New, Not Recycled

Well, that's pretty responsibility-challenging, isn't it? The very federal government department charged with leading the country and enlisting Canadians in the need to conserve and recycle, deciding to dispose of perfectly serviceable, quality furniture which they had stored for a year at a cost of $141,000 with the intention of restoring it all to use. Changing their minds and deciding to auction off the office equipment instead, to the highest bidder.

Leaving Environment Canada's planners then to proceed with the purchase of new work stations. New desks and office accoutrements to match the newly-renovated building interiors. After all, on top of the fact that Environment Canada is to lead the way in demonstrating how one goes about recycling and re-using things rather than waste them unnecessarily, all government departments received a strict directive to reduce their operating costs.

So jobs are going unfilled and employees are nervously waiting to see if they're going to be let go, as a result of high-paid bureaucrats pulling the plug on growing expenses. But hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of office equipment and millions in renovation costs proceed because that's the plan, evidently. Scandalizing in the process one of their primary business advisers and suppliers, Advanced Business Interiors.

Whose company president has taken the unusual step of blowing the whistle on government waste. "This is like the BMW of furniture. It will last forever and is not obsolete, so to me it's just a crying shame that it's being thrown out and could wind up being used for scrap steel." For certain this isn't a shining example of reducing waste and pollution, creating jobs and helping government reduce spending.

So far no one in charge, neither Environment Minister Peter Kent, nor Public Works and Government Services Minister Rona Ambrose has responded.

The president of the Advanced Business Interiors is resolved to bid for the equipment and furniture from the auction to ensure it can be refurbished and resold to another client, rather than have it sold for parts or metals and conceivably see what is not wanted end up dumped in a landfill.

Evidently an Environment Canada spokesperson remarked that his department considers it "cost-effective" that the work stations be replaced due to "lifespan" considerations, and that the re-configured floor space has the potential of hosting a greater number of work stations in the same space.

Makes a lot of sense, doesn't it? Paring down the workforce and planning for greater work place accommodations.