By Leanna Pankratz (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: February 29, 2012
Ever wonder where your provincial tax dollars are going? I think we all do. Idealistically, I’d like to believe they were being poured into infrastructure, hospitals, and education. Unfortunately, ideals are not often met, and BC has proved to be no exception.
British Columbia is a very special place. It’s the province that hosted the 2010 Winter Olympics, almost won last year’s Stanley Cup, and birthed legends like Rick Hansen.
However, BC is also apparently a place where Provincial civil servants are encouraged to frequently dip their little hands into a governmental treat basket: a $1.5 million program made for boosting the morale of provincial employees known as the Finance Minister’s Recognition Cupboard. This cupboard is funded directly through taxpayers’ money, and is utilized through a password-protected website by civil servants whenever they feel the need to give their coworkers a $15 pat on the back.
To put this little provincial morale initiative into perspective, our beloved Best Place on Earth is currently dealing with issues like overcrowded hospitals due to inefficient space and funding, underpaid teachers hounding the government for more cash flow, and a justice system in financial crisis. You may have noticed a theme here; as a province, we’re dealing with a host of problems, most of them funding-related in nature.
However, BC’s esteemed premiere is allowing civil servants to run wild in a proverbial governmental treasure trove. From an investigation into the program reported in The Vancouver Province by Michael Smyth, the gift-giving website’s FAQ section poses the apparent question, “Do I need my manager’s approval to recognize someone with the Recognition Cupboard items?” only to be answered with “No. The Recognition Cupboard is a tool to encourage frequent informal recognition from leader to employee, peer to peer or employee to leader. The items within the cupboard are paid for by the ministry and are available to be used for recognition of finance employees.” Basically, this means that BC government employees are given the equivalent of free run in a department store—everything is free, all the time—at least to the civil servants dipping into the array of goodies. To the rest of us, that is our hard earned tax money showing up in a $1.5 million dollar morale booster program in such forms as chocolate, backpacks and Tim’s cards.
In a nutshell, we’re paying for the weekly coffees of John and Jane Doe from Parliament. Try to wrap your head around that one, BC-ers. This is truly the Age of Entitlement.
There once was a time when a word of gratitude or encouragement from a boss or coworker could light a fire of motivation inside any employee’s work-tired heart. Now we’re looking at governmental employees being given a program that pretty much opens the flood gates for a shower of gifts following any workplace good deed. Does it really take a Lululemon water bottle to motivate employees these days? As independent MLA Vicki Huntington told The Vancouver Province, ”If our government needs a toy box of chocolates and designer goods to motivate civil servants, we’re in more trouble than we thought.”
Our Premiere’s response to the criticism over all this governmental gifting? “A little recognition is sometimes okay for a province with a $40 billion dollar budget and 30,000 governmental employees. It’s a pretty widely recognized way to go about trying to incent employees… [who] dedicate their lives to the needs of British Columbians.”
Maybe I should start dedicating my life to the province. I could use a few gift cards, and chocolate sounds pretty darn good right about now. Meanwhile, maybe it’s time for our civil servants to get their hands out of the cookie jar.
