When I was an MP, a farmer told me: “At MAPAQ, there are so many people working there that we have to turn on the lights ourselves when we enter the office.” To speak, again, of reducing the public service would be to extinguish the regions even further.
A shield against top-down
Civil servants in the regions, for what remains of them, not only offer a service to the population, they are also valuable resources for collecting sensitive data and information on the ground. The effectiveness of our public service is not just a matter of the number of staff, it is just as much a question of geographical location.
Our Quebec is immense. Its fabric is knitted from fabrics that vary from region to region although there are similarities. Our social ecosystems are more often than not organized differently depending on our little bits of history, our climate, our economic development, etc.
The public service, when it is well rooted in its environment, is a bulwark against senseless decisions. Essential relays to keep some hold on an increasingly centralized government.
Waste!
When programs are designed from Quebec for elsewhere, it is rare that they achieve their objectives. So yes, we can talk about inefficiency and waste. A great waste of energy putting together programs on paper that will not adequately meet needs once on the ground.
For the population, it is energy spent managing the landing of what is parachuted to us from “up above”. So we waste our efforts denouncing, claiming, deconstructing rather than the other way around. Therein lies the scandal.
To restore power to the regions, we will need civil servants to continue to support the populations they serve by relaying this experience “at the top”, and to do so, with both feet and their hearts on the territory.
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