Once again, Montreal!

Written by Bernard Brault on 12/04/2011

An ethical code for Montreal: of course, it’s not enough to solve the problem!

This isn’t the first time I compare the public administration to the Tower of Babel. But when it comes to the Ville de Montreal, this is a crazier and dramatic matter, or even seriously disturbing.

If you want to have an idea about the atmosphere, the lack of trust, and the working environment at the City Hall, just think of the “Claude Dauphin” case spied on by controller Pierre Reid, without the mayor’s knowledge, and without at least warning the electors, the police, and the minister.

Is the city of Montreal unmanageable in the legal context offered by the Government of Quebec, or is it just really badly managed? Apparently, there are managers who seem to make up for their gaffes by making other gaffes: allusions, secrets, espionage, and counter-espionage, treason, and conflicts of interest. And, you would have thought that Montreal attracts only incompetent predators!

The Ville de Montreal and its administration are almost champions to all the categories: bad management, allegations, embezzlement, corruption, always under police investigation, not to forget the countless errors of judgement in financing the politicians, in managing the public function, the administrative anarchy of snow clearance, parking lots, car traffic, and so on. The anarchic and chaotic functioning of the little kings disguised in arrondissement mayors, each of them with his personal and political agenda, transforms Montreal into a real Tower of Babel.

The biblical reference to the construction of the Tower of Babel reveals how men, desperately striving to reach heavens, (God’s kingdom) saw their efforts annihilated when their languages were confounded and they could no longer communicate, due to the language confusions.

Sometimes, I wonder what all these top executives and elected members are thinking about while accomplishing their highly complex tasks. I think about the consequences and the impact of their decisions not only on their personal lives, but also on the entire functioning of the municipal public administration.

Ladies and gentlemen from the Ville de Montreal, high executives, and subtle strategists, I suggest you to check each one of the 41 cells of the matrix proposed to you by the ISM, and to ask yourselves the following question: what may be the next combination that will destroy the integrity of your administration, not to mention, your reputation?

I’m almost certain that you’ll think of “NOTHING.” In fact, thinking of “nothing” is probably your best administrative defence to avoid a professional hara-kiri.

Ethical code or Sound Management?

The Institute of Sound Management (ISM) clearly emphasizes, for all those who want to hear it, that implementing an “ethical code” for the municipalities, the Towns, their elected or nonelected members won’t solve the real problem. But, does anyone really want to have the problem solved?

We could spend a lot of money from the public funds and try to teach them about Ethics and municipal deontology. We could have some fun while talking to them about all forms of conflict of interest, and suggest to them a standard code that they could follow or not. We could also clarify the limits of the “wolfness”. Nevertheless, the scandals would keep multiplying at all the levels of the administration. Based on the Sound Management concept and the Sound Management matrix, we know very well that it’s always the weakest link of the chain that breaks first.

We could talk about municipal ethics, but ethics could never solve the real problem by itself, which implies an obligation for the Sound Management, or, if you don’t like the term, for a reasonable and cautious manager , who isn’t in conflict of interests, who is responsible for his/her acts, and who is ready to assume the consequences.

Training the municipal politicians in respect with an ethical thinking regarding their acts isn’t enough to turn them into better managers. And, this is what they should be. They should learn how to manage soundly, in respect with precepts and rules that go beyond a simple legal framework.

Turning ethics into a law won’t make of the public managers better managers. They’ll only be better bureaucrats, criticized in their constant try to avoid rules and protect themselves from their principal mandataries and from the media.

Won’t you cut out this circus?

Notes:

What do we understand by “Sound Management?”

“Sound Management” is first of all a concept allowing better defining the actions taken by the professionals in management. This concept is a way of mixing together law and society, more precisely the day-to-day reality that the managers have to confront.

Since the management is a complex process, making use of such skills that emphasize certain aspects of the human nature, the interpretation of the administrative act can be related to both the legal context and the managerial one.

That’s why the Sound Management has its origins in a rule of law society, but also in the ethical values that should be at the basis of the relationship between the mandator, that is the person who entrusts the power and the resources to another person, that is the mandatary. In Sound Management, the professional manager is defined as the fiduciary of the resources that had been entrusted to him.“