May: Leadership Signals – Take it as permission to simplify

2025/11/12 Leave a comment

Her weekly posts are required reading. This week’s except that I liked:

…Small things can be transformative, says Allen Sutherland, president of the Institute on Governance. Such as: the steady signals Carney and Sabia send about not letting process or the “web of rules” get in the way. Streamline. Simplify.

“If there is some transformation in the public service day to day — where public servants act with more commitment to implementation and less focus on simply being rule followers — then I’d say that’s very transformative.”

In short, leadership signals can drive change and behaviour across the public service.

For Michael Wernick, who once sat in Sabia’s chair as clerk, the budget falls short on real transformation. It has aspirational reforms, but none of the legislative fixes, structural pruning, or deep investment in public-service capacity needed.

For Sahir Khan, the budget is like a solid mid-term grade. But “the final mark will depend entirely on execution — and that burden falls squarely on the public service,” says Khan, vice president at OttawaU’s Institute of Fiscal Studies and Democracy.

One senior bureaucrat summed it up: Carney’s approach isn’t about transforming the institution or rethinking its principles. It’s pragmatic: the public service is being reshaped by being told to deliver on priorities.

“That’s the Carney transformation. You don’t waste time on a grand plan. You set aspirational goals and tell them to get it done.”

Another added: “The government isn’t focused on institutional theory but on practical, delivery-focused fixes. Carney isn’t interested in changing the public service to be different — he’s interested in it changing to deliver something he wants done differently. The focus is on results.”

This approach of skipping grand plans is concentrating attention and decision-making in the PMO and PCO on departments tied to top priorities. Some bureaucrats worry that political staff will jump in to fill gaps if public servants can’t move fast enough. That would blur accountability. It also raises questions about whether departments not directly tied to top priorities are getting enough attention.

Source: May: Leadership Signals – Take it as permission to simplify

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Lavoie: Should Carney, the businessman, really run Canada like a business?

2025/10/30 1 Comment

One of the better explanations of the difference between business and government:

…Business has one objective that trumps all others: maximizing profit and shareholder return. Shareholders care little if their product serves no noble purpose, nor is the welfare of their workers necessarily a priority. Consumers care little if a company goes bankrupt because of poor decisions – they simply buy elsewhere. And the bad decisions that eventually sink a company may have already generated fortunes for CEOs and shareholders, who often depart before the collapse. 

The government’s goal is providing the institutional framework that allows current and future constituents to enjoy a good quality of life. This means tackling complex, interconnected issues such as poverty, public health, the environment, justice, security and the functioning of markets – not optimizing a single metric. The trade-offs between various government objectives and between current and future generations require careful analysis, consultation, collaboration and compromise.

Governments must be more risk-averse than businesses. Failing to provide Old Age Security, the Canada Pension Plan, public security or law enforcement – or leaving a crushing burden to future generations – would have far more dire societal consequences than a company bankruptcy. Government cannot act without societal acceptance or outside accepted cultural norms, both of which change slowly. This means it will never be as nimble as a business. And that’s a good thing….

Source: Should Carney, the businessman, really run Canada like a business?

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