shows, reverse discrimination is no longer necessary in the federal public service, if it ever was:
According to the commission’s latest figures, published in 2009, 18.8% of public service employees are visible minorities, 4.2% are aboriginal, 3.3% are people with disabilities and 57.1% are women. Canada-wide, according to the 2006 Statistics Canada census, 16.2% of Canadians are visible minorities, 3.8% are aboriginal and 51% are women.The government needs to march behind the banner "Merit Alone". The policy review needs to be guided toward toward the dropping of reverse discrimination and a total recasting of civil service policy. Hiring by merit thwaps hiring by status in any poll that gives both options. Some of the themes that the new policy should develop:
* true diversity, diversity of backgrounds and of ideas, thrives where selection be merit is taken seriously;
* targets for percentage hiring of specified groups are simply quotas by another name;
* selection by merit must replace "diversity' as the key phrase emphasized not just at hiring, but at every stage of the promotion process.
As part of this review, the government should cough up some money to get the best and most sympathetic personnel experts it can find to design "Merit Workshops" which will replace the diversity workshops which now infest the land, poisoning both the public and private spheres. In the workshops, trained meritocrats would indoctrinate their captive audiences on disasters, real and hypothetical, caused by reverse discrimination hires; selection by merit as a key element of equality and social justice; how "obstacles to merit selection" may be identified and expunged from the workplace, and the like; how new and better "selection by merit" practices may be embedded in the system, etc. The idea would be that these workshops will become an alternate institution to the liberal institution of the diversity workshop, as conservatives conduct their Gramscian march through the institutions of liberal hegemony.
One thing the government needs to do immediately is to drop the defensiveness, the whining about "Oh we're in favour of diversity, we're in favour of affirmative action, we really are." Stockwell Day may be permanently spooked because of his previous manhandling by the liberal media, but the government needs to stop cringing and walk with pride on this one. They have a bloody shirt to wave to start the thing going: the moral outrage of hiring people only from specified races.
3 comments:
Agree pretty much with your post. A couple of things to add. The Public Service is funded by the taxpayer therefore we are entitled to get the best money can buy and that means hiring based on merit. Secondly, affirmative action hiring practices turns the employment in the Public Service into a massive social program.
I applaud the government in their review of these affirmative action policies. However, they had better explore some tactic to address the ensuing backlash. While I abhor more government programs, I think they could counter by developing compensatory training, educational and apprenticeship programs (yes, more racist programs - read with exasperation) aimed at visible minorities. This seems antithetical to eliminating racism on principle, but I think they'll have to play the political game. It would be the lesser of the evils. Any other suggestions?
myllen:
Right. I forgot to mention efficiency. And that's a political selling point too, right? I mean nobody's ever happy with civil service efficiency and all governments have been cooking up gimmicks appear to be making public services user-friendly for years.
Getting the best people available should make public services better, right?
And the social program point is right on as well. There's been a willingness to let the civil service be a practice ground for all kinds of social engineering because, well, it's just drudgery, either useless or unimportant anyway. Let social programs be social programs and public services be public services.
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