It isn’t that the government sought to conceal the obscene pay raises for senior bureaucrats by burying the announcement in not just a Friday press release, but a Friday press release obscured by the opening of the Beijing Olympics that is troubling. Rather it is that the government is so out of touch with the reality of the lives and situations of the vast majority of citizens in the province, that the government thought they could slip past taxpayers a 43% $105,000 increase without it being noticed and the government called to task for the extravagance of the raises.

The government’s rationalization of these inexcusable wages is that they need to pay these ridiculous wage levels to keep or attract the kind of people they need.

To begin evaluating this rationalization of the need for raises that exceed the yearly income of the vast majority of the taxpayers out of whose pockets these raises will be paid, I consulted a dictionary for the definition of bureaucrat and bureaucracy.

Bureaucrat: an official of a bureaucracy (administration characterized by many bureaus, administrators, petty officials, excessive red tape and routine); an official who works by fixed routine without exercising intelligent judgment.; an official who is rigidly devoted to the details of administrative procedure;

What is it about these individuals that cause them to be so valued by their political masters? What attributes are required by these positions and the people who fill them?

Obviously one needs, at least on paper, to be qualified to hold a position at this level of government service.

Just as obviously one needs to be able to navigate and manipulate the bureaucracy if one is to be able to cause the bureaucracy to carry out their political masters wishes.

An abundant number of people are capable of meeting these requirements. There must be further requirements that drastically reduce the pool of candidates to the select few numbers the government cited as the reason it is necessary to pay and to offer these exorbitant wage levels.

So what attributes do politicians require in the people filling these positions that so limit the talent pool? What sort of factor would be of importance to a politician for an employee in these positions?

Non-competence. It is not that politicians, government and bureaucracy require incompetence. Rather the need is simply for candidates to not be competent.

Competent people tend to focus on accomplishing what the stated purpose or goal is, rather than on pursuing policies that either would not accomplish or are contrary to accomplishing the stated purpose or goal. Within the labyrinth bureaucracy of government competent people would remain hidden until their actions in successfully accomplishing the stated purpose or goal attracted media or other unwanted attention.

Faced with a demonstrated method of actually accomplishing the stated goals the politicians would be forced to abandon their policies in favour of policies that work, even if not in agreement with their ideological world view. Obviously this would be an intolerable position for politicians to find themselves in.

Thus it is that politicians want to avoid having competent people working for government. This desire is strengthened by the fact that competent people tend to drive out incompetence and inspire people around them to aspire to competence. While frustration with the bureaucratic barriers to accomplishing goals would drive many competent people out of government service, a stubborn few would remain until they succeeded.

Then, like a plague, competent people would infect the bureaucracy with competence giving rise to a government service that accomplishes the stated purpose or goals irrespective or in spite of politicians and their ideological faith.

This desire to not have any competent people in government service limits the number of qualified people from which to draw in filling high level positions.

Finally, what is it politicians want to use the government bureaucracy to accomplish? The implementation of the policies derived from and/or dictated by their political ideology – no matter how far this ideological world view is from reality and without consideration of the actual effect these actions will have on citizens who live in the real world.

This dichotomy between the ideological world view and the real world, between what is claimed the outcome will be and the real effect of the policy choices, between the way the politicians choose to view and/or interpret the outcomes of their actions and the actual consequences the outcomes have upon people give rise to a built in conflict between supporting the politicians and their ideological tainted perceptions versus delivering to the politicians the facts that may force politicians to see things as they truly are.

Politicians want bureaucrats that do as they are told and who don’t confuse their political masters by introducing reality into their ideological fantasy world. This need is what has given rise to the political “science” idea of the need for a civil service that unthinkingly, obliviously carries out the dictates of whomever is their political masters, whatever their ideological world view.

The requirement for mindless obedience, providing spin control and ignoring what the actual consequences will be or are serves to narrow the field of possible candidates for these positions down to a select few.

For politicians seeking to preserve their ideology and ideological world views rather than face the real world and deal with the issues and problems in a thoughtful, rational and effective manner this type of bureaucrat is a necessity and worth every penny the politicians must pay as wages.

The CONCLUSION this analysis leads one to draw is that BC’s Liberal government (and by inference all levels of government across Canada) is correct. Given the very limited pool of people who meet the politician’s requirements and that government bodies all across Canada are competing for people from this very limited pool, high and extreme levels of wages are required to hire these bureaucrats.

The QUESTION we should really be asking is whether these are the types of bureaucrats and politicians we want in and running our government(s). Or should we be looking for competence, integrity and residence in the real world from our politicians and bureaucrats.

Reading a newspaper article about how the popularity of the provincial Liberal government has seemingly not been affected by all the questions about its integrity served to remind me that I wanted to comment on the lack of integrity of our provincial government.

Admittedly all our current political parties and most, if not all, politicians are “integrity challenged”, it is just that the Liberals are the party running our province giving them a public ability to display this lack of integrity.

Integrity: adherence to moral and ethical principles; honesty; freedom from corrupting influence or motive; uprightness; rectitude.

Integrity is not about being able to say “I/we have done nothing wrong”, it is about behaving in a consistent manner; one can behave one way here and another way there. Nor does one get to avoid or ignore reality just because it does not fit into your world view or political philosophy.

Behaving with integrity is the foundation on which government behaviour should be built. Sadly this is not the way current governments at any level behave.

This question of integrity comes to mind every time I hear the government advertisement about the rent subsidy program for families making $35,000 or less per year. $35,000 per year and you need a rent subsidy. $7300 per year and you do not need a rent subsidy – if you are on Income Assistance.

I concede that to a certain extent this is comparing apples and oranges but … for a government that acknowledges that the cost of renting is so high in the lower mainland that at an income of $35,000 a subsidy is needed, to claim that $375 a month is adequate for a person on Income Assistance to find shelter is duplicitous.

This behaviour lacks Integrity.

Another glaring example is that if you are on or eligible for Income Assistance and you deal with the Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance you will receive $610 a month of which $375 is for shelter. If you have to spend $600 a month on rent (if you can find something habitable for that) and only have $10 to live on – it is your problem.

However should you go to a shelter and use the BC Housing outreach program to find housing you can get an additional rent subsidy up to $120 per month. At these levels of income the $120 has a huge impact on your quality of life, especially the quality of housing.

It gives an unfair competitive advantage in the competition to find housing to those who receive the extra $120, further marginalizing those on “just Income Assistance.” It also makes the outreach/shelter programs appear more successful than they really are – at the expense of the most vulnerable people.

This behaviour lacks Integrity.

I am considering writing a brochure on the existence of this subsidy and the steps required to obtain/qualify for this subsidy in order to level the playing field, promoting fairness and integrity.

Could I get this subsidy? It is a moot point because, as badly needed as the extra $120 maybe, the actions required in getting this subsidy would lack integrity.

The government is behaving without integrity, with a total lack of fairness and are “cheating” in making their housing program “successful.

I cannot take advantage of their lack of integrity and get an extra $120 – because I have integrity.

Talk about Irony.