civil service department get this straight by Doug Collins Affirmative action nuts swoop again N ITS ZEAL to be all things to all men and all women, Ottawa-the-despicable is now asking its minions to play sneak and snoop. In short, heads are inviting employees to let them know by secret memo or phone call if said workers believe they haven’t been mollycoddled enough. I know this because spies in Transport Canada and Revenue Canada have sent me copies of the directives, which are marvels of gob- bledegook dealing with the mysteries of affirmative ac- tion. The thing is so ridiculous that you won't know whether to laugh or cry. But | recommend crying. Those of us who dislike distorting the English language cal! affirmative ac- tion by a simpler name, which is reverse discrimina- tion. You’ve seen it at work on CBC-TV, where male reporters are becoming rarer than the black backed three- toed woodpecker. Sometimes it goes under sweet-sounding titles like equal opportunities. But whatever it’s called it bodes il! in the name of good. In the U.S., it’s been used to deny highly-rated white students entry to medical school so that colored folk with lower marks could get in. It hasn’t gone that far in this country. Not yet. But they’re working on it. That was the thrust of the lunatic document called ‘‘Equality Now,’”’ published by that all- party sell-out committee. For the moment, the _ federal bureaucracy is pushing I[n- dians, women and the han- dicapped. Full-fledged racial quotas will come later, and WASP males need not apply. But | digress. A Revenue Canada direc- tive signed by Deputy Minister R.J. Giroux ex- plains that the department wishes to identify employ- ment policies that place the ‘target personnel’’ at a disadvantage. He doesn’t mention that this will unveil an unlimited source of com- plaint, but who cares as long as the weak-minded politi- clans are pleased? Everything is to be confidential, and the moaners and groaners can write or phone Ottawa. We’ll pay for the phone calls. The spy who sent me this directive failed to attach the questionnaire that went with it, and is hereby sacked. But A? - Friday, July 6, 1984 - North Shore News a copy was produced by Agent 008, deep in the bowels of Transport Canada. It glories in the tithe of Affir-— mative Action Census and the cover shows a sad looMing male holding his head, gs well he might. The disadvantaged and despairing, meanwhile, are invited to answer several pages of questions. In office hours, presumably.’ English is not the strong point *of the author of this document. The silly servants are told, for instance, that the census will be ‘‘entirely anonymous,’’ just as if there were such a thing as half anonymous. A little further on, we read that none of the information gathered will be used to identify individuals. Right. That’s what anonymous means. There are then acres (sorry, hectares!) of tongue torture hike this: ‘*The information gathered will be used to staustically determine the degree of comparison bet- ween target group and non- target group employees in a mailbox