Salgo: Trudeau missed his chance to reshape the public service

Most governments do not want to invest valuable political capital in public service reform given the complexity of the public service, relative lack of public interest, pushback from pressure groups, and long timelines:

…The real failures of the Trudeau government vis-à-vis the public service have been ones of omission.

Public servants face a host of problems — outdated structures and hierarchies; too much accountability for process and too little for outcomes; and a failure to keep pace with modern skill sets and digital service capabilities — that don’t seem to have interested the prime minister much. Nor did he ever revisit the more questionable elements of Harper’s Accountability Act.

In fairness, the government’s early focus on the systematic delivery of identified priorities (so-called deliverology) initially held out some promise that public servants could focus more on outcomes. But the initiative seems to have fizzled out under a heavy paper burden, an indiscriminate sea of “priorities” and an underdeveloped sense of irony.

Of course, the failure to modernize during these years must also be laid at the doorstep of the public service leadership. Still, the government of the day plays an important role in shaping that leadership, its goals and the management policies under which it operates.

The Trudeau government’s most conspicuous legacy to the public service was to expand it massively during COVID. Was this good or bad? As Ho Chi Minh said of the French Revolution, it’s too early to tell, but a looming retrenchment suggests that the hiring went at least a little overboard.

And in addition to being hugely expensive, the expansion was strikingly non-strategic, arguably even haphazard. The Treasury Board’s equity, diversity and inclusion initiatives did reflect a kind of vision for the public service, but it had more to do with the government’s broader social agenda than a rethinking of what the bureaucracy does.

The government missed yet another opportunity to forge a new kind of public service in the post-COVID period. While in formal terms it left issues like return-to-office to the bureaucracy itself, the senior public service was as mindful of optics as the government could have wished. Public servants have no inherent right to work remotely, but it would have been nice to have data on functional matters such as productivity before decisions were taken.

And while public servants got respectable raises under Trudeau, the government didn’t exactly roll over when public sector unions went on strike in the wake of inflation and a return-to-office mandate. While it worked out a deal with PSAC in 2023, it has since proved willing to put the collective bargaining process to one side, undoubtedly in keeping with the sentiments of most Canadians.

All things considered, the Trudeau years amount to rather thin gruel for anyone who hoped for public service transformation. But these may yet look like halcyon days if a new and cost-conscious government arrives with a limited store of patience and a willingness to put a few agenda-friendly officials in place.

Source: Salgo: Trudeau missed his chance to reshape the public service