Our Public Servants at 'Work'- Volume 1

I'm happy to announce that due to the many hilarious stories in the news concerning lazy, uncaring and wasteful public and para-public employees, I'm adding a new recurring piece describing the follies of those who abuse the public purse.

Blue collar Workers Asleep on the Job.

Office workers in old Montreal were surprised to find two City of Montreal employees fast asleep in their city owned vehicle. As passerby after passerby gawked and photographed the oblivious pair, it's disquieting to know that they are earning $40 an hour during their siesta. When asked to comment about the incident, a union representative claimed that the picture only proved that the employees had their eyes closed and not necessarily that they were sleeping. LINK(Fr)

Don't Call Us- Call the Police

A Montreal women complained to a TV commentator that when her corpulent mother fell down and couldn't get up, she called paramedics to help her lift up the heavy load. After three hours of waiting with no response she phoned back Urgences Santé to complain. The dispatcher explained that she'd have to wait even longer as the call was classified as non-emergency.
Frustrated, she asked what other options she had, to which the operator told her to call the police and tell them that she had 'pushed her mother down'.  The operator assured the caller that the police, the firemen and an ambulance would be there within minutes.

20 Grand for Yoga Classes

The day after the Quebec government's tax-raising budget, 300 civil servants, employees of the Centre jeunesse de la Mauricie et du Centre-du-Québec, took advantage of an organized paid day to enjoy a program of yoga, stretching, relaxation and conferences on food and physical activity. Meeting at the Hotel Dauphin in Drummondville the outing set back the government $20,000.


Workshop in 'Silence' costs $1,400
Fifteen Managers of the L'Agence de la santé et des services sociaux de la Mauricie et du Centre-du-Québec  enjoyed an "experience of silence"at the Auberge Les Jardins in Bromont, consisting of two days and one night of silence. They were told to think about what really matters to them at this time of their lives, said Remi Tremblay, who provided the training.
Cost of this weekend cost $1,404.37 per person.

In another story, five members of the Health Agency of Montreal paid a whopping $9,385 to attend an "e-Health 2009" conference in Quebec city to learn about (...sigh) cost overruns. How the group managed to spend so much money in just three days remains a mystery.


Town of Rawdon Blows Half a Million Suing Bloggers 
After some bloggers wrote some pretty nasty things about the mayor and city council members, enough seems to be enough for the town of Rawdon. The village of 10,000 inhabitants sought an injunction to close down the web site  rawdon-qc.net which was the home of the abuse.
The Quebec Court of Appeal overturned the injunction based on freedom of speech and the whole issue is spiralling upwards.
The Canadian Civil Liberties Association commented that the issue ought to be addressed pursuant to new anti-SLAPP legislation in Quebec and not left to fester until a trial date sometime in the future.
At any rate the town has blown a whopping $500,000 or 5%, of its $10 million budget on the affair. LINK

$830 for Eyeglasses charged to Community Organization 
An employee of a community organization that helps people with alcohol addiction in the Montreal suburb of  Longueuil, La maison de l’Amitié Omer  was reimbursed $ 830 for a pair of glasses, contact lenses and an eye exam. The Chairman of the organization billed $ 9,278 in meals and gasoline without any receipts. 

Expense-Padding Director's mandate extended

You might remember Marielle Poirier, the directer of Cégep de l'Outaouais, a junior college near Hull who was outed in the Journal de Montreal for expense account padding. She is renowned for taking globe-trotting trips, to attend various dubious meetings,  all on "school" business. She once expensed a purchase in a museum gift shop as a meal reimbursement, only to be caught in the lie by a reporter who revealed that there was no restaurant in the museum in question. She also claimed as an expense a tourist trip to the Grand Canyon and regularly raids the hotel min-bar and enjoys three bottle of wine dinners, all on the arm of the CEGEP.

Was she punished for any of these excesses? No! The Board of Directors of the school unanimously renewed her mandate for another five years.

Image Maker Fired  in Quebec City

A international image-maker, of dubious reputation scored a $300,000+ contract to re-define Quebec City's image. When Clotaire Rapaille made his preliminary findings, that Quebec city residents were "totally neurotic,  sado-masochistic and that they loved being abused by Anglophones, the shit really hit the fan. Mayor Regis Lebeaume was not amused to say the least and cancelled the contract, not before paying the image consultant $125,000 for his bon mots. LINK