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Austerity rules, but not all the time

Exceptions include MacKay ’copter ride

Posted: 01/23/2012 8:14 AM | Comments: 0

OTTAWA — Federal civil servants are walking around holding their breath these days, not knowing when their department is going to fall prey to the cost-cutting axe. In Ottawa, where one in five employees works for the federal government, the economy is already feeling the pinch with slower retail sales over Christmas and a cooling housing market.

But Finance Minister Jim Flaherty needs to find $4 billion in savings within four years, and estimates suggest anywhere from 9,000 to 40,000 civil servants could be chopped to help Flaherty get there.

More than 5,000 have been eliminated already at more than a dozen departments and agencies, including Environment Canada, Public Works, and Human Resources and Skills Development Canada. Ironically, the 600 jobs cut at HRSDC are people who process employment insurance claims. There is now quite a backlog for such claims and the recently unemployed face lengthy delays to get their first cheques.

The government is in a deficit situation and the civil service under this government has grown exponentially. There are quite likely numerous places to cut back. It’s also true that some of the jobs being eliminated are vacant, and some of the people getting pink slips are transferring to other departments.

But not all of them.

When people are losing their jobs, it makes any story of government overindulgence a little harder to swallow. Stories like Defence Minister Peter MacKay ordering a military helicopter to bring him back from vacation in Newfoundland.

Wouldn’t we all love a private ride back from a holiday?

Last week, the stories about bad spending decisions seemed to be everywhere.

First, there was the $375,000 renovation to a suite of offices for a deputy minister and eight staff at defence headquarters in Ottawa. It is a somewhat outrageous price tag for nine people.

It was made worse when internal documents released through access to information showed the deputy minister approved the renovations three weeks after defence staff were warned 2,100 civilian jobs were going to be cut to save money.

Then there was the story about the furniture recycling snafu at Environment Canada — the same department that has already laid off more than 300 scientists, researchers and other staff and will lay off another 400 in the next three years.

You see, a $60-million renovation of the department’s office tower in Gatineau, Que., required that office furniture be removed.

The department decided it was going to be more expensive to recycle that furniture than to buy new stuff.

How did it decide that? Documents released through an access-to-information request reported it was a "big guess." They didn’t actually know. And they didn’t bother to find out.

But after the decision was made, a letter from a furniture manufacturer showed 800 desks could have been recycled for $500,000 less.

To make things worse, it cost $140,000 to store the old furniture for a year.

In a belated bid to nip suspect spending in the bud, the government on Friday nixed an order for something civil servants actually might have found useful. The Department of National Defence had put out a call for 20,000 orange stress balls — until MacKay got wind of it.

Finally, there was a 65-page report from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation that said for every dollar MPs contribute to their pension plan, Canadians contribute $23. Yes, you read that correctly: Taxpayers $23. MPs $1.

It’s hard to argue that MPs don’t work hard and don’t give up a lot to serve the public — constant travel, being away from their families, 12-to-15hour days with few days off and little sense of job security. Having a decent pension seems reasonable.

But $23 to $1 is a little bit closer to indecent — particularly when so many civil servants are losing their jobs so Ottawa can save money.

There was some sense the government might be ready to cut back on the pensions as the CTF report emerged this week, but there have been calls for years to scale back the MP pension plan, so skepticism abounds that it will happen.

The public is often very skeptical that the government has any intention to use tax dollars wisely. It’s hard to convince people otherwise when such blatant examples of bad decision-making pop up so often.

mia.rabson@freepress.mb.ca

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