Recently, it was reported in bold headlines that thousands of civil service jobs will be lost as a result of cutbacks.
It is well known that Parkinson’s law has been operating on overdrive for a very long time. The civil service is bloated. Each single servant can burn money like there is no tomorrow.
Cutting back on civil service positions is the very point of the whole exercise. Nobody will lose his (or her) job because the cutback will be through attrition.
As an added substantial benefit, no money will be wasted on severance payments.
Let us get it right. The important part of the story is that $7.8 billion have been saved.
Downsizing is not easy. Using the CBC as an example, unneeded people will go to great lengths to show they are indispensable.
Everything will be done to inconvenience the public. We will be hit with cutbacks in programming and there will be more commercials. I don’t want to single out the CBC because all departments are the same. It is the nature of the beast.
The government has a responsibility to control the ever-increasing gap between rich and poor before we end up with a repeat of the dirty ‘30s.
Many people have no idea how harsh the great depression was.
The rich had accumulated all the wealth as they are doing now. Men were forced to leave their families behind in search of jobs that did not exist. Thousands were riding back and forth across the country on trains. Regularly, men were dropping off along the railroad begging for a meal. That was nothing compared to the plight of the families left behind.
We need to slash a lot of government waste while we still can. Reducing government waste is long overdue.
Gerry Lepine
Summerland
