What can you say about Gary Doer?  Today he stepped down as Premier of Manitoba.  He gave the people of Manitoba good government.  He delivered what he promised but never promised what he could not deliver.   Rather than creating problems, he solved problems.  He balanced the budget, not on the backs of the poor, but through careful management.  He listened and understood.  He built bridges between people.  He understood the hardship of  aboriginal people and defended their interests.  He told the truth.  He steered Manitoba’s economy through the recession pretty much unscathed.  He was open to everyone and he cared about his province and its people.  His government was untouched by scandal.   He governed well and departed with dignity.

Some in the media say he left no legacy.  Anyone interested in what government can and should be in today’s world should look at Manitoba.  His legacy is good government in the long tradition of prairie NDP governments.  People everywhere would give anything to have their Premiers leave them such a legacy.

Thank you, Gary Doer.  Farewell and good luck in Washington.

A number of prominent Canadian and world cultural figures last month condemned the Toronto International Film Festival for featuring films from Tel Aviv. Naomi Klein, in support of the condemnation, stated: “When I heard the Toronto International Film Festival was holding a celebratory “spotlight” on Tel Aviv I felt ashamed of my city of Toronto”.  She was joined by numerous other celebrities in condemning the film festival, stating in a letter:  “Looking at modern, sophisticated Tel Aviv without also considering the city’s past and the realities of Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza strip, would be like rhapsodizing about the beauty and elegant lifestyles in white-only Cape Town or Johannesburg during apartheid without acknowledging the corresponding black townships of Khayelitsha and Soweto.”

Anyone who challenged the authors of the letter and their supporters was labelled as a pro-Israeli and anti-Palestinian mouthpiece.  Not only did the authors blame the Film Festival for politicizing the event – an old trick to berate free expression when it doesn’t accord with your own view – they condemned anyone who supports any attempt to recognize cities with a vibrant cultural and artistic community if it involves an Israeli city.  Never mind the fact that Tel Aviv has many film makers highly critical of the government..  

The fallacy of this kind of knee-jerk criticism of anything to do with Israel is challenged in a letter in latest edition of the New York Review of Books by Vanessa Redgrave, Julian Schnabel and Martin Sherman, hardly persons to be labelled soft on Israel.  They say in part:

“The protesters use the term “apartheid regime.” We oppose the current Israeli government, but it is a government. Freely elected. Not a regime. Words matter.

In their letter the protesters say that “Tel Aviv is built on destroyed Palestinian villages.” True. Just as much of America is built on obliterated Indian property. Are they implying that Tel Aviv should not exist? At least not in its present form? Which would mean that the State of Israel (the original State of Israel, not including the occupied territories) should not exist. Thousands of Palestinians have died through the years because the Israeli government, military, and part of the population fervently believe that the Arab states and, indeed, much of the world do not want Israel to exist. How then are we halting this never-ending cycle of violence by promoting the very fears that cause it?

Many Israelis are aware of this history. Many citizens of Tel Aviv are particularly cognizant of the situation of the Palestinians and are concerned about their government’s policies and their country’s future. And none more so than the Tel Aviv creative community. This is exemplified by Israeli films that criticize their government’s behavior, and some startling Israeli theater pieces, such as the Cameri Theatre’s Plonter, seen earlier this year in London. The Israeli peace bloc, Gush Shalom, and many Israeli human rights groups and advocates are based in Tel Aviv. Some 10,000 Israeli citizens demonstrated in Tel Aviv against the military attack on Gaza in January this year, a fact not reported by the BBC World News or CNN.

These citizens of Tel Aviv and their organizations and their cultural outlets should be applauded and encouraged. Their presence and their continued activity is reason alone to celebrate their city. Cultural exchanges almost always involve government channels. This occurs in every country. There is no way around it. We do not agree that this involvement is a reason to shun or protest, picket or boycott, or ban people who are expressing thoughts and confronting grief that, ironically, many of the protesters share”.

I know of no better refutation of the attempt by Naomi Klein and others to unfairly discredit the Toronto Film Festival and Israeli film-makers.  They clearly have their own political reasons for doing what they did.  But there is no hope for engagement through culture and art, solidarity among artists, and open communication by well meaning people concerned about Israel and its problems if such attitudes prevail.

The Law Society of British Columbia has released an important report documenting the disappointing failure of the profession to retain women in practice and to promote women to senior partner positions.  The report finds that women have been entering the legal profession in BC in numbers equal to or greater than men for more than a decade and in substantial numbers for thirty years, yet women represent only about 34% of all practising lawyers in the province and only about 29% of lawyers in full-time private practice.  The under-representation of women in private practice in BC is reflected in number of women who are no longer practising within five years of call. Of all women called to the bar in 2003, only 66% retained practising status in 2008 compared with 80% of men called in the same year.  Canadian and US statistics indicate that women partners make up fewer than 16% of equity partners to about 20% of partners in large and medium size firms.

The report found that while some women leave the profession in order to address work-life balance conflicts, more important factors are that they do not feel valued, they do not get good work, or they face barriers to advancement.  The importance of this report cannot be understated.  The Law Society of BC has done society a great service in producing this report.  Sadly, its findings are representative of the situation in almost all modern organizations.  Discouraged women professionals and executives is a defining feature of work places today.  The reasons for women becoming discouraged are little different from those discovered by the Law Society.

This is without doubt one of the most discouraging and disappointing aspects of the work experience today in the modern organization.  Women expect satisfaction in work and a positive work experience just as men do.  The failure of modern organizations to provide these is both sad and stupid.  After having achieved so much in terms of education and positive work skills through participation in work, far too many highly capable women are suffering extreme frustration and disappointment with their work experiences.  And in undervaluing and underutilizing women, organizations are failing to capitalize on a large and important pool of talent.

Women are no different than men in their aspirations when joining the work force.  But research and observation confirms that a few years in a typical organization leaves most saddened, discouraged and disappointed.   They find themselves under challenged, under recognized and undervalued.  The plum assignments, the plum promotions and the plum opportunities go disproportionately to their male colleagues.  I know very few young, capable and smart women who are not experiencing this in their work. This is unfair.  It is also mean and demeaning.  It has no place in a modern society that is respectful and compassionate, and that values people regardless of gender or other attributes that have nothing to do with the ability to do the work efficiently and effectively.

When I became the senior Deputy Minister in the BC Government responsible for the public service in the early 1990’s, I was disturbed to find that women had never made up more than 10% of deputy minister level appointments, and that most who had been deputy ministers owed their positions to some unique factor such as having known well and worked closely with a minister or some other senior person in a position of power.  There was no systematic advancement of women in the public service.

I tried to understand this by interviewing a number of women who I thought capable to be candidates for senior positions to try to get some insights as to why this had not happened.  I found that most said it was not their choice.  They felt under-valued, un-recognized for their abilities and held down by an invisible glass ceiling.  But my real question was why this should be so, and few had any real answers.  Finally I realized I was looking in the wrong place for explanations.  I shifted my questioning to men who had been a various times in positions of power and instrumental to the promotion and hiring of senior civil service.  All had the same answer – that the pool of qualified and experienced women working their way up the system was small and thus provided limited opportunities to place women as deputy ministers.

From this it became clear to me that women were not being promoted because they were being overlooked in the promotion process.  The more I looked the more I became convinced that the problem was the assessment process and instruments used to make assessments.  Rather than looking objectively at capability and capacity to do the job, the process was relying formally and informally on the track record at being recognized and at winning the contest for recognition at middle management and professional levels.  Men were winning these informal and formal competitions hands down.  Seeing this, women had in large numbers opted out of the competition and either resigned themselves to junior roles or left- just as the recent report on the legal profession finds.

It was clear to me that it was essential to change the system and reconstruct the evaluation and assessment process to focus on potential and promise using such criteria as management intelligence, problem solving skills, analytical ability, personnel management skills and team work skills.  After making this change, the result was that within three years, over 40% of the deputy minister level positions were filled by women, and within five years the proportion was close to 50%.

There may be some who argue that these results were attributable to lower standards.  This is demonstrably unfounded.  Those involved will confirm that women were subject to an equal proportion of demotions and side-way transfer for underperformance.   They will also attest to the fact that evaluations and supervision was as demanding for them as their male counterparts.  And an evaluation of the work of the women deputy ministers showed that the quality of senior management was not in any way compromised.  And I can honestly say that the appointment of a woman to a position never required me to sacrifice standards of expected work performance.  A number of the appointments now occupy deputy minister positions in the federal government or top management positions in large organizations.  And perhaps the best thing of all – I can not foresee the BC government ever again reverting back to a male dominated senior management pool.  Fair evaluation is unlikely to be reversed because it works and it provides a superior result.

The lesson in my view is that the success of women in management and professions is almost wholly dependent on fundamental change in the way women are viewed in the work place, and on a commitment to change through new systems and procedures.  So long as women are seen as not having the potential because they have not succeeded as well in climbing the greasy poll in pursuit of promotion or plum work assignments, or they have different attitudes to work-life balance, or they don’t have equivalent experience, they will never be full participants in the professional and senior management pools.  But if employers commit to change, the women are there to do the job with equal ability, skill and discipline.  Given a fair chance, they will stay and do the jobs as well as anyone.  Until this happens, a major pool of effective and productive professionals and managers will never be utilized.  And women will be alienated and angry, for good reason.