For Resident, Citizen, Taxpayers with a child, a car, a job, a heart and a brain who know something is "wrong" with Canada, ...but just can't put their finger on what it is.
-By NOT following the provisions of our BNA/Constitution Acts, there is no 'double-check' on the PM of Can.-PMO/PCO IS too power! Fix it!
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."
-Schopenhauer
No wonder they paid so much!!!
THEY topped-up to 100% their ownership of the struggling-for-cash LONG LAKE OIL SAND PROJECT.
YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK - to subsidize the start-up of the project ..... on Leased Crown Land ... with minimal royalties - now TO BE sold in its entirety?, forever? to a foreign National? (never mind the agenda of THIS particular buyer) ..... are we stupid? ... or are the Buyers just smart? in the short-medium AND long-term view?
"State-owned CNOOC Ltd. will pay $27.50 per Nexen share. That price makes the deal the largest foreign transaction that Beijing has ever attempted.
The agreement is a 61 per cent premium on the closing price of its shares on Friday on the Toronto Stock Exchange"
...
"CNOOC already has a toehold in the oilsands, through the company's $2.1 billion deal to buy OPTI Canada out of creditor protection last year. OPTI owned the other third of the Long Lake oilsands project that Nexen didn't"
Long Lake Oils Sands Project a 2001 joint venture of Nexen Inc (nee Canadian Occidental Petroleum {CanOxy} started in 1969 by Occidental Petroleum of USA) and OPTI Canada Inc (the owner of the proprietary 'OrCrude' system of SAGD (steam-assisted gravity drainage) used to extract the bitumen from the Tar Sands).
In 2011 CNOOC Canada (a wholly owned subsidiary of China National Offshore Oil Corp) bought OPTI's 35% share in the joint venture (as above, from creditor protection)
July 2012 CNOOC proposed to buy the other 65% of Long Lake by acquiring 100% of Nexen Inc.(also acquiring Nexen's 7.23% share of Athabaska Oil Sands w Syncrude and all Nexen's other worldwide assets and liabilities)
China’s largest offshore oil and gas explorer is paying $27.50 for each common share, a premium of 61 percent to Calgary-based Nexen’s closing price on July 20, according to its statement to the Hong Kong stock exchange today. Nexen’s board recommended the deal to its shareholders.
Nexen will give Cnooc assets in Canada, the U.K., West Africa and the Gulf of Mexico that produced 207,000 barrels a day in the second quarter, boosting the Chinese company’s output by about 20 percent. The deal is a second attempt to buy a North American oil and gas producer after political opposition blocked Cnooc’s $19 billion for bid Unocal Corp. in 2005.
.....
" Canada has become a fertile area for Chinese oil producers seeking to add oil and gas reserves to meet demand in the world’s largest energy-consuming country. After today’s deal, Chinese companies will have spent $49 billion on buying Canadian fields and oil companies, according to Bloomberg data. In contrast, they’ve laid down just $3.5 billion in U.S. acquisitions.
Today’s deal will cement Cnooc’s position in Canada’s oil sands after last year’s $2.4 purchase of OPTI Canada Inc., Nexen’s partner in Alberta’s Long Lake project. After today’s deal, Cnooc will own all of Long Lake, which aims to produce 72,000 barrels a day using steam to heat the tar-like oil out of the sands.
The Canadian government reviews any foreign takeover worth more than C$330 million ($325 million) and is in the process of raising that threshold to an enterprise value of at least C$1 billion over the next four years, Industry Minister Christian Paradis said in May. "
.....
" In a separate deal, China Petrochemical Corp., or Sinopec Group, will acquire a 49 percent stake in the U.K. unit of Canada’s Talisman Energy Inc. (TLM) for $1.5 billion, the Beijing based company said in a statement today."
Consider ...how could the source of Authority (the Constituent Act in Treasury Board parlance) for the "Office of the Clerk of the Privy Council AND Secretary to the Cabinet" be rooted in 1940 as well as 1867?
Privy Council Office
Applied Title
Privy Council Office
Abbreviation
PCO
Appropriate Minister
Prime Minister
Institutional Head
Wayne G. Wouters, Clerk of the Privy Council and Secretary to the Cabinet
To provide professional, non-partisan advice to the Prime Minister and Cabinet; manage the Cabinet's decision-making system (including coordinating departmental policy proposals and conducting policy analysis); arrange and support meetings of Cabinet and Cabinet committees; advance the development of the government's agenda across federal departments and agencies and with external stakeholders; advise on the government's structure and organization; manage the appointment process for senior positions in federal departments, Crown corporations, and agencies; prepare Orders in Council and other statutory instruments to give effect to government decisions; foster a high-performing and accountable public service; and submit an annual report to the Prime Minister on the state of the public service.
Contrast this with the mandate for the Constitutional entrenched "Privy Council" s.11
Constitution of Privy Council for Canada
11. There shall be a Council to aid and advise in the Government of Canada, to be styled the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada; and the Persons who are to be Members of that Council shall be from Time to Time chosen and summoned by the Governor General and sworn in as Privy Councillors, and Members thereof may be from Time to Time removed by the Governor General.
There shall be a Council to aid and advise in the Decision-making and management of the administration of Canada, to be called the Queen's Privy Council for Canada; and the Persons who are to be Members of that Council shall be ... chosen and summoned by the Governor General on no fixed schedule and sworn in as Privy Councillors, and similarly Members thereof may be ... removed by the Governor General. (These members swear an Oath of loyalty and secrecy and are then allowed to be "privy" to the innermost details of the administration)
Summary:
The PM should NEVER be controlling the PCO.
The PM's authority flows from the members of the Lower House not the Crown.
The GG's authority flows from the Crown and the Privy Council s/be the GG's INDEPENDENT advisors (ie not populated by the same Party-Disciples as fill the chairs at Cabinet meetings)
Recommendations:
RESCIND PC 1940-1121 (it's blatantly non-1867Constitution/BNA - in both spirit AND letter)
ELECT the GG (perhaps every other General Election, with a term starting 365 days after the return of the Writs)
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." -Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860)
Remember this age-oldCanadian Political Nursery Rhyme?
"Liberal, Hoary (nee Tory & Ref/Con), - Same old story"
The Reform Party dragged it out for 1993. The UnionDp also chants it to their true-believers
The puff-piece below is an example of the bland misleading the blindly trusting & benignly-neglectful. You'd think there might be opposing points of view to contrast and compare - or snappy one-liners making pithy comments.
The Root problem (not discussed) is that the PMO is party of the Legislative Power while the Privy Council, the Gov Gen and the Monarch form the Executive Power.
The PM is supposed to be the key advisor to the Executive, but not be running the whole show.
It's not ol' Firewall's fault - he's just the latest chappie utilizing the (wholly-anti-BNA/Constitutional) command and control format devised in 1940 by SeanceSister W L M King and continued and refined (read expanded) by Mr St Laurent, our PET, Myron Baloney and the l'il guy who pretended he could speak Engish OR French (and relying on the total lack of knowledge of the spirit and/or the letter of our presciently-masterful, power-sharing hierarchy of 1867)
NB Google "P.C.1940-1121" to examine the Order in Council that deftly accomplished the first part of Mr King's revenge-served-cold. (He never forgot being denied a Dissolution in 1926 by Lord Byng, so when the chance came he "cut off the power" to the Offices superior to his own)
However, Tory pundit Geoff Norquay says the PM is no different from every other Prime Minister, all accused of being too controlling.
excerpted
.....
"Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s ability to keep the muted factions of his majority-governing party tightly together is part of his “genius” as a political leader, but some political observers say whenever Mr. Harper leaves, there could be trouble for the party.
" ..... said Gerry Nicholls, a political consultant who once worked with Mr. Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) from 1997 to 2001 when Mr. Harper headed up the National Citizens Coalition. “Once Stephen Harper steps aside, you no longer have that sort of hero, that great general, that Napoleon of politics at the apex of your party, then there could be trouble because I think the party could actually break apart,” said Mr. Nicholls"
"Mr. Gardner based his column, in part, on a study published in the Canadian Parliamentary Review by political scientist Bruce Hicks who compared the power of Prime Ministers in Canada, the U.K., Australia and New Zealand. In it, Mr. Hicks found that Canada follows party discipline far more loyally than any of the other Westminster models, that in these other Westminster countries there’s an expectation that MPs will sometimes vote and against their government, that Canada has a culture of deference to authority and said it stems from Canada’s “presidentialization” of Canadian politics.(emphasis added)
Said Mr. Hicks to The Ottawa Citizen: “It’s a corporation in which one person controls all the mechanisms for fundraising, for distribution, for marketing, for organizing nomination contests in everybody’s riding. It’s all centralized. That’s unique to this party.”
But a senior Conservative source, who did not want to be identified, said Mr. Harper has purposefully built the Conservative Party into a “monolithic” party: “There are not those centres of opinion…the people involved in the caucus now aren’t as prone to taking positions on public policy that diverge from the government’s.”
The Conservative source said down the road the Conservative Party is going to have to assess whether there are “enough Conservatives in the country to sustain and maintain” the party. Today’s Conservative Party, unlike the former Progressive Conservative Party, is not a “big tent” party, and that Mr. Harper has set out and has achieved a monolithic Conservative Party and “a clear choice” on the right, said the source. ....
“[Mr. Harper] doesn’t like that kind of opposition, which is why it’s a very monolithic party, why there’s no youth wing, why they supported a Speaker who’s 30 years of age—he doesn’t want opposition,” said the Conservative source.
"While Mr. Nicholls likened Mr. Harper’s management of the Conservative Party to the way an army is commanded, Geoff Norquay, a principal at Earnscliffe Strategy Group and a high-profile Conservative pundit, said Mr. Harper is running the party “like a modern politician in the Canadian context.”
Mr. Norquay said Mr. Harper certainly holds an “unassailable position,” after having played “an absolutely pivotal role” in the creation of the party without having to compete against a large roster of leadership candidates, but said he’s not entirely sure there’s less of a check to Mr. Harper’s power because “old leadership factions really fall away pretty quickly.”
Mr. Nicholls said the Conservatives do have factions, but after carefully toeing the line during their years of minority government, he said MPs are now afraid of Mr. Harper and the muted factions that still exist don’t have any clout.(emphasis added)
.... But Tim Powers, vice president of Summa Strategies and another high-profile Conservative pundit, said one of Mr. Harper’s strengths is his ability to learn from competitors in determining what works and what doesn’t.(spin)
Mr. Powers said Mr. Harper developed a model for success, just as “each leader has a different model.” When Mr. Harper is gone, Mr. Powers said the next leader will do the same.
Mr. Norquay said every Prime Minister is “accused” of exercising more power and being “more centralizing than his or her predecessor…everything that has been written about Mr. Harper’s government…the exact same words were written about Mr. Mulroney’s government.”
Moreover, Mr. Norquay said the media expect to see discipline and coordination in the government. “The Canadian media see political dissent in a caucus as a sign of weak leadership, chaos, lack of direction, lack of discipline,” said Mr. Norquay.(pshaw! ... a real independent press - who just want easy stories emanating from just one source - they've become Bureaucrats, Big Wigs, Ottawa-diseased quasi-Civil Servants)
.... The senior Conservative source said Mr. Harper’s Cabinet and PMO: run with a very “top down” approach, but said so did former prime minister Jean Chrétien’s, who was dubbed “The Friendly Dictator.”(actually Jeffrey Simpson's book "The Friendly Dictator was about the too-powerful office of Prime Minister now with combined -control {anti-Constitutional as it is} of the Privy Council Office)
Mr. Nicholls said parties have been moving towards heavy centralization and discipline over the decades, and said if New Democrats win government they would likely adopt a similar approach. {Why not! .... esp. if "everyone" accepts/expects it as the proven-best method}
The federal government will appeal last month's ruling by the British Columbia Supreme Court that partially struck down Canada's ban on assisted suicide, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson says.
The ruling declared that the Criminal Code section targeting anyone who "aids or abets a person to commit suicide" should not apply to physicians in cases where terminally ill patients request to die.
Judge Lynn Smith halted her decision for a year to give Parliament a chance to rewrite the law, which she deemed unconstitutional which she deemed unconstitutional because it unfairly deprives people with degenerative illnesses of their liberty, and because it discriminates against those with a physical disability who might need assistance to exercise their right to take their own life. (emphasis added)
But she also granted an immediate exemption for Gloria Taylor, one of the women who brought the suit, and her doctor.
.... Taylor and the other plaintiffs in the case argued that the ban on assisted suicide violates Section 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms because it discriminates against people with degenerative conditions who don't have the physical means to take their own lives. (emphasis added)
They also argued the ban violates their Section 7 right to life because, if they do want to end their suffering, they would have to do so earlier than they might otherwise want, before they lose the capacity to act. (emphasis added)
Very inneresting .... but such a tiny slice of the overarching principles behind "liberty", "freedom", "rights", "discrimination".... what about folks who don't have the physical means to prevent themselves from BEING killed? or from being stopped from being BORN?
I am thinking of those who are a) "judged" to be lost causes -physically fine, but ?brain-dead? b) who are "judged" to be not-yet-human beings -physically fine but still inside their mother?
If we as Canadians decide/are told that it's okay (and better for society) to kill 100,000 unborn infants every yr (while suffering a population decline that destroys the baby-boom assumptions backing all our "social programs") ...are we not far away from being told that it's okay (and better for society) to kill off 10,000-50,000-100,000 "lost causes that are consuming such a great portion of our Healthcare budget" - since without these "unproductive" fiscal "burdens", there will be "more" left for you & me?
NB In Canada (thanks to the 1982 Charter of Conditions and Limitations on our Previously Enjoyed Common Law Rights & Freedoms) the "rights" that are claimed/asserted/demanded/believed to be true/etc in Section 2 AND Section 7 thru 15 are subject to the Notwithstanding override + subject to "justified" infringement under Section 1 - thanks for less-than-what-we-had (which is WORSE than nothing) Messrs Trudeau, Chretien, Romanov, McMurtry, Davis, Hatfield et al
Why did we need to introduce a "Code" into a "Common Law" Jurisdiction?
Look up Eugenics & Fabianism ... then syndicalism and "Corporatism"(a la Mussolini)
Happy Dominion Day - Make EVERY DAY... Dominion Day
Thank you for your piece on the desirability of establishing a Canadian club of "Institutional Memory and Wisdom" Canada needs a Prime Ministers Club (L. Ian MacDonald, Postmedia NewsJuly 11, 2012 )
Unbeknownst to many we already have something much better - a cadre of sworn-to-secrecy Canadians who can be summoned (some, any or all see ss.11&12{and s.13 for perspective on s.12} of 1867 BNA) at any time, by the Governor General, or alternatively (& why not?), by the Vice Regal at the Cdn President's (oops, Cdn PM's) recommendation.
The members of Queen's Privy Council for Canada are members for life and the Chronological List dates back to Paul Hellyer in 1957, includes everyone on Mr MacDonald's list as well as many other illustrious Canadian notables (e.g. Charles Bronfman & Conrad Black, bothed called in 1992).
Who better to be called and heard when a serious question arises (too bad, so sad, that Her Excellency Ms Jean wasn't advised of this option before Her Dissolution & Prorogation decisions in 2008 & then again, when the 2nd Annual Prorogation request was 'phoned-in' by the holder of the office of Friendy Dictator).
Also sadly, the only source of History, Tactics and Strategy that we Canadians rely on LESS than the Privy Council is H.M the Queen Herself -- can you think of any person in the world with MORE education, knowledge, grace and experience (both political & personal) than OUR Monarch ... and we never ask her "to be informed, to warn or to encourage" us.
Only in Canada you say? .....pity.
By the way, did you know that the PMO took over (let's not say 'usurped' - it was a temporary, wartime emergency measure to save the Mother country NB Job well done!!) the PCO in 1940 - by a single, solitary Order in Council PC1940-1121 passed March/25/40 (effective March 23rd) that was initiated at a time when no one held the Office of Clerk of the Privy Council (Lemaire retired Jan 1/40) and no one held the Office of Governor General (Tweedsmuir suddenly died in Feb/40)? co-incidence? read Backgrounder "Reversing the GG's Vasectomy" by Stephen(dot)Leacock (Nom.de Blog)
A .pdf version of the original document from the PCO Archive is attached
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." -Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860)
Anyone who has ever worked at a polling station knows how chaotic elections can be. Volunteers get flustered. Ballots go missing. Writ hits the fan.
“It is inevitable that there will be some errors in the process,” admitted Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand, in Elections Canada’s written submission to the Supreme Court before Tuesday’s hearing on voting irregularities in Etobicoke Centre during the 2011 federal election.
But how many errors does it take—and how serious must they be—before we toss out the vote tally and start from scratch?
For decades, lower courts have used the “magic number” test in deciding disputed elections: when the number of questionable ballots exceeds the margin of victory—as in Yukon in 1957 and Ontario in 1990—courts have ordered fresh elections. When the margin of victory exceeds the number of questionable ballots—as in Alberta in 1989 and the Northwest Territories in 1997—courts have allowed the result to stand.
The magic number test implies that, in an election, who won matters more than who voted for whom. If it were otherwise, the margin of victory would be irrelevant; only the voting irregularities themselves, their number and severity, would decide whether or not a new election is justified. Instead, our courts have allowed efficiency to limit democracy—in the very cases where the latter is most in question.
But this raises a simple question: why count every vote unless every vote counts?
As it considers the Etobicoke Centre case, the Supreme Court should reject the magic number test. For the first time, it should insist that, in the words of the Canada Elections Act, “the result of the election” means the votes, not the victor.
It has good reason to do so. The magic number test is too simple, too crude. It fails to distinguish between “the result of the election” and the outcome—the result being the final vote tally, the outcome being the winner. Much of our system of government depends on the difference.
We elect a Parliament, not a government; we vote for our local MP, not the Prime Minister. Political parties do not “win” elections, successful local candidates do, and the party with the most of them gets the first chance to form the government.
In an election, as in Parliament, the individual matters more than the aggregate, the vote tally as much as the winner, and the result no less than the outcome. The same logic—that every vote matters—explains why we choose our leaders in elections in the first place; if efficiency were all-important, we would use opinion polls, instead.
This is a principled argument. Elections Canada offers a practical one. And perhaps, as Mr. Mayrand argues, the perfect should not become the enemy of the good; a simple bureaucratic snafu may not be enough to upend an election, unless the outcome hangs in the balance.
But if the Supreme Court accepts his argument, it will be conceding not just that Canada’s electoral system is imperfect, but also that our commitment to our own democracy is more limited than we might have hoped. Canadians should expect only as much democracy as we can afford.
Or the Court can demand more. It can order a new election in Etobicoke Centre, discard the magic number test, and require Elections Canada to improve the voting process.
-- If paperwork is too onerous, simplify it.
-- If poll clerks’ preparation is inadequate, fix it.
Surely our elections are worth the effort.
The magic number test appeals to judges because it is so simple. But that virtue is also a vice; some decisions are too important to be reduced to basic arithmetic. The Supreme Court should replace a narrow rule with a broader standard—one which will give lower courts the discretion to decide if new elections are necessary, based on the number and severity of voting irregularities in each particular case.
Every vote should matter—and every mistake should be reviewed—regardless of the margin of victory.
For better or worse, one riding in Etobicoke will soon decide whether Canada’s laws limit or expand our commitment to democracy.
The Supreme Court should not simply toss out the results of one close election; it should affirm a clear principle—when every vote matters, the only magic number is one. Adam Goldenberg is a Kirby-Simon Fellow at Yale Law School. Follow him on Twitter at @adamgoldenberg
Date: Sun, Jul 8, 2012 at 12:58 AM Subject: Re: "When cabinet had the power" -- " a constitution Similar in Principle to the UK" To: "Letters (ott)" <letters@ottawacitizen.com>,
Mr Warren, Editors
Thank you for When cabinet had the power Ottawa Citizen July 6/2012 (& National Newswatch who included the column in their Sat July 7th aggregation of significant CDN thinking)
You've hit on my favourite topic - How the PMO became "king"/autocrat of Canada (quite contrarily to the design and intentions of the BNA /Constitution Act 1867)
Your column asserts:
"We have, in Canada as in the United Kingdom, executive power now entirely centralized in the Prime Minister’s Office."
and
"Yet the overall budgetary policy is set from the start, and political adjustments to it (such as stimulus runs) are dictated, from the PMO."
and
"Ministers are there to front for policy originating in the PMO, and to take the fall when it fails or changes."
and
"It was Chrétien who cleverly used Martin as his straight man: implicitly allowing him to take the blame for any cuts. That’s how things are done in a PMO-centric universe."
With further cherry-picking through your commentary we find:
"This is not how Parliament was supposed to work, or did work in the ancient past."
which truly means that our system is NOT identical, and at the same time, NOT far-removed from the unwritten constitution of the Mother country.
The key differences are but 3 -
1) ours IS written and we have
2) a penultimate (local) Executive Power (superior & supervisory), residing in the Office of the Governor General (With or Without the Advice &/or Advice and Consent of some/any/all/none (s.12 vs s.13) of His/Her independent, Vice Regal advisors in the Queen's Privy Council for Canada (s.11). The as-written text ascribes to the GovGen the power to Withhold Royal assent and/or Reserve-for-Signification (s.55) any Bill presented by the (inferior) Legislative Powers of our One Parliament (s.17)
and
3) ultimate power entrusted (by themselves to themselves) in the Monarch-in-Council (until 1982 that is, EndNote #80) who holds the power to Disallow any Canadian Bill within 2 years of their receipt (by ship) of it (s.56)
In contrast in the U/K., quite functionally & factually differently (but definitely similarly in principle), there is no Office of GovGen and the U.K. Cabinet/Privy Council directly advises the bound-to-agree Monarch under the convention/tradition/principle (some say pretext) of "Ministerial Responsibility" whereby the Monarch is held faultless, if a decision must be reversed, the Minister/Ministry that proffered the "bad advice" must fall one his/her sword to protect the Monarch.
So ...after an intro to all that boring "bedrock-of-governance-in Canada" stuff that is never taught, never studied (it seems), widely misunderstood through benign neglect, but STILL the ultimate law of the land ... we can finally focus on your essentialquestion:
"Why is the PMO/PCO so extra-ordinarily powerful in today's Canada, when the Office-Holder is but One Individual, One Cabinet Member, One MP and ... the office of Prime Minister itself is not described/mentioned in any way in 1867-1982 BNA/Constitution Acts (except as being cited as the Organizer of a few Prov-Fed Conferences in the 1982 "Patriation" changes)
Here's how... One Order in Council dated March 25/1940 (effective March 23/1940) that expanded the duties of the (Executive Power's) Clerk of the Privy Council to included duties within the (Legislative Power's) Cabinet ...AND appointed the-then Prime Minister's Principal Secretary to the new post - re-named (as today) Clerk of the Privy Council and Secretary to the Cabinet
2 attachments
Similar In Principle Chartv4.htm
58K
1940-1121 ORDER in Council pdf.pdf
95K
It might be just a co-incidence that the long-serving Clerk E. J. Lemaire had just retired on Jan 1/40 and that the GovGen Lord Tweedsmuir had suddenly died on Feb 11/40.
In the absence of any supervisory/advisory "cat" (and under cover of phony-war, emergency mobilizations/nationalization) the little "mouse" Mackenzie King got his revenge (served very cold) for the rebuff of his 1926 request for a Parliamentary dissolution in the "King-Byng Affair" (King was wrong - he had but the second greatest number of seats in the 1925 election (101) - the Conservatives had the greater number (116), albeit not a majority either)
Please examine the Order in Council P.C.1940-1121 (it's not available anywhere else) and think of how well-conceived and well-executed was Mr King's plan - his diary of March 13th/40 lines it all out.
Answer:
The PMO/PCO is so powerful because one (anti-constitutional) Order in Council made it that way ... but nobody can remember and the "institutional memories" of constitutional lawyers, constitutional professors, Supreme Court Justices, Cabinet Members, Privy Councillors, Cabinet Members, MP's, professional pundits, aggrieved citizens and smart-aleck columnists and Parliament Hill reporters doesn't go back that far.
So now it's in your institutional memory.... are you best to ignore it (after all who is this guy?) or spread it far and wide?
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." -Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860)
I suggest that all public servants (beyond the lowest-level clerks) be reclasssified as "Public Service Professional -Personal Service Corporations".
Let them received the dollar value of all their pay, perqs, deferred pensions, sick days, super-statutory days off, vacations etc
--WITHOUT deductions for Income TAX,
- PLUS let them charge the "public" HST as any service provider (and enjoy the joy of claiming of input credits etc)
- also allow them a performance "bonus" (say 8-13% of any savings to their dept's budget that they can prove )
and let's watch and see if "productivity" would improve.
It is human nature to "work" on things that provide the highest, direct rewards -- let's use that human fact in dealing w humans who work for you and me.
