It’s a familiar story in small rural communities. When it comes to securing one of the few public service jobs with local municipalities and school boards too often it boils down to who you know, or who your parents happen to be, than the list of your own skills and qualifications that secure the job.
Now this is all fine and well, perhaps, when you are among the privileged few, the inner circle of the hoi poli of your community. But the vast majority of people are not in that circle, and it is patently unfair and simply wrong for those benighted many to be walled off from following their career of securing a sinecure because of an accident of birth.
There is plenty of inequality in our system. Those born to wealth and fame quite clearly have a leg up on the rest of the population who have not, the opportunities open to the privileged tend to be boundless. This is as it is and there is not a lot that is likely to be done to breach those walls. But, when it comes to open competition for employment in the public realm, the playing field can and should be far more level than that of the private sector.
There are plenty of regulations and legislation outlawing preferential treatment already inscribed in the books of law which govern our society. Those rules and regulations make it quite clear that giving preference to one’s own family and friends is not on, but it is still too often a case of nudge, nudge, wink, wink upon which hiring decisions are made. Proving that the fly is in the pudding is difficult, except in those most blatant of cases.
Municipal officials, Board of Education trustees and politicians must remain vigilant to these transgressions and the public must make it clear to their elected officials that such behaviour will no longer be tolerated. A vigilant public is the strongest defence against this form of corruption.
For that is exactly what nepotism in the public service is, corruption. In fact, it is the very definition of the word to give preferential treatment to your own.
The excuse of “that is how we have always done it” or some sense of dynastic obligation simply no longer cuts it in the modern world.
At one time, patronage, the bestowing of grants, perks and offices upon one’s political supporters was both commonplace and accepted. It was how things were done. The post master was chosen based on his political stripe, the Queen’s Printer was that newspaper who supported your party’s line. No more, or at least a very lot less in the upper levels of government.
To be sure, many appointments tend to still be given out to those who are members of the club, with the right pedigree and standing in the community, but the real stench has largely abated around that heap.
Smaller, rural communities tend to resist change, it is in their nature to look to the comfort of the familiar in a world seemingly caught up in a maelstrom of change, but change they must. The public deserves to be served by the very best candidate for the job, not a candidate chosen because they happen to be the son, daughter or cousin, or even friend of the hiring members. It is a practice whose time has passed.
Let us band together as a community to help stamp these archaic and counterproductive practices out.
