The Demonization of Stephen Harper

This is quite an (unintentionally) funny piece in its innuendo regarding unnamed former clerks, its many assertions (anecdote-based, bien sûr) and its systematic ignoring any evidence regarding flaws in the Government’s policy process or substance.

While some of the points regarding officials are valid (indeed I argued some myself in Policy Arrogance or Innocent Bias: Resetting Citizenship and Multiculturalism), this article has little nuance or balance.

And publishing under a nom de plume, hiding behind anonymity, is at best cowardly, at worst unethical, whether in social media or sites like this:

Retired senior federal public servants stand as an interesting révélateur of the true mindset of the senior Canadian federal public service. With retirement comes the possibility of speaking up, after years of extramural discretion on matters of partisan politics. It is not that active senior public servants have no view on these matters, but in a system that is supposed to have a professional non-partisan public service, such views are expected to be toned down (if not suppressed) at least externally when federal public servants are on active duty.

However, when senior federal public servants formally retire these days, many do not really retire. On the basis of their former status, they seek employment in a variety of positions outside the federal public service: lobbyists for industry, return to private practice for lawyers who might procure access to government officials, refugee in academe, etc.. From such new perches, they have a much greater licence to speak on any matters they feel strongly about – whether these views are competent and informed or not.

The wise ones remain quite discrete in retirement, for they feel they have a devoir de réserve. But most are not that wise. They rather sense that their special status as certified mandarins in the federal public service for a while, stands as a proof that they can be presumed to be, in their own mind at least, better informed and wiser than most. This status is perceived as carrying with it a responsibility to remain on guard for us, lesser Canadians, even in their new civilian life

Indeed, this special status has often been the major asset they have displayed to persuade their new bosses of their value-adding capabilities. Such special status is undoubtedly real when it comes to the personal links mandarins have retained with senior public servants still in active duties – and their ability to parlay such intelligence into advantages in their new positions – privileged access that can be used by universities, law firms, lobby firms, etc. for their own benefits.

But such mundane advantages are usually not the main asset that retired mandarins claim to possess. They most often feel that their tenure and experience as mandarins have definitely established them as persons of superior quality whose storytelling and judgments have greater intrinsic value than those of ordinary citizens on any matter they choose to address.

So certain former clerks of Privy Council, not especially known for their great wisdom when in active duty, but rather more for their craftiness and disingenuity, have had no hesitation, in retirement, in trotting themselves out into the public forum to denounce actions of the government now in place, on the sole basis of their supposed former moral authority being sufficient for their views to be regarded as consequential if not canonical.

One can certainly point to some former senior federal civil servants who have, in retirement, demonstrated their extraordinary intellectual resourcefulness by impressive endeavours: path-breaking books, enlightening papers, imaginative initiatives, etc. But most have not shined in that way. They have simply parlayed their former overblown status into financially profitable sinecures in organizations naïve enough to believe that their ‘greatness’ would be value-adding somewhat in the new setting.

Such matters however are only of interest to the chroniclers in the social pages of the Ottawa daily newspapers. What is much more interesting is the storytelling of those retired mandarins.

The demonization of Stephen Harper (free but requires login)