First I'm really ticked because I just finished writing this when it all disappeared and I was back at the bowl. So here I go again...

I was responding to the line of chat about government funding sports and started thinking about how much less debt our country would be in if our government didn't waste so much money.

Here a just a few areas of waste that bug me please add your own.

* useless studies and surveys such as what should we change the North West Territories name to and more studies showing smoking is bad. Hey we all know smoking is bad and it has already been proven.

* making goverment offices into works of art when they should be mainly functional. Having an expensive piece of art in the lobby is not going to help run our country neither is fancy architecture.

*expense accounts. Meetings don't need to be over "lunch" and most things can be done over the phone or net with minimal travel.

there is so much more and in so many areas that I think I'll stop here and give others a chance to vent.

Keep in mind that the only reason those surveys are done is so that they can say, "Hey, I know you think this new law smells, but we DID RESEARCH!" It's all so that they can make their money under the guise of democracy. They waste OUR money lining their pockets and the pockets of their fatcat friends.

Hey, here's billions of dollars from the Canadian Taxpayer! Now funnel it, and do so in a manner that no one will ask any questions! And what do you get to say about it? Well, you get one little vote every four years.

Nice, isn't it?

Man, I could go on for a century about how friggin' corrupt our goverment is.

Boo-erns!
s4v4nn4

Plumlucky, here's a site you may be interested in.....
http://www.wastebusters.gov.bc.ca
Have fun!

Thanks Hadenough. I checked it out and already added it to my favorites.

I work for the federal government in Calgary. And I can tell you there is NOTHING fancy about the federal building here. It is actually pretty depressing. I lived in Ottawa for a few years (worked retail not for the gov) and a lot of the federal office buildings are just gross!

I have never ONCE had a lunch meeting (and I have never heard of anyone having one - management included). About 3 times a year we will have a meeting with doughnuts and coffee, but that is it. Telephone conference calls are used ALL the time.

I don't think you have to worry about the civil servent basking in the glory of over spending!

BUT the polititians are constantly giving themselves raises, do have expense accounts and are the ones who need to be questioned about luxury office spaces.

I have to disagree with one thing. I think our government buildings should be fine examples of canadian architecture, and not ugly office blocks (good Architecture does not = expensive building). Buildings are a representation of what they house, and we need to have pride in our public facilities.

Thanks for that gov site link. Even in their interests of eliminating waste the site costs seem astrnomical!
Program staff (salaries and benefits):
1 full time program administrator 60,000
1 part-time Director 32,000
Technical development of the web site, using existing standards and templates 10,000
Annual web site support costs, including all servers 6,000
Total 108,000

The site is interesting, and I gained good info from some things I thought were a total waste, BUT.....

Now this isn't the entire gov.bc.ca site this is just one rather small area! Made from the gov.bc.ca template to solicit peoples suggestions and forward them to appropriate parties, compile and display responses!

Gov waste in action!

Actually, it's the average civil servant and the common working Joe that get screwed the most. We pay the most taxes, and take back from the system the least.

The millionaires can pay for high priced lawyers to get out of paying their
fair share of taxes.

So, I hope everyone's feeling really good about that marvelous raise in pay for the MPs that WE are funding. For a job well done? My ass!

s4v4nn4

ps- I agree that our buildings should reflect nice architechture. I also think that spending money on the arts should be just as much a priority as the money we spend on sports. Great art is the mark of a civilized society. I think the problem lies with the starched bureaucrats who choose where the funding should go. Unfortunately, the bottom line rules...and art doesn't generate the revenue that national sport does. The building of gov buildings also tend to go to the lowest bidder, I would imagine.

Originally posted by plumlucky Here a just a few areas of waste that bug me please add your own.

I don't quite agree with you (no offense). Have you ever worked for the Government? They are so tight with their money, it's ridiculous. They are years behind on almost all their computer hardware/software and the average government worker is usually in a pay freeze (often years at a time).

With that in mind, it's hard for the government to attract certain talents (I know this is true for programmers) because their salaries are so low compared to the industry. And the more they advance their technology, the more efficient (hopefully!) they become.

And as for "art" in their buildings, employee moral is very important. A happy employee is a loyal employee. If everything was painted white, the cubes where tiny and they didn't even provide coffee, who would work there? It would be an institution!

Now I'm just talking about how they spend their money internally. Everything else is another story though....

Oh, and admittably, there are way too many slackers that should be let go of.

BTW, my perspective is a bit on the technical side since that's my field and I know some people that did work for the government.

But to add to your list, what was it they mailed us last year? Some kind of tax credit? I don't remember the details. But anyway, they mailed almost everyone who filed taxes the year before a check for a tiny amount of money (instead of just using it somewhere else - this was due to the elections I'm sure). So this alone cost a lot of money, not just for the amount they sent out, but for the checks, envelops, etc... But to make it worse, they made a mistake and had to re-write thousands of checks. Someone else might have the details, I really don't remember. What a waste of money that was. They should have made it optional. I would have told them to keep the money.

If they could just get rid of the slackers. But some of the good workers are leaving instead of the slackers.

Well, the good old BC government is on a big hack and slash. The area that my wife works in has to cut it's staff and they will be doing it by early retirement and voluntary leave. Well my wife's taking the voluntary leave. Now the sad thing is, she's one hard worker, like she get's her work done before any of the others. Now in the past she took on more responsibility and you know what happenned, nothing, no recognition. And when it came time for promotion, they hired from outside. So tell me what good is it for her to bust her ass. Well, you guessed it, she hasn't for the past couple of years. You know what, she can still run rings around the rest of the staff. What am I getting at? I don't know, just venting I guess. But there's alot of good staff that are taking the early retirement and severance package, so all that's left are the less effective people.

This is just one situation and maybe it's just a bad office, but I know she's reported it to the wastebuster's site.

I totally agree. There's some area's where the gov't worker gets the short end of the stick. What really kills the polititian's credibility is when expenses get leaked out. Well why such a large severance pacakge? Why the flights to X with your wife and kids? Why the gift paid on governemtn expenses? Lot's of questions, few answers.

I don't know what it is with governments, but every contract they sign looks like they went out of their way to make it nice and fat for the vendor. Makes me wonder if they paid a CGI consultant to write the contract so they can sign it with CGI (just want to pick on CGI today)
Accountability is coming slowly, but at least there is movement in that direction. Baby steps...

I did work for provincial government, got out while I was still sane. Found out the higher up you go, the less you have to work. Here it is true they did employee bashing, succeeded and then made employees take 6% wage increase. Then gave themselves 43% wage hike for all their hard work.

Anyone familiar with the Federal Government realizes that a career as a Public Servant is not filled with luxuries or comforts.

The buildings are old, improperly air conditioned (sick building syndrome), and filled to over capicity. Public art work can be found in lobbies that the general public has access to or in the offices of the Ministers and Deputy Ministers. Art work found in individual offices usually belongs to the person in that office. For the most part these buildings are old, ugly, and barely functional.

To have a private office (not a cubicle) you are an Executive (EX level) or a EX minus 1 (PM-06, ES-06 ... etc.). You have also worked for the Public Service for an average of 15 years to get to that level and you probably have a Masters Degree and speak multiple languages. Much different in the private sector. As for the EX level not working, the person who stated that has no idea how hard it is to get to that level and the amount of work done to maintain their jobs (not unionized) and get promoted. It is a thankless position where you are expected to work incredibly long hours and the pay is low. Their counterparts in the private sector probably make 30 - 40% more. Anyone who thinks the Executive level gets paid too much, compare the EX wages to the executive level at a large corporation. Also, just so everyone understands who we are talking about, there are 228000 Public Servants across Canada, less than 2% are at the EX level.

There are incompetents/slackers in the Federal Government, the same as in any industry. While it is difficult for the Federal Government to fire poor workers, large corporations have the same difficulties. Talk to anyone who works for BCE, Rogers, the Royal Bank, IBM, General Motors ... etc. Slackers do not get promoted. Anyone saying otherwise does not understand how a promotion competition is run. It is rigerous with exams, interviews and reference checks. All of it is accountable and open. For the most part the public servants are over worked, under paid, and are constantly criticized by the ignorant masses.

People have mentioned expense accounts. These simply do not exist. The only Public Servants with expense accounts or a hospitality budget are Deputy Ministers, Assistant Deputy Ministers, and Director Generals (top three levels). The hospitality budget of a Director is pathetically small (staff of 65 people and you have $200/month (if you can justify it). For the most part these budgets are small and the public has access to see how they are used. Forget about paid staff lunches.

How many private sector companies have Christmas parties funded completely or partly by their employer? This never happens with the Federal Government. Did you or anyone you know get a performance bonus with your private sector company? The EX level only started to get this last year (of course the EX level is leaving the Public Service in record numbers to take employment with the private sector - the present bonuses were done to shore up a poor situation.

The general public still thinks Public Servants have the best pension plan (it is good but it is being eroded), the best benefits (the biggest companies across Canada all have much better plans - a person on the line for Ford Canada has a much better plan), excessive vacation (wow four weeks after eight years is excessive), and they do little to no work. This is simply not true. If it was why are so many people leaving the government if is such a pleasant place to work? Clerks in the public service do make a decent wage, but it is not excessive. Why should the Government pay its people poorly? It forces the private sector in Ottawa to be competitive. Is that a bad thing? There seem to be alot of High Tech start ups in Ottawa who do not seem to be compaining.

Someone gave specific examples of salary. I have no idea if that is Federal or Provincial but lets look at it. $60000 for a Program Administrator. This includes salary and benefits. Do you have any idea how much benefits (health plan, vacation, EI, Workers Compensation ... etc.) cost a company? It is about 15 to 20% of the salary. Do the math. Is that wage excessive for a person in the private sector? I doubt it. $32000 for a Part-time Director. In the Federal Government a Director is an Executive (EX-01) and makes between $85000 and $100000 plus benefits. There are no part time EX's. Work the hours required or "be retired".

I have no idea what it is like with the Provincial Governments but does anyone think working for the Harris Government in Onatrio, or the BC Government is a treat? If so, I suggest you start reading a newspaper.

Forgive the rant. Ignorant people annoy me. Evertime I drive by a Hydro crew I swear half of them are not working. Somehow I doubt that is really the case but maybe someone should start a thread on it. If you think the life of a Federal Government employee is so sweet put your application in. Nothing is stopping you. Could this be a case of the grass is always greemer?

Spouse of a Federal Government EX

Forgive the spelling mistakes in the above post. I was irate when I posted it.

Good post, Spouse! Slackers and wasters are everywhere, and so are the shining stars (although the higher pay in the private sector probably attracts more of them to that area)...

Originally posted by MaxPower2000 I don't quite agree with you (no offense). Have you ever worked for the Government? They are so tight with their money, it's ridiculous. They are years behind on almost all their computer hardware/software and the average government worker is usually in a pay freeze (often years at a time). With that in mind, it's hard for the government to attract certain talents (I know this is true for programmers) because their salaries are so low compared to the industry. And the more they advance their technology, the more efficient (hopefully!) they become. And as for "art" in their buildings, employee moral is very important. A happy employee is a loyal employee. If everything was painted white, the cubes where tiny and they didn't even provide coffee, who would work there? It would be an institution! Now I'm just talking about how they spend their money internally. Everything else is another story though.... Oh, and admittably, there are way too many slackers that should be let go of. BTW, my perspective is a bit on the technical side since that's my field and I know some people that did work for the government. But to add to your list, what was it they mailed us last year? Some kind of tax credit? I don't remember the details. But anyway, they mailed almost everyone who filed taxes the year before a check for a tiny amount of money (instead of just using it somewhere else - this was due to the elections I'm sure). So this alone cost a lot of money, not just for the amount they sent out, but for the checks, envelops, etc... But to make it worse, they made a mistake and had to re-write thousands of checks. Someone else might have the details, I really don't remember. What a waste of money that was. They should have made it optional. I would have told them to keep the money.

Uhm, yeah...I guess we agree about the art thing (that it's important), but I was referring more to FUNDING arts, rather than it being manifested in the way they build their bulidings.

And, I'd have to say that you're speaking from a limited scope as a former employee. I'm not talking about the govt making sure their employees have state-of-the-art computers/equipment, I'm talking about the bureaucratic waste in spending that KEEPS them from outfitting the areas that deserve it.

That cheque you're referreing to was a Gas credit. It was a "here's some crumbs now shut your mouth" cheque. A lot of those cheques were mistakenly made out to inmates and dead people. Which, by the way was a govt employee's mistake--an expensive one.

I guess it depends what sector you're in, because I know of certain things that stay broken in hospitals because contractors will name their (inflated) price knowing it's on the taxpayer's dime. In which case, the govt (or the Canadian taxpayer) is paying a hell of a lot more than they should for said service.

I don't have to have worked for the govt to be disgusted with the lack of accountability in regard to their spending...on a national scale, not just in the governmental workplace!

s4v4nn4