In my last article, I looked at how whistleblowers are created by bad management — not just in the sense of allowing problems to exist, but by reacting badly to the whistleblowing, which convinces the whistleblower that he or she is right. This escalates the confrontation. It’s a problem in Canadian governments — provincial and federal — because they’re bureaucratic and rigidly hierarchical, and because the culture doesn’t support dissent.
Today my question is: has federal government management and culture changed since the Federal Accountability Act of 2006? And what about provincial governments?
Government is a huge beast, so it’s dangerous to make generalizations. But I think that it’s safe to say that bureaucracies are resistant to change. Risk-taking is discouraged because of, well, the risks. As to the structure, every government in Canada is hierarchical. Hierarchies made up of people who rose through the ranks of the public service by demonstrating their loyalty to the prevailing culture and ethos. After all, how else could merit be demonstrated? Government isn’t a business, no matter what management pundits might try to claim. There is no product that comes out of the machine, to be delivered to a consumer. It can’t go bankrupt.
To illustrate, Canadians may not realize that executive performance in government is measured using standards set by the people being measured. Success is generally assured, as demonstrated by the fact that over 95% of executives in the federal government receive performance bonus each year. Given decades of research in the field that shows management quality follows a bell curve, that figure is absurd.
How this is done has not changed since 2006, in either the federal or provincial public services.
As for culture, it’s rarely law that causes change. Take drunk driving: it was illegal for decades before a major cultural shift in the 1980s made it socially unacceptable.
With this in mind, remember that the current batch of senior bureaucrats are mainly baby boomers. They came of age when rigid hierarchies and more autocratic leadership methods were the norm, before the spreading of situational or participative leadership methods. They went to school when corporal punishment in schools was accepted.
But it doesn’t stop with management. Even many staff don’t like whistleblowers. Most bureaucrats believe that they must be loyal to their superiors, no matter how obvious the incompetence or misconduct. Some stay in line out of fear, some because they don’t want to be associated with a rebel. Some want to be a team player, no matter how bad the team. Some dislike whistleblowers on principal. They don’t see the purpose. Work internally for positive change, goes the mantra. Unfortunately, that rarely works.
And then there are the practical issues. In the Canadian government, deputy ministers (or the equivalent) handle the administration of the department. Correspondence rarely actually reaches him or her — staffers simply direct it into the bureaucracy. In this way, it usually ends up in the hands of the people implicated, who usually and predictably embark on a witch hunt.
Again, this has not changed in the federal government since 2006. Managers are still hired the same way, using the same tests and criteria.
In provincial governments, there wasn’t even the FAA or a Sponsorship Scandal to encourage change.
None of this bodes well for the whistleblower. The evidence doesn’t look good, either. Look at the listeriosis outbreak of 2008. Luc Pomeleau, an inspector at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, raised the alarm about the dangers of cutting inspections — and was fired for doing so. Six weeks later, people started dying.
Then, last November, Richard Colvin spoke to Parliamentary Committee about how he had tried to warn senior government officials the abuse and torture of Afghan prisoners being transferred to Afghan authorities. He was publicly ridiculed, with officials stopping just short of calling him a liar.
Meanwhile, the new Public Service Integrity Officer has only caught one corrupt official in her three years in office. In her annual reports, she explains this failure to perform as the result of her efforts to focus on “prevention”. No wonder public servants are calling her office a cruel joke.
And what happens to officials implicated? Nothing. Even in the Sponsorship Scandal, only Chuck Guité faced any sanction. Nobody who helped him suffered any penalty. They just moved on to bigger and better things.
At the provincial level, there were at least a few firings when the eHealth Ontario scandal broke, along with the resignation of the Deputy Minister of Health. In Quebec, it looks less promising: the recent construction industry corruption scandal has led to calls for an inquiry. But Premier Charest is having none of that, and I think it has a lot to do with widespread culpability at the political level. Culpability, I suspect, that would ensnare members of all parties.
Nova Scotia had one MLA resign as a result of the expense scandal that has been unwinding – but when it comes to apologies, the silence is deafening.
So do I think the culture of government has changed, or is capable of changing as things stand?
No.
The culture of entitlement — entitlement without accountability – still prevails. Whistleblowers remain unprotected, and oversight is week.
This should have Canadians up in arms, but it doesn’t. Perhaps it’s because we’re too complacent. Perhaps we’re too cynical. Perhaps we like it this way.
Whatever it is, I think it’s only a matter of time before we have another scandal, or outbreak, or plane crash.
Perhaps then Canadians will sit up.
