A Japanese eatery has been fined $10,000 for imposing a $3.80 service charge on Black customers. “Canadian courts have long recognized the presence and pernicious effects of anti-Black racism,” ruled the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal: ‘Although this was a single incident the seriousness is such that a significant award ought to be made.’
The Department of Employment is wary of raising Employment Insurance premiums as part of any long-promised “modernization” of the program, according to a briefing note. Premiums are currently a maximum $1,400 a year for employers and $1,000 for workers: “The government is taking a cautious approach.”
Ancestry
offers a new service.
Analysing my DNA, they will
uncover my ethnic mix,
discover distant relatives,
find new details about my family history.
Satisfied customers see themselves in a
whole new way.
This guy is confirmed to be of
Irish, Scandinavian, Western European, and British
origin.
He is smiling; proud to know his
breed.
I’ll skip this opportunity.
I already know my genetic makeup:
ninety-eight percent
chimpanzee.
By Shai Ben-Shalom
Was a book ever timelier? The Public Servant’s Guide To Government In Canada was published following the disastrous YouTube appearance of Canada’s top public servant Michael Wernick, $326,000-a year Clerk of the Privy Council. Just google Wernick and vomitorium if you missed it.
Testifying at the Commons justice committee, Wernick became every critic’s caricature of the Ottawa bureaucrat: peevish, smug, partisan. Wernick in prepared opening remarks used the personal pronoun I nine times: I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I.
“I worry about people losing faith in the institutions of governance,” said Wernick. “Tip: Most Canadians don’t follow government activities,” notes The Public Servant’s Guide. “Public servants should bear in mind that many, if not most, citizens do not pay much attention to politics or public policy.”
The Guide is written for public servants by public servants. Co-authors Alex Marland and Jared J. Wesley are political scientists. Yet it has an intriguing, voyeuristic quality for readers who do not and never will work for the government.
I finally learned why senior public employees have Twitter accounts though they never say anything. “Paying attention to what members of cabinet are saying on Twitter helps you stay in touch with their political impulses, which may well have an impact on your own work,” authors explain. “This situational awareness is critical to developing political acumen.”
Canada has about 4 million public employees. There are all kinds, like journalists or insurance brokers: tall, short, thin, fat, sharp, dull. “Be careful not to assume that all municipalities are governed the same way,” says the Guide. “For example, Montréal’s population is over 1.7 million, and Montréalers elect a mayor and 64 councillors to oversee an annual operation budget of approximately $5 billion.”
“Just four people live in Tilt Cove, Newfoundland: one is mayor, two are councillors, and one is town clerk. The population of Tilt Cove nearly triples in the summer when people occupy cottages there. In Montréal, the clerk is a highly paid senior public civil servant who oversees the city’s bureaucracy. In Tilt Cove, the clerk is paid for one hour a week, including for curbside garbage collection.”
The Guide is skillfully written, wry and sometimes funny. “The nuances of Canadian government are not obvious even to those who have spent a lifetime working in public administration,” authors explain: “Within the public service it is said that theory is when you know everything but nothing works; practice is when everything works, but no one knows why; and when theory are practice are combined, nothing works and no one knows why.”
Authors note that “not everything you are good at is something the world needs” and “there will be days when you feel less competent and even less impactful in your work.” Yet public servants should be “fearless” and “loyal.” says the Guide, and “keep your emails short.”
The Public Servant’s Guide is instructive and entertaining. Clerk Wernick could have used a copy.
By Holly Doan
The Public Servant’s Guide to Government in Canada, by Alex Marland and Jared J. Wesley; University of Toronto Press; 128 pages; ISBN 9781-4875-94763; $19.95
Labour Minister Seamus O’Regan yesterday said cabinet does “not want to be back here again” following a tentative end to a West Coast port strike. O’Regan did not explain his remark: “The scale of this disruption has been significant.”
Fewer Canadians have a “high level of trust” in the Canadian Armed Forces, says in-house research by the Department of National Defence. The public overall had a positive opinion of the army, navy and air force but noted it received plenty of “bad press.”
More than $2 billion in Canada Emergency Response Benefit payments have been clawed back from undeserving applicants, says the Department of Employment. The billions were deducted from tax refunds or Employment Insurance cheques: “A total 1,108,676 clients have fully repaid their debts.”
Access Copyright, one of the country’s largest collectives representing 13,000 authors, yesterday said it will lay off staff and cut budgets due to the loss of millions in royalties under an Act of Parliament. Cabinet has yet to adopt a 2019 recommendation of the Commons heritage committee that it curb free photocopying under the Copyright Act: “Actual people are losing actual jobs.”
A federal judge has issued a permanent injunction against Duracell Canada to ban its use of trademarks owned by rival Energizer Canada. The ruling follows eight years of litigation: “This is a case about comparative advertising.”
Almost a third of Canadians complain they felt pressured to comply with public health orders during the pandemic, according to in-house Department of Health research. And a tenth say they sought advice or counselling for mental health support: ‘Some touched on anxiety over surveillance by public authorities.’
High interest rates, the highest in 22 years, will continue into 2024, Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem said yesterday. Macklem said he has “been surprised” by persistently high prices for groceries: “Meat’s up six percent, bread’s up 13 percent, coffee’s up eight percent, baby food’s up nine percent.”
The Bank of Canada paid out nearly $27 million in raises and bonuses last year even as it admitted bungling forecasts, records show. Access To Information figures obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation showed nearly half the Bank’s staff are now paid more than $100,000 a year: “We got some things wrong.”
The CEO of taxpayer-owned Trans Mountain Corporation is in Federal Court for alleged “abuse of process.” Dawn Farrell, Calgary’s “inspiring business leader” of the year, is accused of ignoring a federal order to release public records under the Access To Information Act: “The CEO is in violation of her legal duty.”
Crown prosecutors have dismissed a charge against former Conservative MP Derek Sloan (Hastings-Lennox, Ont.) over breach of pandemic lockdown orders, lawyers for the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms said yesterday. Sloan was confronted by police after attending outdoor protests: “I am proud to have stood against this.”
Leaders of the nation’s labour federations yesterday warned the Prime Minister not to invoke any emergency legislation to end a British Columbia port strike now in its 12th day. Cabinet enforced a back-to-work order to end an earlier strike at the Port of Montréal after five days: “Legislation would be a serious misstep.”
