Public servants are doing heroic work

Re: A job worth saluting, April 8.

The Ottawa Citizen ran an article praising the public service! Yes, a Postmedia publication saying something positive about the people who keep the government’s operations going in these critical times. John Ivison lauded the EI and CRA employees who cleared 2.24 million claims by April 6 — 500,000 in 24 hours alone after rejigging the 46-year old COBOL-based computer system, saying that “they have gone above and beyond the call of duty to ensure their fellow citizens can afford food and shelter.”

And they certainly do deserve our praise in these challenging times. So do the tens of thousands of other public servants working from home on overloaded systems to keep our mammoth and complex government operations going, while tending to out-ofschool children clamouring for attention (and now, for access to the computer and the internet for their online classes). Hopefully we will hear some recognition for them as well from the national media and social media.

It’s not just during this crisis that we get this kind of dedication from our public servants.

It’s easy to bad-mouth “faceless bureaucrats” for the amount of time it usually takes in less troubled times to process apparently simple applications and services, time required to conform to the numerous and detailed regulations and procedures put in place to ensure the integrity, transparency, fairness and accountability that taxpayers, politicians, the media and the auditor general expect.

Most of the time, by a wide margin, we are getting from our public servants the best service that the system can provide and, not infrequently “above and beyond the call of duty.” We should remember that when these COVID-19 days are over.

Pierre Beemans, Ottawa