It is still not clear if a former P.E.I. fisheries minister is receiving a salary for an appointment at ACOA that was revoked by the Public Service Commission in August.

The PSC ruled there was improper conduct by individuals at ACOA that affected the selection of Kevin MacAdam for a senior management appointment. MacAdam has asked for a judicial review of the decision.

"Public court records state that the commissioner found problems with the way the public service ran their hiring process. They did not find any political interference by ministers or political staff."

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-ed ... ackay.html

The Aug. 8 PSC decision found that although MacAdam's actions did not constitute improper conduct, "the behaviour of individuals at ACOA involved in the appointment process constituted improper conduct that affected [his] selection" for the management role.

It also reveals that four senior ACOA managers, past and present, were named for improper conduct in the case:

ACOA's vice-president for P.E.I. Patrick Dorsey
ACOA's acting director general for policy Kent Estabrooks
Current ACOA president Paul LeBlanc
Past ACOA president Monique Collette
The commission "erred in law and/or came to an unreasonable conclusion by finding that the behaviour of [these four managers] ... constituted improper conduct," MacAdam's application for review states.


So was MacAdam qualified for the job in the first place?

He is probably still getting paid until the effective date of the revocation of his appointment. The Federal court case will give us all the juicy details.

This appointment was clearly fishy. There is no acceptable reason to staff this position without the candidate meeting the language requirements. There are thousands of internal candidates at the EX-01 group and level who would have had the language skills as well as the managerial experience to do this job at the EX-02 level, so why would it be staffed externally? This is a typical case of the old boys network undermining the merit principle. It's absolutely disgusting. Totally unacceptable.

Actually, this sort of conduct goes on all the time within other Government Departments. The only difference here is that some other "well connected" candidate also wanted that same job and decided to raise some flags.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-ed ... ml?cmp=rss

An investigation by the Public Service Commission into the hiring of five individuals at the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency found no political interference, but it did revoke two of the positions for improper conduct and found errors in a third case.

Details on one of the anonymous cases were not shared because the PSC decision is under judicial review.

Any party 'insider' would be 'qualified' for that pork-barrel agency, but a real conservative wouldn't have sought or accepted a position there.

Ed

Ya right.

Foxrun wrote

Foxrun I would hope this is not the case. You appear to have additional information, would you please give us some examples of other cases where this is happened in the regular core public administration?

Sadly, it is and it's been done routinely for decades. Some often refer to as " manager's descretion" but most know it as "the job was advertised for a particular person". And I,m afraid that examples would be a tad suicidal, don't you think!

It's even easier for manager's to pick their preferred candidate when they just have to claim the candidate was the "best fit." And it's virtually impossible to challenge staffing actions now too.

Which makes this case such an obvious and blatant case of "management descretion" that even the PSC commission are pointing fingers!