Top bureaucrats met to resist partisanship imposed on public service

As a new Liberal government takes the reins this week, Canada's top bureaucrats are looking for ways to purge partisan politics from the shell-shocked public service.

The highest echelon of the bureaucracy met in the spring, before the election was called, to discuss ways to insulate public servants from intense pressure to be "promiscuously partisan" instead of neutral in carrying out the government's agenda.

Veterans Affairs overspends on administration, falls short on benefits

Veterans Affairs allowed tens of millions of dollars in approved funding on veterans programs – such as death and disability benefits – to go unspent last year while exceeding its budget for internal services like communications.

A closer look by The Globe and Mail at the department’s line-by-line public accounts shows the biggest source of the gap – or lapse – comes from the department’s two biggest categories: the health-care program and disability and death compensation.

The Gargoyle: Staff numbers in ministerial offices ballooned under Harper

The Conservative government’s enthusiasm for cutting costs and reducing the size of the public service appears to end at the elevator to the minister’s office.

Data tabled in the House of Commons on Monday shows the number of political staffers working for cabinet ministers has ballooned under the Tories, up 21 per cent per cent from the last year of Liberal rule.

Paul Martin’s government employed 452 people as “exempt” ministerial aides, advisors and other staff in 2005. This year, that number has swollen to 549 bodies on the public payroll.

Revenue Canada's letters full of gobbledegook, internal report finds

The next time you puzzle over an indecipherable letter or notice from the Canada Revenue Agency, don't blame yourself: even the tax department acknowledges it churns out a lot of gobbledegook.

A study of the agency last month confirms the millions of communications that bureaucrats send to taxpayers each year are poorly organized, confusing, unprofessional, unduly severe, bureaucratic, one-sided and just plain dense.

All that gibberish comes with a human cost: confused taxpayers swamp the agency's call centres with needless telephone inquiries, or they send thousands of letters to tax offices asking for clarification.

Satellite Conservative Ministerial Staff Costs Soar 70 Per Cent

OTTAWA - The cost of paying Conservative political staffers working in a network of satellite minister's offices ballooned by 70 per cent during the same years the government was asking departments to tighten their belts.

Between 2009-10 and 2013-14, the budget for staffing at the regional offices rose from $1.6 million to $2.7 million, according to figures tabled in the House of Commons this week.

Thousands of infrastructure projects in limbo as confusion plagues $14-billion federal funding program

OTTAWA — By now, municipalities and small communities across Canada had expected to see thousands of infrastructure projects taking shape. That hasn’t happened.

The federal government’s $14-billion construction program began last month, when the money earmarked for roads, bridges and many other new or crumbling services was supposed to land in local hands.

Or, so they had thought.

LAX Shooting: TSA Officer Bled For 33 Minutes As Help Stood By, Officials Say

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A Los Angeles Police Department official says an internal investigation will be done into an allegation that an LAPD officer delayed medical aid when he told responders that an airport security officer was dead after being shot.

Cmdr. Andrew Smith said Friday the department always investigates allegations against its officers.

Marshall McClain, president of the airport police union, claims LAPD Officer John Long told responding officers that Transportation Security Administration Officer Gerardo Hernandez was dead as he lay in a terminal on Nov. 1 after a gunman targeted TSA officers.

It's unclear how that determination was made or whether Long was qualified to do so. Long declined comment.

McClain says an airport police officer later thought he detected a light pulse and wheeled Hernandez to paramedics — 33 minutes after he was shot.

Original Article
Source: huffingtonpost.com
Author: TAMI ABDOLLAH

Woman’s long fight to be recognized as a Canadian citizen heads to court

Jackie Scott has been waiting years to be officially accepted by her country.

The 68-year-old was raised in Ontario, paid her taxes and voted in elections. But a dizzying tangle of old laws has meant the government doesn’t consider her a Canadian.

Now, her long, drawn-out fight to be recognized may be reaching its climax as her case is set to have its day in court on Monday.

Conservatives Signal Public Service Cost-Cutting, But Bureaucracy Ballooned Under Them

OTTAWA - The Conservative government has made it clear that curbing public service costs is a key part of its agenda as it heads into the second half of Stephen Harper's majority mandate.

But budget measures and ministerial musings about everything from public sector pensions to the collective bargaining process and even sick leave may obscure the bureaucracy sprawl under the Conservative watch.

Tories signal cost-cutting in civil service but bureaucracy ballooned under them

OTTAWA - The Conservative government has made it clear that curbing public service costs is a key part of its agenda as it heads into the second half of Stephen Harper's majority mandate.

But budget measures and ministerial musings about everything from public sector pensions to the collective bargaining process and even sick leave may obscure the bureaucracy sprawl under the Conservative watch.

How to curb bureaucratic empire-building

The young Acadian came to Ottawa with impeccable credentials. He was fluently bilingual, had a doctorate from Oxford University and a passion for public service.

There was one problem. Donald Savoie didn’t seem to understand the bureaucratic culture. He went to his deputy minister early in his career and said he felt there were too many people in the department for the amount of work required.

Back patient Sevan Hajinian shutout in Ontario but finds relief in New York

On Sunday — to celebrate Armenian Christmas — Sevan Hajinian intends to walk into Holy Trinity Armenian Apostolic Church in east Toronto and give thanks to those who made a potentially life-changing back surgery possible.

The province of Ontario will not be among them.

Friends and supporters, with the help of the church, raised $120,000 for a Dec. 4 surgery in New York City, which Hajinian says five Canadian spinal surgeons would not touch and the Ontario Health Insurance Plan would not fund.

Student Veterans Struggle To Get In-State Tuition At Public Colleges In North Carolina

NEW YORK -- After serving in the military, Andrew Sammons returned to home to the house where he lived with his wife in North Carolina and decided to apply to the University of North Carolina-Wilmington to get his master's degree in accounting. He then spent the better part of three months trying to prove he was a resident of North Carolina to avoid a huge tuition bill.

Even though Sammons had owned his house in North Carolina for more than a year, had been paying taxes on it, had a driver's license and vehicles registered in the state and was an active-duty member of the Army, UNC-Wilmington considered him a nonresident for tuition purposes. Which meant that instead of paying the in-state tuition rate of $7,694, his annual bill would be $28,446 (not including books and other fees).

Milton murder-suicide: Grieving mother denied widow’s benefits because of age eligibility

Tanya Brancalion is 34, not 35.

If she were just a year older, the grieving mother whose 6-year-old son, Noah, was killed by his father in a September murder-suicide, would qualify for an ongoing survivor’s pension.

She’s been denied because she now also lacks the other factor that would qualify her for a couple of hundred dollars each month: a dependant child.

‘They suffer from the climate’: Superstar scientist abandons $10M Edmonton research grant, returns to U.K.

A European scientist widely described as a “superstar” when he was lured to Alberta with $10-million from the federal government, has aborted his Canadian experiment.

After just seven months at the University of Alberta, Patrik Rorsman returned to England, forfeiting his $10-million Canada Excellence Research Chair.

Rorsman was one of 19 foreign men awarded lucrative deals at Canadian universities in 2010 as part of a $190-million Canada Excellence Research Chair program, the federal government’s ambitious science talent drive.

Federal government demands senior repay 11-year-old income supplement debt

OTTAWA— Frank Weinstock has some choice words to describe what the federal government was trying to do to his mother-in-law.

“Inconceivable, inexcusable, inexplicable, shameless, unfair, unprincipled and unreasonable,” were what came to mind when Weinstock first saw the letter that arrived in the mail from Service Canada last week.