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Kathy Geer's avatar

Jen, though I suspect we’re on different parts of the political spectrum this was excellent and helpful to my personal perspective.

PS I am a paid subscriber as I think what you and Matt (writing for NP notwithstanding 😉) are doing is smart, well written and mostly balanced despite honestly held differences with my worldview.

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Garrett Woolsey's avatar

The Line has done important work this week, publishing several articles highlighting apparent incompetence and inefficiency in our public service bureaucracy. Our response to the Afghanistan emergency was late, lacked urgency, and the comms (to the public and those in need) were incoherent.

That Jen's article ties this response to the competence of the PM points out the risk of centralizing core government operations in the PMO. No one in the senior public service dares make a decision of any consequence without clearance from the top - so when those folks are distracted (with, say, electioneering), no decisions are made.

Keep pressing on this issue, it's clear our Federal public service is badly in need of review and reform. For so long as political considerations take primacy over the health and safety of Canadians (and others), disasters like the Afghanistan response will happen over and over and over again.

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