English civil servants getting shafted

[Leafless]

wellandboy

This French Language Services Act in Ontario shames Quebec as not being a bilingual leader in Canada, is the only province in Canada to be officially unilingual and does not supply the English in Quebec with the same linguistic legislative protection the French Services Act in Ontario does.

This is a powerful enough piece of legilation and includes in it's preamble:

"Whereas the French language is an historic language in Ontario and recognized by the Constitution as an official language in Canada; and whereas in Ontario the French language is recognized as an official language in courts and in education; and whereas the Legislative Assembly recognizes the contribution of the cultural heritage of the French speaking population and wishes to preserve it for future generations; and whereas it is desireable to guarantee the use of the French language in institutions of the Legislature and the Government of Ontario, as provided in this Act."

So any 'government agency' must abide by this Act which includes:

1.- A ministry of the Government of Ontario, except that a phychiatric facility, residential facility or college of applied arts and technology that is administered by a ministry is not included unless it is designated as a public service agency by the regulations.

- a board, commission or corporation the majority of whose members or directors are appointe by the Lieutenant Governor in Council.

c)- a non-profit corporation or similar entity that provides a service to the public, is subsidized in whole or in part by public money and is designated as a public service agency by the regulations.

d)- a nursing home as defined in the Nursing Homes Act or a home for special care as defined in the Homes for Special Care that is designated as a public agency by the regulations.

This goes on in covering varing aspects under many different subtitles.

This French Services Act goes beyond preserving the French culture to actually it appears by PROMOTING it with tax payers money when in fact many aspects of it should be funded by francophone tax payers or not at all as in the case illustrated by wellandboy.

I think Premier of Ontario Dalton Mc.Guinty should be forced to explain why tax payers of Ontario are forced to fund francophone concerns especially when Quebec does not co-operate in this area.

Iam certain the English in Quebec would like to enjoy the benefits that are afforded to francophones in Ontario.

[Argus]

Any federal public servant can arrange to put anyone on the public teet. 

The vast majority of civil servants have no power to offer anyone a job. No one except very senior civil servants can get anyone hired unless they have first got themselves into a hiring pool by passing a competition of some sort. At best, they can try to persuade a manager who needs to hire someone that their friend/relative/lover who has passed a competition and is in a pool should be hired. Most managers are very reluctant to do so, however, because if the new hire is a disappointment it causes trouble. You not only have to get rid of them but it tends to cause a rift with their buddy/employee who persuaded them to hire the person in the first place. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but it rarely happens, and mostly at high levels where the influence rests.

Such is the FantasyLand of Ottawa.  And the better question is why anyone would waste their life in such nonsense.

I have two answers:

First, many people view life as nothing more than absolute security.  Our federal public service is populated by people who just want money deposited every second Wednesday in their bank account.  Regardless.  For them, that's life.  And then they die.

Second, other people love arcane rules and love meetings.  Anal retentive, they master the details and wait for the moment to achieve... nothing.  After all, the game is with other people's money.

I'm surprised your view is so completely cliche'd, August. Either you've never been in the public service or you've been in one bad area. Most people who work for the public service are much like people everywhere else doing the same sorts of jobs as everyone else. Why do people join? Because it's an enormous organization which allows for internal promotions and transfers to all sorts of jobs (almost every job imaginable), which offers security, a good salary and generally good working conditions. Every large organization has arcane rules. So what? As for meetings, that depends on what you do. I rarely attend meetings, and those I do attend are businesslike and short. Others in my directorate, however, endure many, lengthy, mind numbing meetings. It just depends on what you do. I rather like my job. It has surprises every day, and a variety of tasks, few of them unpleasant.

I have avoided this thread because it is painted in the colours of "getting my share of time at the trough".  Those French trough out more... We uniligual Anglos are screwed by Trudeau and the Liberals.

So, is that Life? Time at the Trough? What is Time at the Trough, really?

Life at the trough? That implies all public servants are somehow being gifted with unearned and unecessary jobs by politicians. Which is idiotic, on the face of it. Unlike your cliche's many, if not most public servants work quite hard. As for why, well, the security and pay allows you to own your own home, for one thing, which I was never able to do before I became a silly servant. Excuse me for liking foolish things like that. As for you being uninterested in Anglos being screwed by pro-French rules, I suspect you'd have been far more interested in the thread if the topic was reversed.

To return, IMV, to the main question of this thread, who should assume the cost of transacting a deal?  That is, who should assume the costs of dealing in two languages?  I would say that whoever can assume this task at least cost should be hired.

Which would be the French, of course. No surprise there. But that's only because you've changed the topic. For the main problem is that the requirement for and advantage of massive bilingualism within the public service has never actually been demonstrated by anyone. There are no benefits to offset the demonstrated massive costs and inequities.

I also wonder how many Quebec Francophones would be content with such rules within their civil service, which led to the prospect of 90% of the senior ranks being occupied by Anglos.

[Guest eureka]

Good response, Argus. It is also worth mentioning that only about 1% of the Quebec Civil Service is Anglophone.

Personally, I have litle objection to the object of bilingualism but I agree with Argus in my distaste for how it is being implemented.

For Quebec, the Anglophones have themselves much to blame. They always had the power to tell the Quebec French Firsters which part of the St. Lawrence to jump in.

[August1991]

The vast majority of civil servants have no power to offer anyone a job.

You're wrong, Argus. The arcane rules are daunting for anyone outside the Ottawa world. Anyone on the inside however has access to the key knowledge of when, where and how. I think it is fair to say that anyone working in Ottawa at any level can have their spouse/partner/whoever working on the taxpayers' dime within six months or less.

For the main problem is that the requirement for and advantage of massive bilingualism within the public service has never actually been demonstrated by anyone. There are no benefits to offset the demonstrated massive costs and inequities.

Argus, I never claimed otherwise. The idea of a bilingual civil service has gone through so many permutations and meanings that it obviously is not a natural beast.

I can understand that government employees should speak the languages of the people they serve. And it's obvious that when Trudeau first introduced this idea, in practice, it was one of the first examples of positive discrimination. Ottawa worked in English in the 1960s.

Most people who work for the public service are much like people everywhere else doing the same sorts of jobs as everyone else.

I disagree, strongly. Some ordinary people come for a few years but the civil service is self-selected - and then the glaze to the eyes sets in.

Every large organization has arcane rules.

Of course. But no large organization is like Canada's federal civil service, except maybe the UN which is a madness unto its own.

IMV, the basic problem in Ottawa is that the average civil servant does not know who he/she is serving. There is no bottom line. There is a total and utter disconnect between salary going into a bank account and goods/services rendered to a "client". People working in provincial and municipal governments in Canada do not suffer this disconnect so severely as those in Ottawa. No one working in the rest of Canada is disconnected from the real world to such a degree.

As for you being uninterested in Anglos being screwed by pro-French rules, I suspect you'd have been far more interested in the thread if the topic was reversed.

Argus, I was trying to avoid the whole issue of "mine, here first, was not". Your complaint seems to be that Trudeau let those French bastards get a bigger piece of the pie. What you fail to realize is that people in Ottawa are arguing about who gets my money. Is there no honour among thieves?

Which lead to my next comment:

Life at the trough?

I call life at the trough the golden-handcuffs. Anyone who works in Ottawa is welcome to the life. After all, you only have one life and if you want to live yours as a civil servant in the Ottawa bureaucracy and then, well, die - go ahead. I suppose there are worse ways to use up this time we have; but I can think of better ways too.

It just depends on what you do. I rather like my job. It has surprises every day, and a variety of tasks, few of them unpleasant.

I'm happy for you.

Personally, I have litle objection to the object of bilingualism but I agree with Argus in my distaste for how it is being implemented.

To use 1960s vocabulary, that's a cop-out eureka. It's the easiest thing in the world to stand to the side and find fault with the chef.

----

Let me be more explicit. Canadians pay taxes to Ottawa and get lousy public services in return. We do not get value for our money. Why? Ottawa is too far away and the people who spend our money have little idea of the world in which we live.

As evidence of this belief, people in Ottawa seem obsessed by who gets what. These are minor details to me - but of obviously great importance to them.

[Guest eureka]

It is no cop out, August. I agree with Argus and others about some of the idiocies that are being perpetrated. I do not agree that bilingualism in the Civil Service is not of great value.

That is not a reason for the speaking of French to be a prime consideration for jobs that do not have any urgent need for French; either in Ottawa or the rest of Canada. I do not like the Commissioner of Official Languages as a body whose sole function is to root out perceived injustices to French speakers.

We do not get value for our money I would agree. I would also agree that it is because Ottawa is too far away. It is too far away because the delivery of most that counts in everyday life is from the Provincial governments. If those jurisdictions were where they should be, at the centre, then Ottawa would be much closer and all services would be vastly improved and more equitable: as it is in any efficient government. Services are much better when they controlled by one body rather than the hotch potch we have due to the Provincialists and, mostly, Quebec which is responsible for the success of the other provinces in the emasculation of Ottawa. There would be offices of the federal government in every place where services are needed delivering according to a coherent social plan. And in the language that is required for circumstance.

[Argus]

The vast majority of civil servants have no power to offer anyone a job.

You're wrong, Argus. The arcane rules are daunting for anyone outside the Ottawa world. Anyone on the inside however has access to the key knowledge of when, where and how.

Sorry, but you don't know what you're talking about. I am on the inside. Yes, sure, you can sometimes hear about a competition which is about to be launched in your own specific area (these happen very infrequently in ones own area), and you can notify people you care about to watch the web site on the day in question. But anyone who wants to get into government should be checking those web sites every day anyway. I know I did, which is how I got hired in the first place.

Most people who work for the public service are much like people everywhere else doing the same sorts of jobs as everyone else.

I disagree, strongly. Some ordinary people come for a few years but the civil service is self-selected - and then the glaze to the eyes sets in.

And you know this because.... you've heard all the cliches? I worked in the private sector for 20 years before working for the government To suggest the vast majority of government employees are any different from those who work for GM or Nortel or the Royal or any other large organization is nonsense. They are better protected, it's true, and it's hard to discipline and fire someone. But I've been in private sector union shops where the same could be said. The only thing I could say about public service employees in Ottawa would be about those who got in very, very early in their lives and have been there forever. And that is they don't realize how good they have it.

IMV, the basic problem in Ottawa is that the average civil servant does not know who he/she is serving.  There is no bottom line.  There is a total and utter disconnect between salary going into a bank account and goods/services rendered to a "client".

That's bluster and bias with very little truth behind it. Front line employees deal with the public every single day. As for the rest, how much does a human resources professional with the Royal Bank think about how their work affects the public? Very little, I suspect. Does a miner in Nova Scotia put much thought into who ultimately makes use of the coal he digs up?

As for you being uninterested in Anglos being screwed by pro-French rules, I suspect you'd have been far more interested in the thread if the topic was reversed.

Argus, I was trying to avoid the whole issue of "mine, here first, was not". Your complaint seems to be that Trudeau let those French bastards get a bigger piece of the pie. What you fail to realize is that people in Ottawa are arguing about who gets my money. Is there no honour among thieves?

Are you saying the fact you work for the federal government makes you a thief? The primary consideration as a taxpayer should be "am I getting the best employees" and "is the job they're doing what needs to be done, and is it being done as eficiently as it should be?".

Which lead to my next comment:

Life at the trough?

I call life at the trough the golden-handcuffs. Anyone who works in Ottawa is welcome to the life. After all, you only have one life and if you want to live yours as a civil servant in the Ottawa bureaucracy and then, well, die - go ahead. I suppose there are worse ways to use up this time we have; but I can think of better ways too.

Gee, August, I wanted to be a racecar driver or an astonaut but it didn't work out. Alternatively, I thought of how exciting and life sustaining it would be if I could be a bank manager, an insurance salesman, an auto mechanic, an assemblyline worker, a secretary, a janitor, a retail store worker, a security guard, a computer programmer, a truck driver, seamstress, a drywaller miner, or one of other myriad exciting jobs people do in life unrelated to the government, but I guess I just wasn't up to it.

I'm a little surprised at the level of, well, dumb, in your posts on this subject.