The “Ottawa syndrome”: The localization of federal public servants in Canada
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract: This article examines the distribution of federal public servants across Canada and asks the question “Does the distribution of the federal public service across Canada matter in the formulation of federal policies related to municipalities?” The article takes a two‐part approach. First, it examines the history of and commentary on decentralization and de‐concentration of the federal public service. It then proceeds to examine the data on the distribution of federal employment over time and uses regression analysis to explain the variations in the relative federal employee presence across local areas and through time. Analysis of initiatives to reform the way in which the public service operates and of the data regarding the location of public servants across the country suggest that broad political, economic and regional factors influence the size and distribution of federal employment across the country, perhaps more than any conscious intent about improving the responsiveness of the federal public service to local conditions. At present, the “knowledge functions” of the federal government are concentrated in the National Capital Region. It is an open question whether this will serve the federal government and Canadians well in the future. Sommaire : Cet article étudie la répartition des fonctionnaires fédéraux à travers le Canada et pose la question suivante : «Est‐ce que la répartition des fonctionnaires fédéraux au Canada a un rôle à jouer dans la formulation des politiques fédérales ayant trait aux municipalités?» L'article comporte une approche en deux parties. Dans la première, les auteurs examinent l'histoire et les commentaires sur la décentralisation et la déconcentration de la fonction publique fédérale. Ensuite, ils étudient les données sur la répartition des employés fédéraux au fil des années et se servent de l'analyse de régression pour expliquer les variations dans la présence relative des fonctionnaires fédéraux dans les secteurs municipaux et dans le temps. L'analyse des initiatives visant à réformer la manière dont la fonction publique fonctionne et des données concernant la localisation des fonctionnaires à travers le pays laisse entendre que d'importants facteurs politiques, économiques et régionaux influencent la taille et la répartition des emplois fédéraux à travers le pays, peut‐être plus que toute intention délibérée d'améliorer la réceptivité de la fonction publique fédérale aux conditions locales. À l'heure actuelle, les «fonctions de connaissance» du gouvernement fédéral sont concentrées dans la région de la capitale nationale. La question est de savoir si cela servira la cause du gouvernement fédéral et du peuple canadien à l'avenir.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.008 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.004 | 0.009 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.023 | 0.012 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.005 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.003 | 0.006 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.007 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".