Wolfson and Castle: Ottawa’s new health funding is tied to better data. What will that really mean?

2023/02/14 Leave a comment

Good data discussion on outputs vs outcome measures, with the latter harder to measure but more important:

The federal government has just offered the provinces and territories substantial new funding to address the obvious failings in Canada’s health care sector. They have also rightly coupled reform with major improvements in health data collection, including the need for new and better indicators to measure progress. As Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has repeatedly said, “What gets measured gets done.”

But as with all data, the devil is in the details.

What exactly are health outcomes? Are they the same as health indicators? How will they be measured, and how can we ensure they are reported meaningfully and transparently for all Canadians? And most importantly: Will new health data meaningfully improve health care for Canadians?

In health care, for example, indicators can include the percentages of Canadians who have access to a family care team and the number of new family care practitioners; in fact, these are two of the indicators specified by the federal government. But while these are valuable, neither measures a health outcome. Instead, these indicators provide information on volume and accessibility for a key input in health care, namely primary care.

To the extent that these indicators can provide more detail – for example, by ethnicity or socioeconomic status, which should be essential lenses – they can shed light on important issues of equity and timeliness of health care. And as these indicators are tracked over time, they can provide a partial picture of whether health care is improving.

But health-outcome measures go beyond indicators, and require more detailed kinds of data.

A health outcome needs to consider a patient’s health status both before and after an intervention, such as a knee replacement or cataract surgery. It’s not just the waiting lists that matter; we also need to know how often a knee replacement has to be redone within a short period of time, or how frequently a cataract surgery fails to improve vision as much as anticipated.

Regularly measuring these kinds of health outcomes is fundamental to learning how well different parts of health care are performing, and whether we are receiving quality health care in the most cost-effective manner.

So how does this understanding of outcomes align with the federal government’s proposed “indicators” and data initiatives requirement? Short answer: we don’t know.

Provinces and territories have control over what health care data are routinely collected. For example, if we really want to know about health outcomes related to primary care, we first need to understand the various ways primary care is currently delivered – whether by solo fee-for-service doctors, or by teams, which include nurse practitioners as well as physicians who are remunerated by capitation, or some other model.

There is enough variety in primary care delivery across Canada that it should be possible to learn what works best by careful and probing comparisons across and within jurisdictions.

We then need to follow samples of individuals over time, to track which mode of primary care organization has patients with fewer illnesses, fewer hospitalizations and longer lives.

It is only with these kinds of longitudinal, person-level data that we’ll be able to produce evidence on which we can base valid indicators of health outcomes, and connect them to jurisdictions’ current and evolving ways of providing primary care to their residents.

Will the provinces collaborate, agree on standardized definitions and, with federal financial support, make the investments needed so these critical data become available? The federal government’s wording on this is ambiguous: “To access their share of the federal funding, including the guaranteed 5 per cent growth top-up payments to the CHT, for the next five years, provincial and territorial governments are asked to commit to improve how health information is collected, shared, used and reported to Canadians to promote greater transparency on results.”

Is this general statement merely cajoling, or is the federal government actually waving a serious fiscal stick? That will ultimately dictate the data outcome, because past decades of federal initiatives have repeatedly shown that if Ottawa fails to wield meaningful fiscal penalties, the momentum on serious health care reform is bound to face disappointment.

Michael Wolfson is a former assistant chief statistician at Statistics Canada and an adjunct professor in the faculties of medicine and law at the University of Ottawa. David Castle is professor of public administration at the University of Victoria. They both served on the Expert Advisory Group of the Pan-Canadian Health Data Strategy convened by the Public Health Agency of Canada.

Source: Ottawa’s new health funding is tied to better data. What will that really mean?

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Lynch and Mitchell: Instead of adding new programs, Ottawa should focus on proper delivery of the ones it has

2023/02/14 Leave a comment

Likely a perennial refrain among officials having to respond to political-level demands but valid nevertheless as capacity limits of the public service in areas such as passports, immigration and others have become painfully apparent post-pandemic.

Of course, one of the ironies of former DMs and ADMs raising these issues is that the vast majority rose up through the policy ranks, helping governments introduce new programs, rather than in service or delivery!

And one should not underestimate the difficulty of briefing the political level against a particular initiative or program based on service delivery grounds:

Most Canadians expect value for money in their spending, especially in these uncertain and inflationary times. With worker shortages, empty offices, supply chain woes, high energy prices, soaring inflation and painful accommodation costs, Canadian consumers are worried about their financial health.

But what about governments? Are they delivering value for Canadians’ hard-earned tax dollars? For anyone seeking a passport or visa, lining up for airport security screening, trying to get a Nexus card, waiting for a routine medical procedure or watching government procurement systems that cannot deliver payroll, the answer is unambiguously negative.

Core government services are not being delivered well today, and this not only erodes confidence in government as an institution – it also undermines productivity and competitiveness in the Canadian economy.

What are the causes? While there is no single answer, it is clearly not due to a shortage of spending, public servants, consultants or debt. At the federal level from 2015 to 2022, the size of the public service grew by 30 per cent, the use of consultants shot up 40 per cent, government spending skyrocketed by 66 per cent and government debt almost doubled. In short, the size of government expanded, considerably, while the efficiency of government declined, noticeably – not a good combination.

In fact, the stratospheric and scattered spending is one root cause of the delivery problem.

Before, during and since the pandemic, the federal government has unleashed a vast array of new programs. New program delivery is complex and time-consuming work, requiring highly capable, experienced and empowered public servants. Indeed, “delivery” is the nuts and bolts of policy implementation and program operations – it encompasses the design of new programs, the stress testing of the design to avoid unintended consequences, ensuring robust IT and data systems to support the program, the hiring and training of staff, establishing quality control and compliance systems, and communicating to the intended beneficiaries how the program works.

There is a risk of moral hazard here – as governments try to do more and more, they may end up achieving less and less. The problem arises from the scale, scope and speed of new spending. Too many new programs, with too little prioritization, that are too quickly rushed to the “press release stage” is a recipe for delivery problems, not only of the new programs but also related existing programs on common platforms.

Today’s reality of government not being particularly good at actually delivering things – both core services and new programs – should be a matter of concern well beyond the Ottawa bubble. If you believe what government does matters to Canadian society and the economy, as we do, then less-than-stellar delivery of government services neither serves the public interest nor bolsters the public’s trust in our institutions of government.

What can be done? Like any complex problem, there is no single solution, but four possible actions deserve serious consideration.

First, pause the proliferation of new spending and new programs. This is needed to restore operational integrity and program delivery capacity as well as to support fiscal sustainability in a period of high inflation, high interest rates and high debt. And yet, the risk today is a proliferation of new government programs and the scaling up of existing ones ranging from new industrial policies to new energy transition programs, national dental care and pharmacare, new health transfers, increases in defence spending and expanded immigration. Whatever the policy merits of these proposed initiatives, this is simply not the time to expand government. Rather, it’s the time to refocus on meeting the expectations of Canadians for quality and timely delivery of government services.

Second, reverse the extreme centralization of decision-making within government. This is necessary for better governance as well as better program delivery. Too much decision making has been vested in the Prime Minister’s Office at the expense of ministers, cabinet and Parliament. Ministerial accountability and collective decision making, with fearless advice from an empowered, non-partisan public service, are central to our Westminster system of government. The sad fact is we have strayed far from that guiding ideal.

Third, modernize the architecture of compliance and oversight within government. This requires a profound shift from an operating culture of control and risk avoidance to one of innovation, risk taking and delegation. In the name of protecting the taxpayer, there is a compliance morass pervading government today, with overlapping oversight bodies, excessive red tape and needless reporting – all of which impedes getting things done and delivered.

Fourth, invest in the public service. This is not a call for a larger public service but a better equipped one. The public service needs the IT and data systems that allowed the banks to develop online banking and companies like Amazon to revolutionize delivery. It needs the skill sets for a digital world not an analog one, and should engage consultants as the exception not the rule. The public service should be an exciting place to work, empowering public servants to make a difference and attracting the best and brightest – and public servants are up to the challenge.

Better service delivery is in everyone’s interest. These changes would result in a higher-performing, more productive public sector. That should be part of Canada’s competitive advantage in a challenging world.

Kevin Lynch was clerk of the Privy Council and vice-chair of BMO. Jim Mitchell is an adjunct professor at Carleton University and a former assistant secretary to the cabinet.

Source: Instead of adding new programs, Ottawa should focus on proper delivery of the ones it has

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Wernick: The never-ending question of contracting in the public service

2023/02/13 Leave a comment

Interesting how some former clerks remain silent in retirement and others like Wernnick, play a useful public role in sharing their reflections over the unsolved (and perhaps unsolvable) systemic issues of government and governing:

Over the last few months, we have seen a rising tide of interest in the use of contracted services by the federal government. The latest episode seems to have crystallized around the use of consulting firms, notably McKinsey & Company. It has triggered another round of partisan squabbling at a parliamentary committee and the pack of journalists who cover politics are piling on, unsure of what narrative is the most important.

It is not clear what “theory of the case,” if any, is driving the current flap. At its simplest, the Opposition and the media are drilling wells hoping for a political gusher. Can they find something untoward in the contracting process? Can they find something troubling in the relationship with a particular supplier? Can you show poor value for money? If they can’t find proof of anything untoward, a stream of insinuation can still generate political rewards.

The more interesting angles to this are about whether the use of outside contractors is a sign of weakening capacity by the public service, at least the federal version, or augurs of a dangerous dependency. That is far from clear as a diagnostic and, once again, the point would be what tangible actions anyone is prepared to take to do something about it. For me, the issue is not whether to use outside suppliers of services, but how to use them to best effect.

There is nothing new about governments at every level acquiring services from outside suppliers, and no iron rule to lean on as to whether work is best done by public servants or contractors. It is a matter of judgment, informed by business choices around cost, timeliness and quality, and by ideological preferences about the role of the state.

There are three ways to get a flow of work done: by permanent public servants; by temporary public servants (term appointments, casuals, seasonal workers, students); or by outside contractors. The first two fall under “staffing” policies and processes, while the third falls under “procurement and contracting.” All three generate costs for the government. These days, Ottawa spends roughly $50 billion on its public service and $15 billion on contracted services. Is that mix the right one? If you want to dampen or cut government spending, which should be cut more deeply?

Permanent public servants are expensive, carrying a premium beyond their salaries in terms of benefits and future pension costs. They are difficult to move around and almost impossible to terminate for poor performance. They are entangled in a complex web of collective agreements and human resource mechanisms. They do however bring experience, expertise, loyalty, engagement and an orientation to the public interest, as opposed to short-term profit. The smart business choice is often to build up and develop sustainable capacity within a public service entity.

But the truth – uncomfortable for some – is that sometimes it makes more sense to go to an outside supplier where a pool of expertise resides. Just as the private sector does, it often makes sense for governments to outsource services, whether they are ongoing or related to a specific project with finite time frames. A large consideration is matching supply to demand.

The federal government is actually more than 300 distinct entities, most of them small, working on a vast array of tasks and projects. It would make little sense for each of them to build up permanent staff and cost structures to deal with the episodic need for some kinds of work. That is why there is a range of internal service providers such as Public Services and Procurement Canada, Shared Services Canada and the Translation Bureau. It is also why bringing in outside firms often makes sense.

It is commonplace and relatively uncontroversial now for governments to contract building maintenance and security, to retain external auditors and to hire legal counsel with specific skills. The federal government contracts translators and interpreters for specific events or tasks. It contracts communications firms to develop and place advertising, and to conduct market research to find out what users and citizens are thinking. I can recall a period of controversy about using temporary help agencies for administrative work.

As governments have moved more and more of their transactional and information services to the web and phone apps – while chasing rising expectations for speed, accuracy, cybersecurity and personalization – they have turned to firms that work with large private sector clients around the world that are wrestling with similar challenges. At their best, these firms help upgrade both the hardware and software of government technology, and train public servants to work with whatever is the emerging toolkit.

The pressure to continuously improve externally facing services and the internal services that support them make it sensible to retain firms that have worked with other governments and with private sector firms on queue management, customer relationship interfaces, customization of offerings, and protection of privacy and security. It is simply not true that public servants could keep up all by themselves. Nor is it true that all the people with the skills and knowledge needed by governments want to become public servants. Nor is it true that private firms always do good work – as we saw with the Phoenix pay system and with some apps, such as ArriveCAN – or do it at less cost.

What seems to be troubling some observers is the use of “management consultants,” which is a very elastic term. At their best, firms can offer an outside perspective on business processes, internal governance, organizational maturity, costing, risk management and other management issues. They can draw on international networks and expertise gained from working with a range of clients. For the public sector, they can be a useful antidote to inertia and the culture of “but that is the way we have always done things.”

The private sector uses external advisers extensively. I worked with several ministers who were highly sceptical of public service advice and insisted on running the issue by an outside firm with a big reputation before taking a decision. During spending reviews, ministers reflexively turn to outside advisers because they assume, with some justification, that the public service won’t be willing to challenge itself or consider new approaches.

The current McKinsey episode has surfaced concerns that advisory firms are starting to play a bigger role in decisions about policy – the “what” government chooses to do, as opposed to “how” it does it. It has also raised concerns that the public sector can become too dependent on outside firms with a profit motive and an interest in generating future work and billings. These are valid topics for scrutiny. Public service unions make valid arguments about the potential exploitation of gig workers with little job security or benefits at these outside firms. But there are valid arguments for using outside suppliers that can’t be dismissed as mindless privatization.

The boundaries between insourcing and outsourcing have always generated controversy. Can we use these brief periods of attention to do something about it beyond scoring short-term points?

The politicians and pundits who now argue for less use of external advisers should commit themselves in action or argument to a doubling of the resources allocated to training public servants and to a much expanded program for interchange of permanent staff between the public service, and the private and not-for-profit sectors. They should also endorse greatly expanding the resources used to acquire outside perspective and fresh ideas from the supply chain of think tanks and academic centres.

To be an intelligent buyer getting value for money for taxpayers and citizens, the public service must always invest in its leadership cadre, in its capacity in vendor management, in project management, and in its processes to onboard and internalize the skills and knowledge that working with outside advisors can provide. It should be possible to create a positive feedback loop and learning cycle that makes the public service better.

Source: The never-ending question of contracting in the public service

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Australia’s central bank says it will remove the British monarchy from its bank notes

2023/02/03 Leave a comment

Of note. The easiest change without any constitutional issues, removing the Monarch from bank notes, coins and stamps:

Australia is removing the British monarchy from its bank notes.

The nation’s central bank said Thursday its new $5 bill would feature an Indigenous design rather than an image of King Charles III. But the king is still expected to appear on coins.

The $5 bill was Australia’s only remaining bank note to still feature an image of the monarch.

The bank said the decision followed consultation with the government, which supported the change. Opponents say the move is politically motivated.

The British monarch remains Australia’s head of state, although these days that role is largely symbolic. Like many former British colonies, Australia is debating to what extent it should retain its constitutional ties to Britain.

Australia’s Reserve Bank said the new $5 bill would feature a design to replace a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, who died last year. The bank said the move would honor “the culture and history of the First Australians.”

“The other side of the $5 banknote will continue to feature the Australian parliament,” the bank said in a statement.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the change was an opportunity to strike a good balance.

“The monarch will still be on the coins, but the $5 note will say more about our history and our heritage and our country, and I see that as a good thing,” he told reporters in Melbourne.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton likened the move to changing the date of the national day, Australia Day.

“I know the silent majority don’t agree with a lot of the woke nonsense that goes on but we’ve got to hear more from those people online,” he told 2GB Radio.

Dutton said Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was central to the decision for the king not to appear on the note, urging him to “own up to it.”

The bank plans to consult with Indigenous groups in designing the $5 note, a process it expects will take several years before the new note goes public.

The current $5 will continue to be issued until the new design is introduced and will remain legal tender even after the new bill goes into circulation.

The face of King Charles III is expected to be seen on Australian coins later this year.

One Australian dollar is worth about 71 cents in U.S. currency.

Source: Australia’s central bank says it will remove the British monarchy from its bank notes

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Head: Focus on service delivery, not where bureaucrats’ work is done

2023/01/26 Leave a comment

Good column as service delivery is the poor cousin to policy and program development. And the TBS office return policy seems driven more by bureaucratic and political concerns than service delivery and outcomes:

I continue to be intrigued by the ongoing debate about the in-office work regime going on between the Treasury Board and federal public service unions. I want to say up front that both sides are entitled to their views and perspectives about what is required, and there are some legitimate arguments to be made on both sides. However, neither the Treasury Board nor the unions have focused on the needs of Canadians.

Most Canadians continue to be concerned about the access, quality, timeliness, and cost of services that are provided by the federal public service. There is no question that these elements have become more important since the onset of the pandemic. Consequently, where a public service employee performs their work is the least important issue for the public as opposed to the quality of the services received in an easily accessible and timely manner that does not create any additional costs to taxpayers.

There have been many examples in the media where the level of access and the quality of services have been at a standard that is unacceptable to Canadians and does not reflect experiences in previous years. While certain departments have established service delivery standards, those standards are not being met on a regular basis or are being changed to reflect the reality that has developed since 2020. One just has to phone some of the federal service agencies today only to be put on hold for lengthy periods of time. If you are lucky enough to get through to a service agent, you are likely to experience frustration because the quality of the phone connection is poor for a multitude of reasons, or the agent is not versed enough to deal with the issue being raised and you have to be put on hold again for a lengthy period time while being transferred to a more senior agent.

It is clear that some of these issues are directly related to federal public service employees working from home. The equipment they are using is not appropriate for providing the quality of service Canadians expect. As well, many service agents sound like they are working in a tin can. It is also not uncommon to be distracted by the background noise at the home of the service agent. In addition, public service employees do not have ready access to their expert network to assist with more complicated issues being raised by Canadians. These are not isolated issues as they are recurring examples of Canadians’ experiences dealing with the Canada Revenue Agency, the passport office, Service Canada agents, Veterans’ Affairs Canada, etc.

While these issues are real and significant, they are not insurmountable. Addressing these and other issues related to access, quality, and timeliness of services will truly make the discussion about where the services are provided a moot point. While this will require strong, effective leadership from the Treasury Board and all government departments, it also requires the unions to recognize that while the needs of employees are important, they do not trump the needs of Canadians.

Moving forward, there needs to be a major reformulation of the delivery of services to Canadians which reflects emerging and evolving societal needs, and how and when taxpayers access government services. While federal public service employees’ needs have evolved, so have the needs of Canadians. Accessing services between Monday and Friday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., with no access on federal statutory holidays or weekends, is a construct of the past. The evolving work-life balance needs of Canadian families must drive a new vision for service delivery in the federal public sector. This requires developing a service delivery model that is responsive, flexible, and adaptive to the evolving and changing dynamics of Canadian families.

Where these services are delivered from is a factor for consideration, but it is not the primary decision-making point. Any decisions regarding in-office hybrid models must be seen as an interim solution until a new, reformulated service delivery model is defined by the needs of Canadians and developed in a collaborative manner. Tinkering with one element of the terms and conditions of employment of public service employees while ignoring the need to evolve the basic service delivery model for Canadians will only lead to greater deterioration of support and confidence in the federal public service overall.

There is no question the Treasury Board and the unions must work together in moving forward on the larger agenda with constant and direct input from citizens. Tackling the service delivery model will truly instill greater confidence in Canadians that government services are accessible, timely, cost efficient, and of the highest quality. The definition of a new model will then logically lead to the development of meaningful dialogue and solutions between the Treasury Board and unions in relation to the needs of public service employees including their work locations, hours of work, compensation, and overall work-life balance.

There is no question that the pandemic and its effect on Canadians and the federal public service have actually created a unique opportunity. The time is now for reformulating, revitalizing, and reinvigorating the federal public service delivery model for the next decade and beyond—but it will only occur with determined commitment, dedicated collaboration, and effective leadership.

Don Head had a 40-year career in the public service, beginning in 1978. From 2008 until he retired in 2018, Head was the commissioner of the Correctional Service Canada and served on various deputy minister-level committees that were actively involved in various aspects of public service delivery. Head currently assists the Aleph Institute, which is a non-profit Jewish organization dedicated to assisting and caring for the well-being of members of specific populations that are isolated from the regular community.

Source: Focus on service delivery, not where bureaucrats’ work is done

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Wernick: The pull and push of the centre that haunts the public service

2023/01/26 Leave a comment

Of note (my experience with Service Canada and the shift from initial ambition to provide a cross government platform for service delivery to returning to the more narrow focus on ESDC programs, with passports being an exception, is emblematic of the currents):

The federal public sector has been shaped by two easily identifiable democratic forces – the views of the people we elect about the role of the state in society and the economy as well as the federal government’s role within the federation. Federal institutions, direct programs and transfers to other levels of government have waxed and waned in response to these two forces and the public service has constantly adapted.

There is a third force that get far less attention but has driven fierce debates and waves of change initiatives within the public service itself. This third force is the ongoing tension between two perspectives. One sees the federal public service as a coherent entity that requires consistency, mobility and portability. The other argues for a public service that has more autonomy and flexibility for both the managers and their organizations. You can always find proponents of both camps and often it’s seen through the lens of “centralizing” or “decentralizing.” The debate is likely to go on forever.

Since 1970 the federal government has had a central management board – Treasury Board ministers and the Treasury Board Secretariat (TBS). It is the guardian of a wide swath of policies governing financial management, internal controls, risk management, human resources, information management, asset management, contracting, real property, transfer payments, and more. It makes it the vortex where both centralizing and decentralizing viewpoints meet. I have been part of countless committees and task forces over the years where they clashed.

Recently this tension has been revealed in heated discussions of post-pandemic workplaces. Should the “centre” impose consistency on hybrid-work arrangements or leave the discretion to individual deputy heads who could in turn delegate decisions further down in their organizations? The policy that came out tries to have it both ways, creating a common framework but leaving a lot of flexibility within it.

This debate about workplaces will continue in collective bargaining. That’s a centralizing process for drafting common rules and standards to apply across multiple organizations. The approach to collective bargaining in the Canadian public service is a choice to centralize bargaining and put it in the hands of a few specialists on each side, while other countries may let each department bargain by itself.

For many years there have been regular updates from the TBS to guide externally facing services. The 2000 policy was updated in 2014 and again in 2020. Service Canada was created in 2005 to create a single point of access for a range of key programs. Norms have been applied across all federal entities to ensure bilingual programming and more recently to ensure services meet the needs of persons with disabilities.

The drive toward coherence built upon the Federal Identity Program has evolved since the 1970s to bring greater order to signage and other visual identifiers. Successive governments have brought ever greater central control on paid advertising by federal entities. By now you are familiar with the Canada wordmark and jingle.

The most recent update of service policies includes a heavy emphasis on “digital.” The ongoing shift to digital platforms regularly triggers a fresh wave of debate along the age-old centralist/decentralist axis. Shared Services Canada was created in 2011 to upgrade information technology infrastructure and keep ahead of the rising threats of cybersecurity breaches. It was overtly centralist in intention.

At the time it was resisted, openly or passive-aggressively, by some managers in the largest organizations. They argued that they needed to retain control of their IT to be able to innovate. Frankly, I was never persuaded how hundreds of organizations could manage the transition to digital separately – including cloud computing, cyberhacking by foreign actors and the shift to hybrid work during the pandemic. How would it ever work in practice? This is one area where a centralist approach makes sense.

Indeed, I have argued elsewhere that the failure to be as rigorous on information management behind the digital agenda is starting to show up elsewhere. The TBS should pay more attention to the disparate state of information and records management across the public service.

The landmark Federal Accountability Act of 2006 subtly strengthened the decentralist camp. By clarifying the “buck stops here” accountability of deputy heads, it bolstered the hand of those who would argue some version of “if I am accountable, I have to have full decision making authority over…”

Another line of argument used by the decentralist camp was the need for flexibility and customization, or the need to innovate. They argued that decentralizing was more conducive to innovation. The centralist camp, of which I was usually a member, argued that the friction costs were adding to costs, slowing down government, impeding internal mobility, leaving smaller organizations behind while the big departments looked out for themselves. In my view, decentralization often served the interests of vendors and consultants, not public servants.

Treasury Board has reached different landing spots between the two camps over the years, as have individual departments and organizations. Over the past decade there have been the creation of common service hubs and the standardization of basic work processes for human resources, financial and accounting practices and linking management information. Standardizing and centralizing pension services to public servants has gone well, but pay services? Not so much.

There are still battles being fought in many departments about who regional staff should report to and how much autonomy their leaders should have. And the tides go in and out.

More battles are to come. One is about how much autonomy departments and agencies should have over buildings and real estate. Another is about how much autonomy and decentralization there should be in the areas of contracting and procurement. Yet another is about how much autonomy line managers should have over recruitment and hiring processes. “Let the managers manage” is an old slogan that sounds good but in practice the outcome of highly decentralized staffing has been far from optimal. Middle managers and HR shops continue to take infuriatingly long to perform basic staffing transactions.

Interestingly, major spending reviews can work both ways. The centralist camp uses them to argue for rationalization and efficiency by bringing things together while the decentralist camp uses them to argue for getting rid of administrative burden and oversight. There is a very rough analogy here to the private sector and its ever-shifting fashions about unlocking value by breaking things up versus creating value by bringing things together.

Anyone serving on a hypothetical Royal Commission would bring conscious or unconscious bias and preferences to this debate about centralization vs decentralization. They would have to declare on the future of staffing, procurement, real estate and information management. In the real world of practitioners, the public service is pulled back and forth between impulses to standardize and centralize versus arguments for autonomy by departments, agencies and for line and regional managers within larger organizations. Each camp argues its case fiercely convinced of the rightness of their views, fuelled by the ever-shifting fashions in management literature and private sector practice.

Source: The pull and push of the centre that haunts the public service

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Angus-Reid: Canadians strongly support COVID-19 test requirement for travellers from China, but also question its efficacy

2023/01/25 Leave a comment

Of note. 13 percent call the policy racist, perhaps an indicator of the more activist and woke portion of the population (my understanding of the testing requirement is that it is partly due to the unavailability of credible Chinese government data):

China abandoning its COVID zero strategy has caused a ripple of concern around the globe as the world’s second-most populous country faces an unprecedented wave of infections affecting as many as four-in-five people.

In response to rising cases in China, Canada, alongside other countries, set a new requirement this month that travellers form China must produce a negative COVID-19 test prior to takeoff.

Data from the non-profit Angus Reid Institute finds a majority of Canadians supportive of this policy, but unsure if it will be effective at reducing the spread of COVID-19 in their country. Indeed, Canadians who support the policy (77%) outnumber those who are opposed (16%) by nearly five-to-one.

However, those who believe the policy will be effective at reducing COVID-19 infections in Canada (34%) are in the minority. More Canadians believe it will be ineffective (38%) or are unsure (28%). And even among Canadians who support the policy, fewer than half (44%) say they believe it will be effective at preventing the spread of COVID-19.

There are other concerns with this policy. Some, including the Chinese government, have called it “discriminatory”. Others have gone further and called it “racist”. The pandemic has produced plenty of negative side effects, including discrimination and racism experienced by Canadians of Chinese descent. Some worry this new policy of testing travellers from China will rekindle those ugly sentiments. 

One-in-eight (13%) Canadians call the policy racist. However, more (73%) believe it’s not. Canadians who identify as visible minorities are twice as likely to label the policy racist (23%) than those who don’t identify as such (10%). Still, majorities of those who identify as visible minority (62%) and those who don’t (76%) say the policy is not racist.

More Key Findings:

  • Nearly all (94%) of those who oppose the COVID-19 testing policy for travellers from China believe it won’t be effective at reducing the spread of the virus in Canada.
  • One-in-five (19%) Canadians say they are not travelling at all because they are worried about COVID-19. A further 33 per cent say they have approached their recent travel with caution. Two-in-five (41%) are less worried about the risk of COVID-19 when it comes to travel.
  • Two-in-five (37%) of those who have not travelled at all outside of their province since March 2022 say they aren’t travelling because they worry about catching COVID-19.

Source: Canadians strongly support COVID-19 test requirement for travellers from China, but also question its efficacy

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Yakabuski: The Trudeau government seems awfully cozy with McKinsey – and that demands scrutiny

2023/01/09 Leave a comment

More questioning of the role that McKinsey has played and continues to play in Canada.

Had some experience while at Service Canada working with high level consultants (not McKinsey) and, while they were instrumental in helping develop frameworks and strategies, it was a challenge to ensue they and us as public servants remained focussed on where their contribution was most needed.

And overall, government needs to focus on strengthening its policy and program capacity rather than over relying on outside expertise whose private sector expertise, while useful, is sometimes an unrealistic fit for the government context.

The money quote “Wedge yourself in and spread like an amoeba” applies more broadly than McKinsey:

Business schools across the country would do well to undertake a case study on McKinsey & Co.’s remarkable success in winning contracts from the federal government since Justin Trudeau’s Liberals took power. There, they’ll find insights into how Ottawa really works.

McKinsey, the pedigreed consulting firm that has been plagued by a series of conflict-of-interest scandals spanning several countries, has been practically wedded at the hip to Mr. Trudeau’s government since the firm’s then-global managing partner, Dominic Barton, was picked to head up Ottawa’s advisory council on economic growth in 2016.

Out of the supposed generosity of its heart, McKinsey provided pro bono research support to the council. We are told that this had absolutely no influence on the Trudeau government’s subsequent awarding of a string of multimillion-dollar contracts to the firm, including, as The Globe and Mail reported last year, a $24.8-million deal to advise the Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) on “transformation strategies,” whatever that means.

This week, Radio-Canada arrived at its own tally of federal contracts awarded to McKinsey since Mr. Trudeau’s government was first elected in 2015: While the firm earned a mere $2.2-million in federal government work when Stephen Harper’s Conservatives were in power between 2006 and 2015, it has pocketed more than $66-million in less than seven years under the Liberals.

And even that sum, Radio-Canada conceded, does not provide a complete picture, since it leaves out contracts awarded by Crown corporations such as the Business Development Bank of Canada and Export Development Canada. The government’s response to an order paper question submitted by Conservative MP Tako Van Popta included $84-million in federal payments to McKinsey in the 18 months up to November on various contracts. That total includes payments to BDC and EDC.

Bloc Québécois MP Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe asked Immigration Minister Sean Fraser to provide the details of McKinsey’s IRCC contracts at a meeting of the House of Commons immigration committee in November. Mr. Fraser referred the question to his deputy minister, Christiane Fox, who in turn asked assistant deputy minister Hughes St-Pierre to answer, though not before adding: “I’d like to point out that one of the contracts that McKinsey was awarded in the past was to deliver a training program for our Black employees wanting to move into a leadership position within the department.” As if diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives justify everything.

Mr. St-Pierre was equally unhelpful. “It was to advise us on how to transform the department,” was all he said of the largest and most recent contract the department handed to McKinsey.

The advisory council Mr. Barton headed called for a 50-per-cent increasein the number of permanent residents Canada accepts annually, from 300,000 in 2016 to 450,000 in 2021, to boost economic growth and reduce the old-age dependency ratio. The Trudeau government has gone even further than the council recommended, announcing plans in November to boost immigration numbers to 500,000 newcomers by 2025.

How Canada’s chronically backlogged immigration system can handle this surge is anyone’s guess. Whether McKinsey’s advice is worth the taxpayer money paid to the firm is equally impossible to discern. Ottawa refuses to provide a full accounting of the work McKinsey performed, or to make public any report the firm produced.

The chronology of McKinsey’s ever deepening business relationship with the federal government will not surprise anyone who has studied the strategies the firm has employed in any of the 65 countries in which it operates.

“Wedge yourself in and spread like an amoeba,” a senior McKinsey partner once said in explaining to young recruits how to win business from potential clients. “Once in, you should spread yourself in the organization and do everything.” The quote is included in When McKinsey Comes to Town, a recent book about McKinsey’s global activities by Walt Bogdanich and Michael Forsythe that examines the firm’s underbelly.

Can you draw a straight line between Mr. Barton’s cozy relationship with the Liberal government – Mr. Trudeau named him as Canada’s ambassador to China shortly after he stepped down from the top job at McKinsey – and the firm’s ability to win contracts in Ottawa? Is it just a coincidence that McKinsey landed a juicy deal to provide advice on how to transform the immigration department just after the advisory council Mr. Barton headed recommended transforming Canada’s immigration system?

These are not banal questions. Similar ones are swirling around French President Emmanuel Macron, whose government has also awarded countless contracts to McKinsey in recent years. French authorities have opened an investigation into the potential illegal financing of Mr. Macron’s 2017 and 2022 election campaigns. Among other things, the authorities are probing whether McKinsey associates worked on Mr. Macron’s campaigns for free as a networking opportunity that subsequently yielded lucrative paid contracts.

Wedge yourself in and spread like an amoeba, indeed.

Source: The Trudeau government seems awfully cozy with McKinsey – and that demands scrutiny

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Dodek: It’s time for the Supreme Court, and the federal government, to stand up for the Charter

2023/01/06 Leave a comment

Valid critique:

The Liberals used to be the party of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Now, under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, they risk being the party that leads to the Charter’s decline.

Over the past five years, the political taboo over the use of the notwithstanding clause, which allows governments to override some Charter rights, has been shattered across Canada. This occurred not under former prime minister Stephen Harper, a Conservative who was the favourite lightning rod of Liberal Charter enthusiasts, but under the current Liberal stewardship of Mr. Trudeau.

When Ontario Premier Doug Ford threatened to use the notwithstanding clause in the fall of 2018, as part of a plan to shrink the size of the Toronto City Council in the midst of the provincial election, the Prime Minister did nothing. (Ultimately, Mr. Ford did not use the clause in that instance.)

The next year, Quebec Premier François Legault went ahead with using the notwithstanding clause to insulate Bill 21, which bans certain provincial government employees from wearing religious symbols at work. In 2021, Mr. Ford also used the clause for a law limiting third-party election spending. In both cases, Mr. Trudeau again did nothing.

Earlier this year, the Quebec government used the notwithstanding clause once more, this time to push through Bill 96, its new language law. Yet again, the Prime Minister took no action, though he has said that the federal government would intervene in a legal challenge to Bill 21 at the Supreme Court of Canada.

“This is a matter that matters to all Canadians, regardless of which part of the country they live in,” Mr. Trudeau said in May, when asked if Ottawa would involve itself in the Bill 21 challenge. “This government will continue to be here to defend people’s fundamental rights and freedoms.”

I doubt those whose rights have been threatened or stripped away by legislation in Quebec and Ontario find much comfort in the Prime Minister’s vague and banal words. They won’t help the Muslim women in Quebec who have lost their jobs because they wear a hijabas a declaration of their faith. They won’t help non-native French speakers who are barred from speaking another language at work.

While the Ontario government pledged to repeal its most recent use of the clause (as part of Bill 28, which made it illegal for unionized education workers to go on strike), Canadians should still be concerned about the increased use of this clause by provincial governments.

Mr. Trudeau could act right now if he wanted to. If he has the political courage to do so, the Prime Minister could initiate a reference to the Supreme Court challenging the pre-emptive use of the notwithstanding clause in Quebec and Ontario. He could send some of the best legal talent in the country from the Department of Justice down the street to the high court to stand up for the minority rights of Canadians.

Crucially, Ottawa could argue that the Supreme Court should revisit its 1988 Ford v. Quebec (Attorney-General) decision, which gave governments the carte-blanche ability to use the notwithstanding clause.

Supreme Court decisions are not cast in stone. Much has changed in the three decades since it first ruled on the use of the notwithstanding clause, which authorized its use both in reaction to court decisions striking down laws as violations of the Charter, as well as its pre-emptive use in advance of any such legal challenges.

The rights and provisions set out in the Charter do not define themselves. It is the task of the courts, especially the Supreme Court, to interpret its contents. The political leaders who debated and enacted the Charter knew full well that they would be giving this awesome responsibility to the courts.

Between 1980 and 1981, a special joint committee of the Senate and the House of Commons spent more than 150 hours hearing from Canadians about the draft Charter. The legislators on this committee were warned that the enactment of a constitutionally-entrenched bill of rights such as the Charter would make the courts responsible for its interpretation.

The 1988 Ford decision dates to the early years of Charter interpretation. It is part of the first generation of Charter cases. The high court’s interpretation of Charter rights ebbs and flows over time.

A favourite metaphor among Canadian constitutional lawyers and academics is the idea that our Constitution is a “living tree” – one that is capable of growth and expansion within its natural limits. Sometimes, the Constitution needs to be pruned back. In other cases, the courts or governments go too far – in recent years, both have done so on sanctioning and using the notwithstanding clause.

The time is ripe for Canada’s highest court to revisit its 34-year-old decision. It is also long overdue for some strong federal leadership to defend the Charter rights of Canadians.

Adam Dodek is a law professor at the University of Ottawa and author of the book, The Canadian Constitution.

Source: It’s time for the Supreme Court, and the federal government, to stand up for the Charter

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Sears: Government secrecy hides corruption and covers for the incompetent. Why do we still allow it?

2022/12/20 Leave a comment

Good question. Imagine one of the reasons is the fear that media and others may focus more on the “gotcha” quote rather than a deeper read to understand more comprehensively the issues and interests at stake. That being said, I agree that the default should be openness, not the current opacity and delay.

Wonder if that was his position more than 30 years ago when working as Chief of Staff to then Ontario Premier Bob Rae:

Imagine living in a democracy where open access to everything politicians and governments say and do is automatically made public. Where everyone in public service knows that documents are public, unless you can make a persuasive case that a specific file impacts national security or personal privacy, among a short list of exemptions.

A fairy tale? No, Sweden. They’ve governed this way for well over 200 years, ever since King Gustav III staged a coup d’etat and instituted open government in the 18th century, as a means of revealing corruption in Parliament and the judiciary. Today, all Nordic countries have similar commitments to the importance of accessing information.

But this is Canada, where it seems every week we have another minister or official caught in a coverup. Recently, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly and Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc were almost insolent in their testimony before a parliamentary committee examining why the government had not investigated reports of political bribery by China. As Global News reports, LeBlanc “could not disclose whether he has been informed of ‘specific cases,’” while Joly “reiterated that both she and (Prime Minister Justin) Trudeau were not provided specific information.”

This leaves Canadians with a very unpleasant binary choice: either they are not telling truth, or they are. The latter option begs the more worrying question: why were they not briefed?

Our performance on access to information would be laughable, if it were not so dangerous. One witness, a frustrated information seeker, claimed he had been told the delay in meeting his request would take up to 80 years. Needless to say, when decision-making is done in secret, we do not get better government.

The “Freedom Convoy” inquiry has already revealed the cost of government secrecy. That shambolic, finger-pointing circus showed Canadians in painful detail the efforts by many officials to hide information and pass the buck.

Then the inquiry into the failure of Ottawa’s LRT reported that former mayor Jim Watson and senior staff had been economical with the truth, hiding dozens of serious warning signals about the project. Another failure in secret.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith attempted to legislate a defenestration of Parliament and to govern by decree whenever she chose — an astonishing proposition also brewed in secret. The firestorm caused her to relent within days.

Finally, there was the clandestine decision by Ontario Premier Doug Ford to slice off chunks of the Greenbelt for developers, something he had pledged never to do. He reportedly had Municipal Affairs Minister Steve Clark meeting in secret with those same developers, which Clark denies. Ford must pray no one involved is revealed to have broken bread with him; those same developers had given tens of thousands of dollars to Ford in recent years.

As Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner said, it “doesn’t pass the smell test” that developers would buy huge amounts of “permanently protected” Greenbelt land if they had not been tipped off. Secrecy encourages bad behaviour in private, too.

Our access-to-information programs have become a laughing stock, with years-long delays and costs to the citizen sometimes reaching thousands of dollars. For decades, bureaucrats and their ministers have told Parliament that a “lack of resources” is too blame. Really? Is that why the time taken to respond to each request is going up, and the percentage of requests fulfilled is going down?

Government secrecy produces bad government; gives a pass to the incompetent; encourages corruption in procurement; and enables legislation tilted to favour the rich, powerful and connected. As voters, we have rarely made loud demands that promises on freedom of information be honoured. Generations of politicians have lied about their commitments to “open government,” only to slide into deepened secrecy when in power.

It’s time we made it clear to the political class and our public servants that there will be consequences for those frustrating access to information. Sweden pointed the way centuries ago.

Source: Government secrecy hides corruption and covers for the incompetent. Why do we still allow it?

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