Remember the "Merit Principle"?

During the end of my "illustrious" career, I found myself working at the Public Service Commission.  Remember that bunch?  Guardians of the sacred "Merit Principle", at the time headed by Chairman Edgar Gallant, a wanna-be buddy of every deputy minister in the federal government.  That meant he had to hire whoever they proposed, rendering his sacred principle a hollow, laughable hoax.  

The Commission had been created to put an end to cronyism and inside hiring by the politicians.  It may have worked for a while, but not when I was there.  They tossed that guiding moral light overboard when someone looked around and decided they needed to start hiring more women, lots of francophones and smatterings of ethnics here and there -- the best candidate would have been a female francophone from Sierra Leone, for instance.

Let's hope that candidate is an ethnic francophone, or she won't get the job.

So, I wrote a memo destined for Gallant, stating that he should declare that the Merit Principle was being set aside to redress historical wrongs in hiring practices.  

Well, the roof came off!  My direct boss, Chuck Jeffrey, came rushing down the hall, hair on fire and launched himself into my office in a complete panic.  "You didn't send that up, did you!" he raved.  "No, I wanted your approval."  Needless to say, that memo was quickly buried, never to see the light of day, or find itself on His Lordship Gallant's desk.

Well, that never went away and the venerable Merit Principle is but a fond, faded memory.  The following is from the 'Aristotle Foundation'.  Turns out I was right 40 years ago:

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"The Canadian government almost universally turns to DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) policies before hiring anyone in the public service today. 

"But is this a good thing for the country? 

"This morning, we released a new study, led by Conrad Eder, which finds that the Canadian government’s DEI policies are, in fact, eroding merit-based hiring (that old bugaboo) in the federal public service—with potentially serious consequences for the country. 

• DEI language was virtually ubiquitous, appearing in 95 per cent of job postings. More significantly, 42 per cent of postings explicitly or potentially prioritized applicants based on race, ethnicity, or other group-identity characteristics. Four per cent of postings restricted eligibility to certain groups. 

• These practices continue despite the expressed preferences of most Canadians who, in polling, support inclusion in principle but reject identity-based hiring. 

• Although Canada’s Employment Act prohibits hiring quotas, these federal employment-equity initiatives operate like a quota system.  

• Empirical evidence challenges the rationale and need for such preferential DEI job postings. Treasury Board data show most designated groups already meet or exceed workforce availability benchmarks, including at the executive level."

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So, folks, DEI continues to ruin the quality of the federal workforce and it shows no sign of letting up.