David Irvine

Below is a letter to the editor I submitted to Canada’s Macleans magazine this week in response to an article in the February 8th edition.

Nancy MacDonald (The War On The Civil Service, Feb 8., 2010) makes an important contribution to the current public service reality in Canada. As an organizational development consultant in the both the public and private arenas, I, too, have witnessed the discouragement that is rampant in the public sector. Yet, in spite of often working under a lack of political and societal support, I have seen mediocrity transformed into greatness at every level of the public service. Make no mistake: the majority of civil servants care. They care about their work, and they care about Canada. I have met many leaders in government who are more than qualified to work in the private sector for a greater financial return, but, driven by public service values, will not waver in their determination to serve the public good. In this culture of complaint, it’s too easy to take for granted the quality of life that the citizens of Canada experience largely because of the quality of our public service. Maybe our problem is that most of us have simply had it too easy. If we care about Canada, we better care about our civil servants. Whether it’s the clerk behind the desk where we pick up our passport, or the RCMP officer who is laying her life on the line so we can sleep at night, or a social service agent tirelessly attending to the needs of neglected children, it would do each of us good to replace entitlement with gratitude. And in the process, we would be doing our part to contribute to a more civil society. Our focus, after all, on “those people,” is a defense against our own responsibility. There is a strong correlation between well-performing democracies and economics and a strong public service. History informs us of this.