Having analyzed the data, she’s inclined to believe the latter. “Much of the lack of satisfaction seems to be mostly political rhetoric,” McGrandle concludes in her article. While overall job satisfaction — ranked by survey respondents in the public service on a five-point scale — declined from an average of 4.14 to 4.05 between 2008 and 2014, “satisfaction, even at its lowest point in 2014, still remains relatively high.” The significance of this finding goes beyond debunking a popular political mythology, according to McGrandle. It also underscores the importance of surveys like the triennial PSE survey, which the government committed to conducting more frequently starting in 2018. “These employee surveys … can be used to measure how public servants actually feel, not how they are told they should feel during the course of an election.” Paul Wilson, an associate professor in Carleton University’s political management program, says he’s not surprised by the result of McGrandle’s research. Not only does it align with some of the findings of his own work on a related subject — he co-authored a book chapter that looked at the relationship between political staffers and public servants under Harper — but it reflects what he witnessed firsthand as director of policy in the prime minister’s office from 2009 to 2011.

While certain personalities and departments in the public service may have clashed with Harper’s government — it’s hard to forgetthe affectionate mobbing of newly-elected Prime Minister Justin Trudeau by foreign affairs officials — Wilson said relations between both parties were “generally good.”

He’s readily admits he’s far from an unbiased observer but offered his account of a relationship about which many have speculated but few experienced directly.

“One criticism I heard about prime minister Harper was that he didn’t listen to the public service.”

In fact, said Wilson, Harper read every single memo that came his way, cover to cover.

“He wanted advice from the public service, he carefully considered the advice from the public service, and then he made a decision on things — and sometimes he agreed, and sometimes he didn’t.”

“I think that was a significant thing for the public service, to know that they could always get information to the prime minister and that he would always take it seriously.”

Wilson also noted that direct interactions between the low- and mid-level bureaucrats who make up the majority of the public service and their political leaders are limited.

“Most public servants don’t interact with the political types — they don’t meet the minister, they don’t meet the political staff … so most people know the political side through what they read in the media and things filtering down from people who are engaging directly.”

The extent to which political leadership actually has an impact on job satisfaction among public servants was not a relationship McGrandle was able to investigate directly in her research for the article, as it wasn’t asked about on the Public Service Employee Survey.

“I think there’s certainly an argument for looking at that,” she said. “How satisfied are public service employees, does it really have to do with who is in power? And maybe their own political leanings, or just how that party or leader happens to treat the public service?”