Respect the sense of duty of civil servants

Re: “Health firings ‘riddled with stink:’ researcher’s sister,” April 12.

Linda Kayfish might be correct in her suspicions that a political cover-up was at work when the absurdity of the allegations of wrongdoing by health researchers became clear. Midway through my 20-year career as a civil servant, I became acutely aware of a change in government culture.

One day, the senior staff of the ministry I was employed in were assembled for a pep talk. Our leader posed a question that to our minds appeared to be absurd: For whom did we think we were working?

After hardly unexpected answers, we were informed that we were working for the minister and no one else, and that it was our duty to keep the minister out of trouble.

During the past couple of decades, the system might have reverted back to an environment where the loyalty of the civil service to the government of the day is not immediately called into question when there is a change of political direction, and where there also is a respect on the part of our elected public servants for the expertise and sense of duty of the bureaucracy.

Premier Christy Clark might be correct in her assertion of ignorance of the disciplinary process that was unleashed in 2012, but that is tantamount to saying that selfimposed deafness and blindness is a virtue. As premier, it is her job to make difficult decisions, and difficult decisions require information and reflection.

Threatening to shoot messengers who might bring bad tidings, sooner or later backfires. Boudewyn van Oort Victoria