In Defense of Public Servants: We Need Government To Get Us Through COVID-19
As we head into 2021, with the pandemic raging harder than it was in the early days of 2020, it’s hard not to get discouraged. Yes, vaccines are starting to roll out. Still, infections are growing at a higher rate than the first wave. Many are beginning to tune out medical and professional advice from governments on how to manage the pandemic. This is not going to make things easier, and we have much harder days ahead of us.
Not that I can blame them. It’s hard to take serious advice from leaders who say one thing and do another. Ontario’s now-former Finance Minster is the perfect example — telling Ontarians to stay home and avoid family gatherings while he was vacationing in the Caribbean.
Actions like his perpetuate the belief that governments don’t have citizens’ interests at heart and create distrust in the solutions and recommendations that professionals and experts in the public service develop to keep people safe. If we are going to get through this pandemic, we need trust in our government systems. Our governments are the only organizations with the capacity, resources, and interest in the public good to turn the tide on COVID without a lot of unnecessary death and economic hardship.
This is not to say every government and leader’s response has been perfect — far from it. There have been plenty of wrong turns and politicized decisions with all governments in Canada. That’s to be expected, though. When everyone is learning on the fly in a highly politicized environment, mistakes will happen. It’s how leaders and government respond to those mistakes that matter.
Take the initial days of the pandemic — the Federal government rolled out income and business supports in weeks. Policies that may have taken years to develop in the past were created on the fly. Were they perfect? No. But as program problems were identified, the Federal government often moved quickly to fix the programs. And, because they learned from those mistakes, millions of Canadians avoided falling off an economic cliff.
There are countless government decisions I could debate and question, from how schools were re-opened and the lack of support for long-term care facilities, to why big box stores were allowed to stay open while small retailers were shuttered. I don’t agree with every decision that has been made.
But I also know that the government covers a broad swath of people and organizations. Just because a leader said X, doesn’t mean there weren’t lots of experts within the public service saying Y. While a leader said X and then flew to the Caribbean, it doesn’t mean I paint every part of the government and its public servants as not having citizens’ interest as their top priority.
As a public servant, I’ll first acknowledge that I speak from a position of privilege — work has continued for me, and I’ve been spared the worst of the pandemic’s economic challenges. My family and I are healthy and safe, which isn’t something every family can say. That said, as a public servant, I’ve also witnessed the dedication and tireless efforts of efforts throughout the pandemic.
Of course, there are the frontline healthcare workers — the nurses and doctors, the support staff that aid their work, and public health staff. They are keeping our healthcare system running despite the numerous challenges, often putting themselves and their families at risk of catching COVID, and they are working tirelessly to save people. These are government workers putting it on the line for all of us — and we need them healthy to help deal with those that are getting sick and roll out the vaccine program.
The saddest stories of the pandemic come from long-term care centres for seniors. Canada’s proportion of death from COVID in long-term care centres is double that of other developed countries. In Ontario, it’s a mix of private, not-for-profit and government-operated centres. The findings show those seniors within for-profit operations are faring the worst, so much so the military had to be called in to stave off even more death during the first wave. Of course, it is government policy that resulted in the mix of systems in Ontario. Still, ultimately COVID has shown the operators without a profit motive, and run by public servants have resulted in better outcomes for residents.
Homelessness has been brought to the forefront during COVID. Keeping the homeless safe during COVID has been a challenge, but thanks to COVID, there has been a greater emphasis on getting the homeless into homes. In Toronto, emergency shelters were established in countless hotels, while new housing was fast-tracked. A great example of the speed and focus on the issue is that the City built 100 new units within eight months.
Has the response been perfect? Of course not. There is much more to do, but the public servants behind these projects have the homeless’s interest at the heart of their work every day. And at the City of Toronto, over 700 staff signed up to redeployed to work in the City’s shelter and long-term care system to help seniors and the homeless during COVID. They, too, put their health at risk to focus on public service and keeping people safe.
I also think of the teachers and school administrators that have worked through the pandemic to re-open our schools. Arguably not provided all of the resources and funding they should have been, they’ve gone above and beyond to teach our kids and keep them safe from COVID. I was surprised the entire Ontario school system didn’t crash after a few weeks, but surprisingly made it until the December break. It’s thanks to the dedication of teachers that we owe this success.
Backing up the frontlines have been government IT staff. There’s no doubt government tech modernization has been lacking, but COVID allowed many IT departments to speed ahead and show what they could do when the shackles of processes were removed. The Canada Revenue Agency’s IT team allowed the Federal government to save millions from financial ruin thanks to updating their systems in just a few weeks.
And beyond the frontlines, countless public servants are contributing to helping communities get through COVID. Whether they are writing policy and developing new programs or calling seniors like the extraordinary public servants of the Toronto Public Library, government staff are focused on ensuring residents and businesses survive and thrive post-COVID.
This is all to say that despite the political scandals that make the front pages of the internet and the odd disagreements with government decisions, the government is just thousands of people that are your neighbours, friends and family. These public servants are working tirelessly to get all of us through this pandemic. Don’t let the stupid decision of a Provincial Minister going to the Caribbean shatter your trust in government; we need public servants’ efforts to get us through the hard days ahead if we’re going to avoid more death and economic despair.
