An impatient Mark Carney would rather bypass the public service than reform it

2026/01/12 4 Comments

Public service reform is a thankless task politically and takes an inordinate amount of time, effort and political support. Needed but rarely executed given previous failures like UCS.

Former deputies need to share some of their concrete experiences with efforts in public service reform and lessons learned, rather than more general diagnostiques and recommendations. More on the how and less on the why:

…Unlike his predecessors, Mr. Sabia took over as Clerk of the Privy Council with decades of business experience under his belt. That makes him an oddity in Ottawa, where most senior bureaucrats have never worked outside the capital, much less outside government.

Therein lies the problem that Mr. Carney and Mr. Sabia face as they try to inject new dynamism into a public service that has long operated according to the principles of risk minimization and strict adherence to procedure. The senior bureaucracy is almost exclusively composed of individuals who climbed the ranks during an era of increasing centralization of power and policymaking in the Prime Minister’s Office. Their skill set revolves around keeping the dust down, rather than disrupting the status quo. 

As in any organization, however, disruption is a necessary component of innovation. And the federal public service is desperately in need of it. 

“[N]otwithstanding the massive increase in hiring over the last decade, too few public servants have been hired for the leading-edge skills required for modern government,” write former PCO clerk Kevin Lynch and ex-PCO official James Mitchell in their newly published book, A New Blueprint for Government. “When Amazon can deliver a package to almost anyone in Canada the next day, public expectations for government service standards increase accordingly. Yet those expectations are too often not being met.”

Source: An impatient Mark Carney would rather bypass the public service than reform it

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ICYMI: Former top bureaucrat Jocelyne Bourgon calls for bold public service reform to match Carney’s economic plan

2025/05/23 Leave a comment

As always, the challenge lies in the doing, but a good list:

…Among areas to start with:

Previous promises: Governments should take a hard look at pre-election and election commitments. If they no longer fit the fiscal or policy needs, restructure, postpone – or drop them. Finding cheaper ways to deliver them should also be on the table, too.

Review temporary funding: Governments have long relied on “temporary funding” for short-term initiatives, which can be up to 30 per cent of some departments’ budgets. This distorts the true deficit picture, encourages governments to focus on “announceables,” and leaves others to manage expiring funds. Review them to ensure these initiatives align with government priorities, such as reducing dependency on the U.S., or to phase them out altogether.

Tax Expenditures: Canada’s tax system hasn’t been reassessed since the 1960s, and most tax credits and exemptions haven’t been reviewed since the ’80s. Bourgon says revisiting them could yield more savings than any program review could.

Simplify, simplify, simplify: A key step is to simplify – everything. From regulations, legislation, to forms to internal processes, simplification is its own type of reform, and one that could make government more effective and less costly.

Agencies and Structures: When Bourgon was clerk, there were 109 departments, agencies, and Crown corporations. Today, there may be 250 – or more. That growth has brought over 2,000 senior executives, each with internal supports. Has it improved results? She suggests full portfolio-level reviews to cut, consolidate, or integrate agencies.

Central agencies: Since 2000, the budgets of the Privy Council Office, Treasury Board, and Finance have soared — up 250 per cent, 540 per cent and 220 per cent respectively. Bourgon says it’s time to review them. When central agencies get too operational, she warns, they lose the big picture. Bogged down in transactions, they stop thinking strategically – and when excellence slips, the public service falls behind its global peers.

Start at the top: Look at political staff. Their ranks have swelled to 765, up 60 per cent since 2011 and six times more than the U.K., a country with nearly double our population. Shrink the number and refocus their roles on building political alliances, maintaining party unity, and managing Parliament. The savings might be small, but the message is powerful.

And, she notes, a smaller cabinet also performs better – and costs less.

Source: Former top bureaucrat Jocelyne Bourgon calls for bold public service reform to match Carney’s economic plan

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