Backlogs in Canada’s immigration system have been the subject of increased scrutiny since an influx of asylum claimants began crossing the Canada-US border between official ports of entry after the 2016 US general election. In recent times, a lot of asylum claimants have entered Canada in this way, using a loophole in the Canada-US Safe Third Country Agreement that generally requires asylum seekers to make a refugee claim in whichever country they get to first. The auditor general found that Canada’s asylum system is unable to cope with such surges, with refugee claimants waiting two years for decisions on their claims. The backlog of asylum claimants currently stands at 75,000 and will likely continue to grow.

Asylum claimants are individuals who request refugee protection upon or after arrival in Canada. Asylum claims can be received at a port of entry, at a Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) inland office or an Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) inland office. Claims are then referred to the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRB). While their claims are being considered, these individuals are considered non-permanent residents in Canada. Asylum claimants whose claims are accepted can become permanent residents.

I worked with the available data I got from Statistics Canada and the government of Canada website. The data are – the number of asylum claimants in Canada between the year 2014 to 2018, the claimants’ province of entry, the five highest country of origin of the claimants in the year 2007 and 2017 and the age distribution of asylum claimants in 2017. My infographic shows the number of asylum claimants in Canada from the year 2014 to 2018. The number of asylum seekers per the province of entry for the 5 years. The 5 topmost countries of citizenship for asylum claimants in the year 2007 and 2017. The demographic/the age distribution of the claimants in the year 2017. See my Infographic

The total number of Asylum claimants has been on the increase. It was 13,445 claimants in the year 2014, increased to 16,055 claimants in 2015, it was 23,870 claimants in 2016, 50,390 claimants in 2017 and 55,040 claimants in 2018. This increase represents the Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 4.2%. This trend explains why IRB has 75,000 yet to be decided asylum cases. Quebec and Ontario received the highest number of asylum claimants between the years 2014 to 2018. Ontario received 78,900 claimants while Quebec received 62,885 claimants. British Columbia was in a distant third with 7,445 claimants followed by Alberta 6,285 claimants, Manitoba 2,265 claimants, Saskatchewan has 340 claimants, Nova Scotia has 300 claimants and New Brunswick with the least of 115 claimants. Mexico tops the list of the 5 most asylum claimant countries in 2007 with 7,153 claimants, followed by Haiti, Colombia, USA and the People Republic of China. The story was not the same 10 years later. Haiti displaced Mexico in 2017 to occupy the number one position with 7, 787 claimants, followed by Nigeria, USA, Turkey, and Pakistan took the fifth position with 1,751 claimants. Looking at the age distribution of asylum seekers in the year 2017, children (0-14 years) was the highest with 13,193 claimants followed by 25-34 age group with 12,688 claimants. The least on this group was 55 years and above with 2,475 claimants.

The government of Canada is taking steps to speed up the entire system, from claim hearings to removals. 2019 budget appropriated $1.18 billion over five years for border security and processing of backlogs. This allocation is a welcome development to solve this problem but not adequate. The Canada-US Safe Third Country Agreement should be reviewed to reduce the influx of irregular migrants (individuals entering Canada between ports of entry) claiming asylum in Canada. As long as the loophole exists in the agreement, asylum claimants will continue to exploit this and the number would continue to grow.

Persuasion means, the act of causing people to do or believe something. Persuasion is not a sin but one of the many ways we interact with people around us. Manipulation is defined as an action to change by artful or unfair means to serve one’s purpose, the fulfillment of self-interest is the goal here. Manipulation is the journey of achieving what you want no matter what. Persuasive presentation implies that you make people share your point of view through the use of your rhetorical skills without necessarily entailing scheming or deceit. “Manipulation” on the other hand, involves a certain degree of deception to promote the interests of the manipulator.

In the policy analysis world, policy analysts engage in a persuasive presentation to convince decision-makers to accept their recommendation based on facts and accuracy of the information they have provided. Policy analysts are public servants; they are not a politician. Policy analysts as a public servant should approach their work with some guiding public service values – democratic, professional, ethical and people values. Irrespective of any method or technique (visualization or non-visualization) adopted by policy analysts to present their facts and figures about any policy issue, these four important values should be followed.

Under the Democratic value, policy analyst helps the politicians to serve the public interest. The major responsibility of any policy analyst is to give honest and impartial advice and make all information relevant to a decision available to the politicians. Policy analysts are to provide necessary facts and figures about any public policy issue in an “advisory” role while the decision is left for the politician to make.Policy analysts are professionals. In maintaining that professionalism, policy analyst needs to be neutral. When the principle of neutrality is broken then policy analysts engage in manipulation. If a conflict should arise between the private interests and the official duties of a policy analyst, the conflict shall be resolved in favor of the public interest.

Having an in-depth understanding of probability theory and its interpretation is very important in decision making for public managers. The importance of this knowledge for the citizen as well cannot be overemphasized. Probability can be defined as an expression of how likely it is that a future event will happen. Understanding the probability of future events can help with planning, regulatory compliance, and policy analysis.

The in-depth understanding of probability theory can be of help in interpreting some probability statements like “a 70% chance of winning”, “a one-in-five-hundred-year event”, or some words like “possibility”, “likelihood”, “chance”, and “balance of probabilities”. As defined above, the probability is simply how likely an event is to happen. For instance, “a 70% chance of winning” can be interpreted as the chance of winning an election or winning a game is 70 percent or 0.7 while the opponent stands the chance of winning by 30 percent or 0.3. For example, if two candidates are contesting in an election say candidates A and B and it was predicted that candidate A has the probability of winning the election by 70%. This does not mean 70% of the electorates would vote for candidate A and candidate B would get votes from the remaining 30% of the electorates. Using probability theory, it means candidates A has the chance or possibility of winning the election 7 out of 10 times while candidate B has the possibility of winning the election 3 out of 10times.

In interpreting another probability statement “a one-in-five-hundred-year event”. This statement does not mean this event will only happen once in every 500years, rather means that the event has a 1-in-500 chance or likelihood of happening in any given year. For example, experiencing an earthquake in Canada can be considered as “a one-five-hundred-year event”.  This doesn’t mean Canada cannot experience another earthquake in 499 years assuming one happened last year, but it means the possibility or chance of Canada experiencing earthquake is 1-in-500 (0.002) time in a giving year.

The world we live in today is not the one where things always turn out exactly as we want them to or expect them to. To minimize this risk, the emphasis of policymakers should be centered on verifying hypotheses through rigorous analysis of data and ensure the result of such analysis are well presented without any ambiguity.  

United Nations Development Programme developed, calculated, and published annually since 1990 The Human Development Index (HDI) for various countries of the world. The objective of the HDI is to rank each country on a scale of human development conceptualized in terms of capabilities of humans within the countries to function. The concept of capabilities refers to what human beings can do and be, instead of on what they have, and is broadly conceived of as the abilities, the power of individuals to do certain things, to obtain what they desire, to achieve desired states of being, to utilize the resources they have in the way they desire and to be who they want to be.

Basically, the HDI as computed by United Nations Development Programme considered life expectancy at birth, expected years and mean years of schooling combined into a single education index, and living standards as measured by Gross National Income per capita as their indicators to measure each country well-being.

In my computation, I proposed three indicators which I believe should be the true measurement of well-being of a nation. These indicators are:

• Life expectancy at birth
• Internet users, total (% of population)
• Population using improved drinking-water sources (%)

I downloaded the 2015 indicators from the Human Development Data of United Nation National Development. I noticed some countries like Monaco, San Marino, Nauru etc figures were missing from the data I downloaded. I went ahead to compute the media value and filled the missing Data. I calculated index for each of the indicators. I went ahead to determine my proposed index which is the combination of the three indicators.

Find below the first 10 countries on HDI ranking as my sample, the HDI index as computed by United Nation Development programme and my proposed well-being index.   

HDI Rank (2017)	Country	Wellness Index	HDI
1	Norway	0.976	0.948
2	Switzerland	0.955	0.942
3	Australia	0.940	0.936
4	Ireland	0.918	0.929
5	Germany	0.932	0.933
6	Iceland	0.987	0.927
7	Hong Kong, China (SAR)	0.952	0.927
7	Sweden	0.958	0.929
9	Singapore	0.920	0.929
10	Netherlands	0.956	0.926

My proposed index is very close to the HDI presented. Some of my indicators were a bit higher than the HDI and I have few ones lower than the HDI as computed by the United Nation Development programme. This shows that my three indicators might be the best combination to determine the accurate well-being of a nation.

There is a consequence for every decision we make in life, this game justifies this statement. As an uber driver that has to make $1,000 profit every week to pay my mortgage. I started with the easier difficulty, this qualified me to live in a very big city (San Francisco), where I can achieve my dream and I also have good bank credit which made it cheaper for me to rent a car. The harder the difficulty, on the other hand, I have a bad credit rating, I can’t afford to live in a big city, I have to live in a smaller city with little opportunity. My credit rating also denied me the opportunity of renting a car at a cheaper rate. I simulated the two conditions to know my outcome.

I started with the easier difficulty, my first trip was not as good as I expected, I would have been very rude to my first passage because I waited for him for a few minutes before he showed up. If I put up a negative attitude or talk to him in a very harsh way, he might report me to uber. The consequence of this is either to get a negative rating or have my account suspended. This thought me to always very patient as it is likely to experience difficulty when a policy is formulated, or a program is launched, but it will surely frizzle out and back to normal. I picked up my passenger/client and was friendly with him. I was able to manage the situation.

I also have to make an important decision on the type of car to rent. I considered a lot of factors in settling for my choice. I looked at the fuel efficiency and the rental cost. This also thought me to evaluate all options, do the benefit/cost analysis before finally settling for the better/best alternative. I also bought all that I needed as a professional uber driver. I stopped at a point to eat. All these are regarded as input that would consequently produce output and outcome.

As I navigate through the city, I fixed my eyes on my outcome, which is to make an extra $1,000 at the end of the week to pay for my mortgage. I choose my alternative cause of action, I also considered my family and my health. I was able to help my child with his assignment while I also put him to sleep. The game also thought me to keep up to date records. As I navigate true the city, I got various updates on how to make more money but in a difficult circumstance.  I made sure I followed my instinct and stick to my regular and proven route. I also made sure I set my priority right. I couldn’t attend my friend’s birthday party because I was yet to make the required money. I would have attended it was on Sunday. I have made $1,097 on Saturday.

I saw uber as my employer even though the organization is virtual, I make sure I report all incident to them. This for transparency and openness. In my quest for making money and achieving my outcome, I made sure I obeyed rules and regulations even in a difficult situation. I tried to avoid anything that would make me go against the law which could be detrimental to achieving my outcome.

I was able to achieve my outcome at the end of the week using the easier difficulty version and also made additional cash. My statistic shows I drove for 68 hours, I completed 168 rides and my drive rating is 4.93. My total income is $1,528 ($1,198 for fares and tips, $180 for weekday quest bonus, $150 weekend quest bonus) My total expenses is $431 (Car rental $140, upgrades $156, fuel $105 and repair $30). My net income is $1097. I can pay for my mortgage with $97 extra.

I made $16.13/hr which is here than the minimum hourly wage in California.

The policy issue i noticed here is the health condition of the uber driver. I worked for the whole 7 days without taken a day off, this is not good for my health. The stat also shows that 87% of us didn’t take a day off. Government should look look into this and formulate a policy else more resources would be required in health sector to treat different illness in the nearest future.

The University of Regina does publish the total salaries of its staff that earn $100,000 and above yearly. This blog post analyzes the total salary for 2018 and 2019 as presented by the school authority. Just like public service, where employees that earn $50,000 and above are disclosed to the general public. This disclosure is to ensure transparency and accountability in the part of the University of Regina’s management. In pursuing this, the management also considers the risk involved and did not publish the salary of the employee that earn $100,000 and above who feel the disclosure of their salary could threaten their safety. This Spreadsheet  shows the published employees total salary for the year 2018 and 2019 and my analysis.

Column A and B on the spreadsheet represent the last name and the first name of the employees respectively. Column C is for 2018 salary while column D represents 2019 salary. Column E and F are for Administrative/Research stipend for 2018 and 2019 respectively. Column G and H are for the market supplement for 2018 and 2019 respectively while column I and J are total for salary for 2018 and 2019 which is the sum of salary column, Administrative/Research stipend column and Market supplement column. The University of Regina’s collective agreement defined salary as the amount payable by the university to its employee for performing his/her day-to-day duties and responsibilities. Academic staff members who hold an administrative appointment receive a payment called “stipend” In addition to their regular salaries and the amount of the stipend shall depend on the nature of the appointment, the scholar’s record, reputation, and degree of international recognition. Stipends shall be included in benefit calculations. Such payment is taxable and where no stipend is stipulated, the University shall consult with the Faculty Association to determine appropriate compensation. Market supplements, on the other hand, are paid when it can be demonstrated that competitive pressures in the academic market require such payments. The purpose of this payment is to assist in recruiting academic staff members into, or retaining members in, positions at the University. The total value of all market supplements paid to academic staff members shall not exceed two and one-half percent (2.5%) of the total salary budget (exclusive of market supplement payments) for members (excluding sessional). The University shall provide the Faculty Association once yearly with documentation verifying that the limit on market supplements is being respected and No supplement shall be granted for a period exceeding three years (though a supplement may subsequently be renewed subject to the provisions as stipulated in the collective agreement.

There was an error when a formula was used to calculate the 2018 and 2019 Total (Salary column + Administrative column + Market Supplement column). See column L and M in the Spreadsheet. I compared the new results I got with the 2018 and 2019 total given and I discovered there was a difference of $3,558 for Haidl Mark in 2019 Total. $133,255 was given for 2019 Total while my calculation produced $129,697. Mark’s administrative/supplement payment for 2019 was omitted from the data presented by University. This discovery made me doubt the completeness and accuracy of the data presented by the school authority. I sorted column L and M by amount, and I discovered, 73 employees received salary payment in 2019 but nothing was paid to them in 2018. This means, they were newly employed in 2019 or they agreed with the university that their salary could now be published by the school authority. 36 employees got paid in 2018 but no payment for them in 2019. It means these employees might have resigned their appointments or they no longer want their salary to be disclosed by the school authority because of their safety. 

The University paid a total of $63,265,758 and $69,203,654 for the year 2018 and 2019 respectively to the employees that earn $100,000 and above per annum. This represents a 9.4% increase in salary payment. The average salary payment for 2018 was $135,472.72 while $137,308.84 was average salary payment for 2019. The median salary payments were $130,005 and $131,807.50 for the year 2018 and 2019 respectively. The minimum salary paid in 2018 was $100,007 while $101,196 was paid as minimum salary in 2019. The maximum salary paid was $365,998 and $388,025 for the year 2018 and 2019 respectively.   The difference between the maximum and the minimum salary paid in 2018 was 2019 were $265, 991 and $286,829 respectively. All these figures for the year 2019 in these calculations are higher than the year 2018. This shows the University spent more on salary to employees that earn $100,000 and above in the year 2019.

The simple growth rate is 9.4% while the Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) is 4.6%. The simple growth rate is used to calculate how much growth occurs for a target variable while CAGR is the mean annual growth rate of something over a specified period longer than one year. CAGR is considered accurate when a longer period is been considered. In this analysis, the simple growth rate is the better measure because it only measures the growth rate between 2018 and 2019.

The average salary at the university between 2018 and 2019 did not decrease but rather increase. The average salary payment in 2018 was $135,472.72 while the average salary in 2019 was $137,308.84. The total salary paid in 2018 was $63,265,758 while the total salary payment in 2019 was $69,203,654.

My “Wish list” is column Q and R (Employees title and Employees unit/department/faculty.) The availability of Employee title information would have allowed me to know how much each class of employee earn per annum. For example, the total amount paid to all the professors, associate professors, assistant professors, lecturers, different Liberians, etc. The availability of this data would have allowed me to analyze how much each category of employees earned per annum or how much the university spent on each of the categories or titles. I would have loved to also know each of the employee’s unit/department/faculty. This data would have allowed me to analyze how much the university spends as salary for each of the units/departments or faculty.

The transparency and accountability objectives of open government push towards greater disclosure of information in the hands of the government. The principles of transparency and accountability require” public personal information” disclosure. Law and regulation also mandated such information to be made public. Examples of such information are political campaign contributions, public servant salary information, building or renovation permits, land titles information, etc. Publishing employee’s salary by the university is appropriate because salary information falls under public personal information. The public interest is being served by publishing the information. However, this personal information that is considered “public” must be used for the purpose it was originally collected.

Despite supporting the public disclosure of this information for transparency and accountability, I strongly against it being published online. The digital formats can go very fast and can be copied for an unintended purpose. I would prefer the disclosure to be in paper copy and make it available only in the library. The intended user would only visit the library to make use of the information for that particular purpose it was published.

The balance between privacy and transparency and accountability can be difficult to achieve. Individuals might request for the protection of their privacy by requesting the school authority not to disclose their salary if they fill such disclosure might expose them to danger.  However, the drawback to this policy is when the information is been requested to serve freedom of expression goals for example journalism, the law of not disclosure may not be applied.

Policies and programs are been formulated every day by the government being Federal, state/province or local/municipal government in order to positively affect the general public. The government evaluates several alternatives to solve a particular problem affecting the public. This is to ensure that the better or best alternative is implemented because the government has a lot of social problems to solve with limited resources hence, the policy/program with higher/highest Benefit-cost ratio is been selected. This evaluation is only possible if the government have access to reliable information called data. This data is only useful to make an informed decision when they are fully analyzed. A good policy is made when we consider several alternatives. The analyzed data of costs and benefits of each alternatives are compared and the one with higher/highest benefit-cost ratio is finally selected.

Another area of public administration where statistical analysis is important is budget preparation. Budget can be defined as an estimate of income and expenditure for a particular period of time which is usually called a fiscal year. The importance of analytical data in budget preparation cannot be overemphasized. Statistical analysis is required when anticipating income to be generated and expenditure to be incurred in the coming year. Government establishments now employ forecasting and modeling in their budget preparation and this is only possible when they make use of analytical data.  

Finally, statistical analysis is also important in determining the effectiveness of a policy/program. Data collected are analyzed for performance measurement purposes. Policy/program is measured to determine the progress of such policy/program and for continuous improvement.  Programs that are not performing are discontinued while we continue to improve on the performing ones. All these are made possible with the help of statistical analysis.

Organizational culture is defined as the underlying beliefs, assumptions, values and ways of interacting that contribute to the unique social and psychological environment of an organization. Culture is a system of shared values (defining what is important) and norms (defining appropriate attitudes and behaviors)

Four types of Organizational structure

• Clan oriented cultures are family-like, with a focus on mentoring, nurturing, and “doing things together.

• Adhocracy oriented cultures are dynamic and entrepreneurial, with a focus on risk-taking, innovation, and “doing things first.

• Market oriented cultures are results-oriented, with a focus on competition, achievement, and “getting the job done.

• Hierarchy oriented cultures are structured and controlled, with a focus on efficiency, stability and “doing things right.”

Why CEOs’ Fail?

CEOs failed when they were unable to fully execute their strategy. Contrary to what industrial economists have been telling us for years—that firms with well-formulated and hard-to-imitate business strategies emerge as the winners. Firms whose strategies were merely reasonable but were executed fully could be the most successful. This shifts the whole ideas from strategy formulation to strategy execution.

Why is Organizational culture powerful?

Culture is all about Strategy execution:

• Organization succeed when there is alignment between their culture and strategy
• How clearly employees understand the culture
• How intensely they feel about it.

Why’s culture important?

Strong cultures enhance organizational performance.

• Strong culture improves performance by energizing employees—appealing to their higher ideals and values and rallying them around a set of meaningful, unified goals.
• Strong cultures boost performance by shaping and coordinating employees’ behavior

Criteria for using culture as a leadership tool

There are three criteria that must be satisfied for culture to be used as leadership tools.

• Strategically relevant: An effective culture is closely related to business strategy. Indeed, a culture cannot be crafted until an organization has first developed its business strategy
• Strong: This is based on high levels of agreement among employees about what’s valued and high levels of intensity about these values.
• Innovation and change: create an environment where publicly raising creative ideas is acceptable and rewarded socially.

Formal Versus Social Control: The power of share Norms

• Norms – legitimate, socially shared standards against which the appropriateness of behavior can be evaluated – are the psychological bases of culture.
• Norms influence how members perceive and interact with one another, approach decisions, and solve problems.
• Norms are distinct from rules, which are formal, codified directives. The concept of norms also implies social control – that is, norms act as positive or negative means of ensuring conformity and applying sanctions to deviant behavior.
• Group norms shaped employee’s behavior more powerfully than either monetary rewards or physical work environments.
• The problem is that relying on formal rules, policies, and procedures will not result in outstanding anything, be it customer service, innovation, or quality.

Leadership versus Culture

The irony of leadership through culture is that the less formal direction you give employees about how to execute strategy, the more ownership they take over their actions and the better they perform. The simple statement like” use your good judgement in all situations” or “do what it takes to make the Customer happy” can do the magic. Employees have to be freed up from rules in order to deliver fully on strategic objectives; they have to understand the ultimate strategic goals and the norms through which they can be successfully achieved, and they must care about reaching those goals and what their coworkers will think of them if they don’t. A leader does not have to spend time looking over the shoulder of his/her followers and can, instead, focus on the really important work of leadership: planning for the next strategic challenge and supporting employees so they can do an outstanding job.

Managerial tools for leveraging culture for performance

• Recruiting and Selecting People for Culture Fit: This is achieve using the 3Rs (Recruits, recruiters and recruiting process)
• Socialization and Training
• Reward

                           The inherent risk in leading through Culture

Leading through culture can set leaders up to be vulnerable to a problem created by a series of psychological processes. Leaders need to uphold their commitment to their culture even in the most trying times. Leaders who emphasize cultural values should expect employees to interpret those values by adding their own layers of meaning to them. Over time, an event inevitably occurs that puts leaders at risk of being viewed as acting inconsistently with the very values he or she has espoused. When leaders behave in ways that appear to violate espoused organizational values, employees conclude that the leader is personally failing to “walk the talk.” In short, organization members perceive hypocrisy and replace their hard-won commitment with performance-threatening cynicism.

                               Relevance to Public Sector Management

• Organizational culture is too important to leave to chance; all levels of government must use their culture to fully execute their strategy and inspire innovation. Culture is all about implementation of the strategy, a well-formulated government strategy must be well implemented so as to bring benefits to the public.
• Leaders in government ministries, departments and agencies can leverage on strong organizational culture by not looking over the shoulders of their followers and can, instead, focus on the really important work of leadership: planning for the next strategic challenge and supporting employees so they can do an outstanding job.
  

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton