Mandarinas: Democracy vs. Pedantocracy (excellence-indifference-mediocrity-scandal)

When I first see nation-states suffering under military dictatorship, I believe that they are a far cry from Canada. Then I look back at Canada and find out that I’m wrong.

Whether in uniform or not, the dictatorship mentality is not alien to my land of birth. It is rampant in at least some of the key offices of Canadian bureaucracy that I encounter over a period of a quarter of a century: foreign service, immigration, national police, and taxation.

Those offices effectively tell me that laziness, dishonesty, denial, and corruption are not at all rare in Canada, along with indifference to and disinterest in the consequences for democracy and the citizens who trust bureaucracy.

Sadly, within Canada’s bureaucracy there is a culture of ignoring the citizens and an unwavering belief in absolute bureaucracy power and immunity from consequences.

Elected representatives who are complicit in the bureaucracy’s culture and unfit to hold the jobs of elected representatives in a responsible democratic form of government, ignore and refrain from replying to correspondence from citizens with legitimate, justified, and reasonable concerns and complaints.

The roots of this malaise are partly a result of the constitutional monarchy of Canada, which provides artificial life support to the decaying remains of monarchical dictatorship instead of discarding it in favour of a truly responsible democratic form of government.

This volume begins with examples of very good, hard-working communicators who put most of the members of the Canadian bureaucracy and its parliament to shame.