The minister responsible for open government initiatives, Clement is vowing the Conservatives will improve federal transparency and, in due course, release all the details of billions of dollars in cuts to government jobs and programs.
But Canadians likely will have to wait a year or so — until spring 2013 — before they are presented a clear picture on the extent of the cuts.
"We'll be providing accurate, pinpoint details to Parliament, as we're required to do, in the months ahead," Clement said Wednesday in a teleconference call from Brazil, where he is attending an international open government conference.
The March federal budget announced $5.2 billion in cuts to federal operating spending over the next three years, including eliminating 19,200 jobs during that time and either trimming or eliminating programs across government departments.
But details on the programs being cut and the number of immediate layoffs have been slow to trickle out. More than 8,000 notices have been sent over the past few weeks to federal employees whose positions are "affected" by job cuts.
However, many of those affected employees won't be laid off and could be shuffled within their units or transferred to another department.
Government departments have been extremely hesitant to publicly release information on the actual number of job cuts in the short term, leaving federal employees and public-sector unions worried about where the axe will fall.
It's also leading to many inaccurate, inflated numbers about immediate job cuts, and sparking union demands for the government to provide precise details.
"It is frustrating for the public servants, I'm sure. It's frustrating for managers, it's frustrating for us as politicians because we know that the number that is out there is an inflated number," Clement said.
The minister, however, said the government is "hostage" to the process for announcing details on budget cuts to jobs and programs, with much of the information to be released in reports to Parliament.
Gary Corbett, president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, said Clement's promises for open government are simply a "smoke screen" as the Tories cut billions in spending and try to muzzle federal employees.
"Is he suggesting open government and transparency is good? Because he certainly hasn't been that way with the cuts," said Corbett, whose group represents approximately 57,000 scientists and other professionals.
Patty Ducharme, vice-president with the Public Service Alliance of Canada, which represents about 150,000 federal public servants, said government promises of more information and transparency are laughable.
"The irony is a little bit on the overwhelming side, considering they're refusing to tell Canadians what they're cutting," she said. "They're transforming government and they're not coming clean."
Clement said departments won't release many specifics on layoffs until all affected employees have been notified.
Moreover, the details on program cuts will slowly be released through supplementary budget estimates over the course of the fiscal year, as well as in department reports on the government's plans and priorities — which won't be released until spring 2013.
Clement has been in Brazil this week to announce Canada's membership in the international Open Government Partnership, where he released a dozen commitments to be implemented over the next three years.
The changes include "issuing a governmentwide directive that will make government information and data available to the public by default," as well as providing more federal information online and a commitment to "public engagement on regulatory reform."
Natural Resources Canada also came under fire Wednesday for its decision this week to limit environmental groups from intervening in regulatory hearings for resource projects, and for burying in a background document a decision that government will now have final say on pipeline projects in the "national interest."
Clement said he's working on improving transparency and information-sharing across government.
"My goal is to create an architecture of open government," he added.
In the same vein, bonus pay for government managers — which could total tens of thousands of dollars annually — will be partly based on how much they contribute and buy into open-government initiatives, he said.
"You have got to assess people based on what our objectives are as a government and this is an objective of our government," Clement said.
Original Article
Source: ottawa citizen
Author: Jason Fekete
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