Should Harper make public service cuts, as planned?

I think there ought to be public service layoffs--but it should be by increasing efficiency, not reducing services. We all have a friend, or family memeber or neighbour who has a cushy union government job where you don't have to work hard or have any stress. That needs to be eliminated. I know that bureaucrats often complain about their jobs...but if they hate their government jobs so much they should leave and find work elsewhere. That's what us grown-ups do in the private sector. And yes that includes teachers and nurses--just because government employees whine about being overworked and underpaid it doesn't mean they are.

Why do you think nurses and teachers' union are against private schools and hospitals...? Because if it catches on they'll have to work as hard as people do in the private sector.

You don't need to layoff employees. Simply do not fill those positions from retired workers and assign those duties with current staff. Most can take on a fair share within their 36-40 hr work week. I am not saying government employees are lazy, far from it. I just think they can take on more work just like many in the private sector have in the past 3-4 years.
Each department can also find additional savings on waste. I am certain they can reach 6-8% savings which would amount to more than the planned $11 Billion. The fight will be with the Unions where they don't want a reduced force. Stand your ground Harper. I didn't vote for you this time but you will get my vote in 4 years if you are able to make the proper cuts.

before they cut costs and close swimming pools. why nit get rid of the fat in the government? freeze their pay raises. lower their expense accounts and if you are not showing up for work everyday that can come off your pay cheque, just like everyone else. no more fancy trips or expensive lunches unless it is absolutely nessassary. down size each department. clean up your own house first!

Yes, Gov needs to cut back few positions or even better combine 2 positions into 1; for example, those teachers should teach during Fall/Winter/Spring and during Summer they should work in some kind of services such as clean up city or pickup garbage, take care/plant flowers at parks or anything to do with public, fix up public building if qualify, I know some of them work on construction and get pay cash so I very sure most of them qualify to work during Summer as construction workers for government projects, or if they don't want to work they can just sit at home without pay. It will be hard at first but that is the way should be done....oh yes and cut back MP wages too that will work out nicely.....

Efficiency should definitely improve, but it MUST be a top-down process; lay-offs and service cuts are band-aids on a tumour.
Start with hospital CEO (or any other publicly funded executive) compensation for starters, and cap their salaries at about $150 000. Good money considering the median incomes in the country as well as the poverty line. With the savings, re-invest in grass roots workers earning decent, livable wages, but also ensure productivity standards where white collar unions are involved.
Those riding the gravy train on both ends are free to seek employment in the private sector if this doesn't work.
We must remember that budget cuts impact people on a real human level, and that the majority of Canadians can't afford to live without debt anyway, without turning the screws tighter.

There is one operation that you can tell is just squirming, because they know a Conservative Majority is going to mean a signifigant drop in their funding. The poor CBC, with their champions, the liberal party in utter ruin, they know they are about to pay dearly for all those years of cutting remarks about Mr. Harper, and the Conservatives.

Election night, the tittle on MSN reads "Breaking news, NDP to form the Official Opposition." That was not the breaking news at all.

"How will Jack Layton clean up Ottawa with a Conservative Majority?" Really? is that what you people believe?
Know this, in four years when Ottawa is cleaned up, and we have a more accountable, and responsible government in place. The NDP will have had nothing to do with it whatsoever. Mr. Harper has his majority, and EVERYTHING that comes from Ottawa for good or ill, will be thanks to PM Stephen Harper.

In the meantime, I laugh as nearly every article by the CBC in regards to our Federal Landscape, is a desperate cry, and has a tone of impending doom. Not doom to Canada, but doom to the Billion dollar a year Liberal Platform.

Freeze pay for all in public and private sectors plus a roll-back of Elected MPs salaries to 2010 salaries. Cutting also means lost tax revenue and increased EI so poor choice as it does not really save and the initial saving goes out in overtime and bonuses to those remaining. Trust me I have seen that result over 40 years in management. We can all trim our expenses ourselves if we think how we spend without real need or by taking the easier way. Make tough choices ourselves for the benefit of all and Canada.

A 2 year pay freeze and as another wrote, do not replace retirees would make most sense and save a lot of $$$! Lay-offs should definitely not be made! Retirees' (generally less than 1 %), work load can be made up for easily across the remaining personnel.

The beauty of private-sector efficiency is that they have no stake in the lives of laid-off employees, whereas the public-sector does.

A private sector firm can burn an employee up and then let them go with no cost to itself other than retraining the next human-machine to follow the same path.

If a public-sector employee is not paid by the government funded treasury board, they are paid by the government funded employment insurance (and/or re-training and/or welfare and/or all those things that governments pay for when people need help).

I am not advocating keeping dead-weight public-sector employees, just reminding everyone that the public-sector and private-sector have to deal with different issues. The private sector lives in an insular bubble, and so has an easier time "restructuring".

That being said, I once had a contract to do some accounting work for a university student government and I saw ENORMOUS waste, corruption, and obvious inefficiency with their >$2M budget. I am guessing that with a budget several orders of magnitude greater, the federal government experiences the same.

I work for a provincial government and actually worked a coop term during school for the federal government. There is waste but I don't think cutting or downsizing is the way to do it. Here is my list of savings:
1. Get rid of senate
2. Cut MP's pensions for working 8 years and getting 100K per year after that is a complete joke. Most of these people have other pensions and or other jobs. How many other people work 8 years and get 100K per year pension.
3. Promote not spending all budget by not cutting the budget of a department that saves one year the next. Don't give the manager a bonus for doing it either, that is another big joke that happens. Just take the excess money back.
4. Cut foreign aid
5. Encourage departments to find savings.

And there are many more.

The problem is not with the workers in public sectors it is with management. You have a senior manager making six figures and they do nothing. Then they have secretaries and their secretaries have secretaries you have to trim the fat off the top level management they dont do enough work to justify the pay> It is the frontline workers who do all the work and get all the grief and none of the credit.

This whole article is a sham!. First, I agree with getting effeciency in how government works and maybe a few people need to get the axe. Furthermore, I've seen some of the abuses but get rid of those good for nothings that at present are protected by the union structure. All this being said I have a definite problem with 11 billion in cuts at the government level, has these cuts been identified, are there cuts on transfer payments, pension payments and/or cuts to vital departments. We have effectively given this man a carte blanche and I am skeptical that the Canada that I know will be radically changed so that Harper's big shot buddies can feast on tax reductions. I fear less government will also mean less oversight on these so called pillars of industry who have a tendency to rape and pillage caring for nothing but their own pocket books. What I see hear is the culmination of years of propaganda by the corporate world gaining fruitition with ever increasing demands on workers to capitulate benefits and living standards while the captains of industry gourge themselves at our expense. What happen to fairness.

No, Mr Dictator Harper should not cut public services jobs. It sends a message to industry to follow suit and they will. Harper talked about JOB Creation during his election campaign, you don't create jobs by cutting jobs.

Now that harper has a magority goverment, we will be no better than the citizens of Liba.

Throw the bum out rise up canadians as they are doing in other parts of the world and get rid of the dictator.

I agree with Tom G. I work in the public sector as an IT tech and I manage 13 schools (750 computers, 13 servers). In the private sector I might manage 2 or 3 locations or up to 300 computers and a few servers. I work full days and keep schools up and running along with 30 to 40 different programs for students of various levels. In the past I worked 12 years in private sector and at most 10 to 15 programs for computers. The real issue in the public sector is management. I make 50k.. my boss makes over 100k and his boss makes almost 150k. I don't see the justification in their high salaries for what they do. Anyway crap flows down and well I'm at the bottom... as usaual in any workplace.. the fat cats are at the top. Trim off from the top and I'm all for cutting public spending.. but it will never happen because the top is where all the decisions come from. Just like Harper's at the top and will decide who gets cuts.. will he be the first to take a cut? He after all is part of the public sector.

Finally the Canadian people have woken & spoken and given Harper an opportunity to prove that he deserves a majority. Time to trim the fat, cut the civil service dramatically, eliminate the redundancy in Provincial and Federal ministries, institute a framework for accountability to eliminate government waste, reduce public employee & MP pensions to be inline with the private sector and get rid of the Senate.

As someone who works as a consultant with government, allow me to pass a comment on the topic of government efficiency.

There are few people, including among government enmployees, who would argue that government is less efficient than private business. However, there is a reason for this. Whereas in business a decision can be made and implemented with a minimum of consultation, this is not possible with government where every interested party, sometimes just a single persistent individual, has to be consulted, placated and accomadated. And if you miss one person, the whole process is repeated when he announces his interest because any accomodation for him will impact others.

This 'inefficiency' is a byproduct of democracy in our increasingly comples society. It is caused by the governed, not the government. The governed aren't going away, they will still raise their objections, want to give their input and demand indignantly of the minister why 'such and such' has happened, so the basic government functions will suffer.

Government employees work very hard, they often work extra hours, and they take their service to the public seriously. It is a pity that their thanks is to lose their work because they are labelled as inefficient.

which way to the soup pot

Cutting headcount without streamlining process: very bad idea.
Streamline the process on design board, then cut the headcount, then launch the streamlined process. Make more sense, doesn't it?

How about we raise taxes for the corporations? just a thought...

Change is inevitable. If we take a look around the world, countries in financial crises or facing "bankruptcies" are having to reduce the size of public service sector. Why not be proactive before we face a similar situation here in Canada?

Also, I believe we need to conduct demands analyses of our community centres. How much is it being used? Are there community centre locations where the demand is low? We have been to health centres where there are hundreds of thousands of empty spaces up for sub-lease. Would the private sector operate in this fashion? It is always easier to spend than it is to make money.

Simonm, attitudes like yours are part of the problem with the bureaucracy--not the solution. The "problem" with democracy as you call it is only part of the problem. I too have worked in government at a provincial ministry, municipality and crown corp. They are full of "dead wood"--noty just at the top but also down to the unionized janitor. People like you make excuses for them so the gravy train continues.

I'll tell you a first hand story. The company I work for sells health related services to the BC provincial government. I wanted to see if we could sell them to the gov't of Saskatchewan too because I knew our service was better than theirs. I called the Sask. purchasing person and explained our service (he was already aware of us) and explained that our service was quicker, cheaper and more effective than the service they were using. Here is a summary of our dialogue...

Me: I'd like to sell you our services and my research shows that our service is cheaper, better and faster than what you are currently using.
Gov't Guy: I'm aware of your company but we currently use the government facility to provide those services.
Me: I'm aware but our service is cheaper, better and faster than what you are currently doing.
Gov;t Guy: I know that but we are using the government facility for those services.
Me: I know that but our service is cheaper better and faster than yours.
Gov't guy: I know but that isn't relevant...we are going to keep using the government facility to provide those services.

Talk about a waste of tax dollars!!! The bureaucrats don't care if they're getting ripped off--it's not their money. I could tell you at least 10 more stories like this from my own experience.

And don't even get me started about the horrible inefficiencies of hospitals!!!