ICYMI: Mistrust between bureaucrats and politicians bad for Canada: survey

Interesting survey. Above chart I found particularly striking and worrisome.

While it is unlikely that a new incoming government will be much more trusting and reliant on public servants for broader policy advice given some of the macro-trends at play, some of the more fundamental distrust and ideology regarding the role of government may improve the relationship:

About 66 per cent of Canadians think public servants should “actively” provide expert advice and recommend policies, compared to the 18 per cent who say their job is simply to implement the desires of politicians. This view is evident across the country but is strongest among older, more educated people and higher-income earners.

And nearly three-quarters of those asked believe the best policies would come from a “collaborative” working relationship between public servants and politicians. Only 10 per cent believe “tension” would generate better policy.

The survey provides Canadians’ perspective on an issue that has been hotly debated in Ottawa for several decades, as power shifted to the Prime Minister’s Office and public servants lost their onetime monopoly on providing advice to ministers.

The findings are also at odds with the view of the current Conservative government, which, after nearly a decade in power, doesn’t particularly trust the public service and sometimes finds its advice obstructionist.

Public servants complain their advice isn’t actively sought or is ignored if offered on big issues and direction. They say ministers come to the table with ready-made policies that public servants are told to implement. The rising stars among public servants are issue-managers and fixers, not big-idea thinkers.

This view of policy advice was recently illustrated when Finance Minister Joe Oliver gave a $550-million tax cut to the small-business lobby without his department — once the bureaucracy’s crème de la crème of policy analysts — conducting any analysis of its own.

…Maryantonett Flumian, president of the Institute on Governance, said she commissioned the survey to determine how Canadians feel their governments serve them.

She said the findings suggest Canadians still support a parliamentary democracy even though Canada has drifted towards a “Washminister” system — the name used for a hybrid of Washington’s presidential and Britain’s Westminster systems of responsible government.

“We see a mismatch in expectations and outcome from all the players: politicians, public servants, citizens, and we wanted to see how Canadians viewed this,” she said, “and they think the spirit of co-operation would have better outcomes and they understand who is accountable: the people who form the government and make the decisions,”

Although Canadians expect public servants to have a policy advisory role, they don’t necessarily think public servants of the future should have more influence on managing departments and agencies than they do now. About 28 per cent say they should have more influence; 17 per cent said less and 34 per cent were in the middle, happy with the status quo.

Mistrust between bureaucrats and politicians bad for Canada: survey | Ottawa Citizen.