who reapply and are rehired will have to be satisfied with a serious cut in pay and benefits, possibly hours would be toyed with—work 3.5 hours at this office, then 3.5 course at a different office. Travel time between offices is your hook. But if you don't accept the hours you won't make enough to pay rent and eat. Privatization is all fun and games until you factor in real people. Even the good, especially the good, with say FTN.
Exactly.
Matt / Jen, I absolutely think that you let the federal government off too lightly on the issue of hiring of the racist goof for anti-racist work [truly disgusting and, in my view, truly typical].
You assert that this was bad staff work (or non-work) on the vetting process. That would PERHAPS make some sense except that a) the Minister himself was warned by Liberal MP Anthony Housefather about said goof; and b) his tweets were absolutely available to pretty much anyone who was interested for months - well, years actually. That leads me to three possible conclusions: 1) they bureaucrats simply didn't do ANY vetting but - perhaps - said that did; 2) the bureaucrats, perhaps even the Minister, actually agreed with the position of said goof; or 3) rank, total, absolute, fireable incompetence.
My questions are: a) which of the three possibilities that I have enumerated are correct? and b) who has been or will be fired?
As a Canadian citizen who has watched this government, I can tell you that I believe that all of options 1), 2) and 3) are simultaneously correct and I absolutely do not believe that anyone will carry the can and lose a job for this, certainly not the Minister for that would smack of Ministerial responsibility and we all know that this government does not believe in that concept, nor in the concept of capability or responsibility being something that is expected of the bureaucracy, let alone something that should result in anyone being fired.
A thought...are we reliving the 1920's? Faith in authority is gone. People just want to forget everything in the recent past, and be free to do anything regardless of consequence? The civil part of society seems to have taken a holiday, and those that aren't partying are filled with rage at just about anything...but are making no attempts to balance it.
The Titanic, World War 1, and the Spanish flu changed how the world functions, and society as a whole, immeasurably. Between COVID, and the recession, it feels like we're living the same thing all over again.
Always great to hear smart people debate.
The PP handshake story is so, so dumb. The guy has such a tiny, tiny following, I doubt PP knew who he was. The journalists pearl-clutching about him and his group are their main source of publicity! I don't think I would have ever come across him or his group but for the endless stream of scary articles warning about them.
Just wanted to say thanks for another thoughtful, informative and entertaining podcast.
Good luck with the Garand. A magnificent tool which was far superior to the other WW II weapons. Get one quick if you can. A semi auto war weapon with an en bloc 8 round “clip” ( one of the few instances where the term clip is accurate) is a prime candidate for the next Canadian secret Order in Council civilian disarmament initiative.
Possibly-relevant (to the discussion of "steamrolling") article at Salon about how Trump steamrolled everybody by saying aggressive, provocative, insulting things that nobody in a similar position ever said before.
https://www.salon.com/2022/08/26/biden-finally-busts-out-the-f-word-maga-is-semi-fascism--the-only-problem-is-the-use-of-semi/
Success with that depends upon the Enemy (there's no other word for this kind of politics) being surprised and set on a back foot by the audacity of it. It's wearing thin. I'm not sure if rival politicians are just going to say "Auugh! You have called me a socialist tyrant! I have no reply and can only sputter, then concede!"
I think a journalist just has to ask "Who's more elite than Harper's right-hand man of many years? You weren't just in the room, you were in every room."
I once owned a Garand. It was refurbished at the Augusta Arsenal in 1950 and preserved in cosmoline. She was the nicest rifle l ever shot, was expensive to feed though. Wish l still had her. =(
No worries on the podcast running a bit late. It is worth waiting for. Just for your SA, I using the podcast more now than YouTube. I can download the podcast and take it with me, and listen while I do other things.
M1 Garand? That is a fully-semi-automatic military-grade assault-style weapon. There is no need, and no *place* for those in Canada.
Sarcasm I take it ?
The federal government needs fixing. Do you want another ballerina or the Hulk to fix it? No-brained for me.