| CIDA! A Chip Off The Old Block Looking back, it is somewhat ironic that my first job after losing my appeal in the Supreme Court of Canada would be with the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) a government organization that reported directly to the Department of Foreign Affairs. The media’s reluctance to report on breaches of the public trust at Foreign Affairs or the employee who was dismissed on bogus insubordination charges for making the discoveries turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Ross, the man who got me my first job after my dismissal from the Canadian Public Service had been a student of my wife. The University of Ottawa during the summer months offered a program in French immersion at the University of Aix-en-Provence. The course was fully paid for by the students and was not part of the government’s second language training program for public servants. My wife-to-be, who already taught French as a second language at Ottawa U. was asked, the summer before we met, to accompany the group to the south of France, and this is how she got to know Ross. Unlike Richard, our insecure bilingual, the University of Ottawa was proud to send a Canadian, one of its own to teach French, even in France. It did not cost more than hiring a French “professeur” and they were just as good, if not better. I was sitting at my computer, an early Compac portable thinking about who to write to after the Supreme Court dismissed my appeal when she came up the stairs, put a hand on my shoulder, and softly said “You’ve done enough, time to move on.” I was not ready to give up my search for an honest man who could do something about our predicament while holding Foreign Affairs to account. I was not ready to move on even if two and half years without a paycheck had taken its toll— all our savings were gone and we were deeply in dept. “Ross said he has talked to a consultant he knows from Montréal who is looking for someone to manage some of his people here in Ottawa.” I ignored her, not something I usually did. “Don’t you understand we are broke,” she said “we have no more money, the bank won’t lend us anymore; you have to get a job.” I still ignored her. I am sorry about that. “Won’t you at least meet with the person who is willing to give you a job,” she pleaded. I had not looked for a job thinking it was pointless! Who would hire someone who had been fired from the Public Service with The Appraisal From Hell as a reference. Someone was actually willing to overlook all that. If I was not at least willing to talk to such a person, I risked losing more than mere possessions. I met with André at Place du Portage, a large complex of grey buildings that dominate the Federal Presence on the Québec side of the Ottawa River across from Parliament—CIDA bureaucrats called 200 Promenade du Portage home. André’s company had just won the contract to provide user support to CIDA which, like Foreign Affairs was rapidly undergoing computerization. André was bringing in four young people from Montréal and Trois-Rivières who would provide support in all areas of office automation, including local area networks and database administration. He was looking for a manager. The next day André called me at home to say that I had the job. My wife wasn’t home at the time. “Thanks André,” I said “but I have unfinished business to take care have of, I’m sorry.” André was my age, perhaps a couple of years older, and like Richard he had that self-assuredness, but unlike Richard whose self-assurance was ignorance masquerading as self-bravado, his inspired confidence, a confidence that was hard to resist. “Finish it before Monday,” he said, “because that is when I expect you at CIDA,” and he hung up. The money was good; we needed the money and I could return to the fight at a later date so Monday I showed up at CIDA first thing in the morning. If Foreign Affairs is the metaphoric face on the Canadian nickel, the Queen, CIDA is the flip side, the Beaver. Where Foreign Affairs is conceited, CIDA is just mildly arrogant. While Foreign Affairs aspires to higher ideals, CIDA actively pursues them. Where only palatial surroundings will do, CIDA will often make do with what’s available. In The Niece I gave an example of how easily officials there circumvented, with the help of the Personnel Bureau, the merit principle to hire a relative. A variation on that principle is that competition to supply goods and services to the Federal government should be fair, open with the most competitive bid awarded the sought after contract. André was convinced, and I can’t blame him, that a supplier of goods or services to the Federal government could not play by the rules and stay in business. "You played by the rules," he said, "and what did that get you." He had a point. André had not set out to break the rules when he made the decision to seek opportunities for his Montréal-based company with the Federal government in Ottawa. André was a good judge of character, it was only after meeting the people who would decide who would win the contract to provide computer-support services to CIDA that he decided that rules here were for losers. His contact at CIDA, and the man who would decide who made the short list, was more interested in talking about golf than the business of CIDA. André took it as a hint. During the evaluation process, and after he got the contract, his contact at CIDA and his contact's boss played a lot of golf, not only at the finest golf courses in Ottawa but in and around Montréal and the Laurentians. The apple does not fall far from the tree. When it was time to interview the five people the successful bidder would provide to do user support, André was given the questions and answers beforehand. He passed these on to the young people he was proposing. They memorized the questions and answers on their way to Ottawa in a limousine which André had rented for the occasion. Needless to say André's company was at the top of the short list of suppliers CIDA recommended to the then Department of Supply and Services. André met with the man at Supply and Services who would make the final determination. The man had a vacant rental property, a dilapidated two story house with sagging floors and yellow wood siding in desperate need of a fresh coat paint, a few blocks from CIDA headquarters in Hull (now the Hull sector of the City of Gatineau). Another hint! André told him that if he got the contract, he would of course have to find office space near his client. He got the contract to provide user support to CIDA and the man from Supply and Services took down his "For Rent" sign. Of course, this all happened before André gave me the job that saved my marriage, if not my life. Just like the man who gave me my summer job in Kamloops and made it possible for me to make money on the stock market so I could return to university there was no way I was going to question the tactics of someone like André, especially after what happened at Foreign Affairs. André was also a realist, and in many respects was more honest than the people who would sit in judgement, if knowledge on how he got the contract at CIDA became known. I too, for the time being, was now a realist, a consequence of my time with Foreign Affairs. I enjoyed supervising the work of my staff even thought I was their boss in name only, Sylvain Faust was the one they looked up to; he was their Hawkeye (Allan Alda), I was more their Colonel Blake (McLean Stevenson) of M*A*S*H fame. I did not mind it as long as the work got done. I knew better than to send Sylvain to fix the easy problems, he thrived on the difficult ones. He was the team’s goto guy when the problem to be solved seemed insolvable, and he always graciously accepted to see what he could do—just don’t send him to show someone where the on/off switch was. He was also a workaholic. If there was free time he could be found working at his computer. He reminded me of me in many ways. The manager at CIDA to whom I reported, and whose name I can not remember (it may be just as well), was seldom around. During the year that I was there, he spent more time on the golf course or in French training (so I was told) then at the office. Sylvain could barely contain his disdain for the man’s work habits and his ethics. Sylvain was the one who told me about getting the questions beforehand, I assume from the man from whom he maintained a polite distance. His first impression of the Federal public service was not a good one. It was during one of his longer visit to the office that my CIDA manager noticed that I did not assign work on a strictly rotational basis. I seldom needed to. Employees who required assistance usually called the person who had helped them the last time directly. New request for support had no shortage of volunteers and when I had to make a decision I usually sent the person most qualified to deal with the problem at hand. Everybody was happy and during my time at CIDA I did not receive a single complaint about my staff’s performance. For my CIDA boss, letting people chose their assignments, sending the most qualified to deal with a problem was not acceptable. There was to be no more volunteering, no more selection on the basis of expertise, it was to be who was next in line when the call came in. Needless to say this did not go down well with my staff, and not only with Sylvain. My four person staff also included a young woman who was not as experienced as the others, which also explains much of the volunteering by her male colleagues. They were a team and looked after each other. My CIDA boss’ new directive meant they could no longer work as a team. Early one Friday afternoon, Sylvain came to see me and asked me why he had been shut out of all computer systems. That was weird, I still had access therefore it was not a systems failure. “Give me a few minutes,” I told him, and went to enquire from my CIDA boss who just happened to be in his office at the time—it was Friday afternoon after all— if he knew what was going on. He told me he was doing me a favour. He had noticed how Sylvain was not happy with the changes he had made and that this was causing me difficulties so he was getting rid of him. He wanted him out of CIDA that afternoon, and would I take care of it. Yes, Sylvain at work was not the easiest employee to deal with, and yes he was causing me some minor difficulties; easily surmountable difficulties which took the form of a disapproving look, a muttered objection to what I was asking him to do and a slowness to get up when I sent him to solve a problem which he felt was beneath him. So what! The type of cavalier, cowardly treatment of fellow human beings demonstrated by my CIDA boss again hit too close to home. Maybe every manager should be summarily fired at least once in their professional life so that they will appreciate what it’s like. He wanted to get rid of Sylvain, that was his prerogative, but not that way. I was going to have a talk with him and in the meantime would he mind restoring Sylvain’s computer privileges. It was important for what I was going to do next that he still be with CIDA and that there be no question that he could not be trusted to access the agency’s computers. Other managers at CIDA had no problem managing bright, if sometimes difficult people. One of them, a fellow whose last name was Sutherland and who knew Sylvain, had told me that if I didn’t want him he would gladly take him. Sutherland, when I told him that Sylvain was available, did not hesitate: “Send him over,” he said “glad to have him.” When I return to my office, Sylvain’s computer privileges had been restored. I asked him to join me for a coffee. I told him about how the client felt and the job offer in another part of CIDA. Was he interested? He was. That would be the last time I would meet with Sylvain at CIDA. That weekend I received a call from André. The client had contacted him and wanted me replaced. Seems I had not jumped high enough when asked to do so. The client had wanted Sylvain gone, not sent to another jurisdiction. I saved Sylvain’s job only to lose mine… again. I knew I had done the right thing when André immediately offered me another job within his organization. André’s reality lesson would serve me well, at least until idealism once more got the upper hand. Damn it all!
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