DISSENTING OPINION ON PUBLIC SERVICE RENEWAL AND LIBERAL INCOMPETENCE
April 1997
Public Service renewal has been a matter of concern to the federal government for a very long time. In much the same way as a forecast storm where everybody says, "Did you hear there's a big storm coming?", listens to the distant rumble, watches the sky getting darker, and does absolutely nothing to get ready for it.
The Report of the Liberal majority on the Standing Committee on Government Operations is no exception to this rule. Its analysis is exhaustive and accurate. Its data are disturbing. All that is missing is the political will to go ahead and change things. The few suggested measures seem inadequate to the sheer scale of the problem.
The Liberal majority Report concedes that there is a need for renewal in the Public Service, observing that (1) 70 per cent of all its executives will be eligible to retire over the next eight years, and (2) only 1 per cent of its employees were under 25 in 1996, compared with 15 per cent in 1976. The Liberals might have gone further along these lines and recalled that while their government was slashing the Public Service during the past three and a half years it did not have the common sense to safeguard the transfer of knowledge or preserve corporate memory within departments. This unfortunate situation is to a great extent the result of the Liberal government's poor strategic planning during their term in office, which luckily is drawing to a close.
The under-representation of younger people in the Public Service is also the result of incompetence and lack of vision on the part of successive federal governments, from Pierre Trudeau's first government to the current Jean Chrétien government. Young public servants are virtually non-existent at the federal level. With a federal election looming, the Liberals feel a sudden need to do something about this.
Young people in the Outaouais have undoubtedly borne the cost of three and a half years of Liberal indifference, and they will find it hard to believe now that this same government is suddenly concerned about them. When the Liberals came to power in October 1993, the rate of unemployment for Outaouais residents under 25 was 20.6 per cent. In March 1997 the rate had gone up to 21.6 per cent. For the whole Ottawa-Hull region, the youth unemployment rate has gone from 15.1 per cent to 16.2 per cent under the Liberals. It is these unemployed young people who are currently paying for Liberal negligence. Is there any point recalling that the Liberals were elected on a slogan of JOBS! JOBS! JOBS!? "Opportunistic" and "cynical" seem to be the two words that best describe the Liberals' last-gasp awakening to this serious problem of injustice to the young, for whom they have done exactly nothing throughout their term.
Cuts
The Liberal Report tries hard to use the difficult cuts made by the federal government as an excuse for the treatment reserved for young people. "The government estimates that, by 1988-89, Program Review will have reduced program spending and the size of the federal administration by 22 per cent. It is further estimated that from 1999 onwards, the government will save more than $3 billion in payroll costs." What the Liberal majority Report fails to mention is that transfers to the provinces over the same period will have been cut by more than $7 billion annually and that this represents foregone revenue of 37 per cent for the provinces. The provincial governments thus have to operate in a context of much more drastic cuts, in such essential areas as health care, social assistance and education. Before they ask us to cry for the poor federal government, the Liberals could at least have the decency to look at what the federal government has done to the provinces.The Bloc Québécois wished to submit this dissenting opinion in order to shed light on the shabby treatment handed out to young people and the provinces by this government in the context of Public Service renewal.