The diagnosis is clear: “Quebecers are not getting value for their money.” The Minister of Health did not hesitate to say out loud what the majority of taxpayers think of government services.
Christian Dubé’s comment was part of negotiations with family doctors, who are always demanding more money, while the population is desperate to obtain care.
But his observation applies well beyond the health system. Everywhere, services are in disarray, despite the hefty tax bill. At the provincial and federal levels, the encrusted civil service is unable to perform the simplest tasks.
Look at Quebec. Grieving citizens have to wait up to five months to obtain a death certificate, which is essential for settling an estate. It’s distressing.
In Ottawa, things are going badly at the Canada Revenue Agency. Lost documents, endless waiting times on the phone, late benefits… It’s all the way to the Taxpayers’ Ombudsman, the watchdog for the quality of tax services, which has seen a spectacular increase in complaints since the pandemic.
However, the civil service has been hiring at full capacity in recent years.
While the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) had promised to eliminate 5,000 civil service positions, 10,600 have instead been added since it came to power. Including all government employees, the increase reaches almost 73,000, a jump of 11% since 2019.1.
Since 2015, the Trudeau government has inflated the federal public service by 40%, which now has 367,000 employees. To think that in 1873, Prime Minister Alexander Mackenzie did not even have a secretary and answered the mail himself!
Why has expanding the civil service failed to improve service delivery?
This is because the majority of civil servants are “poets” and not “plumbers,” explains seasoned political scientist Donald J. Savoie in a very interesting book, Speaking Truth to Canadians hasbout Their Public Servicewhich will appear in a few days.
While plumbers are actually in contact with the public, poets design public policies, take care of communications, coordinate departments… In short, they do everything except deliver services.
Inside the civil service, no one questions the size and performance of the state. Who would want to commit hara-kiri?
The problem is that decisions are centralized in the Prime Minister’s office… who is too busy to look under the hood. Not to mention that he needs the civil service to carry out his political program and to manage emergencies.
So, nothing moves. And the mammoth only gets fatter.
From one government to another, new programs are launched without questioning the old ones. This sedimentation creates an increasingly cumbersome, complex and inefficient State that undermines public confidence in its institutions.
Some come to see the government as a deep state (deep state) formed of bureaucrats who pursue their own goals, to the detriment of the collective good.
Beyond the quality of services, it is therefore the health of democracy that is at stake.
A serious debate is needed.
Are all programs essential? Do all public agencies – there are 300 in Ottawa alone – still have a reason to exist? Could they deliver services more effectively?
In the private sector, an inefficient company loses customers, takes losses, lays off employees and ultimately goes bankrupt. Skimming happens naturally. The law of the market pushes companies to constantly improve.
In the public sector, there is no market. And the civil service is poorly equipped to evaluate its own performance. The recipe is simple: measure, compare, draw inspiration from best practices to improve… and start the exercise again.
Easy to say, less easy to do. Here are two examples of initiatives that fell flat due to lack of political courage.
For several years, the Centre for Productivity and Prosperity at HEC Montréal has prepared an annual ranking that compares the cost of services in Quebec municipalities (e.g., garbage collection, street resurfacing).
Despite its great usefulness, this transparency exercise did not please all the municipalities, which insisted with Quebec that the data no longer be available. Too bad.
Second example. Ten years ago, a provincial commission chaired by former minister Lucienne Robillard proposed setting up an independent and transparent mechanism for the permanent review of government programs.2.
With such a tool, the State would have had the capacity to question itself continuously and systematically, for the common good of the population. The idea was excellent… but it has faded. It is never too late to do good. Quebec and Ottawa would greatly need such a mechanism for continuous improvement.
Otherwise, the state is condemned to periodically undergo parametric cuts that blindly run through all programs with a chainsaw, when finances urgently require an overhaul.
This is the worst-case scenario. We are weakening good programs, without eliminating bad ones. We are harming more vulnerable clients. And we are demotivating workers.
The goal is not to destroy the civil service, but to improve it. Citizens deserve efficient public services. To do this, we must give ourselves the means to break the mold.
1. Read the column “Has the Quebec State Become Too Big?”
2. Consult the report of the Permanent Program Review Commission