In the Public Interest: The Value of Public Services

J.L. Granatstein is a professor of history at York University, the
co-author of the Dictionary of Canadian Military History and Empire to
Umpire: Canada and the World to the 1990s, and the author of The Good
Fight.

The savage cuts to which public servants are being forced to submit are
one of the distinguishing features of the 1990s. No more is the civil
servant’s job the safest employment, protected against everything but
peculation. Starting in Alberta, and mirrored in Manitoba, Toronto,
Halifax, and Ottawa, the public service unions have begun to feel the
pains experienced by thousands of others. Why? Because there is no
alternative, say the finance ministers, bankers, and the newspapers. But
is this so?

Maybe not, if you believe the papers collected in this slim book, which
was put together on behalf of four public service unions. There are the
tax breaks given to business, for example; why not cut those instead of
jobs? There are the constraints on access to higher education caused by
declining grants and rising tuition; would Canadians not be willing to
pay more in taxes to keep accessibility foremost? There are the cutbacks
that hurt the aged, the young, the disabled, and women; is this what
Canadians want?

These charges are all true, or largely so, but they do not really
confront the arguments advanced by the deficit cutters. Do we need so
many public servants? If we cut bureaucrats, could we not find funds for
the aged and children? If the CBC canned its bureaucracy, would this
affect programming at all, or might it even improve it? The papers here
collected sound like special pleading by those who are desperately
trying to save their jobs and their trade unions and, while good points
are frequently made, the arguments can barely be heard above the
right-wing gale that dominates the debate. That is sad, but
unfortunately it is true.