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The Conservative government is examining a whole new business model to effectively buy, sell and use the time and skills of federal employees: Meet the BURO-crat.

The government has been planning a pilot project at some federal agencies that would apply “market principles” to more efficiently use federal bureaucrats and help smooth out busy and slow work periods, according to government records.

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The three-year pilot project is based on a model called “The Buro,” which the government explains is “like the Euro for bureaucrats,” according to a presentation deck prepared for the federal government’s deputy ministers’ committee on policy innovation. (The Euro is the currency used by many European Union countries.)

The Buro concept, which would face its first test at the government’s regional economic agencies, would “establish an electronic market and currency (the Buro) to allow bureaucrats to ‘sell’ their time to each other in a pinch,” say the documents, obtained by the Ottawa Citizen using the access to information law.