In The Globe and Mail, Miles Corak discusses the role of government during the Covid-19 crisis and says we should always be investing and innovating in public service delivery, something that’s easy to ignore in normal times.
Excerpt:
Insecurity about a fluid situation, and about how quickly programs can be delivered, flows out of clogged government plumbing, a hard constraint on Big Think. For years we’ve neglected, cut, denigrated, and now the public service has a tough time doing just-in-time.
Take, for example, Employment Insurance, that grand social insurance scheme born from the disaster of the Great Depression, intended to offer income support to all in need, to insure against the great social risks we collectively face – risks that would bankrupt private insurers in no time. How is it performing during a collective crisis of the very kind it was intended to address?
It is straining, with computer code written in the 1980s running its servers, processing power and devoted personnel stretched to the limit, service centres now shut down. The public service is doing the best it can with old plumbing.
Read the entire op-ed here.
Related Commentary: Check out our page on the Covid-19 Crisis and Response