MAKING PROCUREMENT MORE COMPLEX,
Governments, in particular left- liberal governments, are congenitally incapable of sticking to one clear policy target. Like the Cat in the Hat, they try to juggle more and more objectives in more and more complex ways until they make the most prodigious mess. But then bureaucracy thrives on complexity and addressing — if not quite cleaning up — policy pile-ups.
This week’s federal cabinet shuffle focused on splitting the Indigenous file between consultation and service delivery. The one certain result of this split will be a proliferation of co-ordinating committees. After all, doesn’t service delivery require consultation?
Procurement is less in the limelight, even though this week’s shuffle ostensibly resulted from the formal resignation of Judy Foote, minister of public services and procurement. Her ministerial replacement is Carla Qualtrough, formerly minister of sport and persons with disabilities. Foote’s replacement as representative of Newfoundland and Labrador is former TV host Seamus O’Regan, who takes over at Veterans Affairs. O’Regan ticks certain boxes that reflect a progressively minded government, including his gay marriage and recovery from rehab. He also seems to indicate that government is as much about being a social service for its caucus members as providing such services for taxpayers. “My medical team is very happy with me and my progress,” O’Regan was quoted as saying, “and in actual fact, the stresses and strains of purposeful work is something that I find completely invigorating and keeps me very healthy.” Canada’s veterans will surely be happy that they can be so useful to the minister.
The Aboriginal issue is arguably now totally intractable. But, in theory at least, procurement — the huge job of buying stuff for the government — is ripe for improvements that could save many billions of taxpayer dollars. Instead, Qualtrough stands to inherit something called “social procurement,” which threatens to take a function that is now being performed badly and ensure that it will be executed in an even
more complex and less efficient manner. Why fail to meet just one objective when you can fail to deliver on several?
The great economist Friedrich Hayek identified “social” as a “weasel word” that sucked the life from nouns to which it was attached, or entirely reversed their meaning. Hence “social democracy” is a veil for a non-democratic agenda, “social justice” a code for forced redistribution, and “social security” a term for a set of programs that threaten the financial security of the entire state. The alarm bells should ring extra loud when we find it appended to a concept that it already murky.
According to a recent story from the Canadian Press, “The federal Liberal government is thinking about using its massive purchasing power to support women in business.” And not just women; ethnic minorities, LGBTQ2- Canadians. You name it.
The Canadian Press had discovered ( that is, the government had guided the reporter to) a memo prepared for Status of Women Canada calling for “inclusive federal procurement.” This apparently sprang from the thinking socks of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. It’s all part of “modernizing” procurement and bringing it in line with the government’s broader “socio-economic objectives,” including “increasing the diversity of the supply chain.”
Status of Women Canada had asked the Conference Board to make the case for why more diverse suppliers made good economic sense. The Conference Board had, of course, obliged, projecting a cornucopia of good things, including possible access to U. S. government business, where there were already supplier diversity policies. Any U.S. protectionists’ inclinations to Buy American might be cast aside when presented with the opportunity of buying Gay Canadian.
The draft report suggested that federal government was in fact “behind the curve,” because private businesses already had “effective” diversity procurement programs (there are, of course, already a plethora of such programs at the provincial and municipal level).
But what about the dangers of ineffective programs? What about the fact that government procurement is already a morass of incompetence, corruption and confusion created partly by the insertion of purely political objectives, such as, say, tossing out the procurement choices of the previous government?
For decades, defence procurement has been a limping May Day parade of helicopter disasters, fighter squabbles and supply-ship chicanery. Then there’s Ottawa’s inability to procure a payroll system that can reliably pay its own employees. To introduce allegedly socially desirable considerations into this farrago is the way of madness. But also more jobs for bureaucrats.
“Buy American” and “Buy Canadian” are bad policies because they restrict choices and trade, reduce quality and cost jobs, but criticizing them in no way disparages the value of either America or Canada as national entities. Similarly, to reject “Buy Women” or “Buy Gay” as a matter of arm-twisted procurement is not a criticism of women or gays.
Anybody who strives for, and achieves, commercial success is to be celebrated, whatever their gender, skin colour, or sexual preference. Good business is gender and race blind. To discriminate against the best on the basis of prejudice is a competitive disadvantage. To erect gender or any other form of preference for an inferior good or service creates only discord and resentment. If the good or service isn’t inferior, it doesn’t need preference.
Procurement doesn’t need “modernizing” so as to absorb politically correct shibboleths. It needs to get back to basics: providing value for taxpayers’ money.
WHY FAIL ON JUST ONE PROCUREMENT OBJECTIVE WHEN YOU CAN FAIL ON SEVERAL?