Penny-wise and pound-foolish strategies of Canadian bureaucrats

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By Paul Win

An article in a local paper quoted retired Colonel Pat Stogran, the Veterans Ombudsman, that stingy federal bureaucrats, including those at Privy Council Office and Treasury Board, are blocking initiatives that could help the country’s Afghan war veterans, and describes in a nutshell what ails the Canadian bureaucracy in general. He used the harshest words aimed at the federal bureaucracy and stated, “There’s huge amounts of pushback from central agencies on anything to do with veterans in any way that might mean more money going out. Deputy ministers make more on average in one year than a person who loses two legs in Afghanistan can expect to be paid out for the rest of their life.”

Those stingy bureaucrats are certainly not trying to save money to the taxpayers but are essentially denying the veterans the compensation they rightly deserve and by doing so they are deliberately pushing them on to the road to litigation of the matter in order to safeguard their claim. The bureaucrats do not hesitate in spending huge sums of taxpayers’ money in litigating the genuine claims when such claims could be settled at a small fraction of the overall cost. The record of the Canadian bureaucrats in this respect is so well known and the record books are littered with examples of their penny-wise, pound-foolish strategies. It is ironic that the Justice Department – Canada’s largest law firm – pays salaries in hundreds of millions of dollars every year to its lawyers to fight ordinary citizens and tops it off with millions more by retaining lawyers from the private sector.

Air India, Sponsorship Scandal and Mehar Arar are just a few recent examples of the botched up decisions of the Canadian bureaucracy which have not just cost taxpayers colossal amounts of dollars but have brought disrepute to the government and the country. Equally pertinent is the case of Dr. Chander Grover who has been discriminated against and bullied by the National Research Council for 24 years and the bureaucracy has shelled out an estimated 60 million dollars to deny the brilliant scientist his rightful place in Canada, which he adopted as new home after emigrating from his native India.

The slipshod decisions made in the Grover case are so well documented in the decisions of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunals, the Public Service Labor Relations Board, the Federal Court and the Federal Court of Appeal rendered in the last 20 years. The discriminatory treatment of Dr. Grover has been “flagrant and calculated to humiliate and demean” and involved tactics which were “contrived and calculated to end his career at NRC.” The unlawful acts committed against Dr. Grover have been attributed to “the overall context and attitude of the employer.”

Rather than making amends, the bureaucrats have decided to adopt a new approach to intensify litigation against Dr. Grover and continue it until “he dies.” The new approach, well documented in the documents obtained through the access to personal information, came into effect to block an initiative of a former President of the National Research Council to have all outstanding matters involving Dr. Grover resolved through negotiated settlement.

The documents show federal bureaucrats at several central agencies, including the Privy Council Office, Treasury Board, Justice Department and Industry Canada became directly involved in steering the new approach, which also has blessings of the federal Minister of Industry. The documents also show that the Office of the Auditor General of Canada was involved as if it were one of the central agencies of the government. Auditor General Sheila Fraser corresponded directly with the Minister of Industry in this matter to drum up support for the bureaucrats against Dr. Grover.

Pursuant to the new approach, the bureaucrats hired legal counsel and other experts from the private sector, as well as communication experts were hired to take care of the advocacy groups supporting Dr. Grover. A major portion of the $60 million tab has been incurred after the bureaucrats decided to cancel the initiative of the former President and the implementation of the new approach to fight Dr. Grover until he dies. The Grover case provides a roadmap to the pushback strategies and the wasteful spending of public funds and a public inquiry will reaffirm lessons which our bureaucrats have hard time learning.

Indeed, the pushback from central agencies is not just restricted to veterans but this appears to be the norm of the Canadian bureaucracy for everything else also – the practice to deny the rightful claim now and face the consequences later. It is time for our elected representatives to get involved and put bureaucrats on the right track of rational thinking.

Paul Win is the Chair of the Canadian Peoples’ Forum.

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