Canada is facing significant challenges and needs more efficient and accountable government, say Kevin Lunch, executive director of the International Monetary Fund and former privy council clerk and Jim Mitchell, adjunct professor at Carleton University.In a recent article for the Saskatchewan-based Johnson-Shoyama School of Public Policy, Lunch and Mitchell wrote the federal government "is a mess." The authors said "weak per capita income growth, soaring government spending and strained international relations, leading to diminishing public trust" have left Canada with "an urgent need" to do government differently."The OECD predicts that Canada will have the weakest growth in per capita incomes among all advanced countries over the next decade, hampered by weak corporate investment in capital and innovation, anemic productivity growth and a policy and regulatory environment that threatens our future competitiveness."The authors added, "Canada is suffering from a worrisome combination of parochialism, complacency and short-termism" that must be addressed by "a lean, nimble, and results-focussed government, with clear accountabilities for outcomes."Lynch and Mitchell say Ottawa is distracted with handling the endless challenges of news on social media but have also hindered any focused accomplishment through cumbersome bureaucracy. They say the government needs to focus on fewer priorities with fewer government agencies and less red tape."Part of the problem is today’s ministerial mandate letters which, with dozens of priorities per Minister, amplified by today’s 39 Cabinet Ministers and endless cross-department consultation and stakeholder engagement, simply bog government down in process rather than facilitating a laser focus on outcomes," the authors explain.Another problem is excessive centralization of decision making in the Prime Minister's Office. Even former Liberal finance minister Bill Morneau and former MP Wayne Easter have drawn attention to this problem. Easter told the Hill Times, “I think there’s far, far, too much control in the Prime Minister’s Office, right throughout the whole system."Lynch and Mitchell explain, "It's time to allow Ministers to be Ministers again and revert to Cabinet and not PMO as the primary forum for government decision-making. It’s time once again to empower the Public Service to provide frank advice and to be both responsible and accountable for the effective implementation of policy decisions. And it is past the time for PMO to return to its traditional role of providing political advice to the prime minister, not getting involved in running government operations."The authors say the government's procurement of goods and services "is a mess" full of cost overruns, the ArriveCan app being a prime example."The key culprits are a combination of poor project management capacity, a contracting regime that is plagued with too much red tape and too many controls and, paradoxically, Treasury Board policies themselves that incentivize outsourcing to subcontractors.""This is truly a case where the government and mainly the Public Service itself, is the author of its procurement misfortunes."Canada, it seems, has not kept pace with an increasingly complex world, said Lunch and Mitchell.."Sadly, the increasing complexity of the issues Canada faces has not been matched by an increase in government analytical and policy capacity. Too often external consultants are substituted for government policy expertise in advising Ministers and Cabinet.""The current immigration fiasco, the absence of fiscal anchors to guide spending and debt decisions, the Indo-Pacific Strategy muddle and an outdated defence plan that predates the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Chinese threats to Taiwan, these are all prime examples of policy gaps.""It’s time to restore public confidence in government’s ability to get things done. If we can do that, everyone wins."
