Thank you, Madam President.
I would like to welcome the witnesses.
I'm sorry I was not able to join you at the dinner last night, but I had another commitment. I understand that it was very enjoyable and I look forward to the next opportunity.
I appreciate your opening statement, Madam Barrados, but there's a somewhat different issue I'd like to focus on today, and that's the whole question of what seems to be a very significant creep of partisanship into the public service. I will just quote from a couple of sections that you included in your report itself, the large report that was tabled in the House.
You said: “Non-partisanship is a core value by which public servants are appointed without political influence...”; the commission's mandate is “to protect...non-partisanship in the federal public service...”; and “...non-partisanship is a core value of the public service and that appointments must be free from political influence”.
You also said in the report: “A permanent, professional and non-partisan public service is vital to Canada's system of democracy” and that “Canadians need to be confident that public servants administer, and are perceived as administering, programs and services in a professional and non-partisan manner”.
The Canadian Press learned and, importantly, disclosed that a key program to recruit, as they called it, “the cream of new graduates” suddenly wants to know the applicants' views on the government's economic action plan. Did you know about this new requirement to write an essay commenting on the government's action plan in the applications for these new applicants?