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Canada’s civil service is increasingly isolated physically from the public it nominally serves. More and more, the civil service treats the public at best as an inconvenience and at worst a security threat. As the public’s presence and voice fades from the bureaucrat’s view, the isolation encourages the civil service to be captured by special interest groups or pursue its own interests.

The Bank of Canada built a separate wing so outsiders can attend conferences without entering its headquarters. Statistics Canada now restricts visitor access to its library, even though taxpayers fund it. The sports centre in Gatineau, Que. has partitioned off employees and automated the entrance to prevent interaction with customers (my private sports club in Ottawa still greets customers in person).

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Some barriers separating the civil service from the public were erected post-9/11 to secure highly public and symbolic structures like the Parliament buildings. However, the practice has spread to most federal government departments and is being copied by more provincial and local governments. Gregg Easterbrook of The Atlantic points out that: “Ostensibly such measures are to keep terrorists out; the primary impact is to keep average people out so lawmakers and officials can interact exclusively with lobbyists, publicists, and donors.” He partly attributes rising popular anger about politics to the growing separation of the public service from ordinary people.