Introduction: Re-Setting the Public Service of Canada

This collection was inspired by a variety of conversations with public administration scholarly colleagues, former and current federal public servants, a panoply of diverse op-ed contributions in newspapers and online forums about the state of the Canadian Public Service (too numerous to itemize), and, of course, Donald Savoie's reiteration of his long-standing concerns in Speaking Truth to Canadians About Their Public Service along with his call for a Royal Commission on the Future of the Federal Public Service (May 2022; Savoie 2024).

There has always been much to admire about the Canadian Public Service: its history, its many leading lights, its loyalty and responsiveness to a succession of elected governments, its many signature accomplishments and ability to pivot in response to significant crises, and its ongoing engagement with international entities—such as the OECD and many more—to further the spread of important principles of public administration in the service of democratic governance around the world. But in recent years there has been a series of disappointing service delivery results, leaks and ethics concerns; a palpable sense of unease about how quickly the public service has taken advantage of digital tools and platforms; frustration among reform-oriented public servants about the pace of change and increasing reliance on consultants to provide strategic advice and undertake reviews; concern over return-to-work policies and the ability of public service leaders to lead and build productive cultures in distributed workplaces; growing sense of frustration with administrative burden; and anxiety about the effects of early rounds of restraint on department and agency operating budgets, with more promised for the foreseeable future. Not all of this can be attributed to the Canadian Public Service: governments have come and gone, made a succession of policy decisions along with inevitable non-decisions and blind spots, including whether to reform public services, leading to frustration about the state of governance in Canada and the uneven quality of public sector delivery. But all of these concerns have now accumulated amidst the prospect of large upheavals to come with an aggressive new US administration, a continually rapidly evolving geo-political context, and the arrival of a new Canadian government after the 2025 national election.

The succession of complaints and calls for reforming the federal public sector have typically focused on a particular issue and usually have not identified a reform solution. Indeed, a close reading of such assessments often suggest that related proximate issues are at play, which would also need tackling with new capabilities or reform. This suggests that not only is there no shortage of issues to address, but that there are varying degrees of interconnectedness among them. Nor has a coherent vision or narrative been offered of what a “reformed” Canadian public sector might look like—there has been little recognition that renewing institutions would likely take several years, proceeding in a turbulent environment, with early disruptions and undoubtedly more arising along the way. The emerging character of the public sector of the future would likely be as much a result of policy and program choices made by governments, as well as the program of reform initiatives to the public service itself, as has been the case over the last decade or two.

My hope is that this collection inspires a broader discussion of the challenges confronting the public sector and the Public Service of Canada leading, in turn, to more thorough and inclusive strategic reviews of the issues and options for moving forward (perhaps via a turbo-charged, no-longer-than-a-year, “neo”-commission approach to replace the traditional royal commission), more convincing reform and action frameworks than seen over the last many years, and improved reporting and transparency on the initiatives once set in motion. Indeed, contributors were asked to show how suggested options for moving forward would inform—or might need to be informed by—other initiatives, and, by doing so, could sustain reform over the longer term.

In the final contribution, “Conclusion: Implications for Sustaining Reform and Applied Research,” Evert Lindquist and Robert Shepherd take a step back to consider the extent to which the ideas and options identified by contributors resonate and reinforce each other, whether there is a need and opportunities for sequencing of reforms, and what the pre-conditions and expectations ought to be for successful reform or achieving thresholds of recognizable change in a system as complex as that of the federal public sector. Given that the Public Service will likely experience significant reallocation, dislocation, and downsizing under the next government in the months ahead, they consider what the implications are for sustaining change and reform on numerous fronts, measuring and monitoring progress, and re-setting and building a new public sector culture—one that might engage more systematically with applied university researchers and other experts and observers to track and assess change.