Gomery Deux

The how-to-fix-it part of the Gomery Report has been released. Here are my take on some of the major recommendations:

- Parliamentary committees, made up of backbench MPs, should get "substantially increase[d] funding" to let them research issues as they carry out their watchdog function.

Fair, but party discipline has to also be loosened for this to work, because if the legislative branch (including the government backbench) can't hold the executive branch (Cabinet) to account, it will be a toothless and useless reform.

- Deputy ministers should be made accountable for wrongdoing within their departments, unless they have filed written objections to a proposed course of action that the Office of the Auditor General can examine.

Fair, but isn't it already supposed to work like this in theory AND practice?

Deputy ministers and other senior public servants should be hired through an open and competitive process, and given greater job security, including minimum terms of office, to guard them from the threat of retribution.

- Disagree. Politicians have to be free to fire their deputies or else it leads to a permanent class of unelected, unremovable bureaucrats in Ottawa. How can you make a deputy accountable (see suggestion above) but not be able to can them if necessary?

- Political staff working in cabinet ministers' offices should be prevented from giving orders to civil servants, and banned from getting public service jobs without going through formal hiring competitions when they leave political life – when their boss is defeated in an election, for example.

Wholeheartedly disagree with the first part. The role of the civil service is to give fearless advice on policy, and more importantly, be 100% loyal in the implemention of those policies once chosen by the duly elected representatives of the Canadian people and those who staff them. Contrary to what a lot of people in Ottawa think, the role of the civil service is NOT to be the chamber of sober second thought. We already have one of those. As a buddy of mine likes to say, "Last time I checked, the elected guys were still in charge" ... and if a civil servant doesn't like that, perhaps they're in the wrong career.

As for the second part, unquestionably yes. Funnelling partisan hacks into an ostensibly politically neutral career as a civil servant without at least a three-year cooling off period undermines the concept of even-handedness, which is absolutely necessary for the civil service-elected officials relationship to properly function.

- All civil servants should be required by law to document decisions and recommendations, and banned from destroying such documentation.

Agreed. This is supposed to happen anyways.

- The CEOs of Crown corporations should no longer be political appointments, but should be hired, evaluated and, if necessary, dismissed by the agency's board of directors.

Totally agree. Jean Pelletier at VIA Rail, anyone?

- Any "special reserves" of federal money should be managed by departments with financial administration expertise, and detailed in a report to the House of Commons once a year.

I'll go this one better. Everyone should submit their budgets at the six and nine-month points of the year so that the end of fiscal year last-minute rush to blow wads of cash won't happen as easily. Too often, managers spend frivolously so as to guarantee themselves an equivalent budget for the next year. This is just plain wrong.