Harper’s Farewell To Public Servants He Treated With Contempt

A Commentary by Doug Draper

Like others out there, I’ve had my share of good and bad bosses over my years.

One of a number of demonstrations by public servants in recent years over the Harper government clamping down on their ranks.

And of all the bad bosses I’ve had the displeasure of sharing in the workforce, the ones that bothered me the most were those who treated us like human garbage on the shop floor. Then, on their final day with the company before (as my old friend George Carlin would put it) moving on to their next abomination, they’d have the gall to gather us together and express, for all to hear, how honoured they were to work with us. All to leave us saying ‘what a load of baloney ‘as they walked out the door.

That is more or less the way it reportedly was this past November 3^rd, in the final hours of Stephen Harper’s time as Canada’s prime minister, when he circulated a farewell message to the country’s public servants who he spent years belittling, muzzling and stripping of the resources they need to do a proper job, when he wasn’t closing down services they delivered.

“Over the last nine years my team and I have worked very closely with the Public Service of Canada to improve the prosperity, security and well-being of Canadians and improve Canada’s position in the world,” he wrote in his message.

“I am very proud of the remarkable work we have accomplished together towards meeting these objectives,” the message added. “I would like to thank each and every one of you for the support you have shown my team and me over three successive parliaments and for the dedication you have demonstrated in delivering for Canadians.

“It has been an honour to serve as Prime Minister of the greatest country in the world and I will always be grateful for the support of Canada’s world-class public service.”

A button some federal public servants took to wearing.

To this, representatives for the public servants responded with the following; “The work that public service workers do on behalf of Canadians day in and day out is invaluable. …It is unfortunate that the Conservative government was not able to recognize the important contribution of public service workers during their mandate.”

“We look forward,” they concluded, “to building a positive and constructive relationship with the new Liberal government where trust and respect for public service workers is restored.”

This was a pretty diplomatic response – one that showed a good deal of class – considering how little regard Harper showed for the expertise environmental and public health researchers, and so many others in the public service could bring to the table for both the government and public at large on a host of issues facing our country.

I am far from the only journalist who once received a wealth of information from scientists in Environment Canada and from experts in other federal departments that helped raise public awareness and answer concerns people had in communities whatever newspapers I worked for at the time served.

When Harper’s Conservatives came to power, that fountain of information was reduced to a trickle and too often public servants I could always count on in the past to address questions people in the community were asking were afraid of saying anything for the record for fear of official reprisals.

Off the record, they would apologize and express their frustration that they could no longer share the results of research that was paid for with public tax dollars.

That is what is so bothersome about Harper’s farewell message to Canada’s public service troops. Not only is it full of baloney, it masks one last expression of contempt for them before he went out the door, and for the Canadian people who, for reasons that had to do with not letting facts get in the way of advancing Harper’s political agenda, were deprived of their right to information that they paid for.

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