Do you ever hear the expression, “When the US sneezes, Canada catches a cold?” It means that whatever happens in the United States, it spreads worse in Canada like a contagious disease.

Mimicking America 2020, the Clerk of Privy Council created the Blueprint 2020 which represents the vision toward Destination 2020.

Blueprint 2020 was introduced grandiosely to the public servants as a corporate vision of a corporate leader who “governs without the government.” In other word, Prime Minister Stephen Harper wanted to create his own corporation using public resources while the government is his means to an end. Alternatively, he wants to create his own corporation banking on the government or the public service and its facilities, as well as public resources.

The Blueprint 2020 envisions a grand picture of the future Canadian public service according to Stephen Harper’s personal vision. Signed by the Clerk of Privy Council, Prime Minister Stephen Harper provided a foreword boasting of his vision of Canada public service as a Model of professional, non-partisan institution committed to delivering concrete results for citizens… demonstrates its ongoing commitment to excellence, innovation and service to Canadians – from supporting jobs and growths, to protecting the health and safety of Canadians, to improving the way it does business… an agile, efficient, and effective Public Service fuels productivity and supports sound government of the country… a capable and high – performing public service that embraces innovation, transformation and continuous renewal… to ensure its tradition of excellence and shared values…”

He added that he hoped Canadians will continue to be served by a federal Public Service that meets their needs, pursues excellence, and provides values for money.

Promoted by the Clerk of Privy Council, Wayne Wouter, Blueprint 2020 was introduced to the public servants, whose technical capacity is poor, who have been feeling disengaged from the government, morally declined, and have been working in a dysfunctional environment and burned out, with a grandeur promise “Building Tomorrow’s Public Service: Together.” The grandiose introduction makes the burned out public servants excited.

The 262,817 public servants, as the Clerk revealed the number of the federal public servants, participated excitedly in the exercise of the Blueprint 2020, which is “a pivotal time for Canada Public Service.”

He called the public servants to act “individually and collectively to continue to innovate and meet new standards of excellence to address the demands of the modern world.”

Stephen Harper’s statement reveals what Smith stated that a merchant thinks nothing but his own particular trade. His corporate minded makes him values money above service to the public. The irony when money is more important than service to the citizens, who have been transformed into customers by the reinventing the government movement, the leader uses the government facility to defraud his fellow citizens.

This statement also reveals that Prime Minister Stephen Harper does not really know what the public servants do and what he should be doing as the leader of the public servants. Though he was the Prime Minister of Canada, he never went through the developmental process and transformational process, he thinks as a merchant who works in his environment and uses the government to pursue his personal ambition.

Apparently, the Clerk has the same understanding about public service and public servants as those of the Prime Minister. In fact, public leaders post the reinventing the governments do not have the foundation of the public service.

Similar to Bill Clinton’s expression, both Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Clerk of Privy Council Wayne Wouter wanted to reengineer, reinnovate, and reinvigorate the public service [1] from the world of a merchant, not from the field of public administration. Regardless of their effort of reengineering the government, transforming the government to operate in a businesslike manner, as what has transformed within the public service since the early 1980s, which has proven a failure, heading toward Destination 2020, the Blueprint 2020 will destroy the public service further because it removes the public service from its legitimate purpose, uproots it from its foundation, and turns the public service into a banking system of management.

Many people want to reinvent the government according to their individual vision and ambition, and even their own perception because they never know about public institution, its meaning, and why it is created. People jump to the leadership positions in the government, through the political parties, without going through the development and transformational process. Although they are public leaders, they think, do, behave, and say things the way they do in the environment they are accustom to. Their personality traits never change nor do the things they should do. Most public leaders, either elected or politically appointed do not have job descriptions. They do things according to the direction of their staffs.

The reinventing the government movement, following Osborne and Gaebler’s Reinventing the Government or the McTigue’s suggestion to transform the departments and agencies into small business units, has proven a massive failure because it deviates from the Constitution. The two ideas transform the government into a corporation with myriads of small business units and from the two external ideas came the New Public Management, a system that has brought a divisiveness, broken and morally bankrupt state and public service, while the government becomes individualistic and self-serving.

Facing such a broken public service, mimicking the America 2020, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, through the Clerk of Privy Council tried to reinvent the public service and transform Canada into his own image and rebrand the public service he personally wants.

However, anyone who leads the government and wants to reinvent the government without the Constitution is, said Thomas Payne “power without a right.” It is public robbery!

Every public leader and public servants must know and comprehend the Constitution. In fact, their understanding of the Constitution must be tested; it is the first requirement for every person who wants to work in the public service. Without this understanding, they may work in the public service with the thought of their own environment, never have any conversion. They are disloyal to the institution and their fellow citizens. They are treasons.

Canada has the shortest content of the Constitution and the politicians find it difficult to comprehend its meaning. They do not know how to apply its meaning on their daily tasks, which they do not have. Dube [2] stated that understanding the Constitution may be easy, but applying its meaning in the daily task is difficult. It requires higher learning degree.

The statement of both Prime Minister and the Clerk of Privy Council reveals that they do not comprehend the meaning of their leadership and the Constitution. Not only they are trying to reinvent the government by taking it away from its legitimate purpose, but also they do not understand what it means to be a public leader and the government itself.

The Constitution is, by definition, is the vision of the state and that of the public service. Removing the Constitution by replacing it with the Blueprint 2020 is similar to Hitler with his idea of creating the nation of Aryan. Hitler was using the public service as a means to pursue his ambition.

All public leaders and public servants must have the comprehensive knowledge of the vision and the foundation of the state and that of the public service. They are working to serve the public and as they understand the Constitution, they will be able to defend the institution and serve the people. Regardless of the negative image of his regime, Chairman Mao stated that being a public leader means to serve the public. And the government is established to serve the public [3].

The following explains why it is important to understand the Constitution and apply its meaning to the daily tasks.

The Constitution has several principal functions, which every individual who works in the bureaucracy or the government must know because it:

• Legitimizes the authority of the state, defines the state, and justifies the political authority of the government and the sovereignty.

• Recognizes the rights and freedoms of the citizens. On one hand, the Constitution limits the actions of the government officials; on the other hand, it defines government obligations to provide services and resources to the citizens. For example, it protects a group in a peaceful assembly from interfering in their activities by another group by providing it with police protection.

• Delineates the roles and the limits of the authority of different political actors and other officials to the authority and responsibility. The Constitution describes the separation of power between the different levels of government, between the different organizations within the bureaucratic circle, and the responsibility of each organization as well as that of the individual. Without the Constitution, it is easy for a person elected as a political leader to take over public leadership and establish it as his own company while public resources are his capital investments and would likely turn dictatorship.

• Establishes the mechanism for adjudication. Different from the current political belief that political party is a link between the state and the citizens or as an intermediary between the citizens and the government, the Constitution governs the relationship between government authorities, between the state and the citizens, and through the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It provides a mechanism how the court or the Supreme Court makes a decision that affects the citizens. The Constitution is the foundation of the laws and the laws are the standards of the judicial decisions.

• Expresses the basic beliefs and symbolism. Constitution expresses the norms, values, and beliefs of the state and nation and a symbol of nationalism.

• Gives the aspiration, the moral and ethical direction for the future of the people and the states. Asmal and James stated, the Constitution describes the vision of the society – which is based on equity, justice, and freedom – grants social justice and equality to all members of society, guarantees equal access to public goods and services as well as the government, non-racism and non-sexism. Furthermore, through the rule of the laws and the regulations, the Constitution requires the government administration and management to be processed in a transparent manner and that both the leaders and personnel are accountable or responsible for all their actions and decisions [4].

• Describes the values of the nation, which is more than desirable characteristics, defines, and regulates the moral and ethical direction of the nation. Along with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Constitution establishes the society based upon democratic values, social justice, fundamental human rights, and freedoms.

The statements of Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Clerk of Privy Council indicate that they have deviated from the Constitution because they never learn it from the beginning.

Besides the Constitution, all public leaders and public servants must also understand the meaning of bureaucracy. In the private sector, bureaucracy means rigid administrative process or red tape, but in the public sector, bureaucracy means the government institution as a whole unit – from the federal or national government, to the provincial government, the municipal government, and even down to the village government. Encircle this unit is the military unit, which are also the bureaucracy, and this unit includes the army, police force, air force, the navy and even the marine.

The bureaucracy is a unique organization – one that exists to accomplish production related to economic goals, organizes production through systematic and scientific inquiry, maximizes production through specialization and division of labor, knowledge, and expertise and people act according to rational economic principles. It is an academic field, a specialized scientific field application, a field of professional and managerial applications. It represents a machine model, in which the activity of one engine mobilizes the works and the activities of the other engines. It is antinepotism, anti-emotions or against individuality and cruelty, capricious and uses subjective judgments. It is also an institution designed to emphasize different values, large and complex because it associates with the increasing complexities of social problems, the growth of human populations and their needs, and the fragmentation of the institution with a formal structure and distinct characteristics. Education is required in the bureaucracy in order to prevent a person from over emphasis on rule driven compliance.

The bureaucracy is a unique organization [5] – one that exists to accomplish production related to economic goals, organizes production through systematic and scientific inquiry, maximizes production through specialization and division of labor, knowledge, and expertise and people act according to rational economic principles. It is an academic field [6], a specialized scientific field application [7], and a field of professional and managerial applications [8,9]. It represents a machine model [10], in which one engine mobilizes the works and the activities of the other engines. It is antinepotism, anti-emotions or against individuality and cruelty, capricious and uses subjective judgments [11]. It is also an institution designed to emphasize different values [5], large and complex because it associates with the increasing complexities of social problems, the growth of human populations and their needs, and the fragmentation of the institution with a formal structure and distinct characteristics [12]. Weber added that the culture and norms of the bureaucracy is “hierarchical.”

The external observers and the politicians perceive the hierarchy from the lenses of “power” or “politics,” and they argue that it limits individual freedom and destroys creativity. On the contrary, the hierarchical in this term refers to education, knowledge, knowledge expertise, position, authority, and responsibility, the person level of cognition, personality traits, and leadership skills, mental and emotional maturity. All these are developed over time.

This hierarchical structure allows the government to see things in a holistic manner and solve public problem as a doctor cure his patient. In terms of the fiscal budget, it helps in the strategic economic planning that guarantees more sustainability, reduce corruption, and eliminate marginalization, discrimination or exclusion, because things are planned based on the holistic views, not from the view of a small portion of the organization.

Frederickson stated that bureaucracy is an institution with humanistic values, decentralized and democratic in which its service is equitable to all citizens. It represents a machine model and one unit mobilizes the work of the other units. It is an economic system of full employment and fair wages.

The bureaucracy is a qualitative field and its performance cannot be measured in a quantitative approach, neither is the study of bureaucracy, nor the speed. Their performance relates to human rights, provisions, and services that associate with social science, human science and human quality, peace and tranquility, intangibility, and all cannot be quantified.

As an institution, the bureaucracy carries several goals, which are representativeness, transparency, and equity, or equal opportunity, equal access to services that the market cannot provide. The representation indicates that they represent the institution and use their knowledge and education to solve the problems of their fellow citizens, as White argued in her Education, as the true meaning of education. This institution is established to serve the citizens. These goals contrary to the individualistic goal of each bureaucratic organization or the common theme of goals that mimic that of the private corporation, which is efficiency, doing more with less resources. Doing more with less is, in the private sector, is a mirage because most money is added to the compensation of the chief executive officer, other executive members, and the board of directors while the compensation for the employees is shrunk to a minimum. However, these executives talk big and do very little. Most entrepreneur politicians are egoistic, rational actors [13], proud individuals [14], who participate in the political process to serve their ego [13]. Egoistic leaders are never able to recognize public interests but are motivated only by their own interests, and are not capable of trusting others.

In terms of the administrative process, bureaucracy is a formal administrative structure with distinct characteristics and problems. It utilizes administrative, scientific modes of thinking with scientific procedures and practices and it is fiduciary of the people. As a hierarchical institution, it is “designed rationally to coordinate the work of many individuals in the pursuit of large scale administrative tasks” [12], and solving public problems. Scientific work cannot be done in a fast phase mode or applying theory into practice needs time, not speed.

Public service is established to serve the public and to manage its resources, which is stated in the Constitution, and it requires the use of multi discipline knowledge to solve public problems. Morgan and Cooke (1998/2000) stated that the use of education and knowledge expertise makes the government democratic.

Consistent with the use of education and knowledge expertise, Thompkins stated that applying theory to practice is a good practice, raises the standard and quality, more sustainable and professional. It makes the tasks more meaningful.

Bureaucracy is a difficult, vast, and complex formal organization, with a demanding environment. It is a social administrator and a field of science and art. It is a hierarchical institution and one that “can provide the capacity and expertise to handle technically complex policy issues”.

Blueprint 2020 was grandiosely introduced to the public servants at a time they felt disengaged, demotivated, morally declined, and find their works are meaningless. By 2015, most public service executives, who are politically appointed either through their association with the politicians, volunteering for the political parties, their financial contribution to the political parties, or just being a volunteer to the organizations they aim to lead, are suffering from mental disorder.

Since early 1980s, public servants have done tasks that are considered meaningless because the political staffs sabotage all the communications and create their own communication. They reply to the citizens based on their personal perception. At the same time, they are protecting their political masters from the citizens’ attack or request for help. Political staffs are the gatekeepers of the politicians. They serve the politicians and their administrative needs, opinion shapers of the politicians, and determine who the politicians should and should not meet. They are, Marley [15] called, “Pharaoh Slaves,” who would die with the Pharaoh when he died. They make their own administrative system and never pass the information to the public servants who will record the communication as official matter. Rather, these political staffs communicate with the public as personal communication. When their political masters leave the office due to scandal, loss in the election, or are appointed to new positions in the government, they go along. However, they have 30 days to clean up all the records or destroy the records that may jeopardize the career or reputation of their political masters. Jobs in the government have also been contracted out or outsourced to the private sector. Hence, the introduction of the Blueprint 2020 to 262,817 federal public servants was kind like a breeze of fresh air. To them, they are given the opportunity to contribute because for two decades, they are no longer serving the public. They are being swayed slowly to do work as public servants not to serve the public, but to serve the government of the day and themselves.

In the movement to reinventing the government, starting from Pierre Trudeau to Mulroney, to Chrétien, and to Harper, all knowledge intellectuals or people with knowledge expertise have been eliminated from the government. Under the Harper regime, they are undervalued. Education and knowledge expertise are considered insignificant. As Justin Trudeau took the power, knowledge intellectuals are almost extinct in the government. The Canadian government is dominated by people with little education, poorly educated individuals, or people without education – from the municipality and up to the federal government. They work in the government without training, without knowledge, and without security check.

As the knowledge intellectuals become extinct, more and more youth and young adults are being elevated to the leadership positions and their writings, such as their essay about the Senate and things the Senators do are adopted to be the main source information for the public. Even under the Harper regime, as education and knowledge are no longer significant, one percent of Senator is technically and functionally illiterate. This political appointment opens up the door that people who are without education, poorly educate, or lack education to work in the federal government or can occupy the leadership positions in the federal government. Even Prime Minister Stephen Harper had six advisors who were 20 years his junior because it gives him the sense of superiority and security. As a narcissist leader, he can control his advisors.

What is Blueprint 2020 that makes the public servants extremely excited?

Blueprint 2020, which is guided by a personal ambition and adopted as a vision of a private corporation to operate inside the public service departments or agencies, created from the inside of the public service, to govern without the government, is originated from the Prime Minister Advisory Committee led by the chief executive officers of two banks and other private companies as members founded in 2006, soon after Harper was elected as the Prime Minister.

In their Ninth Annual Report to the Prime Minister, the Advisory Committee considers the federal government as “too large and too complex” for them to deal with all the important issues, and for them to be able to give ideas and advice to the government through the Prime Minister, they need to make the government smaller, as in the size of a bank, with smaller number of employees. During their presentation before the procurement committee that consists of Senators, Members of Parliament, and deputy ministers, Ernst and Young representatives compared the federal government to Microsoft, who has only 100,000 employees but is able to serve global customers. Believing in this presentation, the Harper government chopped more public servants and the number down to more than 262,000. At the same time, temp employees, contract workers start to dominate the federal public service and they become shadow public service.

This blueprint, as the Committee claims, is guided by the following principles:

• An open and networked workplace that engages Canadians and partners for the public good.

• A whole-of-government approach to improve service delivery and value for money.

• A modern workplace that uses new technologies for networking, access to data and customer service.

• Innovative practices and networking, includes investing long-term research and policy development for issues like aging population, energy, infrastructure and environment.

• Processes and empowerment: Getting rid of internal red tape to speed up business processes and approvals.

• Technology: Using IT and social media to improve communication, collaboration, information sharing and service delivery.

• People management: New ways to manage and recognize performance and to speed up hiring and staffing.

• Fundamentals of public service: Giving Canadians service ‘excellence’ and bolstering commitment to diversity, official languages, public service values and ethics.

As in a common commercial marketing and advertising, the Blueprint 2020 is just, as Daft [16] put it, a game of words with a short vision. The vision itself misses out the nation all together. It is about the self-serving government and its employees. It is the vision of an ambitious man who wants to make the public service as his own company. This committee perceives the public service as a bank – from its organizational structure to human resources recruitment and development and to its leadership and management

This is the marketing message of the Blueprint 2020, taken from the Privy Council’s note:

Federal public servants make a difference in the lives of Canadians every day. Together, we are a diverse and vibrant national team. Here are some examples of the work we do:

• We deliver important services to Canadians across the country— from providing old age security and employment insurance benefits and passports, to protecting Canada’s sovereignty and providing humanitarian assistance to countries in need, to helping Canadian families save for higher education.

• We enforce rules that keep Canadians safe and healthy, including food and drug safety regulations, and laws to protect the environment.

• We protect Canadians from possible threats at home and abroad. Every day thousands of Canadian public servants combat crime, fight terrorism, secure our borders and rescue Canadians in trouble on land or at sea.

• We develop policies with and for Canadians, including on the economy, trade, energy and innovation.

• We undertake and support research and development to help scientists and entrepreneurs push the boundaries of science and improve the lives of Canadians.

• We help the Government manage Canada’s relations with the world and promote the country’s national interests around the globe.

This note reveals how the bankers view the federal public service from the external observation as they see what the CRA or the politicians do to the citizens.

More grandiosely, the Blueprint 2020 promises a world class public service that is adapting to change. This involves reducing expenditures across all level of governments and their organizations, examining new ways of working to ensure efficiency and effectiveness while being productive and responsive to the needs of our citizens, by “hiring the best and brightest people with the skills needed to develop evidencebased options and advice for the Government and to provide effective support to Canadians in times of change.”

According to this Committee, the driving change for the reengineering the federal public service is:

• Increasing demand for globalization, complexity and interconnectedness that involves myriads of interest groups who want to play part in the management of public service.

• Technology – increase use of internet and mobile technology that have affected how business operates. This driving force enforces the government to operate simply through internet or people can only communicate with the government through the internet only and it allows the government to maximize the most modern IT system implemented in the so called “Smart City” buildings, which are now empty but the CRA has been using it.

• Changing demographics (in this point, what the committee means is the changing of lifestyle and expectation).

• Growing demand for more accountability and result-based performance.

• Work shift that encourages flexibility in which public servants can take their work home or they can do the work from anywhere using the technology and internet connectivity.

• Continuously explore ways to innovate, by taking inputs from a range of external shareholders who gathered around a roundtable meeting as the politicians do with their public consultation, taking the risk, and capture the best talents and brightest ideas. This continuous effort of exploring ideas turns the public service to be as “a process that requires commitment, time, and continued focus.” The deputy ministers serve as mentors, who will constantly keeping up with the public servants to come up with ideas and store them in the “idea bank” have a continued dialogue with them on a regular basis about their ideas. Like the way the politicians do with the fiscal budget in which pilot projects, projects, and ideas are placed in a “Chinese Big Box” and the politicians will withdraw from this big box what pilot projects or what ideas should be prioritized, the deputy encourage the public servants to compete among each other for the best ideas. All ideas are dumped into the “idea bank,” then they are collected, judged, and voted. Those with the best ideas will be quickly recognized. They will continuously collaborate electronically while the office is just a “virtual office.”

The Committee promises, through the Privy Council Office, it “will be recognized as having the best people working together with citizens, making smart use of new technologies and achieving the best possible outcomes with efficient, interconnected and nimble processes, structures and systems.” In the Appendix, I would show the new structure of the federal government according to the Blueprint 2020.

The Advisory Committee’s core objective is “to improve the lives of our citizens and secure a strong future for our country” through an “open and networked environment that engages citizens and partners for the public good.”

The philosophy of the public service under the Blueprint 2020 is speed and smart use of technology. This is in line with the establishment of the Shared Service Department and the development of Smart City buildings, developed using the Canada Pension Plan funds. Smart City buildings have been and are being built around the world, but most of them are unoccupied. They are fully equipped with the most sophisticated technology and one of the programs they have is cyber espionage. The speed of the internet and technology communication in these buildings is very fast, which the Harper government declared as a “lightning speed.”

Similar to the America 2020, because the government is required to response to public demand in “speed,” the government acts through the inputs it receives from the public, especially the inputs it receives through social media such as Twitter or Facebook.

The creator of the Blueprint 2020 has a grand vision how his world class federal public service would be, such as:

• Large scale, in terms of inputs from the public servants and that everyone may give ideas or suggestions through social media and other virtual means;

• Bottom-up, in which employees may give out their ideas and suggestions while the executives and managers are listening and learning; and

• Transparent, which means that public servants may compete to put forward the best idea.

In terms of structure, the Blueprint 2020 emphasizes on a more horizontal, similar to the banking industry organizational structure. This structure affects the human resources management. Though it promises human resources development, as in the banking industry, the human resources development is based on job rotation. Employees, whom the Advisory Committee considers the best talent, will be rotated from one department or agency to the other but they are doing the very same thing. This process has actually been done with the political staffs in the government since the early 1980s. They are placed in the department or agency not to serve the citizens but to serve their so called the “political masters”. When the politicians leave because they lost during the by election or election or due to scandals, these political staffs, who also serve as the gatekeepers who will decide who the politicians must and must not see, and as the opinion shapers of the politicians. If the political masters are not reelected or leave politics all together, the political staffs will be placed on the Priority List from which they will be appointed to any vacant position available even though they are not qualified to occupy such position. In order to get them appointed, the job requirements tend to cater to the candidates’ qualifications rather than the candidates’ qualifications meet with the job requirements. Sometimes, they create a virtual position to accommodate the political staffs such as in the “fake CRA,” they have a political position called “Complex Issue Resource Officer” but the person’s duty is to collect money from their victims. This “fake CRA” was created before the Blueprint 2020 was introduced. To Harper, it is like “do first, ideas later.”

The Blueprint 2020 promises less hierarchical and more client services, which, according to Terry [17], is an amateur way of managing an organization. For example, employees may propose ideas or suggestions they vote and the highest vote is adopted. This arrangement makes the public servants to be busy about themselves and the organizations, about themselves and promoting their ideas, rather than developing themselves as public servants who are, by definitions, to serve the public.

On the management side, the Blueprint 2020 gives the Advisory Committee as the head above the Prime Minister and the Privy Council, and their role is to “offer ideas and advice” the Prime Minister on the management of the public service, using “experience and outside perspective.” But this makes the government to become dangerous. It is about swaying the government to a wrong direction, and the Harper and Trudeau governments have easily being taken because they do not have the foundation for public leadership position and do not understand that the government and the private sector are different in every aspect [3]. They cannot be equalized or generalized [5], even a small comparison can be dangerous [18].

Towne [1] stated that when there is dysfunctionality in the organization, do not ask an accountant, a business person, a social worker, or an administrative clerk to fix it, but ask a person who has a special training in the field. And definitely, not a banker but in this blueprint, the government asks the banker to help. The government also asks the banker to help with its fiscal budget prediction annually.

With the Blueprint 2020, employees from the private sector can mobile to the public sector and return and vice versa. Since the philosophy is speed and like in the fast food chain, employment is targeting the youth.

Though it promises to serve the citizens effectively and efficiently, the Blueprint 2020 is about providing service to clients, which the Advisory Committee calls “client-oriented.” This vision or this system is to reengineer the federal public servants to serve the self-serving government. It is about the people working in the government and themselves.

The practice of clientelism has been widely adopted around the globe and Karl Marx, in his Manifesto called it as a system of selfdestruction. All around the world, the reinventing the government and the New Public Management system have proven a failure system.

As the Harper government invited this Advisory Committee to enable Harper’s vision of the government according to his personal ambition, by 2016, this Committee rebranded the federal government. As a complex product that has reached its maturity, it needs to return the government to do things “child’s way” – no rules, no regulations, forgetting the education and knowledge expertise, but promoting the culture of imaginary, dreaming big, and forget about the words of wisdom.

The Office of the Privy Council will serve as the central to the federal public service activity, which will operate the government as a business, which included “performance management, leadership development, process efficiency, service quality and service improvement from the experiences of organizations outside the government – be they corporations, universities, or entities in the notfor- profit sectors” [19]. In other word, the Privy Council Office will control all departments and agencies and their activities. Personnel in the Privy Council Office are dominated by the political staffs that work there from 6 months to 24 months as line staffs and will be rotated to the departments and agencies when their term is expired. They do not serve the citizens but the politicians and their “clients.”

Blueprint 2020 aims at re-engineering the federal public service and the work in this level will be technology or internet oriented. Like the customer service of the banking industry or the amazon.ca, everything will be done online with the use of “Smart Technology” from the Smart City buildings. Eventually, this blueprint will transform all level of governments that they too will operate through the technology and internet oriented because, as Austin [20] put it, “If you want to have it all, chop the head first.”

This Advisory Committee has very little knowledge about things that the federal government does because they learn about the government through their external observation of what the politicians do. They turn the federal government into a commercial product processed in a manufacture. Hence, they want to reduce its “cycle time” and use the implementation of project management techniques. For example, meetings will be done through video conferences. Public servants can work through the internet and intranet while serving the citizens. They can communicate with the citizens using social media such as Twitter or Facebook and other online system, the same way the bank does its business. Public servants also can work from anywhere through online setting, while the office represents a virtual office. They can have a meeting through online conference.

This setting allows the continues development of Smart City buildings or that public servants will be given the opportunity to enjoy the most sophisticated technology system installed in the Smart City buildings around the world.

Sadly, this technology can be harmful to the citizens, businesses, governments, and anybody or any organizations around the world. One of the programs installed in these buildings is cyber espionage and through this program people can spy others and steal their information, including, which is the most important item, the money. The saddest thing about the Blueprint 2020 is that federal employment is emphasized on youth employment. It mimics what the Prime Minister Stephen Harper had as his advisors or similar to the McDonald who prides on having youth as their work team. And what makes the public servants very excited about this plan is that they can compete for their ideas. Hence, the promise of serving the citizens is nothing but self-serving organization.

Soon after this blueprint was accepted by the Prime Minister, Shared Service Canada was established – a new department whose technology system and information can be shared by 60 departments, agencies, and private companies, including the provincial governments. This department becomes the hub of all information about government projects, citizens’ information, and all, which the sixty departments, agencies, and provincial government can have access to.

Similar to the banking setting where the Client Care becomes a company within the bank such as the CIBC, the Royal Bank, and, of course, the TD Bank, whose chief executive officer is the chair or member of the Prime Minister’s Advisory Committee and the financial advisor to the federal minister of finance. Every year, federal finance minister will take his fiscal budget prediction and have the TD Howe to evaluate it. What happens with the public servants? TD Howe does not evaluate the fiscal budget. Rather, he comes up with his own prediction. For example, in 2014, prior to his death, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty took his fiscal budget prediction to TD Howe, who then issued his own prediction. But all is just a game of numbers. While proudly Jim Flaherty announced deficits $2.9 billion, if you read the numbers and recalculated, it is over $44 billion deficits. Never take things people say on the face value. Read the fine print, even the numbers!

This Client Care then use the opportunity to swindle people’s money, or steal people’s money directly, using the government’s name. When they steal your money and you want accountability or refunds, you will be transferred from one client care to another, and interestingly, everyone is a “manager.” However, these people never solve your problem. All they do is, as the politicians do, “argue, argue, and argue.” Each time you write to the bank ombudsman or other banking officers, they sabotage your communication and they will reply to you, by simply arguing or justifying. In the process of communication, they use their own PO Box address.

In 2007, Prime Minister Stephen Harper created CRA Corporation, a private company, to operate inside the CRA. Similarly, Service Canada was also created with similar scheme, but it is contracted out or outsourced. There is a private company named Service Canada that operates inside the Service Canada. All their personnel are basically political staffs and failed politicians. They have their own commissioner and chief executive officer and board of director. The commissioner and chief executive officer of the, I call, “fake CRA” is a former deputy minister, William Baker, and the members of board of management are former politicians. One of them, appointed in June 2015 is former Minister of National Revenue, Kerry-Lynne Findlay. As a private company that operates inside the CRA and Service Canada, they work electronically and verbally. These two private companies do not have any mission, objectives, purposes or goals, but to make money using the name of the CRA or Service Canada. Since their establishment, both the CRA and Service Canada operate with PO Box and mailing addresses. They are supposed to provide service to the CRA and Service Canada by issuing GST/HST information or CPP and Old Age Security. Over time, the private company CRA takes over the real CRA and the private company Service Canada wants to take over the real Service Canada or that Service Canada is just an annex to the CRA, the private company that is. Like the Client Care at the banks, the personnel of the private company CRA and Service Canada start duplicating people’s GST/HST number and their social insurance number as well as others’ social insurance number. Then they open their bank accounts that are attached to people’s GST/HST number or social insurance number. Then, they start issuing vouchers to collect money from people either using their GST/HST or social insurance number. Their existence is simply making money by banking on the name of the organization. As they started issuing vouchers, the CRA warns people about identity theft. But no one pays attention to it. The politicians are busy arguing and debating without knowing or realizing that this creation brings crisis to the federal government that has already in the state of dysfunctional and a crisis to the unsuspected citizens.

Because they are private companies, they do not have access to the records of the real CRA or the real Service Canada or supposed to be under the Ministry of Human Resources Social and Development. Hence, they do their own “custom made” papers. Canadians are not aware that since 2007, they have been served by these two private companies. Because the citizens who are the first victims, mostly are the small guys, the elderly and the elderly widows, and the poor, cannot tell the difference or with others who cannot differentiate between the real paper from the CRA or the Service Canada and those from these two private companies. As of 2016, the CRA sends to almost every individual a “fake” Notice of Assessment,” while Service Canada gives out a fake application for the Canada Pension Plan, the Old Age Security, or the Social Insurance Number. These people decide whose application they should forward to the CRA or to Service Canada because they are the front door or the gatekeepers to the real organizations.

Under the Blueprint 2020, the CRA is changed to become a medium to negotiate trade with multi- national corporations around the globe because it is the central of the state resources, and hence, causes this organization to abandon its main duty to the citizens. The fake CRA wants to take over the real CRA step by step. The expression says, “You give an inch, he wants a mile.” From issuing GST/HST paper, the fake CRA now issues Notice of Assessment to all. In addition, with the implementation of the Blueprint 2020, the Destination 2020 aims at eliminating pension.

Leadership is centralized on one person, which is the Prime Minister, who evolves as the public service chief executive officer, while the Clerk of Privy Council becomes the head of the public service and a central to all federal service activities, which in turn, becomes like a monster [21] to the organization and the citizens.

The implementation of the reinventing the government and the New Public Management has caused the government to be very dysfunctional. As Dobbs [22] found in the United States that the federal government is the most dysfunctional organization among all government organizations, the Canadian federal government is also the most dysfunctional organization among the different levels of governments. Among all the departments and agencies, the CRA and Human Resources Social and Development are the most dysfunctional.

What is the risk associated with the implementation of the Blueprint 2020 toward Destination 2020? They are, among others:

The destruction of the public service because it has taken off the foundation of the institution. It is grandeur but it is like building a castle on the sand. It is easily swayed left or right with every wind of ideas adopted from the “idea bank” provided by the public servants. There are too many people involved in giving out ideas and each is competing to have his ideas be recognized. As of today, under the New Public Management system, the competition has created jealousy among public servants and the line managers whose position is a “dead end” career, causes a constant crisis among the public servants and the political staffs, and the public servants and the students, contract staffs, casual staffs, part-time employees, and the most is the temp employees, who, since the Chrétien era, have become shadow public service. Like the New Public Management, without the foundation, this system is non-sustainable, and will eventually fail because all the reinventing efforts that have been applied are a process of outside inward. Such process will always fail.

Rise of a dictator regime. Under the New Public Management, the country experiences leadership and democratic deficits. This blueprint causes the rise of a dictator regime and all evils because it values money more than the humanity. It removes all the principles and concepts of a public institution, but enhances the current condition that leadership role is insignificant, as suggested by Olson and Eoyang [23]. It opens up the door that every person can become a public leader, disregard the education and knowledge expertise, because his role is “listening and learning.” This principle is one of the entrepreneur leadership, which McShane identified as “leading by performance.”

Public leaders should be, Towne [1] called, “economic engineers.” Education and knowledge expertise are the main ingredients for a leadership position as well as personality traits and all qualities [24]. While many traits theorists have abandoned personality traits as part of the leadership requirements, Adair stated that becoming a leader without personality traits is impossible and meaningless. Socrates, on the other hand, stated that we are the sum of our behaviors. The public may not look at the behaviors of a private company’s executive, but they do take a cue from a public leader, which includes the things he says, things he does, and everything else.

Ellen White [25] and I argue, there is no role more important than the role of a leader. Without leadership role, this blueprint will create over all, organization crisis – young people are competing for the leadership positions then become frustrated because the leadership positions have been designated for certain individuals from the outside.

In addition, for a person to become a public leader, he needs education and knowledge expertise. At a time Canada is experiencing leadership and democratic deficits, Cooke and Morgan [26] argued that education and knowledge expertise are the ingredients for democratic governance.

Education and knowledge expertise are the core ingredients for leadership positions. The higher is a person’s position in the government, the higher are the education and knowledge requirements for him. If the leader wants to be successful, said Collin Powell, he needs to have people in his organization who complement intellectual training.

The contemporary politicians perceive politics as “power,” but the true power is, said Ellen White, knowledge expertise. It makes a person wise. The Proverbs says that a fool will become wise if he is among the wise, but a wise will become a fool when he is among the fools.

Poor technical capacity government. When the Prime Minister Advisory Committee had their meeting, each one wants to reengineer the government from his professional field or background. Because the leaders come from the banking industry, they want the government to be like a bank with a horizontal structure. In a bank, a person does not need much knowledge as long as he can read the numbers and follow where the investment goes.

Shafritz and Russell [1] stated the government needs to operate with the use of multidisciplinary knowledge, which is the sky is the limit because the government is, as stated in the “Theory of Bureaucracy,” a field of science, an academic field, and a managerial and professional field.

With employment is targeting the youth, the government is severely poor in capacity. The poorest one is the capacity to analyze. During the welfare state, all the policy analysts are people with doctorate degree and must be Canadians. Under the Harper government and right through Trudeau government, policy analysis positions can be occupied by people of different background, can be foreigners or citizens, can either have education or not, people who are less educated, and they can also be young people who are still “living on the edge” or in their “wondering years.” Prime Minister Stephen Harper even had six advisors who are 20 years his junior because as a narcissistic leader, he feels more secure surrounding by people who know less than he does.

Psychologist such as Buskist and Gerbing [27] or Eriksson and Piagét found in their study that having staffs who are poor in technical capacity and knowledge is for controlling. These poor capacity personnel do not really know or cannot tell what is going on. Although they are extremely excited about implementing the Blueprint 2020, this scheme has already been implemented soon after Harper became the Prime Minister. It is very damaging and dangerous. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau cannot fix it because all he thinks is “money” and “pleasure.”

Poor standard and quality. Despite the Blueprint 2020 promises high quality public service, on the contrary, the standard and quality of the public service are declining; even the administration of the federal service is declining in quality and in its physical presentation. It easiest the private companies that operates inside the government departments and agencies to take over the department or agency that it mimics, such as the CRA Corporation mimics the CRA. By the early 2017, it has almost taken over the CRA in all its administration that associate with the public – from the GST/HST to Notice of Assessment, and to the benefits provided by the provincial government to the low income citizens. It leads toward total control of the resources and the people. Its administrative standard is low in quality and unprofessional compares to that of the real CRA.

It engineers white collar crimes – from identity theft to financial crime. These two organizations operate without mission, without purposes or goals, but to make money by banking on the organization they mimic.

Since their creation, these two private companies, Service Canada and the CRA have been doing criminal activities – a white collar crime done politically and collaboratively and collusively. Because all the personnel are the front line staffs, they sabotage letters from and the citizens.

Their crime continues and they constantly engineer financial crime. They even dare to go mainstream ever since the CRA moved to the Smart City buildings. They use the available technology to defraud their fellow citizens through phishing, email, telephone calls, and so forth. And people do suffer and become their victims. Most of the victims are the small guys, the elderly and the elderly widows, and the poor. They chase after the deceased claiming overdue taxes or overpaid guaranteed income supplement or old age, anything that can make the people to pay. The unsuspected targets pay, never know that they are being fraud.

Because money is their aim, they defraud their fellow citizens with different schemes. They work like a mafia group and even work with the bank employees to steal people’s money directly from the bank by claiming they are the CRA and even use the court name. It is a type of 21st century white collar crime that looks so real, but actually fake or scam. Many are not aware about this crime. Even the accountants, lawyers, and police find it difficult to see it through because it is very subtle. The technology makes it difficult to identify this crime.

When the CRA moved to the Smart City buildings, with the sophisticated computer technology installed in the buildings, the personnel of the fake CRA started scam people in the open space either through phishing, telephone, email, or even through letters. They place their people at the court to justify their crime. And they have been able to fool all because the RCMP and the media are banned from investigating them.

Massive exclusion, marginalization, discrimination and racial discrimination. All these issues are growing in the federal government. Several departments, particularly Health Canada has been taken to court continuously because of its racial discrimination practices. Cities that are close to the capital experience bonanza development while cities and townships far from the capital or provinces far from the capital are economically marginalized and underdeveloped. A diagram in the Appendix shows how the federal public service has been transformed into a small bank or a small corporation with the public servants becomes the owners, the leaders do not exist, the citizens are disappeared, and all are at the expenses of the general population.

Higher unemployment, especially among those who have education and knowledge expertise. Those who have knowledge background in technology or computer science and business are more likely hired than those who don’t because the work will be emphasized on the use of “Smart Technology” and trade. The saying “serve the citizens” is only a game of words, charged Daft [16]. It is more about self-serving.

Public problems would never be solved because as it stands today, the federal government is in severe condition of poor technical capacity, especially in analysis. When people communicate with the CRA or Service Canada, for example, their communication always land in the hands of the private company annex to them. These people provide their answer just as the way the politicians do, “argue, argue, and argue.” This blueprint causes more damaged to the public service than what it has already been.

Knowledge deficits – Knowledge intellectuals, who are the source of knowledge and educators, or the source of economic advance [28] become extinct.

A dual system of government – one that promises serving the citizens and one operates inside the public service as a private company who serves the prime minister and his political team, but at the expenses of the citizens. It deepens the dysfunctionality in the federal government and damages it even more. In its practice, the public servants go their way, the prime minister and the Clerk of Privy Council go their own way, but being the leaders, they dictate the public service what to do, including serving the government of the day. As stated in point (2), the government becomes a dictator regime as has shown by the “fake CRA” which works without rules, without regulations, and it is all about self-serving.

Loss of pension – Similar to America 2020, aiming at Destination 2020, Canadian Pension Plan, which has been transformed into a corporation, will be eliminated. People work for years and contribute to this plan will be at loss because their future investment has become a corporation belongs to several people in the global market. Alternatively, they pick and choose who they want to give the CPP to at the expense of others.

Loss of humanity – As public servants do things through online, human to human communication disappears.

Blueprint 2020 was celebrated during its introduction. However, things that are quickly celebrated tend to collapse quickly. With people work in the form of the front line, they implement their ideas or their colleagues’ ideas, the executives or leaders are listening and learning, who do the departmental and agencies’ functions? The leaders are listening and watching indicate the public servants are doing their own things, the public servants are looking after their own selves, competing among each other to ensure that their ideas are prioritized or recognized. Everyone runs his own course. The outsiders have easy access to the government to dictate their desires to the public servants, who are young, lack of knowledge, and technically incapable. The government will be under all kinds of attacks – from the inside and outside – and is not capable to defend itself when it is dysfunctional not only in the administration and management, but also in the leadership and technically it is incapacitated. Since Stephen Harper, the politicians and their political staffs spread their attitude of antiknowledge intellectuals, who are the source of knowledge. When they are rejected, the people will be destroyed, warns Prophet Hosea.

It is impossible to reinvent a vast, a difficult and a complex organization by simplifying it to mimic a banking institution. Stated Heintzman [21], this blueprint reorients the government to another direction that is not the public service but a private corporation operates in the suit of a public service. It is also difficult to try to reinvent the government without a mission, purpose, and goals, but simply a vision, without its ingredients, and without the foundation.

Applying theory to practice indicates that reinventing the public service is not about competing for ideas. As an academic and scientific field, it requires multi discipline knowledge, which Shafritz and Russell [1] called, “the sky is the limit.”

Knowledge is power, said White. It is also the foundation and hence, it requires the existence of knowledge intellectuals. At a time of how dysfunctional the public service has been, to correct this dysfunctionality is not to reorient the government to have another layer of government with the public servants going their own direction while competing over ideas and the Prime Minister or the Clerk of the Privy Council going their own way, it brings a crisis of its own, which eventually, a destruction. In addition, as the Blueprint 2020 focuses on money or as Stephen Harper called it “the best money can buy,” it creates evil because the love of money is the root of all evils.

One way to prevent this self-destruction is to put knowledge back to the public service, which means to have the knowledge intellectuals to manage the public service. The public service is created not for competing ideas but to serve the citizens in all its aspects.

Pinnington [29] argued that having knowledge intellectuals to manage the public service may lead to a welfare state, Schwarz [30] argued, it is the reason of the success of the government. In Canada, knowledge intellectuals used to dominate the top positions in the bureaucracy as public administrators, and they are, as Kernaghan [31] argued, people with PhDs and ones known as the “Mandarin Generation.”

There are several reasons why knowledge intellectuals are more suited for public administrator positions are among others, they are, said Chairman Mao, more willing to serve their fellow citizens, best problem solvers as they search for the source or root of the disease and cure the patients, better decision makers because they use their intellectual training to analyze the problems and balance their decision with ethical and scientific consideration, mental workers, good learners and educators, and always apply theory into practice. And source of economic advancement. Ellen White stated that they are more suited for leadership positions because they have the leadership qualities and as men, who have gone through the process of intellectual training, masters in their knowledge, and have gone through selfmastery. At times where espionage and disloyalty are shown among the public servants, political leaders, and the political staffs are engage in espionage and proven disloyal to the state and the citizens, Chairman Mao said, they are overwhelmingly patriotic, and always work in the service of their fellow citizens. At the time when the goods and services provided or delivered by the government show poor standard and quality, knowledge intellectuals are the standards and quality setters. They are more professional in their work and less likely to be discriminated [32,33]. At a time when the government administrative management and the organization are dysfunctional and broken, they are able to reorganize and put the broken pieces together because they have the knowledge foundation and specialization to cure the disease of dysfunctionality in the federal public service. At times where the government is suffering from poor capacity, which disables it to solve public problems and causes bad governance, knowledge intellectuals have the technical capacities and competence to solve the massive problems experienced by the governments worldwide such as the widespread problems of poverty and unemployment, poor quality and crumbling infrastructure, inequality, social and economic exclusion as well as economic marginalization, and can cure the causes of racial, ethnic, and systemic discrimination that are plaguing the government.

At a time when public service is becoming discriminatory or that racial discrimination is spread widely and plaguing the public service, Prof. Joel Hoekstra stated that knowledge intellectuals are less likely showing prejudices and racial discrimination.

Blueprint 2020, which represents the vision of the future public service from the view of the Prime Minister Advisory Committee led by two leading banks chief executive officers, is then adopted and promoted by the Clerk of Privy Council as a way to reinvent, re innovate, and reinvigorate the dysfunctional and broken system of the federal public service. It is a system toward Destination 2020 that mimics America 2020. It is a system of government that meets the personal ambition of the Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the corporate type government that governs the public service as a chief executive officer of the new public service while the Privy Council Office becomes the central to all federal public service activities.

However, in a nutshell, it is destructive. It removes the roles and functions of each department and agency. It creates a dual system of government, a private government within a public government while mimicking the public government, because, as Stephen Harper put it, his political party is leading “without the government,” but at the expense of the public. It creates a corporation to mimic the government with dictatorial power but without a right.

Going through the reinventing the government and after adopting the New Public Management system, the federal government and all its units have become very dysfunctional and public problems are growing more and more complex. Like a chronic disease, they are unsolved because the government does not have the competence and technical capacity personnel to solve them. At the same time, the goods and services provided and delivered by the government are poor in standard and quality, and the infrastructure are crumbling. In addition, discrimination, racial discrimination, economic marginalization, social and economic exclusion, leadership and democratic deficits, knowledge intellectuals are those who are able to cure all these problems as a physician who can cure the diseases that are plaguing the public service.

This blueprint reveals disloyal leaders and personnel. Knowledge intellectuals are more loyal, more dependable, more patriotic and more loyal and committed to solve public problems, are standard and quality setters, more professional in their service, and work in the service of their fellow citizens. They are more likely not discriminatory in their professional career, and have the qualities that missing in leaders since the reinventing the government up to the New Public Management. As a physician, they are able to cure this symptom of self-destruction.

Consistent with Towne’s suggestion, never ask a business person, an administrative clerk, a social worker, an accountant, or a banker to cure these diseases, but knowledge intellectuals who are trained in their knowledge specialization. Ellen White stated, they are people who will not claim beyond what they know as the system of New Public Management in which everyone is an expert in everything. This makes them using knowledge of different fields not “one knowledge fits all” to serve the public. In addition, as they work in the service of their fellow citizens, they would also lead the public service to serve the public not about making money. Providing service to the fellow citizens makes the tasks meaningful, knowledge is used up, and that the job is lucrative.