Source: The Cranbrook Daily Townsman                        Date: 17 February, 2011

Canadian Member of Parliament Jim Abbott was approached last year by the President of the Canada Public Service Commission to assist in helping Mongolia reform and expand its own public service. He recently returned home from Mongolia after a round of discussions on the project. The Public Service Commission of Canada (PSC) is an independent agency reporting to Parliament, mandated to safeguard the integrity of the public service staffing system and non-partisanship of the public service.

"We're helping Mongolia reform and build capacity of its public service," Mr. Abbott has said in a newspaper interview. He explained that, for historical reasons, the current system of bureaucracy in that country is based on the Russian "command economy" model, which has proven not up to the task in dealing with a new impetus for resource development. There are great reserves of mineral resources in Mongolia, Mr. Abbott explained. Extraction and marketing of such resources could greatly enhance Mongolia's gross national product and over-all standard of living. Properly developing these resources, however, is proving problematic due to the inefficiency of Mongolia's bureaucracy. "One of the major bugbears for mining companies is getting a permit," Mr. Abbott said, as an example. "Applications filled out in detail will languish, sometimes for years."

In the fall of 2010, the PSC signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Civil Service Council of Mongolia to share information and expertise with them. "They see Canada's human resources management practices as the model for their reforms," according to statement from Ms. Maria Barrados, President of the PSC, who approached Mr. Abbott to assist on the political side of the project.

"They were going to have to create models," Mr. Abbott said. "My job was to help create the political will to help the Mongolian government understand why they should be providing the assets, the dollars and the personnel to help the civil service develop these models." Developing a stable regulatory environment and investment climate is the first step towards modernizing Mongolia's economy, certainly as concerns stewardship of its natural resources, he said. "They have to come up with models fort the permitting process, labor standards, environmental issues, transportation.."

While the project to create a professional and non-partisan public service in Mongolia will be of great benefit to that country, Mr. Abbott says it ultimately is of consequence to his constituents, as “40 per cent of the TSX is share equity in mines or mining exploration and development. Everybody's pensions, even CPP, are directly related to equity.  What happens to the (global) mining industry has a direct affect on the community."