GOVERNIN G FROM THE CENTRE:
TH E CONCENTRATION OF POWER IN
CANADIA N POLITICS
B Y DONALD J. SAVOIE
Redefined during the past thirty years, the centre of government currently
extends itself further than ever before. Central governmental agencies are
'where the rubber meets the road,' where public service meets politics, and pol-
icy becomes reality. So who's driving this car? Agencies such as the Privy
Council Office, the Finance Department, and the Treasury Board exert their
influence horizontally, deciding how policy is made and how money gets spent.
According to Donald Savoie, these organizations, instituted to streamline
Ottawa's planning processes, instead telescope power to the Prime Minister and
weaken the influence of ministers, the traditional line departments, and even
parliament, without contributing to more rational and coherent policy-making.
This is scholarship at its best: rigorous and riveting. The government
operates as a combination of known procedures and the more elusive subtleties
of human relationships and unspoken codes of behaviour. Donald Savoie's
long-time involvement in government affairs allows him to read through the
surface of the results of his extensive research - which included interviews with
elites - in order to expose all the levels of power at play. Indispensable reading
for students of politics, public policy, and public administration, Ottawa watch-
ers, journalists, lobbyists, and civil servants who want to know what is really
going on.
DONALD j. SAVOIE holds the Clement-Cormier Chair in Economic Development
at the Universite de Moncton.
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DONALD J. SAVOIE
Governing from the Centre:
The Concentration of Power in
Canadian Politics
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS
Toronto Buffalo London
© University of Toronto Press Incorporated 1999
Toronto Buffalo London
Printed in Canada
Reprinted 1999, 2000, 2001, 2004
ISBN o-8o20-44v6-x (cloth)
ISBN 0-8020-8252-1 (paper)
Printed on acid-free paper
Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data
Savoie, Donald J., 1947-
Governing from the centre : the concentration of power in Canadian politics
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN o-8o2O-4476-x (cloth) ISBN 0-8020-8252-1 (pbk.)
i. Power (Social sciences) - Canada. 2. Canada - Politics and government.
3. Decentralization in government - Canada. I. Title.
JL75.S386 1999 352-3'o97i C98-932933-X
University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing
program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council.
University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support for its publishing
activities of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry
Development Program (BPIDP).
Canadci
www.utppublishing.com 
To my biggest fan, my dear friend,
my brother, Claude F. Savoie
This page intentionally left blank 
Contents
PREFACE IX
1 Introduction 3
Part I: The Setting
2 The Centre Is Born 19
3 Render Unto the Centre 46
Part II: The Play
4 Primus: There Is No Longer Any Inter or Pares 71
5 The Privy Council Office: A Safe Pair of Hands 109
6 Finance: Let There Be No Light 156
7 Treasury Board and the Public Service Commission: Pulling against
Gravity 193
8 Ministers: Knowing When to Land 239
9 Departments: Running on the Track 274
Part HI: The Denouement
to Governing by Bolts of Electricity 313
11 Incentives, Constraints, and Behaviour 337
NOTES 363
INDEX 413
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Preface
The book is about political power: where it lies and how it is exercised at the
centre of government in Ottawa. It is also about how the centre of government
is organized and how it supports the head of government - the prime minister.
Accordingly, the book deals mainly with issues surrounding the machinery of
government. I freely admit that these are not matters likely to make it to the top
of Canada's hit parade of public policy issues. Few people are likely to get very
passionate about them.
However, what the centre of government does actually matters a great deal to
Canadians. It matters because it speaks directly to how our national political
and administrative institutions work. The centre of government in Ottawa is at
the apex of political power at the national level and it shapes policy, govern-
ment decisions, government operations, and federal-provincial relations to a far
greater extent than has been generally assumed. Understanding how it works
and why it works the way it does goes a long way towards explaining how pol-
icy and decisions are made in Ottawa.
This book had a few starts and stops and met more than a few sharp turns on
the road to completion. I began work in late 1992 and carried out a number of
interviews between January and June 1993. However, shortly after the change
in government in Ottawa in June 1993, I called a temporary halt to my work.
Kim Campbell had announced a massive restructuring of government depart-
ments when she became prime minister, and I suspected that the fallout would
have important implications for my work. If nothing else, I needed to gain a
proper understanding of the role of the centre in designing the reorganization.
Jean Chretien not only left the restructuring largely intact when he assumed
office a few months later, his government pushed ahead with its implementa-
tion. In addition, within months of Chretien coming to office, his government
launched an ambitious program review exercise designed to review spending in
x Preface
virtually every area of direct federal government activity. It also introduced
significant changes to the policy process and to its expenditure management
system. The program review itself revealed a different way of doing things and
pointed to significant implications for relations between the centre and line
departments. I decided to wait, let the dust settle, and see how the changes
would affect my study. I undertook a second set of interviews between Septem-
ber 1997 and March 1998.
I started out wanting to write a book about the impact of New Public Man-
agement on central agencies. I decided to reorient my research after holding
only a few interviews. These early interviews, and subsequent ones as well,
revealed that there have been notable developments in recent years in how
power is exercised within the federal government. It is important not only to
gain an understanding of these developments, but also of the various forces that
have shaped them. In brief, though I did not set out to write a book about the
exercise of political power in Canada, I ended up doing so.
I want to state with more than the usual emphasis that without the coopera-
tion of Cabinet ministers and senior public servants, both current and former,
this book would not have been possible. They all made time available to endure
my questions and all were generous with their recollections and insights. Many
went further and offered me documents and answered questions that I had not
thought of asking, thus widening the horizon of my inquiry. No student of gov-
ernment could have been better served.
I was profoundly impressed by their willingness to meet with me, despite
great pressure on their time. I asked ninety present and former officials for an
interview and I met with eighty-eight. Only one failed to reply to my request,
and a former Cabinet minister did agree to meet, but we were never able to set a
time. I telephoned or wrote to all respondents, asking for forty-five minutes of
their time. The great majority spent an hour answering my questions - many
spent anywhere between one and three hours. In some instances, I met with the
same respondent on more than one occasion.
No doubt it would have been entertaining to attribute particular quotes
directly. It would also have been inappropriate. Many of my respondents specif-
ically requested anonymity. They, however, know who they are and to what
extent I am in their debt.
Readers may well be tempted to speculate on who said what. In some
instances, they may well be successful. For example, a knowledgeable reader
will immediately recognize comments made by Mitchell Sharp, given what he
had to say on how government operated in the 19508 and 19605. I explained
the dilemma to Mr Sharp, and he said: 'You are free to quote me. But I
would ask that you not quote me in respect of the present prime minister. I
Preface xi
am one of his advisers and it would not be right.' I, of course, have respected
his wish.
I cannot possibly thank everyone who assisted me in my research, but I do
wish to single out a few. Jocelyne Bourgon, clerk of the Privy Council and sec-
retary to the Cabinet, met with me for three hours to answer questions. Paul
Martin, minister of Finance, spent over an hour answering questions in January
1998, at a time when he and his senior officials were busy planning his 1998
budget. Peter Harder, secretary to the Treasury Board, met with me on several
occasions. His insights and his knowledge of government operations were
extremely helpful. Jim Mitchell, a former senior official with the Privy Council
Office, was extremely helpful in many ways. I met with him on four different
occasions, each time with a new set of questions. I will always be in his debt for
his candid answers, his insights, and his profound understanding of the work-
ings of the machinery of government. The list goes on, and includes other Cab-
inet ministers, twenty present or former deputy ministers, as well as present and
senior advisers to Prime Ministers Chretien, Mulroney, and Trudeau, and many
other senior public servants.
Two colleagues and close friends, Professors Peter Aucoin and B. Guy
Peters, have read this manuscript. Both have made important suggestions to
improve the study. I owe special thanks to Peter Aucoin, who read several
drafts of some chapters and made numerous suggestions for improving them.
Cynthia Williams, a senior official with the Department of Indian Affairs and
Northern Development and formally with the Privy Council Office, also a keen
student of government in her own right, and Senator Lowell Murray, a former
senior minister in the Mulroney government, also have read the manuscript.
Given the nature of the book and the fact that I relied a great deal on interviews
and on government documents for my research, I felt it important to have the
manuscript read by two practitioners, one from the public service and another
from the political level, before publication. Hindsight tells me that it was a wise
decision. This is not to suggest for a moment that either agreed completely with
my conclusions. Still, I greatly benefitted from their comments and suggestions.
I also owe a special debt to the reviewers of the University of Toronto Press, for
their constructive criticism on an earlier draft of this study. But all the defects of
the book are mine.
I was fortunate to be a senior visiting fellow at the Canadian Centre for Man-
agement Development in Ottawa while carrying out research for this book. I
participated in a number of seminars and meetings on a variety of issues at
CCMD attended by many senior level officials. I took notes at these sessions
and I make use of some of the material in this study. It is important to mention,
however, that CCMD did not provide any financial support for this study either
xii Preface
directly or indirectly, and the views expressed in this study are mine and do not
reflect the views of CCMD or its officials. I received an SSHRCC subvention in
1997 to undertake research in public administration, and would like to take this
opportunity to express my thanks for the support.
I also owe a special thank you to Ginette Benoit for typing and retyping the
manuscript. Joan Harcourt made numerous editorial suggestions, and the book
is greatly improved as a result.
As always, my family accepted with good cheer my decision to write this
book. I can hardly overstate what their encouragement has meant to me and I
thank Linda and our children, Julien and Margaux, for their continued support.
I dedicate this book to my brother, Claude. He has always been my biggest
fan and a source of great pride for me. I am in his debt for many things, not the
least for his very close friendship, his wise counsel, his inspiration, and his
encouragement. No brother could possibly be better served.
DONALD J. SAVOIE
GOVERNIN G FROM THE CENTRE
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1
Introduction
This book argues that the Canadian centre of government has evolved a great
deal during the past thirty years. By centre of government, I mean the prime
minister, his office, the Cabinet, and central agencies. The book also argues that
the centre of government is considerably more powerful than it was thirty years
ago in a number of key areas. This is true notwithstanding the fact that over this
period six prime ministers have held office (albeit three only briefly) and all had
different personalities, styles, and approaches to governing.
The centre of the federal government has also been largely redefined in thirty
years - it is now considerably larger and extends its influence over more activi-
ties than ever before. Yet power has also shifted within the centre itself. This
study makes clear, for example, that the prime minister, with the support of
advisers in his own office and senior public servants in central agencies, has
gained a great deal of power while Cabinet has lost influence. One senior public
servant put it succinctly when he observed that 'Cabinet has evolved from a
decision-making body under Pearson to a university-type seminar under
Trudeau, to a focus group under Trudeau in his later years in office and also
under both Mulroney and Chretien."
It is hardly possible to understand the centre of government in Ottawa with-
out first gaining an understanding of the roles and responsibilities of the central
agencies. There are several central agencies, and they all have different man-
dates and pursue different goals. The Privy Council Office is concerned with
the policy-making and decision-making processes; the Department of Finance
with economic and fiscal issues; the Treasury Board secretariat with manage-
ment issues and the expenditure budget; the Intergovernmental Affairs secretar-
iat with federal-provincial relations and national unity; and the Public Service
Commission with the application of the merit principle. Still, they all play on
one another's turf and all need the full support of the prime minister to be effec-
4 Governing from the Centre
live. Indeed, all central agencies, with the possible exception of the Public Ser-
vice Commission, have a direct link to the prime minister. A recently retired
senior federal deputy minister writes that 'central agencies are sometimes
described as extensions of the office of the Prime Minister.'
2
Central agencies occupy that grey zone in government that links politicians
to the bureaucracy. To people at the centre of government and in senior posi-
tions in line departments, this is 'where the rubber meets the road, where the
public service meets politics* and all ... that means.'
3
 Central agencies usually
have a hand directly in all key policy decisions and play a crucial role in budget
making. Indeed, it is to them the head of government should turn for help in
articulating broad policy direction or an overarching strategy for government.
Central agencies are also involved in many administrative issues - in formulat-
ing personnel and procurement policies, and in establishing financial manage-
ment practices.
They are, as well, invariably at the forefront of all government-wide reform
efforts. There have been an unprecedented number of these in most Western
democracies during the past fifteen years or so, all designed to reshape govern-
ment operations dramatically. In Canada, as elsewhere, central agencies have
played a lead role in their implementation.
4
Not surprisingly, then, central agencies are reputed to employ the best and
the brightest.
5
 They permit the young fast-trackers and the superbureaucrats to
look at all policy areas from one central vantage point, to obtain a government-
wide perspective on how the machinery of government works, and to become
visible to key decision makers in government.
6
 Those who serve in central
agencies believe that they occupy a privileged position. And they do. They are
not only able to view the work of government departments from the very centre
of government, they also work closely with the ministry. One central agency
official explained, 'I consider myself extremely fortunate to sit where I am sit-
ting. In many ways, you know that you have earned your stripes when you are
asked to serve in this office.'
7
Yet with all their influence and the pre-eminent position they hold in govern-
ment, we know very little about central agencies, about what they do, why they
do it, and how they do it. One is struck by the paucity of studies on the work of
central agencies and on the role of the prime minister and Cabinet. Yet the liter-
ature is rich in material on public service reforms, the policy process, the
budgeting and management of public spending, and on a host of public
management issues and specific policy questions. Several years ago, two
British scholars observed that 'the roles played by cabinet structures in the
decision-making of political executives is an oddly neglected subject in the
comparative study of politics.'
8
 This is also true of Canada. What studies we do
Introduction 5
have tend to have an institutional focus rather than a functional one. While one
study, now twenty years old, looked at the 'structure and behaviour in central
agencies' in Canada,
9
 there are few such recent studies, and none at all that look
at the work of central agencies, despite its underpinning the work of the head of
government.
To be sure, the work of central agencies is not nearly as obvious to those
outside government as it is to those inside. Their staff tend to look up to their
political masters and down to government departments and agencies, but
rarely outside to the public. Their world is one of government processes, of
generating and packaging policy advice, and of developing and fine-tuning
government policy and practices, all in relative obscurity. Indeed, central
agency officials readily admit that they perform away from the limelight and
that they much prefer it that way. In any event, few outsiders understand or
care about something as tedious as the mechanics of government. Peter Hen-
nessy, a keen student of government with easy access to government officials
in Britain, writes about the 'insider-outsider divide' and the 'danger of out-
sider-scholars in particular ... writing about people and institutions as if they
were closed societies in foreign countries.'
10
 He made this observation about
the British Cabinet and reported on 'the secrecy' of the institution and the
Cabinet Office, not just in terms of decisions being made, but also in terms of
the process and the work of permanent officials. The same can be said about
the government of Canada. In fact, there is evidence to suggest that elected
politicians themselves do not fully understand how the machinery of govern-
ment or bureaucracy actually works even after several years in office.
11
 Of
course, the work of central agencies is hardly likely to dominate the agenda of
political leaders or to rank very high in the list of things that preoccupy the
general population. Interest groups can be roused by a government decision to
close down a program or alter a given policy. But the machinery of govern-
ment? One can hardly imagine the cry, 'Give me competent central agencies,
or give me another government.'
Still, central agencies stand at the apex of the machinery of government.
Though they rarely have line or program responsibilities, their fields of respon-
sibility are extremely broad, highly flexible, and very often ill-defined.
12
 In
short, they have a licence to roam wherever they wish and to raise whatever
issue they may choose. If a political crisis flares up, central agency staff are on
hand in no time to oversee its development and its solution, much more often
than not on behalf of the prime minister. Central agency staff invariably define
their responsibility in lofty terms - as the 'keeper of the public purse,' 'the
overseer of probity in government operations,' and 'the crucial link between
democracy and where the work of government is actually carried out.'
13
 Peter
6 Governing from the Centre
Aucoin writes that 'central agencies are regarded, among other things (some not
fit to print), as gatekeepers of the cabinet decision-making process [and] coun-
tervailing centres of policy advice."
4
 The influence and ubiquitous presence of
central agencies are such that it is not possible to understand the work of line
departments and agencies without first understanding that of central agencies.
This and the fact that so little exists in the literature on the centre of government
are sufficient reasons to study central agencies.
That begs a number of questions, including where does power lie in Ottawa?
How has the role of the prime minister changed in recent years? What do cen-
tral agencies actually do? Are they able to provide broad policy direction to
government? Can they provide a 'cross-cutting' perspective to policy issues?
What role have central agencies played in promoting and implementing the
New Public Management concept within government?
Robert B. Denhardt is correct in writing that 'many practitioners today are
experiencing discouragement, frustration, and exhaustion, part of which is due
to the lack of theoretical development.'
15
1 also believe that public administra-
tion, as a field of study and practice, suffers from theoretical malnutrition.
Indeed, I suggest that public administration lacks a coherent intellectual iden-
tity. We have abandoned the field to pollsters, consultants, and hired guns for
think-tanks. From time to time, we have jumped "in to point out the obvious
flaws and the superficial nature - if not the severe limitations - of new develop-
ments in our field and, for example, criticized many of the ideas found in the
New Public Management.
16
 However, one has only to take stock of the never-
ending succession of government reforms introduced since the mid-1980s
everywhere to see that decision makers in government have paid scant attention
to our warnings.
17
The future of our field of study lies in pursuing theoretical development and
in turning out quality academic work, not in emulating the pollsters, the con-
sultants, and the think-tanks. Accordingly, while not pretending to offer a new
theory of public administration, I hope that this study will prove useful to stu-
dents of Canadian public administration and public policy and encourage them
to explore new theoretical avenues. In brief, its central purpose is to make a
contribution, however modest, to the search for theoretical development in
public administration. Answers to the questions outlined above hold important
consequences on both the theoretical and practical fronts.
This book seeks to make clear that theoretical development in public admin-
istration is not possible without being linked directly to theoretical development
in the field of politics. It also makes the case that an important place to begin
the search for theoretical development in public administration is by studying
the incentives and constraints that shape how public servants go about their
Introduction 7
work and the incentives that motivate them. In turn, there is no better place to
gain an understanding of these forces than by looking at the work of central
agencies.
What central agencies do and how they do it differs from other government
departments. Central agencies operate in a world of their own under circum-
stances that can never be duplicated elsewhere. Yet at the risk of repetition,
what they do and how they do it in many ways shape what line departments and
agencies do. As one former central agency official observed, 'Central agencies
instinctively think first of the prime minister, second, again of the prime minis-
ter, and third, of the Cabinet process, as their "clients.""
8
 Departments and
agencies and even Cabinet ministers are viewed as agents requiring direction
and control. One central agency official put it succinctly when he observed that
'much of what we do is related to the need to keep corralling bouncing politi-
cians and bouncing departments."
9
 Meanwhile, ministers and senior depart-
mental or agency officials must look to more than one group or client at any one
time including - with or without enthusiasm - central agencies.
Thus, the main hypothesis of this book is that power in the federal govern-
ment has shifted away from line ministers and their departments towards the
centre, and also, within the centre itself, power has shifted to the prime minister
and his senior advisers at both the political and public service levels and away
from Cabinet and Cabinet committees. The book also maintains that central
agencies are more powerful in some areas and considerably weaker in others
than is generally assumed. Their strengths and their weaknesses explain a great
deal about how government works.
This book challenges conventional wisdom and a great deal of the recent lit-
erature on public policy and public 'management.' For example, bureaucratic
bashing has been in vogue for some time, and not just in partisan political
speeches - though there has never been any shortage of that - but also in the
popular press and even in some of the learned journals. The public choice
school, for instance, argues that career public servants are masters at protecting
their turf and in seeking opportunities to maximize their budgets. There is also a
tendency on the part of many politicians, notably former Cabinet ministers (but,
interestingly, rarely if ever former prime ministers), on leaving office to look
back at their time in government and claim that they were let down by the per-
manent civil service.
20
I argue that career officials in central agencies or, for that matter, in line
departments, respond whenever clear and consistent political direction is given,
that when political authority decides to focus its energy on selected issues and
clearly lays down the direction it wishes to pursue, career officials will give
their best effort to make it work. However, those working in central agencies,
8 Governing from the Centre
whatever influence they may have, can never do what only politicians can do:
that is, to make the political decision.
The prime minister, much more often than not, now embodies political
authority within the federal government rather than Cabinet or individual Cabi-
net ministers. But the prime minister, more than anyone else in Ottawa, suffers
from an 'overload problem' so that he can only focus on a handful of major pol-
icy issues in any given mandate. When the prime minister does focus on an
issue and provides clear political direction, the system responds and decisions
are made and things do happen. As for the rest, the system will manage the pro-
cess and the issues, but bold action will hardly be forthcoming.
The failure of our politicians to see or admit that the prime minister has
become the key actor who can make government change course has led them to
search for solutions where none exist, to spend public funds when it is not
necessary, and to ignore areas where solutions may exist. In fact, some of the
solutions embraced have not only been expensive, they have been counterpro-
ductive. They have slowed down decision making, unnecessarily complicated
matters, and made it more difficult to chart a new course.
At the risk of being repetitive, when political action is not forthcoming on
key issues from the prime minister, many career officials, including those in
central agencies, will invariably tread water, hence the charge that they always
favour the status quo. Indeed, when a vacuum exists at the top, it is axiomatic
that central agencies will be loath to step in and take action on any given issue.
They will get involved in questions of details when they are prompted to do so.
But beyond setting central prescriptions and rules, they can only get involved at
most in a tiny fraction of administrative issues and government decisions. Yet
their very purpose is to assist in shaping the broad policy agenda and to ensure a
degree of coordination between programs, to eliminate duplication and overlap,
and to ensure probity in government operations and a degree of uniformity in its
running.
The influence central agencies have oh policy matters is often perceived as
negative unless, again, politicians have provided strong leadership and direc-
tion. The world of central agencies is one of maintaining the integrity of the
government policy and decision-making process, of overseeing the manage-
ment of the latest political or government crisis, of acting as goalkeepers, pre-
venting silly things from happening, and 'corralling bouncing politicians.'
Central agency officials are willing to be held accountable on how well they
manage the process. The role of senior public servants is to take political direc-
tion, and where it doesn't exist, to tread water until direction is given. In short,
the role of public servants is to advise the rulers on complex policy issues, not
to make the decisions.
Introduction 9
The Approach
The purpose of this study is to test several hypotheses:
• The power and influence of the centre of government has grown in recent
years.
• Central agencies fear ministerial and line department independence more
than they do line department paralysis. Prime ministers are quite happy to see
central agencies hold this bias.
• Despite far-reaching changes to the operation of government recently,
change in both style and substance in the work of central agencies has been
hesitant.
• The notion that central agency officials 'sit in judgment' of line department
activities rather than promoting their own prescriptions about what needs to
be done in a particular sector or policy field or even in cross-cutting policy
issues needs to be reviewed.
• Though the underlying theme of public service reforms over the past thirty-
five years or so has called for central agencies to play a greater strategic,
planning, and evaluation role than in the past, they still remain largely
incapable of identifying and recommending which line department activities
should be cut or expanded, and more generally of providing strategic leader-
ship.
• If there is a phrase that has captured the spirit of the 'new public management
movement,' it is that government should concentrate on steering rather than
on rowing, on where it is going rather than on how it is to get there. However,
officials in central agencies can only respond to clear political direction.
Without this, they will more often than not simply tread water. They will not
move in to fill a political vacuum. Before they will act, politicians first must
point the way, even if it means putting things off until the Greek month of
calends. In short, they regard their role as managing the state of affairs rather
than providing direction to the affairs of state.
The important question for students of government is what are the central
forces that have driven the above development? This study argues that there
have been several forces. We know that in the late 19605 and early 19705 then
Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau concluded that Cabinet was too large to be a
proper forum for decision making on all important issues. Moreover, he felt that
some line ministers and their departments had become too powerful. As is well
known, Trudeau decided to overhaul the centre of government and the opera-
tions of Cabinet.
io Governing from the Centre
To be sure, the Trudeau reforms had a major impact on government decision-
making. But, arguably, there have been more powerful forces. For one thing,
the election of a sovereignist party to power in Quebec in 1976 would have a
still more profound impact. National unity concerns and federal-provincial con-
cerns have come to dominate Ottawa's policy and decision-making agenda.
Understandably, no Canadian prime minister would wish to see Canada break
up under his or her watch. For this reason, if for no other, prime ministers, at
least since Trudeau, have all established a capacity at the centre to intervene
directly on any national unity or federal-provincial issues. National unity issues
in Canada can mean anything and everything. It depends on who holds political
power in Quebec, on party standings at the regional level, and on political cir-
cumstances. Any issue, however innocent or low profile at first, can quickly
blow up in the media and hold important implications for national unity or
federal-provincial relations. When this happens, prime ministers will usually
turn to the trusted hands of their own advisers or to those of senior officials in
the Privy Council Office for advice.
When issues become important because of political developments or federal-
provincial concerns, there is no distinction between policy and administration.
A purely administrative matter, like replacing windows on a government build-
ing, can become an important file. When this happens, the file becomes 'politi-
cal,' and the prime minister, as head of the party in power, will want to ensure
that the file is properly managed. This, in turn, explains why there has been
great reluctance in Ottawa to reorganize the centre of government or to cut back
the size of central agencies. Yet, this has certainly not been true of line depart-
ments, which have all suffered significant cuts resulting from the 1993 reorga-
nization or the recent program review exercise.
This study makes the case that to manage politically sensitive files the centre
of government has been redefined even to include line deputy ministers. As we
will see, line deputy ministers now spend nearly as much time, if not more,
managing sensitive files for the centre, dealing with interdepartmental and
intergovernmental issues, and attending meetings at the centre of government
as they do overseeing their own departments and operations. Put differently,
they now belong as much to the centre as they do to their ministers and depart-
ments.
The politicization of important files and, therefore, government operations,
also results from increased media attention and scrutiny. The media focus is
often on the prime minister. Nowhere is this more evident than during a
national election campaign. Powerful regional political figures such as C.D.
Howe, J. Gardiner, Ernest Lapointe, and Allan MacEachen are now much less a
factor in Canadian politics than in the past. The thirty-second television clip on
Introduction 11
the nightly news during the election campaign is nearly always about the activi-
ties of party leaders.
Globalization is also an important factor. Canadian prime ministers belong to
a series of recently created international clubs of heads of government from the
Gj to APEC and la francophonie. Deals, even bilateral ones, between heads of
governments are struck at these meetings. Canadian prime ministers, unlike
many other heads of government, have to deal with precious few built-in restric-
tions, at least within the federal government, to limit their involvement on specific
files. Whatever appears on their radar screens or in their in-basket is fair game.
The globalization of the world economy means that many more issues or files
will fall to the prime minister's in-basket. While it may well have been appro-
priate forty years ago to see sectoral problems in agriculture, transportation, and
industry dealt with separately in vertical line departments, it is no longer the
case. Everything in a government department now seems to connect to other
departments and other governments, whether at the provincial level or abroad.
In addition, and partly related to these developments, the Canadian party sys-
tem remains competitive. Many local, provincial, and regional issues can, on a
moment's notice, become political issues for the federal government. The
issues may range from an interprovincial high-profile conflict (e.g., which
province gets the contract to service the F-i8) or the closure of a local federal
government office. If the issue catches the interest of the media, then the prime
minister and his advisers will want to minimize the political fallout and will
intervene either directly or by calling the shots behind the scenes.
Both practitioners and scholars of late have been speaking and writing about
the strain imposed on government officials by 'overloading the engine.'
21
 The
thinking is that there are only a limited number of individuals in government
with effective decision-making authority, that there are only a limited number
of hours in the day and only a limited number of processes in place to cope with
a never-ending series of demands. This study examines the overload problem as
it applies to the federal government.
These, then, are some of the forces that feed into the changes at the centre of
government in Ottawa. Understanding these developments is necessary to
understanding how our national government works and how policy and deci-
sions are arrived at. This understanding can shed new light on how Parliament
works, on federal-provincial relations, on national unity, and ultimately on how
Canadians relate to their governments.
Organization of the Study
The first question that will likely jump to the reader's mind is, What is a central
12 Governing from the Centre
agency? The answer is not as straightforward as some might assume. There are
core central agencies which have statutory or constitutional obligations to sup-
port the ministry. These include the Privy Council Office, the Department of
Finance, the Treasury Board, and the Prime Minister's Office. Together, they
constitute the exclusive club of central agencies.
22
 With the exception of the
Department of Finance, these agencies do not have programs of their own to
administer. Their influence stems from their direct relationship to the prime
minister or the ministry. Finance is also the keeper of the government's fiscal
framework and has a strong, if not determining, influence on the size of the
government's expenditure budget. The on-again, off-again Federal-Provincial
Relations Office or intergovernment affairs group could also be included in the
exclusive club. But it depends. It depends on whether the office reports directly
to the prime minister or to a minister, if it enjoys independent status, or if it is
part of the Privy Council Office. It can be a member of the exclusive club,
either as part of the PCO or as a stand-alone central agency so long as it has a
reporting relationship to the prime minister. At the moment, the intergovern-
mental affairs group is part of the Privy Council and reports to both a minister
and to the clerk of the Privy Council and secretary to the Cabinet. It thus has a
reporting relationship to the prime minister through the clerk.
This study concentrates on the exclusive club; that is, on the work of those
central agencies that support the work of the head of government. I pay particu-
lar attention to the work of permanent officials. I include the Prime Minister's
Office, which is staffed by partisans. I also deal at some length with the budget
process and, accordingly, pay particular attention to the role of the Department
of Finance and the Treasury Board secretariat. The budget is central to the
agenda of any government and administration, and the head of government
invariably takes a keen interest in its preparation. As one student of public
administration explains, in government 'money steals the stage ... it is the only
tool with a natural unit of measure.'
23
 Others point out that 'budgeting is the
most important annual ritual of government - the World Series of Govern-
ment.'
24
 I also look at the work of central agencies charged with ensuring pro-
bity and a degree of uniformity in government operations.
There are, in fact, several types of central or horizontal agencies in the gov-
ernment of Canada. There are departments like Environment and Industry, and
regional development agencies with a mandate to coordinate government
efforts in a given policy area. There are also departments which have been
labelled 'horizontal policy guardian' agencies and include Justice and External
Affairs. These departments have a mixture of 'statutory powers and exhortative
attributes' to coordinate policy.
25
 Some departments, like Public Works and
Government Services, not only provide specialized services to line depart-
Introduction 13
ments, but also formulate policy and administrative guidelines to ensure a
degree of uniformity throughout the government. However, not much time is
spent on these agencies, given their limited relevance to the central purpose
of the book.
The study has three parts. Part I discusses the birth of central agencies and
the inevitable tensions that exist for Cabinet ministers between their collective
and individual responsibilities. It is not possible to gain a proper understanding
of the role of central agencies without first going back to their origins. Several
questions come to mind. How were they established? What was their initial pur-
pose? Why have they expanded? Chapter 2 considers these and other issues.
In answering these questions, the book looks briefly to experiences in Britain
and, to a lesser extent, the United States. British and American experiences did
shape the development of our own centre of government. In addition, a compar-
ative perspective can shed new light on the operation of our own political and
administrative institutions. As Woodrow Wilson wrote 100 years ago, 'Our
own institutions can be understood and appreciated only by those who know
other systems of government... By the use of a thorough comparative method ...
a general clarification of views may be obtained. '
2 6
A fundamental issue for Cabinet ministers is how to reconcile their collective
and individual responsibilities. How does one strike the right balance between
the two? Does the balance change for different issues or does it remain con-
stant? What processes and structures have been introduced over the years to
reconcile the collective and individual responsibilities of Cabinet ministers?
Chapter 3 explores these issues.
Part II reports on the role of the prime minister and the central agencies.
Though the notion of collective responsibility is key to understanding the role
of the Cabinet in government, not all members of Cabinet enjoy equal status
and power. As well, collective responsibility has come to mean different things
to different people. It became clear during the course of the research for this
book, for example, that collective responsibility holds a vastly different mean-
ing for the prime minister than it does for ministers. No one, at least in govern-
ment in Canada, believes any longer that the prime minister is primus inter
pares, A senior official in the Privy Council Office and long-serving public
servant reports that 'one has to go back to Lester B. Pearson [i.e., the 19605] to
see any resemblance to "primus inter pares." Certainly, it has not been the case
since 1968, and it seems that every year that goes by we move further and fur-
ther away from it.'
27
 In looking at the status the prime minister enjoys in gov-
ernment and the role of his office, this book argues, as already noted, that his or
her hand on government has been considerably strengthened in recent years.
The reasons are varied, and they include the role of the media, the requirements
14 Governing from the Centre
of modern government, and the lack of checks within the federal government to
define the outer limits of his authority.
In Part II, I also look at the work of core central agencies in some detail. I
review the work of the various units in the Privy Council Office with a special
emphasis on the role of the clerk of the Privy Council and secretary to the Cab-
inet. I examine how the office manages the cabinet process, the prime minis-
ter's prerogative in shaping the machinery of government, the appointments of
senior officials, including deputy ministers, and the work of the intergovern-
mental affairs group. I look into the traditional areas of interest for Canadian
prime ministers, notably federal-provincial relations, foreign affairs, and
national security, and report on the support structures at the centre of govern-
ment he can turn to for assistance.
The minister and Department of Finance occupy a key position at the centre
of government. The department establishes the fiscal framework from which
the government can operate. It acts as the guardian of the public purse. But it is
also the government's chief economic adviser and considers macroeconomic
policy its exclusive domain, a turf it jealously guards.
Part II also examines the relationship between the prime minister and the
Finance minister, as well as the role the department played in the program
review carried out in 1994 and 1995. It explores recent developments in the role
of the Finance minister and reviews the impact these have for the cabinet
decision-making process.
Part II also looks at the Treasury Board secretariat and the Public Service
Commission. The work of the former, in particular, goes to the heart of recent
reforms to modernize government operations by introducing the New Public
Management. The Public Service Commission, together with the Treasury
Board secretariat, plays an important role in human resources management.
What both do can have a profound impact on departments and on government
operations.
Finally, Part II looks at the centre of government from the perspective of min-
isters and line departments to establish how they work with the centre of govern-
ment. It also discusses the role of ministers and assesses changes to this role in
recent years. Similarly, the changing role of deputy ministers is examined, and
the ensuing consequences for central agency-line department relations.
Part III considers the impact recent reforms have had on central agencies and
on government operations. As already noted, I argue that the federal govern-
ment decides and operates differently from the way it did thirty years ago. The
Trudeau reforms, the strengthening of the centre of government, the intrusion
of the media, the overload problems, national unity concerns, and federal-
provincial relations all have had effects not just on government operations but
Introduction 15
also on the behaviour of ministers and senior government officials. While I
argue that the centre and, in particular, the hand of the prime minister, has been
considerably strengthened in recent years, this is not to suggest that the federal
government is better able to define new strategic direction or a coherent plan to
which all government departments can contribute. It is ironic perhaps that as the
hand of the centre has been strengthened, its ability to manage horizontal issues
has been weakened.
This book also argues that several cultures or forms of shared values are
emerging inside the federal public service. The institution has been hit by sev-
eral major forces in recent years that have shaken the confidence of public ser-
vants. These forces include a consensus among political parties that senior
federal public servants had become too powerful and a desire to introduce a
business culture to government operations. These and other developments are
reshaping the federal public service and how the federal government makes pol-
icies and decisions.
Information for this study comes from a number of sources, including pub-
lished and unpublished government documents. Several senior government
officials made available information and material which proved to be extremely
valuable in completing the research for this study and in preparing a series of
questions for the interviews.
As part of the research for this book, eighty-eight present and former govern-
ment officials were interviewed, including Cabinet ministers, members of Par-
liament, deputy ministers, heads of crown corporations, as well as middle- and
lower-level government administrators.
28
 Off-the-record interviews were done
to elicit the most candid comments, although a few respondents specifically
asked if they could be quoted. Representative samples, which would have been
impractical for the purpose of the study, were not drawn. Lists of potential
respondents were developed by consulting several senior government officials
in Ottawa. The interviews were largely unstructured, and each was tailored to
the position of the respective respondent. Accordingly, a series of common
questions were not put to all. All the interviews were with present or former
senior government managers, deputy ministers, political assistants (employed
either in the Prime Minister's Office or in ministerial officials) and Cabinet
ministers.
However, public servants below the executive category were contacted to
secure factual -information. Twenty-two interviews were carried out between
January and June 1993 and sixty-six between September 1997 and March 1998.
The first set was designed to secure factual information about central agencies
and to gain an appreciation of the workings of central agencies. The aim of the
second set was to investigate how decision makers see the system working - in
16 Governing from the Centre
particular, the strengths and weaknesses of the centre of government - from
both the centre and line department perspectives. In the second set of inter-
views, some findings from the earlier interviews were tested on the respon-
dents. It is fitting that my last interview was on 16 March 1998 with the
Honourable Marcel Masse, president of the Treasury Board secretariat and a
former clerk of the Privy Council Office, secretary to the Cabinet, and head of
the Federal-Provincial Relations Office.
PAR T I
TH E SETTING
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2
The Centre Is Born
Central direction of government bureaucracy, to the extent it existed at all in the
nineteenth century and between the world wars, was largely limited to person-
nel management. The desire to clean up the spoils system and to strengthen and
develop a unified public service had led many governments to introduce legisla-
tion to ensure that recruitment would be based on merit. Recruitment also
became centralized, and it was assumed, albeit not by everyone, that the new
approach was successful.
1
 In the United States, for example, the federal govern-
ment had deeply impressed the business community with its ability to centralize
the recruitment of personnel during the First World War.
2
With the role of government itself limited, the challenge of coordinating
policies and programs was easily met. There was also little need to develop a
strong central policy and planning capacity. The life of prime ministers and
even American presidents was a relatively leisurely one and issues were quickly
mastered. We are informed, for example, that Woodrow Wilson 'worked but
three or four hours a day and spent much of his time happily and quietly, sitting
around with his family,' while Calvin Coolidge is reported to have 'slept on an
average eleven hours per day.'
3
 Canadian and British prime ministers also had a
relatively easy time at work, and the narrow scope of government activity
meant that political leaders could easily grasp the issues at hand.
4
 If advice was
required, they turned to Cabinet or to a few trusted advisers. In brief, the tasks
of public servants were largely clerical, and policy decisions, to the extent that
they were needed, could still be taken by leisured amateurs operating at the
political level.
As this chapter makes clear, Ottawa would look to other countries, in particu-
lar Britain and the United States, for inspiration in developing its centre of gov-
ernment. The desire to clean up the spoils system pushed governments, at least
initially, to establish a capacity at the centre to deal with recruitment and pro-
20 The Setting
motions in their public services. In time, however, governments would move to
strengthen their centre to promote greater policy and program coordination,
to generate policy advice, and to promote better management practices in gov-
ernment operations. As governments grew and increasingly intervened in the
economy, the centre of government took on new responsibilities, particularly on
the planning coordination and monitoring fronts.
The Beginning
In Canada's early years, the role of the central agencies consisted essentially of
handling financial and administrative matters. Permanent officials in the
Department of Finance, for example, were largely preoccupied with book-
keeping, accounting, and auditing issues. At the time of Confederation, new
financial arrangements and settlements had to be struck with provincial govern-
ments, and some administrative and financial details had to be worked out as
new divisions of responsibilities were being established. To be sure, the new
arrangements were complex and controversial, but by and large they still
mostly involved accounting and bookkeeping issues, and a handful of officials
in the Department of Finance in Ottawa managed them.
5
One of Sir John A. Macdonald's first initiatives as prime minister was to set
up by order-in-council on 2 July 1867 'a Board of Treasury with such powers
and duties as may from time to time be assigned to it.'
6
 The board was made up
of four ministers, all with specific financial duties: the ministers of Finance,
Customs, Inland Revenue, and the receiver general. Robert Bryce writes that in
Canada's early years, Cabinet referred to the Treasury Board 'a variety of
financial and administrative matters for its collective advice and ordered that
certain proposals requiring approval by the Governor in Council be sent to [the
Treasury Board] for consideration.'
7
 The government appointed through an
order-in-council a 'chief clerk' to the Treasury Board, and the title of his posi-
tion well describes his duties, given the administrative and clerical nature of
government work at that time.
The centre of government was also quite small and officials performed a
variety of tasks. The total number of public servants in the Department of
Finance in 1867, for example, was twenty-eight. This included officials from
the former united province of Canada transferred to the service of the 'Domin-
ion' as prescribed under a provision of the British North America Act.
8
 Today,
the Department of Finance alone employs about 700 people. The Treasury
Board secretariat employs another 800 people. It is revealing to note that the
Department of Finance now employs more information and computer systems
specialists (thirty) than it had in total staff in the late i86os.
9
The Centre Is Born 21
One can only marvel today at the simplicity of the work of central agencies in
their early years, their small size and the ability, not to mention the willingness,
to combine several responsibilities into one large, all-encompassing job. John
Langton, for example, was appointed on the same day in 1870 deputy minister
of Finance, secretary of the Treasury Board, and auditor general.
10
 To be sure,
the combination of responsibilities was at odds with the doctrine of the indepen-
dence of the auditor general, and it goes almost without saying that no such
combination would be possible today. In fact, it would now be unthinkable. The
advantage, however, was that it placed in the hands of a highly capable indi-
vidual full responsibility for all of the government's financial and accounting
practices. Today, the Office of the Auditor General enjoys, of course, full inde-
pendence from the government. It also employs 535 people.
1
'
All of the above is to say that at Confederation, and indeed for a long time
after that, the centre of government - like the government itself - was easily
understood and highly accessible even to parliamentarians. Indeed, Parliament
debated whether extra compensation should be given to John Langton for
assuming multiple responsibilities, and the minister had to defend vigorously
his government's decision to award an extra $1,000 a year to Mr Langton.
12
Three forces, however, would change all that. The movement to eliminate the
spoils system, the need to plan the war effort, and the development of a new
arsenal of economic and social policies would give rise to new machinery at the
centre of government. In time, it would grow considerably, and the work of
government would become highly complex, far too complex for leisured politi-
cal amateurs to master without expert advice.
Controlling Personnel Management through Centralization
The most important issue confronting public administration in Western countries
in the late iSoos and early 19005 was how to deal with the political spoils sys-
tems. Britain had placed the issue on the political agenda as early as the 18508
with the publication of the Northcote-Trevelyan report, which proposed four key
reforms: (i) entry into the civil service should be through open competition and
examination; (2) promotion should be on merit, based on proper assessments pre-
pared by superiors; (3) a distinction should be established between intellectual
and mechanical labour; and (4) measures should be put in place to unify the civil
service, including a common basis of recruiting. It took some time for Northcote-
Trevelyan to be fully implemented - according to some, not until the end of the
First World War.
1
-
3
 Its publication and implementation, however, signalled a
decisive shift towards the centre of government in personnel management and
would lead other countries, including Canada, to initiate similar reforms.
22 The Setting
In 1917 the British government formally recognized the permanent secretary
of the Treasury as head of the civil service, thereby signalling its intention to
centralize personnel management still more. It also introduced measures to
ensure that promotions to the most senior levels would be decided at the centre,
rather than as previously in ministries. The government decreed in 1919 that the
prime minister would, on the advice of the head of the civil service, hold full
authority to accept or reject all appointments to the top positions in all depart-
ments. The prime minister and his or her advisers would, in turn, reserve the
prerogative to survey all departments and the whole civil service to identify the
most promising candidates for the position of permanent secretary. The Cana-
dian prime minister would also assume the same prerogative.
Although Canadian political institutions have their roots in British tradition,
the administrative practices found in the Canadian public service reveal both
British and American influences. In the case of the merit system, for instance,
the influences have been predominantly American.
14
 To be sure, the Canadian
battle to rid government of the political spoils system took place at about the
same time as the British and American ones. In Canada, however, the early
efforts were less successful than in the other two countries. Spurred on by a
number of reformers, including a growing number of members of Parliament,
the government established a parliamentary committee in 1877, and later, a
royal commission, to look into the matter. Although the Civil Service Act was
passed in 1882, it lacked teeth and little actually changed. R. MacGregor Daw-
son explains, 'The entrance examination was not competitive and the minister
was therefore still free to appoint anyone he chose, subject to the trifling restric-
tion that the candidate was required to pass a very elementary test. Subnormal
and illiterate candidates were shut out; but almost anyone else could squeeze
through and, if he had the necessary political influence, he could slip into the
appointment as before."
5
 Although the pressure for effective reform towards
the end of the nineteenth century in Canada was great, the government of the
day looked for every opportunity to slip back to the old ways of doing things. It
is important to recognize that at the turn of the century the distribution of
patronage was still the most important function of the government.
16
But things began to change in the early 19008. People with the necessary
skills to carry out more complex tasks were increasingly required, and reform-
ers pointed to developments in Great Britain and the United States as the most
promising way ahead for introducing change. Moreover, the call for dealing
with political patronage in public service appointments began to fall on
attentive ears among the general public, which started to comprehend the
'great value' of efficient administration and appreciate the wasteful results of
patronage.
17
The Centre Is Born 23
Growing public demand for the government to do something, coupled with
the need to call a general election, prompted the Laurier government in 1908 to
pass a new civil service act. This act established a civil service commission and
effectively curtailed the autonomy of departments in the management of per-
sonnel matters. Above all, the act sought to ensure that individual ministers
could no longer appoint public servants after merely consulting Cabinet col-
leagues, members of Parliament, defeated candidates, and the local patronage
committee.'
8
Canada's Civil Service Commission was to be nonpartisan, and members of
the commission given tenure during good behaviour were to be subject to
removal only by the governor general on a motion passed by both the Senate
and the House of Commons. The commission was charged with setting exami-
nations for entrance to a large number of government jobs. The examinations
would be held in open competition and the winning candidate would secure the
appointment. Again, however, the old ways of doing things proved difficult to
abandon. Although the 1908 changes were far-reaching, the reformers were not
at all satisfied. The policies of the Civil Service Commission applied to only
parts of the service, the Tn Service.' The 'Outside Service,' which grew consid-
erably after 1908, operated under the old political rules. The Outside Service
was so large that, when the Laurier government went down to defeat in 1911,
some 11,000 public servants resigned or were fired, mostly for having been
guilty of political partisanship.
The reformers, however, finally won the day in 1918 when nearly the entire
civil service and virtually all appointments were placed under the Civil Service
Commission. The mandate of the commission was strengthened and a new sys-
tem of classification and pay was introduced. On this front, Canada looked to
the American system for inspiration. It did not, for example, recognize a dis-
tinct administrative class to which young university graduates would be
recruited. It sought to classify positions 'minutely,' according to specific duties
and tasks.'
9
 These developments strengthened considerably the hand of the
commission, turning it into a powerful central agency. But it would be a differ-
ent type of central agency in that it would not fall under direct prime ministerial
or ministerial direction. The commission is a parliamentary agency and enjoys
an independence from political direction that no other central agency can possi-
bly have.
The reforms, initially at least, proved difficult to implement, and departments
began to question the need for a highly centralized personnel-management sys-
tem. While the business community, at least in the United States, was applaud-
ing the government's ability to centralize the recruitment of personnel, some
line department officials in Ottawa became nostalgic about the old days when
24 The Setting
they appeared before parliamentary committees. Two senior deputy ministers
went so far as to argue for 'a restoration of the pre-i9o8 period, claiming that
the maligned patronage system was in reality the only democratic way of man-
aging the service.'
20
 Some senior officials felt that it was easier to cope with
their own ministers and ultimately with political patronage than with all the
requirements of an independent central agency and with having to define and
classify all positions. But this time, however, there would be no turning back.
The establishment of the Public Service Commission served notice in Can-
ada, as similar central agencies did elsewhere, that a capacity should be estab-
lished at the centre to oversee an important function, and that it could be made
to work. If the objective was to deal with the spoils system and to bring order to
personnel management, the solution was to centralize the function. Ministers
and government departments, it appears, had to be brought to heel and only then
could the objective be met. In short, dealing with the spoils system had to be
accomplished through a central agency, and departments and their ministers
were not to be trusted to do it on their own.
Supporting the Lloyd George War Cabinet
Britain's prime minister, Lloyd George, has been described as the 'twentieth
century's greatest architect of government institutions.'
21
 He made a deliberate
decision to overhaul the machinery of government, and by the time he left
office in 1922, he had refashioned the Treasury, transformed the premiership,
and established the Cabinet Office. Planning war efforts would require a new
central capacity and wartime political leaders would see to it. It would certainly
push governments to redesign their administration and develop a centre to plan,
coordinate, and monitor an arsenal of new policies, programs, and activities.
In December 1916, Lloyd George assembled his five-member War Cabinet
and then decided to provide it with 'secretarial equipment.'
22
 His purpose was
straightforward enough - to structure a process to bring matters before Cabinet,
to record decisions, and to communicate them to those who needed to know.
Thus began the tradition of 'one or two silent men on the right of the Prime
Minister at the Cabinet table.'
23
 The establishment of the Cabinet Office was no
small development - it changed forever how the government made decisions,
and, consequently, the process of governing. Indeed, prior to 1916 Cabinet had
met without a formal agenda and without a secretary. Ministers simply took
action on the basis of their recollection of what had transpired in Cabinet.
24
 The
prime minister, if he so wished, could later hold them to account if the right
decision was not being pursued.
From the very start, the 'silent men on the right of the Prime Minister' knew
The Centre Is Born 25
that they had to perform a delicate balancing act. These permanent officials
were reluctant to influence the decisions of ministers and even to offer advice -
particularly on nondefence matters. They were well aware of their favoured
position with the Cabinet and believed that any attempt on their part to influ-
ence decisions could well compromise the confidence of ministers and depart-
ments necessary to make the Cabinet Office work.
25
 Word that the Cabinet
Office favoured a particular position, minister, or department would be certain
to get around, and the office's capacity to serve the Cabinet would be compro-
mised. Accordingly, in the office's early years, permanent officials operating at
the centre of government were very reluctant to interfere with the work of min-
isters and departments or second-guess their advice or decisions.
However hard it fought to remain neutral on policy, the Cabinet Office was
not without its critics. The opposition Conservative Party, for example, claimed
that the secretariat was too costly and a 'dangerous innovation.'
26
 Some even
saw a constitutional crisis in the making. A new part in the machinery of gov-
ernment had been born, operating at the very centre of the decision-making pro-
cess without a proper public debate. The fear was that the office could well
undermine the concept of ministerial responsibility by interfering with the work
of individual ministers and their departments.
Still, at his first Cabinet meeting in 1922, Conservative Prime Minister Bonar
Law instructed the secretary to the Cabinet 'to attend meetings of the Cabinet,
unless instructed to the contrary, for the purpose of recording the conclu-
sions.'
27
 A change of heart, but only up to a point. He still wanted to close down
much of the Cabinet Office and to transfer most of its work to the Treasury and
to the Foreign Office. In any event, the office's workload declined substantially
in peace time. For example, 3,000 memoranda were submitted to Cabinet in
1918. The number had dropped to about 500 by the mid-19205 and remained at
about that level until the start of the Second World War.
28
 Thus, although it was
not abolished, the Cabinet Office staff shrank in size from 120 employees to 39.
The role of government in Britain remained limited up to the late 19305. Cab-
inet still dealt with relatively straightforward administrative matters and minis-
terial workloads remained manageable. There was no obvious need for strong
central coordination and planning.
29
 A British Cabinet minister serving between
1929 and 1931 summed up the relative unimportance of the Cabinet Office on
the policy front at this time, There was no Economic Section in existence, no
central Statistical Office, no economic planners and but little in the way of
information services.'
30
During the Second World War, Neville Chamberlain and later Winston
Churchill would again establish a small War Cabinet, as Lloyd George had
done before them. Churchill, like Lloyd George, also established a number of
26 The Setting
Cabinet committees to assist the War Cabinet. Though Churchill was critical of
the proliferation of these committees, insisting that they were time-wasting and
a means of avoiding responsibility, he oversaw the establishment of about 400
War Cabinet committees and subcommittees during the war years. Thus,
in turn, the Cabinet Office again expanded substantially to service the new
machinery.
The Churchill War Cabinet met about three times a week and the conclusions
were circulated the same day. The secretary to the Cabinet, Edward Bridges,
attended all meetings, as did two or three other senior officials from the Cabinet
Office. In addition, an assistant secretary from the office acted as secretary to a
Cabinet committee or, much more often than not, to several Cabinet commit-
tees. The office established new units to advise on military affairs and the econ-
omy, and by the end of the war it employed 576 people.
31
It is widely accepted that Britain's wartime effort was a success story.
32
Whitehall threw open its doors to outside experts and never lost sight of its
overriding purpose: to defeat Hitler. A totally mobilized society was pro-
duced.
33
 The Cabinet Office and the Treasury led the efforts at the bureaucratic
level to map out new departments (for example, ministries of Food, Ship-
ping, Supply, National Service, Blockade, Information, and Redistribution of
Imports), to devise new methods to plan and execute work, and to search for the
best people to ensure that the new methods and capacity would function prop-
erly. The more important interdepartmental committees were invariably chaired
by senior officials from the centre.
Britain's best and brightest also came to government to serve and the centre
got more than its fair share of them. The economic section of the Office of the
War Cabinet, for example, was able to assemble a veritable who's who of the
best economic minds in Britain.
34
 Harold Wilson left Oxford, where he had
been made a don at age twenty-one, to work in the Office of the Cabinet, join-
ing the likes of Professors Stanley Dennison and John Jewkes. Meanwhile, John
Maynard Keynes went to the Treasury and William Beveridge chaired a com-
mittee on social insurance. The key strategic planning and coordinating tasks
were performed from the centre and no one was critical of its ability to deliver.
All in all, the mix of permanent civil servants and highly talented outsiders
blended very well during the war years - so much so that this period repre-
sented, in the opinion of a keen observer of the British civil service, the 'high
point of achievement in the history of the British Civil Service.'
35
By the end of the Second World War, in Britain, in Canada, and even in the
United States, the public's belief in the ability of government was high. Not
only had the allies won the war but the governments had planned the war effort
and run the economy very well indeed. Unemployment had fallen to zero and
The Centre Is Born 27
yet prices had been held down, at least when the goods were available. It had
become clear that national governments were able, in moments of crisis and
when moved by an overriding goal, to lead their countries and accomplish great
things. The concern now turned to the postwar economy, with many fearing that
the end of the war would trigger a recession, if not another depression.
Canada: Looking to Britain
Canada resisted much longer than Britain in establishing a central secretariat to
assist Cabinet. It wasn't until 1940 that the Canadian government came to the
conclusion that there was a need for a comprehensible record of Cabinet deci-
sions. Before that, Prime Minister Mackenzie King would simply have three
boxes in which he would deposit Cabinet memos: some went into a 'No' box,
others in a 'Yes' box, and still others in a 'Pending' box. In addition, King often
held two Cabinet meetings. At the first meeting, no one was present but himself
and his ministers. When the important Cabinet business was concluded, King
would push a buzzer to signal the clerk to come in, take notes, and on occasions
record specific directions. King would simply declare that Cabinet was resolv-
ing itself into council. The clerk of the Privy Council was precisely that, a clerk,
and with the help of an assistant clerk, he would keep a register of council
minutes. Before 1940 Cabinet operated without a formal agenda, had no secre-
tariat, no permanent official attending the meetings to record the discussions,
and no system existed to communicate the decisions to departments.
36
This system allowed government to function, largely, of course, because of
the small number of major policy issues with which it had to deal. As J.R. Mai-
lory explains, 'Until 1939 the major and minor details of government policy
were capable of being understood and actively considered by ministers and
dealt with by the Cabinet.'
37
 Lester B. Pearson provides a first-hand account of
what things were like when he joined the federal public service. He writes,
'When I first came to Ottawa in 1928, the Privy Council Office was small in
size and clerical in its operations, and presided over certain formal activities.
The Prime Minister's Office, including stenographers, file clerks, and messen-
gers, could not have comprised much more than a dozen. If the PM wanted spe-
cial assistance, he would get it from departments on an ad hoc basis ...'
38
The Second World War would change this. The government got involved in
virtually every sector of the economy and promoted a shift of power away from
Parliament to the Cabinet. In addition, King had long complained about the lack
of assistance in his own office and at one point claimed that his own staff was
not nearly as well organized as that of the Office of the Under-Secretary of
External Affairs.
39
 He served notice that he was open to suggestions.
28 The Setting
King probably got more than he bargained for when in late 1938 he invited
Arnold Heeney to become his principal secretary, 'which position would corre-
spond in a way to a Deputy Head of a Government Department.'
40
 While at
Oxford, Heeney had attended a lecture by Sir Maurice Hanley, the secretary to
the British Cabinet, on cabinet procedure, a lecture that had deeply impressed
him. As J.L. Granatstein writes, 'The fates must have been at play that evening:
fifteen years later Heeney would be the Canadian Hanley.'
41
Heeney had accepted King's offer on the condition that one day he would be
appointed to a position where he would be able to 'develop in Canada the kind
of post formerly held in the United Kingdom by Sir Maurice Hanley namely
that of Secretary to the Cabinet ... the post will be created and I will be
appointed.'
42
 The war years provided the impetus, not to mention the workload,
to justify appointing Arnold Heeney Secretary to Cabinet and Clerk of the Privy
Council. For one thing, Cabinet appeared to sit continuously. Indeed, the War
Cabinet Committee, which brought together the most powerful ministers, and
which would assume effective control of Canada's war effort and operations of
government, held 343 meetings. Heeney attended these meetings and pushed
King to impose discipline on their operation. Heeney - and in time King agreed
- wanted ministers to give notice of their intention to bring issues before the
war committee and Cabinet. He also wanted the Cabinet Office to prepare a for-
mal agenda and a record of decisions. King had been impressed by the way
Churchill ran his War Cabinet on his first wartime visit to Britain in 1941 and
accordingly was open to Heeney's recommendations to pattern Canadian opera-
tions on the British experience. With King's support, Heeney turned to Sir
Edward Bridges, the new secretary of the Cabinet in Britain, and Lord Hanley
for advice on how to reorganize the work of Cabinet and to establish a Cabinet
Office.
43
This is not to suggest that the change was free of problems or tensions. For
one thing, King felt that Heeney all too often attenuated the 'vigour of [his] pro-
tests' when drafting the minutes of the war committee and 'soft-pedalled'
King's criticism of some of his ministers during the conscription crisis.
44
 The
prime minister was also uneasy with Heeney's arranging meetings between rep-
resentatives of competing departments and with his informing ministers that
their departmental initiatives were causing problems for other departments.
King wanted to be directly involved and to call the shots on all things from
major policy issues to relatively minor administrative matters.
45
 Heeney, like
his British counterpart, felt that his job was to ensure that the government's
engine, the Cabinet, would run smoothly, and he would do what he could to
ensure that feathers would not be unduly ruffled.
In an article published eighteen years after he left government, Arnold
The Centre Is Born 29
Heeney wrote about the roles played by the prime minister and himself in the
establishment of the Cabinet secretariat. Mackenzie King, he explained, 'visu-
alized ... [the new position of secretary to the Cabinet] as a kind of deputy to the
Prime Minister ... his primary, if unacknowledged, objective was to enhance his
authority as Prime Minister.' However, things did not work out as planned.
'King,' Heeney wrote, 'must often have regretted the monster he had created ...
[and] the role of the Secretary to the Cabinet did not work out the way ... he had
hoped and expected.'
46
Heeney quoted approvingly Harold Wilson's views on the Cabinet Office 'as
being [there] to assist ministers in the task of discharging their collective
responsibility for the government of the country and the conduct of its affairs
both at home and abroad.'
47
 Heeney added that though 'the Prime Minister is
the master [to use the old expression ] of Cabinet business ... the Secretary to
the Cabinet is one whose chief interest and concern is the formulation, record-
ing and communication of decisions by those who compose the Cabinet of the
day [and] the chief function of the Secretary [is] to do everything possible to
facilitate and assess the deliberative process onward to informed decisions.'
Heeney concluded that 'in his guise of Secretary to the Cabinet, [he] became
responsible for the discharge of these duties ... [and] had little or no time to act
as the personal staff officer to the Prime Minister.'
48
Cabinet also learned under Heeney to function even if the prime minister was
not in the chair. The Korean dispute was one of the most important international
situations for Canada from the end of the Second World War to the first half of
the 19508. With Prime Minister King away in London in November 1947,
Louis St Laurent, the minister of External Affairs, and James Ilsley, the minis-
ter of Justice, had secured Cabinet approval for their participation to serve on
the United Nations Temporary Commission on Korea (UNTCOK) to supervise
free elections. When King returned from London, he expressed his strong dis-
agreement and asked St Laurent and Ilsley to resign from the commission.
Both, however, stood firm and there was a Cabinet crisis in the making. King
avoided a full-blown crisis by coming to an understanding with St Laurent at a
private dinner. In the end, however, Canada participated in the work of the
UNTCOK Commission.
49
If King was concerned with his Secretary assuming too much influence, one
can only imagine what his ministers felt. A powerful member of the King Cabi-
net, C.G. Power, outlined the evolution of the role of Parliament and govern-
ment with deep concern, The public began to look to the Prime Minister and
the members of the cabinet. They and they alone came to be regarded as respon-
sible for everything concerned with the war. This increased the prestige of the
cabinet and Government enormously and correspondingly decreased that of
30 The Setting
Parliament.'
50
 A look at the number of Cabinet decisions during the Second
World War speaks to this point. Between 1939 and 1945, some 60,000 orders-
in-council and over 60,000 Treasury minutes were passed. Both figures were
well over five times the number taken annually in the late sixties.
5
' Parliament
could not possibly review all these decisions. The focus of activity and decision
during the war years had clearly shifted away from Parliament to Cabinet, and it
would never shift back.
Some of the reforms Mackenzie King introduced during the war years have
lasted to this day and have had a profound impact in shaping the present-day
machinery of government. The most important was the establishment in 1940
of the position of secretary to the Cabinet. The duties of the post were outlined
and included preparing for the prime minister's approval an agenda for Cabinet
meetings; keeping notes of Cabinet meetings and a record of conclusions as
might be required; preparing and submitting to Cabinet members information
necessary for their deliberations; communicating to ministers, departments, and
others concerned decisions of Cabinet; maintaining liaison between Cabinet
and its committees - and any other duties assigned to him by the governor-
in-council.
52
 Heeney's focus was clearly on the Cabinet and on the Cabinet
decision-making process. It was Heeney who coined the term 'Secretary to the
Cabinet' and he sought to play the role to the full. A broad mandate to be sure,
and some fifteen years later C.G. Power felt that they had created a revolution
that had taken on a life of its own. He argued, 'Operating collectively in large
affairs the Cabinet's chief advisers became almost a second Cabinet, at times
more potent than the first. A managerial revolution was under way and could
never be repealed.'
53
There was also another revolution under way which would have a profound
influence on the machinery of government. Canada only had to look to its
southern neighbour to see that the era of activist government had arrived.
Roosevelt: Defining a New Economy
President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced in March 1933 that he would ask
Congress to grant him broad executive power 'to wage a war against the emer-
gency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact
invaded by a foreign foe.'
54
 The enemy was the Great Depression and the battle
cry was a New Deal for the American people. Roosevelt unleashed a flurry of
activities during his first few hundred days in office. He saw to it that an Agri-
cultural Adjustment Act was passed to bring farmers more purchasing power, as
well as a National Industrial Recovery Act to regulate business activities. He
established the Tennessee Valley Authority to assist the destitute Tennessee
The Centre Is Born 31
Valley, the Home Owners Loan Corporation to help homeowners threatened
with foreclosures, an Emergency Relief Administration to make direct grants to
states for relief to the unemployed, and a Civilian Conservation Corps to pro-
vide work for unemployed youth. He also issued an executive order taking
the country off the gold standard.
55
 Within two years of coming to office,
Roosevelt had established some sixty new agencies and added 100,000 new
positions, exempt from regular civil service procedures.
56
 In short, the era of
limited government and limited presidency was over.
It soon became obvious that Roosevelt's policy ambitions and program mea-
sures far outstripped the government's ability to deliver. Boldly stated, the
problem was this: Roosevelt wanted twentieth-century solutions to the horrors
of the Depression but he was trapped 'with an administrative capacity that prop-
erly belonged to the nineteenth century.'
57
 Roosevelt needed to infuse the
bureaucratic organism with new blood, with officials willing and capable of
promoting and implementing New Deal thinking inside government, where he
believed resistance was setting in. He concluded that he needed a capacity at the
centre of government for creative thinking, for shaping new policies and pro-
grams, and for managing the bureaucracy.
58
 Roosevelt understood the chal-
lenge well and responded with a series of measures. All in all, the scope and
intensity of the changes he introduced led two students of American govern-
ment to label the 19308 a decade of 'extraordinary theoretical ferment and insti-
tutional adaptation.'
59
In 1936 Roosevelt asked a management expert, Louis Brownlow, to chair a
president's committee on administrative management. Brownlow tabled his
findings within ten months and, to no one's surprise, stressed the need for a
strong capacity at the centre of the administration. He explained, 'A weak
administration can neither advance nor retreat successfully - it can merely mud-
dle. Those who waver at the sight of needed power are false friends of modern
democracy. Strong executive leadership is essential to democratic govern-
ment.'
60
 Few were surprised by Brownlow's recommendations. Indeed,
Roosevelt had structured the Brownlow Committee so that it would tell
him what he wanted to hear.
61
 For example, the opening pages of the com-
mittee's report simply stated that there was no need 'to prove once again that
the President's administrative equipment is far less developed than his
responsibilities.'
62
Brownlow proposed a number of sweeping changes. He concluded, The
President needs help. His immediate staff assistance is entirely inadequate.'
63
The short - fifty-page - report started from the premise that the president was
constitutionally the head of the executive branch, that he needed 'institutional'
assistance to perform his duties, and that the hierarchical principle of organiza-
32 The Setting
tion with its lines of authority and accountability was required for the efficient
performance of government. Put differently, there was a hole at the centre of
government which needed fixing. The solution was straightforward enough:
develop a strong capacity at the centre of the administration. Roosevelt immedi-
ately took steps to follow through.
Roosevelt introduced legislation to enable him to appoint six administrative
assistants and to prepare reorganization plans to alter executive branch organi-
zation. The legislation also enabled him to establish a new Executive Office of
the President and to transfer the Budget Bureau to this office. The White House
itself became a division of the Executive Office, though it enjoys a special sta-
tus because it comprises the personal and immediate staff of the president. One
can hardly overstate the importance of these developments in terms of their
impact on the machinery of government. In brief, Roosevelt laid the ground-
work for the modern presidency. He set out to become the chief manager of
government, and in the process he substantially enlarged his own office. He
established a host of new central agencies that reported to him.
Still, the size of government remained such that Roosevelt could still master
issues that came to his attention. He never lost his grasp of the detail of policy
and the organization of government. The extent to which he immersed himself
in detail is truly remarkable by today's standards. Here is a memorandum he
wrote to his budget director, 'I agree with the Secretary of the Interior. Please
have it carried out so that fur-bearing animals remain in the Department of the
Interior. You might find out if any Alaska bears are still supervised by (a) War
Department (b) Department of Agriculture (c) Department of Commerce. They
have all had jurisdiction over Alaska bears in the past and many embarrassing
situations have been created by the mating of a bear belonging to one Depart-
ment with a bear belonging to another Department. P.S. I don't think the Navy
is involved but it may be. Check the Coast Guard. You never can tell.'
64
Through it all, whether it was New Deal programs or the war effort,
Roosevelt was able to concentrate power in his own office and in his own
hands. He was omnipresent and 'he really made his own decisions - most peo-
ple acting for Roosevelt were messenger boys.'
65
 He did establish a number of
councils which had decision-making capacity to ensure coordination between
departments and agencies, but history now reports that when Roosevelt was not
present, the council meetings consisted largely of reading reports already circu-
lated by agency heads. Questions of major importance only came up when
Roosevelt attended: 'From that moment, things would begin to happen.'
66
The Roosevelt reforms were not lost on other political leaders, including
Mackenzie King. Roosevelt, it was felt, was modernizing government opera-
tions by equipping its centre with a capacity to plan, direct, and monitor govern-
The Centre Is Born 33
ment activities. Though forever cautious, King did not need much convincing
that the time had arrived for government to become more active on the social
policy front. His 1921 election platform spoke to the need for a strong govern-
ment presence in the economy to ensure that the poor, the aged, and disadvan-
taged would receive a helping hand from government. The document is
remarkably interventionist, even by today's standards. It argues, for example,
that 'men and women should receive equal remuneration for work of equal
value.' It also calls for an 'adequate system of insurance against unemployment,
sickness, dependence in old age, and other disability, which would include old
age pensions, widows' pensions, and maternity benefits.'
67
 None of these mea-
sures were introduced in one Parliament. Indeed, some took twenty or more
years to see the light of day. However, it should be remembered that in 1927 the
King government was the first in North America to introduce old age pension
legislation.
In any event, the Keynesian revolution was about to take root everywhere,
and it would serve to strengthen the hand of those who wanted an intervention-
ist role for government in society, including Mackenzie King. It could also
serve to strengthen the centre of government.
Keynesian Economics
John Maynard Keynes was a celebrated Cambridge economist who advocated
the use of government fiscal policy to adjust demand and maintain full employ-
ment without inflation. The Depression and the Second World War were suffi-
cient for the Keynesian revolution to capture the Department of Finance in
Canada and the Treasury in the United Kingdom and the United States. Ever
since, government has more often than not intervened to attenuate the lows in
economic cycles and to soften the sting of economic misfortune. Only since the
early 19808 have national governments begun to withdraw from certain pro-
gram and economic sectors. Keynesian logic provided a solid rationale for gov-
ernment to intervene in the economy. It gave a basis for counter-cyclical
budgeting, and hence deficit budgeting. Government programs and measures to
stabilize the economy, to promote economic development and full employment,
became important. Keynesian economics suggested that with latent demand and
no limit to factors of production governments could create the long-sought-after
prosperous and rational societies. But Keynesian economics also legitimized
government deficits, and in time governments would spend more, tax more, and
borrow more - a great deal more.
John Kenneth Galbraith observes that Canada 'was perhaps the first country
to commit itself unequivocally to a firmly Keynesian economic policy.'
68
 The
34 The Setting
Canadian government presented a major policy paper to Parliament towards the
end of the Second World War which was clearly Keynesian in outlook, It said
that, 'the Government will be prepared, in periods where unemployment threat-
ens, to incur deficits and increases in the national debt resulting from its
employment and income policy ... in periods of buoyant employment and
income, budget plans will call for surpluses.'
69
 When the war ended, everyone
was prepared for measures to avoid a return of the Depression years. But the
expected severe economic downturn did not materialize and the measures
proved unnecessary. Still, the Canadian government was now convinced that it
possessed 'a new arsenal of economic policy to achieve high employment and
generally manage the economy.'
70
It only takes a moment's reflection to appreciate the impact of Keynesian
economics on government operations. In the pre-Keynesian days, the ideology
of balanced budgets prevailed in most political parties, as did a firmly held
belief that the role of government should be highly restricted. In Victorian
England, for instance, budget deficits were considered 'a great political, and
above all, a great moral evil.'
7
' British Prime Minister William Gladstone laid
down, in simple terms, the budget process of the day, 'New wants are always
coming forward, but where ... provision is made for those new wants [it] ought
to be counterbalanced by new economies.'
72
 Frugality in government spending
was a matter of the most basic of principles and 'bubbles' of extravagance were
not to be allowed to surface. The way to ensure this, in his view, was to 'esti-
mate expenditures liberally, revenue carefully and make each year pay its own
expense.'
73
 Gladstone, together with one or perhaps two of his most trusted
ministers and a handful of advisers from the Treasury, would sit down year
after year and go over proposed spending plans line by line, bursting bubbles of
extravagance. This did not change much until the war years and the Keynesian
revolution.
The process was not much different in Canada. Line item budgeting enabled
politicians and their advisers to review every detail of departmental spending
plans and to control input costs. However, the turn to Keynesian economics and
the desire to instil balance in national economies saw governments shifting
focus away from input costs to planning and implementing a host of measures
to manage the economy. In time, the line item budget process would be
scrapped altogether and a new program-based budget system would be intro-
duced first in the United States and later in Britain and Canada.
By its very definition, Keynesian economics favours centralization or central
planning and direction. Keynes himself urged presidents and prime ministers to
take the lead in formulating economic policy. In the 19305 he became con-
vinced that the Depression was exposing all the weaknesses of classical eco-
The Centre Is Born 35
nomics, incapable, as it so clearly was, of contending with unsettling economic
events. He wrote an open letter to President Roosevelt on 31 December 1933
 
m
the New York Times arguing that he placed 'overwhelming emphasis on the
increase of national purchasing power resulting from government expenditure,
which is financed by loans.'
74
 In some ways, however, Roosevelt's New Deal
anticipated the publication in 1936 of Keynes's General Theory of Employment
Interest and Money. Keynes's theory was simply an economic rationale for
doing what Roosevelt had concluded needed to be done politically. Indeed, as
noted above, Roosevelt had shown through his New Deal measures that to
make the concept work in practice the centre of government had to be consider-
ably stronger.
The war years, if anything, only served to solidify Keynesian economics in
government treasuries. Keynes and a strong number of his disciples on both
sides of the Atlantic served in key positions in government. Classical econo-
mists were on the defensive everywhere. They proved unable to come up with
solutions for the expected postwar recession or to compete with the new intel-
lectual force increasingly being felt on university campuses. Keynesian econo-
mists, meanwhile, did not hesitate to come forward with fresh thinking and take
centre stage in government offices.
In Canada, Bob Bryce was promoting the message of Keynes's General
Theory inside government. He had studied at the feet of Keynes while at
Cambridge and had returned to Canada via Harvard, where he introduced
Keynesian economics to both faculty and students. Bryce, explains John
Kenneth Galbraith, is the reason 'why - the special case of Sweden apart -
Canada was the first country to accept and implement Keynesian management
of its economy.'
75
 Bryce went to work in the Department of Finance in Ottawa
in October 1938 on the eve of the Munich crisis. He found the department very
small, congenial, and preoccupied with routine tasks and financial and adminis-
trative details.
76
 He discovered that 'some limited policy work' was being done
in the office of the deputy minister and by a handful of senior clerks (six in all)
there and in the Treasury Board.
On joining the department, Bryce was immediately asked to work on key
policy issues and on the upcoming budget. He marvelled at how a junior econo-
mist only a few years out of university could be asked to work directly with the
most senior officials in government and on such a key policy document as the
budget. He explained, The department was so small that, despite my junior
status, I participated in the discussions of the budget measures, drafted several
portions of the budget speech and did most of the work on the economic portion
of the White Paper [a separate paper reviewing economic and financial condi-
tions].'
77
 Bryce would, however, soon be working with young economists of
36 The Setting
like mind on a host of policy issues. The war years and the requirements of
postwar economic planning would see the 'upper ranks of the department
[Finance] mainly concerned with policy matters.'
78
 The result was the recruit-
ment of Keynesian economists such as W.A. Mackintosh and Benjamin Hig-
gins on staff or on contract. Another department, the Department of National
Revenue, meanwhile, carried on with the routine or administrative task of col-
lecting taxes.
All in all, the Depression, Roosevelt's New Deal experiment, Keynes and the,
war years, and the widely held view that the immediate postwar period would
be difficult economically made for a potent brew. Keynesian economics repre-
sented a sophisticated rationale for politicians to justify government interven-
tion to respond to what they expected to be an agitated working class and
returning soldiers expecting a better life. Nothing would be left to chance, and
government report after report, all with a strong Keynesian bent, called for a
much stronger role for government in the economy. This, in turn, would
strengthen the hand of central agencies, in particular the Department of
Finance.
The government of Canada produced a White Paper on Employment and
Income which committed the government to reduce unemployment. Govern-
ment would be prepared to produce public works projects to supplement private
investment and a comprehensive package of tax concessions, loans, grants, and
other forms of assistance to ensure a high level of employment.
The Second World War also bequeathed a creative and smooth-running
machinery of government in Ottawa. Certainly, government was the place to be
in postwar society if you were fresh out of university, bright, ambitious, and
preoccupied with the public interest. In Britain, Archibishop William Temple
had promoted, with considerable success, the concept of the welfare state in
contrast to Hitler's warfare state. Being a direct participant in the Keynesian
revolution could be every bit as exciting for the young university graduates as
had been being part of the war effort. Later, during the Thatcher years, when the
British civil service would go through a deep period of self-doubt, its most
senior officials would contrast their malaise with the 'self-confidence of those
golden postwar years.'
79
All in all, postwar governments in Canada, but also in other Western coun-
tries, notably Britain and the United States, proved reluctant to tear down what
had been built up at the centre of government. Some retrenching took place,
but no government sought to turn back the clock to the 19305. Indeed, new
capacities were established and existing ones considerably strengthened to
promote economic planning and to formulate or oversee new government
measures.
The Centre Is Born 37
Attempts at Reform
Though the centre retained its basic form and continued to expand, not every-
one was pleased with developments. In Canada, Prime Minister John Diefen-
baker's Progressive Conservative government established in 1960 a Royal
Commission - commonly known as the Glassco Commission - on government
organization. Glassco argued that centrally prescribed rules and regulations
were hopelessly out of date and slammed the government's approach to budget-
ing. Glassco's rallying cry to the government was 'to let the manager manage' -
that is, that a central agency should provide the leadership and set the standards,
but that the line manager should be left free to manage.
80
 A newly elected
Liberal government endorsed the findings of the commission in 1963 and
immediately began to implement its recommendations.
Even as early as the 19605, political and public service leaders began to rec-
ognize that growth in government spending was creating a new set of problems.
New programs and activities were being launched but existing ones were not
being dropped or modified. Departments were constantly on the alert to secure
new funding from the centre of government, but precious few, if any, were will-
ing to tell the centre where cuts could be made or to identify programs that were
not performing well. Not only did line department managers need more author-
ity to manage, the centre of government also needed a new capacity to assess
government programs and spending.
The United States Department of Defence argued in the late 19505 that it had
actually found the Holy Grail: this was the Planning, Programming Budgeting
System (commonly referred to as PPB or PPBS). President Johnson liked what
he saw and in 1965 ordered all government agencies to adopt it. He explained
that PPBS would 'substantially improve our ability to decide among competing
proposals for funds and to evaluate actual performance.'
81
 The workings of
PPBS have been described in great detail elsewhere and there is no need to go
over them here. Suffice to note that PPBS is different from the traditional line
item budgeting process in that it concentrates on the objectives to be achieved
rather than on the means of achieving them. This, it was felt, would enable pol-
iticians to consider larger issues and broader questions. The thinking was that if
politicians were given information on administrative details, they would make
decisions on details, but if they were given information on policies and pro-
grams, they would focus on the broader picture.
A few years after President Johnson announced that PPBS would be intro-
duced throughout the United States government, the Canadian finance minister
followed suit. 'PPBS,' he claimed, 'is a major budget breakthrough.'
82
 Many in
Canada agreed. A leading practitioner in Canada explained that 'PPBS seeks ...
38 The Setting
to bring under review all that has been, as well as all that might be, to query the
conventional wisdom, and to advance if necessary unconventional alterna-
tives.'
83
 The new approach was considered so powerful that permanent officials
felt the need to reassure politicians that politics would still weigh heavily in the
decision-making process. One deputy minister, for example, wrote 'PPBS must
not seek to substitute science for politics in the decision-making process.'
8 4
PPBS would also serve to strengthen the role of central agencies. In fact,
potentially at least, the biggest winners were officials operating in central agen-
cies, who were thus provided with a window to look into the policies, programs,
and operations of line departments and to assess their performance. Central
agencies could then alert politicians to what worked, what did not, and what
policies and programs were working at cross purposes. It was felt that this
knowledge constituted a powerful tool for central agencies and enabled them to
marshall effective arguments to support major shifts in policies and programs.
It also allowed central agencies to add new positions to oversee the implemen-
tation of the new systems.
Disillusionment Sets In
By the mid-1970s, however, it became clear that the various reforms and new
budgeting systems were in serious difficulty. Disillusion was rampant. The
biggest disappointment was with the shift to a performance-based budgetary
process. The attempt collapsed everywhere. By the mid-1970s, PPBS was pro-
nounced dead in both the United States and Canada. It became widely accepted
that if 'anyone did a cost-benefit analysis on the introduction of PPBS, he
would be forced to conclude that it was not worth the effort.'
85
 Certainly PPBS
entailed considerable paperwork, countless meetings, and new positions in
departments and central agencies, but it led to very few new policies, program
terminations, or dramatic shifts in expenditure patterns. Aaron Wildavsky con-
cluded, 'I have not been able to find a single example of successful implemen-
tation of PPBS ... PPBS deserved to die because it is an irrational mode of
analysis that leads to suppression rather than correction of error.'
86
 Evaluations
that suggested that policies and programs were performing well were sure to be
paraded before central agencies and politicians. Evaluations which pointed the
other way did not receive the same treatment.
Central agencies, as already noted, stood the most to gain from the introduc-
tion of new performance-based budget systems. In the end, however, they were
not able to secure a window on government policies and departments, and in the
process they even lost some of their power to nit-pick line departments. In mov-
ing away from the line item budget process, the centre loosened its control over
The Centre Is Born 39
costs such as person years, travel, consultant contracts, and the like. Senior cen-
tral agency officials now report that, as a result, departmental budgets for these
items mushroomed in the late 19608 and 19705. 'It became too easy,' said one,
'for departments to get money for travel, for consultants, for staff, for new
equipment, and the like. We lost control over spending and we got little in the
way of program reduction. PPBS itself became the problem.'
87
 In addition,
numerous new positions were established in the areas of planning, evaluation,
and policy and program coordination, at considerable cost to the Treasury. In
short, the centre of government had championed a new approach to policy and
decision making, but everywhere, whether in the United States, Britain, or Can-
ada, it failed to make the approach stick or even to reap much benefit from it,
either for departments or itself.
But by 1979 the government of Canada would be back with yet another new
approach, a new acronym for the 19808, to strengthen the capacity of policy
makers at the centre of government to take decisions. The Policy and Expendi-
ture Management System (PEMS) was introduced with considerable fanfare
inside government as we were being informed that it would serve to 'strengthen
the policy-making role of ministers and Cabinet.'
88
 Indeed, PEMS was
designed as a 'collective top-down decision-making process.'
89
 An elaborate
Cabinet committee and a supporting cast of central agencies were also estab-
lished to operate PEMS.
PEMS, it was hoped, would integrate policy and expenditure decision-mak-
ing more fully than PPB ever did. Under PPB, Cabinet committees approved
policy proposals and left the spending issue to Finance or Treasury Board, with
the result that new commitments were easily made by the committees. They
simply did not have to reconcile their policy decisions with the government's
spending plans. A Treasury Board official explained the difference between
PPB and PEMS in this fashion, 'You can compare policy and expenditure deci-
sions to a pair of scissors. The two blades must meet for the process to be effec-
tive. Under PPB they would never meet. Cabinet committees would make
policy decisions and leave it to someone else to make resources available.
PEMS ... changed this. Now cabinet committees have to make both policy and
spending decisions or see to it that both blades meet at the same time. They
have expenditure limits or envelopes consistent with the government's fiscal
plan.'
90
 In short, the envelope accounting system would face the Cabinet com-
mittees with the fiscal consequence of their decision. In the past, the Cabinet
committee, if it wanted to approve new spending proposals beyond what was
available in the budget, simply reviewed existing policies and programs and
their resource levels and then brought about the necessary changes in funding
levels to reflect their changing priorities. Now, under PEMS, ministers would
4O The Setting
have to make tough decisions if they wanted to approve new spending propos-
als. In short, the intent was to place responsibility for saving squarely on the
shoulders of those who spent and turn all ministers into at least part-time guard-
ians. PEMS would also put first things first by establishing priorities and fiscal
limits before developing expenditure plans.
The policy areas and the new policy reserves had to be managed. The Cabi-
net committees managing the policy areas in turn required support in the mak-
ing of trade-offs necessary to stay within limits of the budget envelopes and in
ensuring the integration of policy and spending plans. Given that the bulk of the
work was on economic development and social policy, two new central agen-
cies were established in 1979: the Ministry of State for Economic Development
(which replaced the Board of Economic Development Ministers and which later
became known as the Ministry of State for Economic and Regional Develop-
ment) and the Ministry of State for Social Development.
These ministries gained their influence by acting as gatekeepers to the policy
reserves. Richard Van Loon summed up their role this way, 'Before proposals
go to the appropriate Cabinet committee they are normally widely discussed
with ministry officials and considered by a committee of deputy ministers (i.e.,
mirror committees) chaired by the Deputy Minister of State. The Cabinet com-
mittee is provided with written advice on the basis of these deliberations and in
addition the ministry briefs the chairman of the Cabinet committee and can use
that occasion to forward any objections it may have to a proposal.'
91
A few years after PEMS was introduced, it became obvious that it too would
not last for very long. Ministers found the process much too cumbersome. They
also argued that instead of gaining influence over decisions, they were actually
losing it to permanent officials. Ministers insisted that the decision-making pro-
cess had become hopelessly bureaucratic and that they could no longer move
things forward. Only by successfully organizing end runs around the system or
somehow by getting the prime minister onside could a minister secure a deci-
sion and get things done.
92
As early as 1983, a senior official in the Privy Council Office spoke out pub-
licly - in itself a rare event - about the continuing relevance of PEMS by asking
a number of questions. Though he did not attempt to answer them, the questions
were pointed ones and included, 'Is the system too heavy and burdensome on
ministers and officials? Is there too much paper in the system and are there too
many rules? Do we have the right balance of the kinds of decisions ministers
are being asked to take collectively rather than individually?'
93
John Turner provided the answers during his brief period in power in 1984.
The first thing he did on coming to office was to streamline decision making in
government. He explained that the policy process had become 'too elaborate,
The Centre Is Born 41
too complex, too slow, and too expensive.'
94
 He disbanded the two central
agencies that were playing a key role in PEMS, the ministries of state for Social
Development and for Economic and Regional Development. The mirror com-
mittees of deputy ministers were also abolished. Departmental strategic over-
views, which were part of the PEMS process, were no longer requested by the
Cabinet committees, and departments simply stopped preparing them. Prime
Minister Mulroney continued with the changes Turner introduced and did not
attempt to re-create the ministries of state.
During his second mandate in power, Mulroney formally declared PEMS
dead - a fact that had been well known in Ottawa for some time. In reforming
the machinery of government in 1989, Mulroney established an Expenditure
Review Committee of Cabinet. The prime minister declared his strong commit-
ment to the work of this committee and, as proof, he announced that he would
chair it. He attended the first few meetings but soon became preoccupied with
other pressing issues, including national unity, and eventually stopped attending
altogether. It is now widely recognized that the committee had very limited suc-
cess. Prime Minister Chretien did not establish an expenditure review commit-
tee of Cabinet. But he did vigorously pursue yet another new approach that Kim
Campbell had introduced during her brief tenure as prime minister - the pro-
gram review exercise - and this approach is reviewed in a subsequent chapter.
Looking Back
Central agencies were established to bring order to personnel management in
government, to plan a more interventionist role for government, to assist heads
of government to manage government, and to provide a broad policy perspec-
tive. In time, central agencies would assume other responsibilities, notably
regarding policy development and program coordination. The thinking was that
without programs of their own to manage, central agencies could remove them-
selves from immediate day-to-day operations and provide a detached view to
their political masters on what was working, what was not, what needed adjust-
ment, what should be enriched, and what should be reduced or cut. If govern-
ment departments and agencies are fractious fiefdoms and if the machinery of
government moves too slowly to suit the purpose and interests of prime minis-
ters and their Cabinets, then central agencies should be one of the most impor-
tant instruments available to them to exorcise duplications and overlaps, to push
the machinery into action, and to assist in defining and implementing a new
policy agenda.
But no sooner were central agencies established than the political leadership
began to have second thoughts. For one thing, they at times felt that they had
42 The Setting
created something that was taking on a life of its own and becoming too power-
ful. Prime Minister Mackenzie King and at least some of his senior ministers
had worried that the new Cabinet secretariat was becoming too powerful, and
King on occasion had felt the need to hold back his Cabinet secretary, Arnold
Heeney.
95
 At other times, the leaders felt that the central agencies were not
living up to expectations, at least in assisting them in redefining the public
policy agenda. They established new policy processes, especially relating to
government spending plans, but these processes never lived up to expectations.
Looking back, processes like PPBS and PEMS laid the groundwork for disem-
powering Cabinet and empowering central agencies. The great majority of min-
isters are by definition highly practical individuals largely concerned about the
well-being of their regions and their political party. By and large, they much
prefer making actual decisions involving dollars and cents and see little merit in
engaging in elaborate planning exercises trying to establish strategic goals and
performance indicators.
It is now clear that the heyday for central agencies was during the war years
and the years immediately following the Second World War. Roosevelt was the
first to develop a strong central capacity for reasons other than planning and
organizing a war effort. But historians now tell us that it was Roosevelt himself
and his personality that promoted policy coordination and ensured an inventive
government, not central agencies. Arthur Schlesinger writes that 'the proof of
his control was the way, once the reins fell from his hands, the horses plunged
wildly in all directions.'
96
One can only conclude that, notwithstanding several major reforms, central
agencies themselves and not just new policy processes have been unable to live
up to expectations. If they are to political leadership what a steering wheel is to
an automobile, then the drivers have been less than satisfied with their ability to
steer government in the direction they want it to go. Indeed, Canadian prime
ministers, starting with Pierre Trudeau, have time and again overhauled the
machinery at the centre of government. New central agencies were established
only to be dropped later, and a never-ending procession of Cabinet committees
have been established or scrapped in Ottawa during the past thirty years. We
have now come full circle, with Chretien scrapping several Cabinet committees
and essentially retaining only four well into his second mandate - Economic
Development, Social Development, the Special Committee of Council, and the
Treasury Board. The Special Committee of Council was and remains a house-
keeping Cabinet committee. It handles all routine issues requiring governor-in-
council approval on issues where there is a statutory requirement that the gov-
ernment, rather than an individual minister, makes the decision.
97
 Several
months into his second mandate, Chretien added a fifth committee of Cabinet -
The Centre Is Born 43
Communications - and directed it to promote greater coherence in the govern-
ment's communications plans. In contrast to Chretien, Trudeau had thirteen
Cabinet committees in his last term in office, while the Mulroney government
had ten in its first term and fifteen in its second.
98
Table i below outlines the evolution of Cabinet structures and central agen-
cies. It is hardly a picture of stability. It makes the case that 'changes in the
central machinery of government invariably follow changes' in prime minis-
ters, as newly elected leaders seek to mould structures and processes to meet
their political and policy objectives." Prime ministers are completely free to
add, delete, and adjust the machinery of government at any time and as they see
fit. In contrast, ministers, even the most powerful ones, do not have the author-
ity to adjust their own departmental mandate. Deciding which minister and
which department should do what is a prerogative of the prime minister, a pre-
rogative that, as we will see, is jealously guarded at the centre of government .
TABLE 1
Evolution of Cabinet Structures and Central Agencies
Prime Minister Ministries
King (1935-48) 16-19
St Laurent (1948-57) 20-1
Diefenbaker( 1957-63) 17-23
Pearson (1963-8) 26-5
Trudeau (1968-79) 27-33
Cabinet and Central Agencies
Several committees during war, fewer after
Recorded minutes and decisions after 1940
Several Cabinet meetings weekly
Committees tasked by Cabinet
Several Cabinet meetings weekly
TB delegated significant powers through
FAA(1951)
Infrequent meetings of committees
Several Cabinet meetings weekly
9 committees (1968); issues to committee
before Cabinet
Cabinet meetings weekly
Priorities and Planning (1968)
TBS split from Finance (1966)
Fewer committees with more authority
FPRO split from PCO (1975)
OCG split from TBS (1977)
MSED (Ministry of State for Economic
Development) established (1979)
TABLE 1 (continued)
Prime Minister
Clark (1979-80)
Trudeau( 1980-4)
Turner (1984)
Mulroney (1984-8)
Mulroney (1988-93)
Ministries Cabinet and Central Agencies
30 Inner Cabinet plus 1 2 committees
PEMS established
MSSD (Ministry of State for Social
Development) set up (proclamation 1980)
32-7 Priorities and Planning with authorit
to issue decisions
PEMS elaborated
Ministry of State function introduced in
External Affairs
MSERD with Federal Economic Development
Coordinators (FEDCs) established in all
provinces (1982)
29 Communications, Labour Relations and
Western Affairs committees wound up
MSERD, MSSD and similar function within
External wound up and FEDCs to DRIE
'Mirror committees' of deputy ministers
wound up
Cabinet papers streamlined and Assessment
Notes discontinued
40 Foreign and Defence Policy Committee
wound up
Communications Committee established
Envelopes consolidated
PEMS rules simplified
Cabinet papers further streamlined
39 Priorities and Planning and Treasury Board
only committees to authorize expenditure
New Expenditure Review Committee
Operations Committee reviews weekly agenda
1 1 Cabinet committees, including several
new committees: Expenditure Review,
Economic Policy, Environment, Cultural
Affairs and National Identity, Human
Resources, Income Support, and Health
44 The Setting
The Centre Is Born 45
TABLE 1 (concluded)
Prime Minister
Campbell (1993)
Chretien (1993-7)
Chretien(1997-)
Ministries
25
23
8 secretaries
of state
27
8 secretaries
of state
Cabinet and Central Agencies
Member of Cabinet committees reduced to five,
including Operations, Economic and
Environmental, Social Policy, House
Leader's Committee, and Treasury Board
All ministries of state abolished
Only 4 Cabinet committees, notably Economic
and Social Development, Special Committee
of Council, and Treasury Board
8 secretaries of state or junior ministers
appointed
Still, only 4 Cabinet committees were sworn
into office, with two existing ones renamed
the Committee for Economic Union and the
Committees for Social Union. Special
Committee of Council and Treasury Board
continue. Subsequently, Chretien estab-
lished a Committee on Communications.
Source: Ian Clark, Recent Changes in Cabinet Decision-Making System (Ottawa: Privy
Council Office, 3 December 1984), and the Privy Council Office, December 1997
Render Unto the Centre
The desire to deal with the spoils system, the war effort, Roosevelt's modern-
ization of government operations, and Keynesian economics, as we have seen,
all served to strengthen the role of the centre of government. But the shift
towards the centre also raised questions about the fundamental machinery of
government, and nowhere was this more evident than in countries working
under the Westminster model. Indeed, the questions went to the heart of cabinet
government. They include: How are the collective and individual responsibili-
ties of Cabinet secretaries and ministers reconciled? When do line departments
and agencies look to central agencies for direction? What would prompt central
agencies to get involved in the operation of line departments? What would
prompt line departments to contact central agencies? In brief, what belongs to
the centre and what belongs to departments?
There are no set answers to these questions. The involvement of central agen-
cies in the operation of line departments and agencies can never be properly
defined. It will invariably change to reflect new circumstances, different gen-
eral personalities, and emerging political crises. There are, however, established
policies and practices that point to central agencies for certain issues and to line
departments and agencies for others. In addition, prime ministers wishing to
ensure a degree of coordination, however limited, in policies and programs will
want to turn to central agencies for help. Some basic government exercises and
documents, not least the budget, require a capacity at the centre to assist politi-
cians to make policy choices, or if nothing else, simply to add up the numbers.
The purpose of this chapter is to sort out the different responsibilities between
central agencies and line departments and to explore the nature of the relation-
ships between the two.
Some students of Canadian politics believe that the federal government is
shifting towards a presidential system. Indeed, some have been making this
3
Render Unto the Centre 47
case for some time.
1
 This chapter also reviews, however briefly, the kind of
relationship American presidents have with their cabinets. This will enable sub-
sequent chapters to assess better the role the Canadian prime minister plays in
government, in particular with his cabinet colleagues, and to see if, indeed, the
federal government is drifting towards a presidential system.
Collective Responsibilities
Cabinet ministers in Canada have to strike a proper balance between their
responsibility to the prime minister, to their departments, and to their Cabinet
colleagues. To be sure, it is not a straightforward matter. As Richard Rose
explains, Cabinet ministers have to perform a 'Janus-like role at the top of
departments, facing simultaneously inward as administrators and outward as
political leaders, though perhaps giving special attention to one or the other
facet of their complex role.'
2
As is well known, in a parliamentary system the government as a whole is
subordinate to Parliament. Ministers are accountable to Parliament and liable to
suffer penalties, if any, of parliamentary disapproval. In a British-style system,
ministers are drawn from Parliament and the party with the majority of mem-
bers in the House of Commons becomes the government. Accordingly, if the
government loses the confidence of the House of Commons, it must collec-
tively resign. That is, the government has to stand or fall as one administration
and it cannot simply jettison an offending minister in the hope of retaining
office after the defeat of a substantial bill in the Commons.
Nick D'Ombrain, a former senior official in the Privy Council Office, traces
the evolution of collective responsibility in a parliamentary system back to the
early eighteenth century. As public expenditures grew, he writes, 'it became
more and more important to ensure that it could be defended in the Commons.'
3
The Office of the Lord Treasurer was put into commission early in the eight-
eenth century to ensure the participation in the debates in the Commons of sev-
eral ministers competent to explain and defend the estimates. The Treasury
Lords would defend government spending and also require their colleagues to
justify their proposed spending, for which the Commons would be formally
asked to vote supply. The Treasury would in effect reconcile the various
demands for funds into a single request for supply. Accordingly, 'the function
of reconciling estimates was and remains a crucial element in establishing and
maintaining the solidarity of the minister and of ensuring that it retains the con-
fidence of the House of Commons... Treasury control and Treasury patronage
made possible the development of the position of prime minister (and of politi-
cal parties).'
4
 Two leading students of British political institutions, Geoffrey
48 The Setting
Marshall and Graeme C. Moodie, write that 'collective responsibility provides a
definition of what a government is in our system. The substance of the Govern-
ment's collective responsibility could be defined as its duty to submit its policy
to and defend its policy before the House of Commons, and to resign if defeated
on an issue of confidence.'
5
Still, in Britain collective responsibility enjoys a conventional rather than a
legal status. In Canada, however, the written part of the Constitution establishes
in law the responsibility government has for presenting spending programs to
Parliament. In addition, Parliament in Canada has traditionally delegated power
under various legislative acts to the governor-in-council (i.e., Cabinet) rather
than to the minister, as is done in the United Kingdom. In addition, in Canada
one of Cabinet's important roles is to accommodate provincial or regional inter-
ests. The Cabinet, argued R. MacGregor Dawson, is federalized. Tradition dic-
tates that all provinces will be represented and the Cabinet has 'taken over the
allotted role of the Senate as the protector of the rights of the provinces and it
has done an incomparably better job.'
6
 R. Gordon Robertson, a former secretary
to the Cabinet, insists that, 'It is behind the closed doors of the Cabinet, and in
the frankness of its confidence, that we achieve much of the vital process of
accommodation and compromise that are essential to make this country work.'
7
Thus, within the federal government it is Cabinet which is expected to
accommodate powerful and oftentimes clashing regional interests. To be sure,
strong regional ministers will take the lead, or at least have in the past, in artic-
ulating regional interests. But they do so away from the public limelight, at the
Cabinet table, or through special deals struck with the prime minister or with
one or several Cabinet colleagues. Regional interests, accordingly, are, in the-
ory at least, either accommodated in Ottawa through the Cabinet process or not
at all. Gordon Robertson, a highly respected former clerk of the Privy Council,
had little doubt as to who, in his opinion, held power in government. In a widely
read article, he wrote, 'Cabinet is where the ultimate decision is taken.'
8
In Canada, as in Britain, it is the politics of governing that brings home the
importance of collective responsibility. John Mackintosh summed up the role of
Cabinet in this way: 'It is the place where disputes are settled, where major
policies are endorsed and where the balance of forces emerges if there is a
disagreement.'
9
 The prime minister exercises the power to appoint ministers,
which in itself underlines the importance of collective action. The prime minis-
ter will also always want to present to Parliament and to the electorate a coher-
ent policy agenda and a coherent government. Ministers openly feuding in the
media would be an indication of a weak prime minister, as would major policy
initiatives obviously working at cross purposes. If a minister cannot keep his or
her own ambitions in check for the good of the government, the prime minister
Render Unto the Centre 49
may well want to sacrifice that minister to ensure that the government remains
on a solid footing and that Cabinet remains the ultimate director of government
policy.
10
Ministers also know that when they look bad, it reflects on their Cabinet col-
leagues and the government. One senior Canadian Cabinet minister claims that,
There is no worse feeling that knowing that you have screwed up and the
media is on to you. Walking into the next Cabinet meeting feels like a student
being asked to go to the Principal's office for an expected lecture.' He added,
however, that 'much more often than not you screw up on little things and not
over major policy issues ... Think back to when Marcel Masse took a govern-
ment jet to go give a speech in Boston shortly after we came to power. It took a
long, long time for him and us to get over that one. Everybody could understand
that this was naive and a political mistake. You can cut billions of dollars in
spending as we did and somehow it isn't quite the same and the damage is not
the same."
1
Ministers also know that they cannot make government policy or secure
funding for their departments without their colleagues' agreement. This is
where central agencies come in. Though it has happened, it is a rare occurrence
indeed when a minister can bootleg a proposal directly to Cabinet without cen-
tral agencies having first studied it and put forward their views to the prime
minister or to other senior Cabinet ministers acting as chair of Cabinet commit-
tees. The Cabinet secretariat in Ottawa has instituted elaborate processes and
procedures for ministers to follow in submitting proposals before their col-
leagues.
12
 Ministers who do not respect these guidelines run the risk of being
called on the carpet by the prime minister, or perhaps by the clerk of the Privy
Council, often on the urging of central agency officials.
The secretariat is also charged with preparing the minutes of Cabinet and, as
is well known in government, the economically worded Cabinet minutes very
often are the trigger for action for line departments. In addition, central agencies
are expected to provide Cabinet with the broader picture whether in terms of
defining the challenges and opportunities in pursuing a proposed policy agenda,
identifying the constraints involved in a policy option, or in presenting the eco-
nomic and fiscal outlook. In short, they are responsible for providing ministers
with a government-wide perspective of all their activities, a process that ranks
priorities to assist in making decisions and defining policy objectives.'
3
Collective responsibility does not mean that all Cabinet ministers exert an
equal force in shaping the government's policy agenda or government deci-
sions. More is said about the role of the prime minister in subsequent chapters,
but it is important to stress here that ministers have varying degrees of influence
with their leader, and often with their Cabinet colleagues. But once a Cabinet
50 The Setting
decision has been recorded, all ministers, powerful or not, are expected to
march to the same beat, or at minimum to refrain from openly challenging it in
public. Collective responsibility and the practice of Cabinet solidarity in the
parliamentary system have led one student of Canadian government to write
approvingly that they 'compel ministers to be discreet and prevent the sort of
confusion that sometimes arises in other countries, for instance, the United
States, when government spokesmen make pronouncements which reveal dif-
ferences of view within the administration. It tends to force interdepartmental
disputes to the surface at Cabinet meetings, when they are generally resolved
one way or another. It identifies government policy in a way that provides a
clear focus for public discussion, at least when the facts are generally known.'
14
To be sure, the notion of collective responsibility does not apply in the
United States to the extent that it does in Canada, if at all. Basic differences
exist in how politicians, as well as appointed and permanent officials, are held
accountable, and, moreover, there are fundamental differences in how the polit-
ical institutions of the two countries work. The American congressional system
is basically one of checks and balances in which the three branches of govern-
ment — the executive, the legislative, and the judicial - hold certain powers
exclusively. In a parliamentary form of government, the judiciary is separate
but the executive and legislative branches are joined. Not only does the execu-
tive need the confidence of the legislature, but recruitment to the executive is
drawn from the legislature. Perhaps the most important point to note for some-
one who has been reared on the parliamentary form of government is that in the
American presidential system no one has the ultimate responsibility for the
exercise of all power necessary to take action.
Peter Aucoin reminds students of Canadian politics that 'Congress is not a
parliament at all.' He adds that the 'American Congress is not a stronger or
more democratic version of the Canadian Parliament.'
15
 The point is that the
American system of government is vastly different from the Westminster
model. Members of Parliament in our system are not elected to govern. Rather,
they are elected to hold those who govern accountable for their policies and
decisions.
Nevil Johnson summed up the difference well by pointing out that in the
congressional system bargains are struck in the legislature, while in the parlia-
mentary system it is almost always the government alone, particularly when it
has a majority mandate, that drives public policy and public spending. Johnson
could have added that bargains and compromises must also be struck between
Congress and the presidency. In addition, to some extent, there is also an
implicit set of bargains with the courts as Congress and the president go about
their work.
Render Unto the Centre 51
There are, of course, advantages and drawbacks to both systems. A majority
government in a parliamentary system can run the risk of embarking on a 'sin-
gle direction foolishness.' Likewise, the bargaining required of a congressional
form can 'become ungovernable and run the risk of falling apart."
6
 It is ironic
that reform-minded people in the United States are suggesting that the president
should be asked to defend his policies directly in both houses of Congress, that
new ways should be found to integrate the work of the administration and Con-
gress more effectively, and that more positions in the bureaucracy should be
reserved for career officials rather than for political appointees. In other words,
that the congressional should be more like a parliamentary system. At the same
time, many reform-minded people in parliamentary systems are looking for
ways to strengthen the involvement of backbenchers without limiting the power
or responsibility of the government to Parliament.
17
 They are also seeking to
bring the relations between senior officials and ministers more into the open.
The U.S. Cabinet
The role of the cabinet in the United States has had an ambiguous and difficult
history. For one thing, the Founding Fathers had the Senate in mind to perform
cabinet-type functions and to provide collective advice to the president.
18
 An
accident of history would prevent such a development when the concept 'broke
down the first time it was put to the test.'
19
 President Washington went to the
Senate to review an Indian treaty but, the senators reluctant to discuss the mat-
ter in his presence, postponed the debate. Washington left the chamber in anger
and he subsequently turned to the heads of the executive departments as a
source of advice.
20
That said, Thomas Jefferson, the author, suggested that all important matters
should be submitted to Cabinet where the president counts 'himself but one' as
a kind of primus inter pares.
21
 But Jefferson, the president, backed away from
this concept, submitting few important issues to Cabinet. He also flatly rejected
any suggestion that items be submitted to a vote. Abraham Lincoln and The-
odore Roosevelt virtually ignored their Cabinet on all important issues. History
also reveals that some members of the FDR Cabinet 'suffered frustration' in
Cabinet meetings where, according to one member, only 'the barest routine
matters are discussed.' He added, 'I never think of bringing up even a serious
departmental issue at Cabinet meetings.'
22
 One Cabinet member in the FDR
administration, probably like many other Cabinet secretaries since, felt that the
most important value in attending Cabinet meetings was that it provided 'a way
in which to get into the White House to have a word with the President in pri-
vate after the meetings were over.'
23
 In Canada or Britain, a strong prime minis-
52 The Setting
ter is one who does not allow 'the fragmentation of the Cabinet into a mere
collection of departmental heads.'
24
 In the United States for a long time a strong
president was one who 'regarded his Cabinet as a body of department heads, to
be dealt with individually.'
25
 No doubt many observers of American politics
and government still hold this view.
It is important to remember that in the United States, the Cabinet is a creature
of the president, and presidents 'are at liberty to make considerable use of it as a
source of advice, or they are free to neglect it completely.'
26
 Though a number
of presidents have chosen to neglect it, some have not. President Eisenhower,
for example, made use of the Cabinet as an instrument of collective policy mak-
ing. He insisted on regular Cabinet meetings and on taking all major issues
before Cabinet. Other presidents began their days in office intending to use
Cabinet as a source of collective policy advice, if not policy making, but subse-
quently played havoc with their Cabinets. Both Nixon and Carter began their
presidencies with a pledge to make full use of their Cabinets as advisory and
policy-making bodies. Nixon, for example, declared before assuming the presi-
dency that he did not want 'yes men' in his Cabinet and that he fully intended to
involve it in all the great issues of his administration.
27
 However, considerable
tension developed between the White House and Cabinet.
28
 By the end of
Nixon's first term in office, it was all too clear that the Cabinet had been made
subordinate to the presidential staff.
29
 On his part, when Carter confronted a
political crisis in 1979, he returned from a special Camp David retreat to dis-
miss five members of his Cabinet and to strengthen considerably the hand of a
few White House staff members.
30
 Reagan, meanwhile, established a number of
Cabinet councils or committees to deal with specific issues and accordingly
relied less on full Cabinet for advice than might have otherwise been the case.
31
Still, Reagan is reported to have enjoyed the 'spectacle of Cabinet meetings,
even if he did not always stay awake at them.'
32
 Bush assembled a 'friends and
neighbours' kind of Cabinet and would turn to it as a major source of advice.
33
Clinton pledged to make full use of his Cabinet as a collective policy-making
instrument and as a key source of policy advice, but Cabinet, as opposed to
individual Cabinet secretaries, has had limited impact.
At the risk of repetition, the difference then between British- and American-
style governments is explained by the fact that in a parliamentary system a
statement of policy is in theory not the sole responsibility of the prime minis-
ter. The responsibility rests, or at least should rest, with the Cabinet as a collec-
tive body. As Gordon Robertson explained, 'Cabinet is where the ultimate
decision is taken.' In the American presidential system, the president will want
to secure the opinions of members of cabinet on a major policy decision -
probably at a cabinet meeting - but he does so to clarify his own mind and to
weigh the pros and cons of a proposed policy and not to secure a collective
Render Unto the Centre 53
decision.
34
 All of this is to say that in theory the Cabinet in a parliamentary
system is responsible to Parliament, while in a presidential system Cabinet is
responsible to the president.
35
Individual Ministerial Responsibility
Cabinet ministers are also individually accountable to Parliament. They have
the responsibility to explain to the House of Commons whatever subjects prove
to be of interest in their jurisdiction to the House. The minister is 'the constitu-
tional mouthpiece through which departmental actions will be defended or
repudiated and from whom information is to be sought.'
36
 The principle of min-
isterial responsibility makes the minister 'blamable' for both policy and admin-
istration, and the minister in turn can reach into the bureaucracy, organized as it
is along clear hierarchical lines, and secure an explanation for why things have
gone wrong as well as one for how to make things right.
The public service, meanwhile, has 'no constitutional personality or respon-
sibility separate from the duly elected Government of the day.'
37
 The point, as
Herman Finer explained in his classic essay, is that the views and advice of civil
servants are to be private and their actions anonymous so that 'only the Minister
has views and takes actions. If this convention is not obeyed, then civil servants
may be publicly attacked by one party and praised by another, and that must
lead to a weakening of the principle of impartiality.'
38
The House of Commons, by design, exerts a negative rather than a positive
control, and ministers need to arrange the affairs of their departments so that
sensitive issues are brought to their attention. What constitutes a sensitive
issue? Virtually anything. It can be a major policy issue or the most trivial
administrative matter. It can involve large sums of public funds or none at all.
What is sensitive can define what is policy, and what is policy can make what
would be a minor issue in other circumstances into something extremely sensi-
tive. The media and the opposition parties also can and very often do define
what is sensitive. However a sensitive issue develops, the minister is responsi-
ble for explaining it and for correcting flawed policy or faulty administrative
action. The important point here, however, is that what is sensitive can come to
define the government's agenda.
Accordingly, government officials in Canada operate in a political environ-
ment that can become charged on a moment's notice. It would probably be only
small comfort to a government manager if he or she were told that they are
being called on the carpet by a Cabinet minister rather than by the media or a
parliamentary committee. Indeed, recent developments suggest that some min-
isters prefer to duck ministerial responsibility to let the opposition or the media
get at the offending official in full public view.
39
54 The Setting
It is this, perhaps more than anything else, that points to the vast differences
between public sector administration and private sector management. It is
hardly possible to overstate that control in the public sector is negative and gov-
ernment officials are constantly on the lookout to avoid errors and mistakes,
perceived or real. In the private sector, it does not much matter if you get it
wrong 30 per cent of the time so long as you can turn a profit at the end of the
year and the bottom line remains healthy. In the public sector, it does not much
matter if you get it right 95 per cent of the time because the focus will be on the
5 per cent of the time you get it wrong. Individual ministers can publicly take
the blame for such errors, as is often expected. But at some point the mistake
may become sufficiently visible or the errors so frequent that the matter begins
to hurt the political health of the whole government, not just the minister
responsible. Hence much as one cannot always predict what politically sensi-
tive issues will emerge, the dividing line between what constitutes collective
and individual responsibility is not always evident. It is obviously not possible
for prime ministers and Cabinet ministers to predict when and where errors will
surface to gain media attention. Delegating authority increases the chance for
errors and increasing the chance for errors is 'a problem in a politically account-
able system.'
40
Cabinet ministers also differ in their willingness to work with the centre.
Some see issues from a government-wide perspective more easily than others.
Prime ministers often prefer their Cabinet ministers to view problems from
where they sit at the Cabinet table rather than from below or from the perspec-
tive of line departments and agencies. The risk of Cabinet ministers 'going
native' is always great. During the Second World War, U.S. General George C.
Marshall referred to the danger of 'localities,' when every 'theatre commander'
became convinced that the war was being won or lost in his own area of respon-
sibility and that the 'withholding of whatever was necessary for local success
was evidence of blindness, if not imbecility, in the high command.'
41
 'Depart-
mentalities' is viewed as a dangerous disease in a parliamentary system. A
former British Cabinet minister explains, 'If you contract Departmentalities you
will forget that you are part of a Government, that the fortunes of the Govern-
ment are more important than the fortunes of your own Department, that the
fortunes of the Government may well require that your own Department's inter-
ests be subordinated to those of another.'
42
 Things are no different in Canada.
Where Decisions Are Made
Governments take thousands of decisions every day. The bulk of them are
straightforward, predictable, and nQncontroversial. Processing applications
Render Unto the Centre 55
under national programs where eligibility criteria are clear is one such example.
The processing of tax returns usually does not entail a controversial debate, at
least in public, though it may hold painful surprises for some taxpayers. These
types of decisions are made by what Henry Mintzbergh or James Q. Wilson call
'production organizations.' The work of production or machine-like organiza-
tions is predictable and their goals can often be precisely specified and mea-
sured.
43
 Decisions are usually made in the confines of a single department and
very often within a single office.
Central agencies have little interest in these decisions unless, of course, they
gain media attention for some reason and become a political problem. Spending
estimates of production organizations will be reviewed but even here decisions
will likely be straightforward. The workload and program costs can be well
documented and measured and agreement between the line department and the
central agency on the proposed expenditure budget is often easily reached.
Indeed, central agency officials are well aware, for example, that adding one tax
auditor to the payroll generates new revenues which are far greater than the
salary and associated costs of the incumbent.
Most government decisions can be labelled internal or unilateral and the
great majority of them can be made by the responsible front line employee or
the program manager without ever consulting the minister. From time to time,
however, the program manager may have to move the decision, with a recom-
mendation, up the line to a more senior officer. There are several reasons why
this may happen. The manager may well have discretionary authority delegated
only to a certain level over which the case has to be considered by a more senior
official. Alternatively, a particular case may have become politically sensitive
because it potentially has an impact on a group of people or a whole community
rather than just one individual, or because a politician of some influence,
whether a member of Parliament, a mayor, or a local politician well known for
his or her ability to talk to the media, has expressed an interest in the matter.
Depending on the nature of the case or the politics of the situation, the more
senior official may decide to raise the matter at the political level.
Thus, even in the case of internal administrative decisions, it is not always
possible to discern when a public servant's influence wanes or ends and a poli-
tician's influence starts and holds sway. It varies depending on the issue, on the
newness of the issue perhaps, the level of public funds involved, and the degree
of public controversy being generated. Put differently, the level at which a deci-
sion is made can shift upward or downward as one senses more or less contro-
versy, or more or less importance.
44
 A case in point is the decision made several
years ago by the Department of Government Services in Canada to replace all
3,000 windows at the Foreign Affairs building at a cost of $3 million when only
56 The Setting
a few were defective.
45
 Officials calculated that it was cheaper and more effi-
cient to replace all the windows at once rather than doing the work piecemeal as
necessary. The administrative decision became a hot political issue when the
media gave the story wide coverage in many daily newspapers and television
newscasts. The day after the story broke, an official in the department reported
that 'the whole place went berserk' after the minister, David Dingwall, declared
the decision 'stupid' and 'wanted a full explanation' since he had not been
made aware of the file.
46
 A week later the minister cancelled the contract,
resulting in a 'hefty' cost to taxpayers.
47
 When officials made the decision to
replace all the windows, no one in the department could have predicted that a
purely administrative internal decision would become a hot political issue.
That said, there are important issues, even important policy issues, that can
be resolved within a department or an agency. There are also departments that
are more self-contained than others. For example, departments or agencies
responsible for a country's penal system are relatively self-contained in policy
matters while departments responsible for foreign trade or promoting economic
development are not.
But even when a Cabinet minister has full authority to make a decision, she
or he may wish to consult others - Cabinet colleagues or someone in the Prime
Minister's Office. When expecting controversy over a decision, a Cabinet min-
ister may prefer to act in the knowledge that colleagues or the centre have been
consulted. At that point, central agency officials, whether at the political or
career official level, may well get involved. Accordingly, the Cabinet minister
has to weigh which comfort level is preferable - having one's colleagues or a
higher political authority onside or delaying the decision because of the
involvement of central agency officials. In addition, consulting colleagues or
others could well result in a different decision or a modified decision from the
one she prefers. A minister should also be careful to 'over-consult' when
responsibility for the decision is clearly in his court for fear of irritating col-
leagues or appearing to be weak. Responsibility shared on questions that can be
handled within one's department or office is invariably regarded, at least by the
stronger ministers, as responsibility shirked.
Are there firm rules that enable a minister to decide when he should take a
matter through the Cabinet decision-making process? The answer is no, as the
above makes clear. That said, a deputy minister will advise his minister to sub-
mit a proposal to the Cabinet process if it has an impact on the policies or even
the operations of other departments. In any event, deputy ministers know full
well that the Privy Council Office will expect that any policy or new program
proposal having an impact on other departments will be submitted to a Cabinet
committee. Given that very few public policy issues fit neatly into the mandate
Render Unto the Centre 57
of a single government department, ministers will much more often than not be
told that they should submit proposals to the Cabinet process.
This remains true even though the 1993 government reorganization reduced
the number of departments from thirty-two to twenty-three. An important
objective of the reorganization, as we will see in chapter 5, was to re-create
natural decision centres within departments. The large number of departments
meant that too many decisions crossed departmental lines so that the Cabinet
decision-making process had to be engaged much too often. Officials report
that the 1993 government restructuring has helped in 'locating' more decisions
in departments but that there are still 'very few important initiatives that do not
have interdepartmental considerations.'
48
 When a minister decides to engage
the cabinet process, it triggers a number of activities outside of her department
and outside her immediate control. Central agency officials will immediately
begin to monitor all developments and a series of interdepartmental meetings
will be held to review the proposal.
There is one individual, however, who can at any time upset the collective
versus individual responsibilities and, with no advance notice, take an issue that
would properly belong to a minister and her department and bring it to the cen-
tre. The prime minister can intervene in any issue - big or small - if he feels
that his judgment is required. He may decide to bring an issue to his office if he
thinks it is politically important, if it has a national unity dimension, or if he or
his advisers become convinced that the minister is not up to the task of manag-
ing it.
The prime minister need not ask anyone for permission to take what can be
essentially a departmental matter and bring it to the centre. Only his interest and
the time he can make available to the issue can limit his ability to intervene.
When a prime minister takes an issue away from a minister to manage by
remote control, he will likely have a brief chat with the relevant minister to
explain the development. The important point here (and more is said about this
in the next chapter), is that the prime minister can intervene in a departmental
matter when and where he pleases.
Bilateral decisions involve more than one department or agency. If, as can be
the case, a Cabinet minister is responsible for two departments or agencies, she
or he simply turns to a kind of mini-cabinet committee, group, or council and
makes the necessary decision. If the decision entails a transfer of funds from
one agency or department to another, then the Cabinet minister will initiate the
decision or ratify it. Depending on the circumstances, the involvement of offi-
cials from the Treasury Board secretariat or Finance may be necessary.
There are also numerous multi-agency or multidepartmental decisions taken
every day. Some are routine and are taken at the desk officer level. Such deci-
58 The Setting
sions may result from a requirement that department X (say, Industry) has to
consult department Y (say, Transportation) when a decision to provide some
form of assistance (say, to the airline industry) is made. Similarly, in a federal
system, a federal government department or agency may have agreed to consult
one, several, or all provinces before it makes a decision on a given issue. Pro-
vided the decision is made within clearly established and well-known perime-
ters, it will not entail controversy and will be made at the bureaucratic level. A
provincial premier, however, will quickly raise a fuss if there are any indica-
tions that her region is being shortchanged. If this should happen, career offi-
cials will likely lose some control over the file to politically appointed officials
in a ministerial office. Hence the recognition that every problem 'no matter how
technical it might seem, can assume political significance and its solution can
be decisively influenced by political considerations.'
49
Spending departments and agencies will enter into bilateral negotiations with
the Treasury Board secretariat to determine spending ceilings. A central agency
or agencies (in Canada, the Department of Finance and the Treasury Board sec-
retariat both have a role in reviewing spending plans) will play the role of
guardian in reviewing the spending plans. The negotiations are carried out by
bureaucrats and most issues are resolved at this level. Spending ceilings will
have already been struck so that departments can get on with sorting out the
nuts and bolts of the proposed spending plan. Still, departments can, at least in
theory, appeal their ceilings or decisions during the annual review of spending
plans with the Finance minister or, in some instances, the prime minister and
Cabinet. For such appeals the relevant central agencies prepare extensive brief-
ing material to equip the prime minister or the Finance minister for their meet-
ings with the spending minister.
Some departments within a government will claim that they have, or should
have, the mandate to review some proposals being prepared by other depart-
ments. For example, the Department of the Environment will quite correctly
argue that it can hardly ask private firms to be environmentally sensitive when
some government departments are not. This, in turn, will give rise to numerous
interdepartmental committee meetings and perhaps new spending plans.
Departments and agencies that can lay claim to a horizontal responsibility and a
need to review proposed or ongoing activities of other departments play a
quasi-central agency role. They will use whatever influence they can muster to
block certain initiatives or to amend them to ensure that they are acceptable
from their perspective. Such developments, particularly when they call for pos-
sible new spending, will trigger the involvement of central agencies.
There are many other examples where departments and agencies claim a
coordinating role over other departments or programs. Regional development
Render Unto the Centre 59
agencies, for example, will make the case that in order to act as an advocate for
slow-growth regions they need the authority to review proposals from other
departments to ensure that they square with regional or local economic circum-
stances and conditions. Without such a mandate, there would be the risk that
government programs may work at cross purposes and cancel each other out.
50
These mandates can, however, give rise to a great deal of interdepartmental ten-
sion and also slow down the decision-making process considerably. A former
British Cabinet minister explains, 'The Department of Economic Affairs was a
curious body ... we muscled in on everyone's business. There was to be a debate
on Northern Ireland and the First Secretary insisted that, in view of DEA's
responsibilities for regional policy, I should wind it up. This was a disaster.
Home Office officials were hostile because we were poaching on their ground.
My own officials were not happy at offending another department ...'
5I
There are, to be sure, many similar examples in Canada. One, however, has
great difficulty identifying instances, at least in Canada, where line departments
have successfully muscled in on the turf of other departments. The Department
of Regional Economic Expansion had a mandate to coordinate or at least influ-
ence the activities of other federal departments.
52
 But it failed on this front,
which explains in part why it was disbanded in the early 19808. The Depart-
ment of the Environment was also given a mandate to influence the policies and
programs of other federal departments in the late 19808, but it too has never
lived up to expectations.
53
 The list goes on, and includes the Department of
Indian Affairs and Northern Development, the former ministry of Urban
Affairs, and the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency.
Coordinating Cross-Cutting Policy Issues
There are a number of emerging forces currently at play pulling in the direction
of still greater interdepartmental coordination. Indeed, there are now cross-cut-
ting policy issues surfacing in virtually every department. The effect of these
issues cannot be contained adequately within the single policy sector where
they have been usually discussed. For example, it is no longer possible to think
about education without also thinking about its impact on competitiveness and
labour markets.
Another aspect of the cross-cutting policy issues is that poorly designed and
coordinated programs may diminish the impact of one another. For example,
programs implemented by the Environmental Protection Agency in the United
States to minimize the production of carbon dioxide and other air pollutants
from automobiles tend to have a negative impact on other programs (in Energy
and in EPA itself) to increase gasoline mileage of automobiles. Likewise, some
60 The Setting
government agencies in Washington pay farmers to take land out of production,
while at least one other (the Bureau of Reclamation in the Department of the
Interior) spends large sums of money to make other land arable. In Canada, we
have had instances in the past when agricultural programs assisted tobacco
farmers while the Department of Health invested public funds in anti-smoking
campaigns. In addition to being expensive, these contradictory programs make
government look disorganized to the public, if not to itself.
The global economy is also putting pressure on national governments to
coordinate better their policies and programs. As we have already seen, regional
trade agreements such as the North America Free Trade Agreement push
national governments to harmonize a wide variety of laws and policies from
one nation state to another. This requires an ability to promote a government-
wide capacity to review regulations and programs. In addition, national govern-
ments have come to recognize that for their countries to be competitive in
the international marketplace they need to be proactive in coordinating key
economic and social policies, and in particular their labour market and social
programs. In short, no longer can government permit policies and even
departments to operate in relative isolation. While it might have been appropri-
ate at the turn of the century to establish vertical sectoral lines to deal with prob-
lems in agriculture, transportation, and industry, that is no longer the case.
It is now also clear that the development of the global economy will be leav-
ing in its wake large problems of economic adjustment. National governments
will not be able to go to the sidelines and stand idle. They will intervene - as
they have already started to do - but the interventions will be coming face to
face with serious constraints, not least of which are the difficult fiscal situation
confronting most Western industrialized democracies and the multidimensional
approach required to have any chance of success. Accordingly, the interven-
tions will have to be creative and draw upon the resources of several depart-
ments.
54
 This, in turn, will require a capacity at the centre to plan and
coordinate the various efforts.
Fiscal issues are also bringing pressure to bear on government operations to
adopt a more horizontal perspective. If we have learned anything on the budget-
ing front over the past thirty years, it is that budgeting is fundamentally a politi-
cal process. The budget process can never be placed on automatic pilot with the
assumption that sophisticated performance indicators will sort out which pro-
grams should get what. Choices have to be made among competing demands.
This, above all, requires a political judgment about which interests should be
indulged and which deprived. To be successful in shaping the major contours of
the budget to reflect government priorities, the political leadership needs to
structure the budgetary process to assert control over it. It needs to have a
Render Unto the Centre 61
knowledge of government policies, departments, and programs that cut across
departmental lines and that are both consistent and comparable in quality and
content. Deciding on priorities in dealing with fiscal pressures requires the
imposition of centralized controls through central agencies or direct interven-
tion by political leaders and their appointed agents.
55
The political leadership in Canada is also being called upon to deal with real
or perceived problems of overlap and duplication in government programs.
This issue has been a sore point in federal-provincial relations for the past thirty
years or so. The federal government needs a capacity to look at itself and at pro-
grams as a whole if it is to attack the problem. Managers and employees on the
front line will naturally be preoccupied with the details of the day, and with pro-
viding top-flight services to clients (as the new managerialism is asking them to
do). It is difficult to imagine that identifying duplication and overlap and then
trying to deal with far away Ottawa to sort the problem out will be high on their
list of priorities.
Those who operate at the centre of government appreciate all too well the
growing need for coordination, a cross-cutting perspective on policy issues.
Jocelyne Bourgon, the clerk of the Privy Council Office, and secretary to the
Cabinet, established a special task force of senior officials in 1996 on managing
horizontal policy issues. The task force, a mix of deputy ministers and assistant
deputy ministers from thirteen departments, summed up the task at hand in this
fashion: 'Ministers and their departments must fulfill both their individual
accountabilities to meet the needs of their clients, stakeholders, and partners -
and their collective responsibilities - to serve the broader interest. It is these
collective responsibilities, which transcend individual mandates, that challenge
ministers and their departments to look beyond their narrow interests and to rec-
ognize the interdependence of many policy issues.'
56
 In searching for ways to
promote a stronger horizontal perspective in government, the task force pointed
to organizational culture as key. It held workshops with many senior officials
and, based on the findings of these workshops, the task force concluded that
'there is a sense that the federal policy community is becoming less corporate,
less collegial, with interdepartmental discussion focusing less on problem solv-
ing and more on departmental positioning and turf protection. Further, as
departments have become larger, accountability is focused on the internal
agenda; with few incentives to help "tackle someone else's issues." There are
few rewards in the system - and the current rewards and recognition systems
tend to reinforce vertical thinking and competitive behaviour.'
57
The task force went on to identify another problem with the government's
policy-making capacity - that is, that the policy officers in line departments are
increasingly preoccupied with managing short-term pressures and issues. Much
62 The Setting
too often, it argued, they are left trying to spin the latest issue to journalists to
make it on the media hit parade rather than focusing on the more important
long-term issues. They are also being asked, the task force reported, to manage
more and more negative fallout in the media, resulting from a new policy deci-
sion or problems with a particular program.
The solution? The task force argued that senior officials, and in particular
central agencies, should promote 'a collegial and collaborative culture within
the policy community.'
58
 This could be done, it suggested, through strong lead-
ership at the centre, new investment in policy research and development, new
policy courses for government officials, and promoting informal links between
departments.
59
The clerk of the Privy Council also asked Ivan Fellegi, chief statistician, to
chair a task force of senior officials to review the state of the government's
policy capacity. This task force submitted its report in April 1995. It concluded
that 'the most notable weaknesses at present relate to longer term strategic and
horizontal issues. Resources are disproportionately consumed by short term
demands. This is true both within departments and across government.' ° The
report was critical of central agencies and argued that they 'do not provide ade-
quate guidance and support' to the management of major horizontal issues.
61
 It
insisted that central agencies have a vital role to play on this front, but pointed
out that 'there is no fully effective central function that helps to define issues of
strategic importance, to guide the process for developing longer term and hori-
zontal policies, to promote interdepartmental networks.' The Privy Council
Office, the task force concluded, 'is the logical focus for such a function.'
62
Packaging Proposals
Policy or program proposals, including program adjustments that require new
legislation, will also trigger the involvement of a central agency. Although
more is said about this later in this study, it is important for now to make a few
general observations. In some instances, a central agency will only be playing
the role of clearinghouse to ensure that the centre is aware of what is being
planned and that the various initiatives are coordinated. In other instances, how-
ever, central agencies will be intimately involved in the development of major
new policy and program proposals.
An agency or department planning a major policy shift or a new program will
set in motion an elaborate interdepartmental consultation exercise. Initially at
least, the exercise could be a series of informal meetings involving middle level
officials from relevant line departments. More senior level officials may decide
to meet, say, over lunch to review in some detail what is being proposed. Mean-
Render Unto the Centre 63
while, interdepartmental committee meetings will be held to which central
agency officials will be invited. The timing of the involvement of the political
level - the Cabinet minister, Cabinet committees, the prime minister - will
depend on the issue. A high-profile proposal will be monitored very closely at
the political level even at very early stages and politicians and their partisan
advisers will ask for frequent briefings.
In Canada, if the cabinet process is being respected, a Cabinet committee will
review the proposal before it is submitted to full Cabinet. At this point, all of
the budgetary and administrative implications will have been reviewed and cen-
tral agency officials will be well versed on the proposal. In fact, the chair of the
committee will have been properly briefed by central agency officials, and
more often than not, a briefing memorandum may have been sent to the prime
minister. The next step is to move the proposal to Cabinet either as a routine
matter or as an important item on the Cabinet agenda. Again, this depends on
the nature of the issue.
The Cabinet committee structure has evolved greatly over the years. From
1945 to 1964, most operated on an ad hoc basis and were structured to deal with
a specific task assigned by Cabinet rather than with properly defined areas. The
focus was clearly on the Cabinet itself, which met about three times a week and
dealt with a great deal of detailed business (including approving contracts).
Issues were submitted to Cabinet first and subsequently referred to a Cabinet
committee for consideration. Pearson reorganized the committee system in
1964 to replace the ad hoc committee structure with nine standing committees.
He also established a Priorities and Planning Committee of Cabinet in 1968 and
gave it a mandate to outline government priorities in line with its overall fiscal
position. 3
Trudeau reorganized the cabinet system and delegated more authority to cab-
inet committees. Most issues were submitted to a committee before going to
Cabinet, a practice that still exists today. Clark, during his brief stay in power,
established an inner Cabinet. Turner abolished two central agencies (MSERD
and MSSD) and streamlined decision making. Mulroney added new Cabinet
committees and had proposals at times going through several committees (e.g.,
the sectoral committees such as the Economic Development, Operations com-
mittee chaired by the deputy prime minister, the Priorities and Planning Cabi-
net, and then Cabinet).
64
 Chretien, as already noted, scrapped most Cabinet
committees so that a proposal only goes through one committee before going to
Cabinet. Still, the growth in the number of Cabinet committees had one impor-
tant effect: starting in the late 19608, under Trudeau, Cabinet became increas-
ingly structured in a hierarchical fashion and 'full Cabinet met... seldom as a
forum for government decision-making.'
65
64 The Setting
Ensuring Equality
There are core values in government that hold important implications for how
its operations are run. One such value is the need for fair treatment for all. Tax
auditors, for example, are asked to treat citizens the same. One can only imag-
ine the public outcry if taxpayers were treated differently for whatever reason in
the processing of tax returns. Similarly, the great majority of national programs
offer the same services to different people in different regions of the country. In
addition, civil servants themselves will expect their employer to treat them
fairly and again to offer equal treatment to all.
Should any of these values be cast aside, politicians will be the first to cry
foul. Imagine if a national program to assist farmers only applied in selected
areas of the country, if a national energy program applied only in the most pop-
ulous or least populous regions, if a national child care program for the poor
only applied to the poor living in selected regions. Similarly, how long would a
member of Parliament agree to civil servants in any given region (other than
perhaps his own) consistently having larger offices, better furniture, longer hol-
idays, or being relieved of the merit principle when hiring or promoting staff.
Once one accepts that fair treatment is a basic value for citizens and govern-
ment employees, one has to accept, the argument goes, that centrally prescribed
rules and regulations will need to be put in place, enforced, and audited. It is for
this reason, albeit among others, that Canada has a Public Service Commission
and also a wide array of centrally defined administrative prescriptions govern-
ing the purchase of goods and services. Ministers are not free to bypass these
policy and program prescriptions, and if they do, they run the risk of being held
to account in question period or, failing that, by the auditor general.
Another core value of public administration is that public funds are to be
spent only with due regard for prudence and probity. Unfair advantages ought
not to be given to particular individuals or groups - unless a carefully planned
affirmative action program has been put in place - in securing employment or
winning a government contract. One only needs a brief encounter with front
line government officials to hear about the importance of fair treatment for all
and the need for integrity in the government financial system. One will also
hear about the work of the various oversight bodies regulating the work of gov-
ernment operations.
A review of federal government operations reveals that ministers and their
departments are subjected to a number of centrally prescribed rules, regulations,
and administrative practices. A central authority lays down how expenditure
budgets should be prepared, how positions should be classified, and how func-
tions should be organized. A central authority also prescribes how government
Render Unto the Centre 65
managers can hire and promote staff. Guidelines are established for carrying
out audits and the evaluation of programs. In addition, some centrally pre-
scribed administrative practices tell managers in some detail how certain pur-
chases should be made. Another central administrative body could also be
scrutinizing the purchase or rental of the offices departmental programs man-
agers and their staff occupy and outline the number of sick days employees
are allowed annually, how many leave days, and when they can retire on full
pension.
Given the above, one may be tempted to conclude that the role of govern-
ment managers is simply to put their operations on automatic pilot and let cen-
trally prescribed practices take over and run things. There is an element of truth
to this view. It is also widely assumed, however, that it is these centrally pre-
scribed rules, perhaps more than anything else, which have made government
operations inefficient, bloated, and costly, and have given government bureauc-
racy a bad reputation.
66
 But the desire to modernize government operations has
given rise to the New Public Management (NPM) with its emphasis on the
application of private sector management techniques to government operations.
The NPM is still very much in vogue. There is evidence to suggest that in
Canada some centrally prescribed administrative practices have been scrapped
and others have been attenuated or modified all in the interest of empowering
front line managers and their employees.
67
 There is also, however, plenty of
evidence to suggest that there are still numerous centrally prescribed rules and
regulations designed to ensure a degree of uniformity in government programs
and operations and also prudence, probity, and integrity in the government's
personnel and financial management systems. What is not at all clear is whether
the shift to public management is having much of an impact on government
operations in terms of efficiency and cost.
68
Looking Back
The very nature of government suggests that one cannot easily lay down clearly
and consistently when a minister should look to his collective responsibilities or
to his department or decide what is the prerogative of a line department and
what belongs to a central agency. The very existence of a central political
authority and central agencies to support its work suggests that what belongs at
the centre and what belongs in a line department can never be cast in concrete.
The challenge for those in government is not to draw a clear dividing line
between the two, but rather to manage the tension.
Accordingly, the search for a proper balance between the centre and line
department at least in administrative matters is never ending and is always in a
66 The Setting
state of flux. In brief, the pendulum is rarely stable. In more recent years, mana-
gerialism has pushed the pendulum towards decentralization, towards more
empowered front line operations, and away from the centre. But the pendulum
has been there before, however tentatively in some instances. It was there, for
example, in the aftermath of the Glassco report. Long-serving employees are
familiar with government scandals or a series of high-profile errors or adminis-
trative mistakes unleashing a new set of centrally prescribed regulations and
administrative practices.
The above suggests that a great deal of the work in government consists of
performing a balancing act between competing demands and forces and adapt-
ing some long-standing core values to the requirements of the latest fashion and
fad introduced to 'fix' government. The former chairman of the Public Service
Commission in Canada, after his retirement, summed up the frustrations he had
experienced in government when he^ observed that the system is 'designed to
make eunuchs out of public service managers.'
69
 The point is that despite vari-
ous efforts to decentralize decision making and to empower government man-
agers, the nature of the public sector itself requires a strong capacity at the
centre to ensure a government-wide perspective on policies, programs, and
activities and a degree of sameness in government operations. What is truly
remarkable is that some thirty years or more after the Glassco Commission had
called on the federal government to decentralize its operations and to let manag-
ers manage, new high-profile initiatives under the managerialism banner are
calling for the same changes, as if Glassco had never existed. Yogi Berra, the
American grassroots philosopher, would no doubt describe the 'New Public
Management' as 'deja vu all over again.'
If nothing else, this suggests once again that the search for striking the right
balance between the centre and line departments and between collective and
individual responsibilities for ministers can never be properly defined. When
looking at government operations from the centre, there is, by all accounts, an
increasingly urgent need to promote a horizontal perspective, to ensure greater
cooperation between departments, and to strengthen policy capacity. The task
force on horizontal policy issues called for a 'Government of Canada Inc.'
approach to policy making. But the task force also made it clear that the ten-
dency in the government in recent years was to go in the opposite direction,
with more emphasis being placed on departmental positioning and turf protec-
tion rather than on promoting more horizontal thinking. The task force on
strengthening the policy capacity, meanwhile, concluded that there was no
effective central function to define issues of strategic importance and to pro-
mote horizontal policies and that PCO was the logical focus for such a role. The
implication, of course, is that PCO is not playing that role. Indeed, the task
Render Unto the Centre 67
force also argued that PCO was overly preoccupied with managing short-term
issues and political crises.
The chapters that follow seek to bring to life the tension between the centre
and departments and between the collective and individual responsibilities of
ministers. They report that the federal government has overhauled the machin-
ery of government more than once to get at the problem, but also that it is still
anything but happy with the current situation. The federal government task
forces on managing horizontal policy issues and on the government's policy
capacity brought this point home. But they are not alone.
This page intentionally left blank 
PAR T II
TH E PLAY
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4
Primus: There Is No Longer
Any Inter or Pares
The prime minister occupies the highest peaks of both the political and adminis-
trative mountains, from which he can survey all developments in his govern-
ment.
1
 This is not to suggest that he can always shape at will all initiatives and
move the machinery of government in the direction and at the speed he wishes.
There are some constraints to prime ministerial power, ranging from incessant
demands on his time, public opinion, the media - even to inertia, a characteris-
tic found in all large organizations and to which the federal government is cer-
tainly not immune. But, no matter the circumstances, the prime minister
remains 'the boss.' Prime Minister Chretien is called the boss, while he, in turn,
invariably referred to Pierre Trudeau as Te boss' when he served in Trudeau's
Cabinet.
There is no question that a great deal of power is concentrated in the hands of
the prime minister, especially when his party enjoys a majority in Parliament.
Abraham Lincoln is reported to have provided an account of Cabinet delibera-
tions by saying 'the Ayes one, the nays seven. The ayes have it.'
2
 A Canadian
prime minister holdin g a clear majority in Parliament could easily make a simi-
lar claim. Indeed, there have been many instances during the past twenty-five
years or so when various prime ministers have chosen to pursue initiatives both
large and small without even consulting their Cabinets. Governments are often
identified not only in the media, but also in scholarly works by the names of
the prime minister, as in the Trudeau, Chretien, or Mulroney governments, and
for very legitimate reasons. Prime ministers have become much more than
spokespersons for their Cabinets. They are the focal point of the government
and the administration and they clearly dominate inside government. They pro-
vide the leadership, the style, and the coherence of the government and the ebb
and flow of the fortunes of the government are directly linked to their perfor-
mance. No single Cabinet minister, regardless of her political base in the party
72 The Play
or in the country, can possibly have the same impact as the prime minister. If a
minister ever should, it will signal a short-lived government - and no one
knows this better than the prime minister.
This chapter looks at the role of the prime minister in government. It exam-
ines the levers of power that belong to him or her and the forces that strengthen
his hand at almost every turn. The chapter examines the constraints to prime
ministerial power but also the tools available to the prime minister to assist him
or her in dealing with these constraints. It reviews the role of his own office and
considers whether the prime minister's role and power in government have
been expanding or receding in recent years.
Primus Rules
Canadian prime ministers, again, particularly when they have a majority gov-
ernment in Parliament, have in their hands all the important levers of power.
Indeed, all major national public policy roads lead one way or another to their
doorstep. They are elected leader of their party by party members, they chair
Cabinet meetings, establish Cabinet processes and procedures, set the Cabinet
agenda, establish the consensus for Cabinet decisions; they appoint and fire
ministers and deputy ministers, establish Cabinet committees, and decide on
their membership; they exercise virtually all the powers of patronage and act as
personnel manager for thousands of government and patronage jobs; they artic-
ulate the government's strategic direction as outlined in the Speech from the
Throne; they dictate the pace of change, and are the main salespersons promot-
ing the achievements of their government; they have a hand in establishing the
government's fiscal framework; they represent Canada abroad; they establish
the proper mandate of individual ministers and decide all machinery of govern-
ment issues, and they are the final arbiter in interdepartmental conflicts. The
prime minister is the only politician with a national constituency, and unlike
members of Parliament and even Cabinet ministers, he does not need to search
out publicity or national media attention, since attention is invariably focused
on his office and his residence, 24 Sussex. In short, the prime minister is head
of government with limited checks on his power inside government or in Parlia-
ment. He is not, however, head of state, a role still played by the governor-
general as representative of the monarch. This is just as well, since that role is
now largely ceremonial.
Each of the above levers of power taken separately is a powerful instrument
of public policy and public administration in its own right, but when you add
them all up and place them in the hands of one individual, they constitute a ver-
itable juggernaut of power. Other than going down to defeat in a general elec-
Primus: There Is No Longer Any Inter or Pares 73
tion, it can only be stopped, or slowed, by the force of public opinion and by a
Cabinet or caucus revolt. Even then, public opinion may not be much of a force
if the prime minister has already decided not to run again in the next general
election. One only has to think back to Trudeau or Mulroney's final years in
office to appreciate this. History also tells us that caucus or Cabinet revolts, or
even threats of revolts, are extremely rare in Ottawa.
Yet notwithstanding the fact that all these key instruments and so much polit-
ical power are concentrated in the hands of one individual, one of the main pre-
occupations of the most senior officials in government is to protect the prime
minister. I was reminded of an old political saying on more than one occasion in
my interviews wit h politicians and their advisers: 'If the head goes, the rest of the
government is sure to follow.' Partisan political advisers and Cabinet ministers
know that, once exposed, any prime ministerial weaknesses, real or imagined,
will serve to stimulate the opposition and the media and make it that more diffi-
cult to govern. Accordingly, it is important that the prime minister be protected,
but also that his or her hand on the Cabinet and the government machinery not be
weakened. Some of the officials on the lookout to protect the prime minister are
politically partisan, and one can easily appreciate why they would want to protect
him. But others are not partisan and they also regard it as their duty to protect the
head of government. This is true no matter which political party is in power. Per-
manent officials in central agencies explain this by pointing out that, though they
are not politically partisan, they need to be politically sensitive.
There are plenty of subtle and not so subtle hints suggesting that the prime
minister towers above his Cabinet colleagues. At the Cabinet table, the prime
minister sits at the middle and decides which ministers sit where. The back of
his chair is higher than all the others. Whatever may be the case in theory,
everyone knows that in practice the secretary of the Cabinet reports directly to
him and not to Cabinet and indeed that it is the prime minister alone and not
Cabinet who appoints or dismisses the secretary to the Cabinet. His own per-
sonal or political office is well staffed and is headed by a deputy-minister-level
official. Some of his senior staff members are allowed to attend Cabinet and
committee meetings. Ministers, meanwhile, have, relatively speaking, a modest
budget for their own offices. These are headed by junior level officials who are
never invited to attend Cabinet meetings.
The prime minister also enjoys a number of special perks not available to his
Cabinet colleagues. He is the only government member to occupy an official
residence, which is not the case either in Britain or in the United States. If the
prime minister wants to contact anyone in Canada, or for that matter in the
world, he has at his disposal a highly efficient switchboard capable of tracking
down virtually anyone. When Prime Minister Chretien decided towards the end
74 The Play
of a Formula i car race that he wanted to talk with Jacques Villeneuve, the
PM's switchboard was able to track Villeneuve down in Japan within minutes.
No other minister could command this kind of response.
Canadian prime ministers have, since Trudeau, made themselves into televi-
sion personalities. But the same is not true for Cabinet ministers. A Gallup poll
in 1988 revealed that only 31 per cent of respondents could name a single Cabi-
net minister four years after the Mulroney government had come to power. In
addition, only 5 per cent of the respondents could identify Don Mazankowski,
deputy prime minister and one of the most, if not the most, powerful member of
Mulroney's Cabinet.
3
In Canada, at least since Trudeau, prime ministers rule through good times
and bad, with never a hint of serious Cabinet or caucus revolt. British prime
ministers can be dumped by their parties even when in office - as Margaret
Thatcher can attest - but not, it seems, Canadian prime ministers. Former prime
ministers Pierre Trudeau and Brian Mulroney both became extremely unpopu-
lar in their latter years in power, all the while without a revolt from either Cabi-
net or caucus. In both instances, they stayed to the end of their traditional four-
year mandate (both Trudeau and Mulroney stayed even beyond their four-year
mandates) and their parties went on to suffer humiliating defeats in the next
election.
Ministers and members of Parliament can read public opinion polls as well or
probably better than anyone else. So why the unwillingness to expel the leader
when the party is in deep political hot water? I put the question to a former
Trudeau Cabinet minister. He explained:
It's like you are a deer, frozen there, watching the oncoming lights of a car in the middle
of the night. You know that you are going to get hit, but you do nothing. For one thing,
the leader is not chosen by Cabinet or caucus. He is chosen by the party. So even though
you are in the Cabinet, you are only one voice among many and your opinion is no more
legitimate than perhaps a poll captain from Prince Edward Island. In any event, the only
way a Cabinet minister would ever get involved in a revolt would be if he had a strong
indication that he was being dropped from Cabinet or that he was certain that the revolt
would be successful, and success is never a certainty in politics. There is also never any
guarantee that a new leader could do better. Turner [i.e., former Liberal leader and for a
brief period of time prime minister] made that obvious in 1984.4
One could add that Kim Campbell did the same for the Progressive Conserva-
tive Party in 1993.1 put the same question to a former Mulroney Cabinet minis-
ter. His response was brief and to the point, Tt was not for us to decide when
the prime minister should leave. It was his decision, pure and simple.'
5
Primus: There Is No Longer Any Inter or Pares 75
The Canadian prime minister's power extends beyond the federal govern-
ment. He deals regularly with provincial premiers and territorial leaders. Pre-
miers are first ministers too, a status they jealously guard, and for good reason.
The status enables them to deal directly with the prime minister. Indeed, all first
ministers, including those from the smaller provinces, believe that they should
have full access to the prime minister without having to go through a federal
government minister. They know from first-hand experience that the head of
government has the power to make things happen and to give a green light to
requests and proposals without consulting anyone, if necessary, while a simple
Cabinet minister cannot, no matter how solid his standing in government.
In the summer of 1997, Frank McKenna, former premier of New Brunswick,
organized a one-on-one meeting with the prime minister. He put two proposals
to Chretien during a golf game: that the federal government support a confer-
ence on the economic future of Atlantic Canada and that it cost share a new
highways agreement to continue with the construction of a four-lane Trans Can-
ada highway. The prime minister agreed and instructed his officials to make it
happen. One government agency provided some funding to support the confer-
ence, and several federal ministers, including Prime Minister Chretien, attended
it. Officials, meanwhile, were instructed to prepare a Treasury Board submis-
sion to secure the necessary funding for the highways construction agreement.
Within a few weeks, everything had been sorted out and an announcement was
made on both an Atlantic Vision conference and a new Canada/Highways
agreement. The prime minister did not ask Privy Council and Treasury Board
Secretariat officials to prepare a proposal and then to submit it for consideration
in the government's decision-making process. His instructions were clear -
make these two initiatives happen. This is not to suggest that these two exam-
ples represent daily occurrences in Ottawa or that all federal-provincial projects
enjoy the same status. But they are revealing in that they are the norm when the
prime minister decides to get involved.
In the final planning stages of the post-TAGS initiative for unemployed fish-
ery workers, Premier Brian Tobin expressed his deep disappointment over the
slow progress and the proposed level of funding. He called the Cabinet 'derelict'
and said that the relevant federal minister, Pierre Pettigrew, was not up to the
task. He then appealed to Chretien to get directly involved.
6
 A few days later, the
Globe and Mail reported that the 'Prime Minister's Office concluded in the final
analyses that there was a case to be made that recipients under [TAGS] had pre-
viously been promised five years of support to wrap up the program a year early
because it was exceeding its $1.9 billion budget. Therefore, the money for the
East Coast was bumped up.'
7
 In the end, the matter was resolved in a series of
bilateral discussions between Tobin and Chretien, with the federal Cabinet
76 The Play
essentially standing on the sideline. As the media reported, Chretien and his
office took full control of the final negotiations even though a seven-member ad
hoc committee of Cabinet had been established to review post-TAGS measures
and that the Finance minister, Paul Martin, had indicated that only a modest
amount of funds (i.e., $150 million) would be made available.
The prime minister's direct involvement in files is not limited to premiers
from Atlantic Canada or to premiers from the same political party. In early 1997,
the prime minister came back from a visit to British Columbia and instructed the
Treasury Board to prepare the necessary documents to spend $50 million to sup-
port a variety of projects. He had agreed to this funding at a private meeting with
Premier Glen Clark. It was made clear to those preparing the documents that the
commitment had been made and that the matter was not for consideration. They
were simply told to make it happen. One official who worked on the submission
reports said, 'We had been told time and again by central agencies "don't come
calling for new money for projects. There is simply no new money." Then all of
a sudden we get word that we have to prepare a Treasury Board submission to
spend new money in British Columbia.'
8
 It will also be recalled that Mulroney,
after a late night telephone conversation with Premier Grant Devine, agreed to a
$i billion rescue package for Prairie farmers in 1987. Moreover, it was widely
known in Ottawa that Mulroney and John Crosbie were the only ministers in
favour of additional federal government investment in the Hibernia project after
Gulf decided to walk away from the project.
9
Contact between first ministers will inevitably draw the prime minister and
his advisers into specific files and in government departments in search of
information and perhaps resolution of an issue in one way or another. When
that happens, ministers and their departments can lose some of their power to
make decisions to the prime minister and his advisers.
Premiers also often insist that many of their letters to the federal government
be addressed to the prime minister rather than to the relevant federal Cabinet
minister. In turn, tradition requires that letters from premiers to the prime minis-
ter should be answered by the prime minister, even though the reply may well
have been prepared in a line department. Thus, regional or provincial issues, not
just national ones, are bought to the attention of the prime minister. This, too,
can strengthen the hand of the prime minister and his or her advisers, if they
decide to get involved in resolving an issue.
Other countries with both a parliamentary and a federal system have institu-
tional constraints on the power of the prime minister that do not exist in Can-
ada. Like Canada, Australia has a lower house in Parliament where party,
discipline is strong and where there is little tolerance for rebels in any party, and
in particular in the party in power. Like Canada, Australia is a federal state. But
Primus: There Is No Longer Any Inter or Pares 77
unlike Canada, Australia has a Senate, elected by proportional representation.
Since 1980, no government has held a majority in the Senate and its support
often has to be negotiated. Patrick Weller explains that in the Australian Senate,
The balance of power is held by a melange of minor parties and independents.
Since the Senate has in effect equal powers to stop supply and force an election,
its support for legislation can never be taken for granted. The government pro-
gram must be negotiated with minor parties.'
10
In Britain, and to some extent Australia, political parties tend to debate and
stake out policy positions. Election manifestos matter not just during the elec-
tion campaign but also during the time the party holds power. Though they have
lost some of their appeal and influence, political manifestos in Britain remain
an important part of the country's political culture and process. The Economist
reports that the Conservative Party was still able to sell 70,000 copies of their
manifesto in 1992 and that political manifestos represent 'the terms of a truce
between the factions that are inevitably present in any party."
1
 Peter Aucoin
writes that 'in Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand, there are sharper ideo-
logical distinctions between the two major parties than in Canada, reflecting a
relatively greater capacity to integrate major interest within parties, and there
are only two major parties in each of these three systems."
2
In Canada, however, federal political parties are not much more than partisan
political machines providing the fund-raising capacity and poll workers needed
to fight an election campaign. They are hardly effective vehicles for generating
public policy debates, for staking out policy positions, or for providing a capac-
ity to ensure their own competence once in office. Robert A. Young argues that
'the Pulp and Paper Association has more capacity to do strategic analytical
work than the Liberal and [Progressive] Conservative parties combined."
3
Sharon Sutherland points to the omnipresent regional factor in Canadian poli-
tics as an important reason why national political parties are not good vehicles
to debate and formulate policy positions. She writes, 'We do not have party
government in the national institutions because of the lack of capacity of parties
to reconcile inside themselves regional interests from across the whole coun-
try."
4
 Regional cleavages in Canada, as is well known, dominate the national
public policy agenda, and national political parties shy away from attacking
regional issues head on for fear that it would split the party along regional lines
and hurt its chances at election time. The thinking goes, at least in the parties
that have held power in Ottawa, that the issue is so sensitive and so politically
explosive that it is better left in the hands of party leaders and a handful of
advisers. In the two main political parties that have ever held power in Ottawa,
the terms of the truce between the various factions are established by the party
leader and some of his most trusted advisers.
78 The Play
Some observers may argue that the Liberal 'Red Book' in the 1993 election
campaign was an election manifesto in the British political tradition. Though, to
be sure, the Red Book was an uncommon phenomenon in Canadian politics, it
still does not qualify fully as a national political manifesto. For one thing, the
ideas in the Red Book were not born out of the party's rank and file, as happens
in Britain. Indeed, there are now several people who claim authorship of the
Red Book, but none, either directly or indirectly, are rank and file party mem-
bers.'
5
 In brief, the Red Book did not take root in a conference of party
members from across the country drawn together to hammer out a political
manifesto or an election platform. In the preface to the Red Book, Jean Chretien
writes that before the book was written he convened the Aylmer Conference,
which brought together experts from Canada, the United States, Europe, and
Japan. He also makes reference to the 1992 National Liberal Party Convention
and to the work of the platform committee, cochaired by Paul Martin and
Chaviva Hosek.'
6
 A former political assistant to Chretien, however, confirmed
Paul Martin's view that the Red Book was put together by a 'handful of people
in the summer of I993-"
7
The purpose of the Red Book was to draw attention away from the negative
press coverage over Chretien's alleged inability to articulate a vision for the
country, to present new ideas, and to dispel the charge often heard in the early
19905 that he was yesterday's man.'
8
 Before the Kim Campbell debacle in the
middle of the election campaign, public opinion surveys reported that Chretien
was found lacking on several fronts and that he was being painted in the media
as 'idea-less Jean Chretien.' He and his advisers set out to deal head on with
this charge and concluded the Red Book to be the solution. It would draw atten-
tion to a series of campaign commitments, and thereby suggest that Chretien
could indeed generate new ideas.
19
Quite apart from its true purpose, the Red Book had more success before
Chretien came to office than after. Once the party was elected to power, the
book lost at least some of its relevance. Finance Minister Paul Martin instructed
his departmental officials time and again to ignore it. Martin is quoted as telling
his senior Finance officials, 'Don't tell me what's in the Red Book ... I wrote
the goddamn thing. And I know that a lot of it is crap ... the goddamn thing
[was] thrown together quickly in the last three weeks of July. Things hadn't
been properly thought through.'
20
 In any event, the government reneged on a
number of commitments - both large and small - including the pledge to rene-
gotiate NAFTA, to introduce daycare, to replace the GST, to strengthen the
Department of the Environment, and to cut spending on outside consultants by
$620 million annually beginning in fiscal year I995-6.
21
The Liberal Party produced another Red Book for the 1997 election cam-
Primus: There Is No Longer Any Inter or Pares 79
paign, but it never gained the kind of visibility and media attention that the first
one enjoyed. In any event, the 1997 Red Book was again written by a handful of
advisers to the prime minister. The document came under media criticism dur-
ing the 1997 election campaign for being too general and vague, but it did
present a number of specific commitments in a variety of policy fields. After
the election, it disappeared from the public policy agenda and precious little ref-
erence has been made since in Parliament to its contents or even to its existence.
PMO officials, however, report that they refer to it when reviewing overall
government strategy and when considering new initiatives. Still, it would not be
an exaggeration to write that the Red Book experience in Canadian politics
appears to have been a one-election phenomenon. Canadian members of Parlia-
ment running for the party in power have little choice but to adopt the policies
of the prime minister as prepared by a handful of his most trusted advisers
rather than the policies of the party, to which all members were able to contrib-
ute. Thus far, that has been the Canadian way. Harold D. Clarke and his col-
leagues write that in Canada candidates at general elections have no choice but
to 'organize around leaders rather than political principles and ideologies and
expect the leader to work out the multitude of compromises required for the
party to enjoy electoral success.'
22
The national electronic media, given the need for the twenty-second video
clip and sound bite, will also focus on party leaders at election time rather than
on selected party candidates, even those enjoying a high profile in their regions.
Journalists buy seats on the chartered aircraft of party leaders and follow them
everywhere. In Canada, at least, the media and, by extension, the public, will
focus on the clash of party leaders. For one thing, there are the leaders' debates
on national television, in both English and French. How well a leader does in
the debates can have an important impact, or at least be perceived to have an
important impact, on the election campaign, if not the election itself.
23
 It is now
widely accepted in the literature that 'debates are more about accidents and mis-
takes than about enlightenment on the capabilities of candidates to govern.'
24
When Mulroney told Turner, 'You had an option, Sir,' referring to Turner's
decision to proceed with Trudeau's patronage appointments in the 1984 cam-
paign, or conversely, when Turner told Mulroney that he was standing up for
Canada in debating the Free Trade Agreement in the 1988 campaign, the
exchanges left party handlers scrambling to minimize political damage. A
widely read study of the 1988 election campaign suggests that 'had the debates
not happened, there is every indication that the Conservatives would have
coasted home.'
25
 Chretien handlers, on the other hand, were relieved after both
the 1993 and 1997 debates that he did not fare as badly as some had feared he
would.
8o The Play
The election campaign and the leaders' debates have become more of a glad-
iatorial contest, a clash of personalities, than in-depth policy debates. Similarly,
more than anything else, the twenty-second clip on the nightly news defines
how well the leader and his party are doing in the campaign. A faux pas can
take on a life of its own in the media and have a profound impact on the cam-
paign. Prime Minister Kim Campbell's statement that there was little hope that
the unemployment rate would drop below 10 per cent before the turn of the cen-
tury sounded the starting gun of the 1993 campaign, and dogged her party's
campaign to the end. Similarly, it was she alone, not other party candidates,
who was left to explain and later apologize for her party's television campaign
highlighting Jean Chretien's partial facial paralysis. The incident was replayed
on the evening news for several nights during the election, seriously damaging
Campbell's campaign.
Increasingly, political leaders appear to be the only substantial candidates in
the election race. In the past, Canada had powerful Cabinet ministers with deep
roots in the party or strong regional identification and support. One can think of
Jimmy Gardiner, Chubby Power, Jack Pickersgill, Ernest Lapointe, Louis St
Laurent, Don Jamieson, and Allan MacEachen. We no longer seem to have
powerful regional or party figures (Lloyd Axworthy aside) who can carry can-
didates to victory on their coattails or speak to the prime minister from an inde-
pendent power base in the party. In Britain and Australia, on the other hand,
some Cabinet ministers have deep roots and solid support among rank and file
party members, and prime ministers know that they have to give proper weight
to their views in Cabinet.
Winning candidates on the government side know full well that their party
leader's performance in the election campaign explains in large measure why
they themselves were elected. The objective of national political parties at elec-
tion time is more to sell their leaders to the Canadian electorate than it is to sell
their ideas or their policies. Leading students of election campaigns in Canada
write that 'Canadian elections, in common with elections in other Westminster-
style systems, as well as with presidential elections in the United States, inevita-
bly turn on the question of who - which individual - shall form the govern-
ment.'
26
 They add, for example, that the Liberal surge during the 1988 election
campaign 'reflected [then Liberal leader] John Turner's rehabilitation.'
27
 A
senior PMO official argues that national 'trends,' and to some extent regional
ones as well, decide who 'wins a riding and who does not.' The local candidate,
he added, 'is not much a factor anymore and he should not feel too badly if he
loses.'
28
 It should come as no surprise then that if the leader is able to secure a
majority mandate it is assumed that the party is in his debt, and not the other
way around.
Primus: There Is No Longer Any Inter or Pares 81
Primus in Cabinet
Prime ministers bring their own style to managing their Cabinets and ministers.
Trudeau, for example, was much more tolerant of meanderings and long-
winded interventions fro m his ministers at Cabinet meetings than Chretien, but
unlike Chretien, he was not particularly adroit at handling one-on-one meetings
with his ministers. A student of comparative politics writing in the mid-ipSos
reported that 'Canadian Prime Ministers, and particularly Trudeau, were usu-
ally powerful but patient.'
29
 Chretien, by all accounts, is less patient in Cabinet
than Trudeau was, but he is certainly no less powerful. Mulroney made much
more use of humour in Cabinet meetings to make his points than Trudeau did,
but both Trudeau and Mulroney relied on extensive Cabinet committee systems
to manage the flow of Cabinet papers. Mulroney had a particularly large Cabi-
net, but he had it operate in an asymmetrical manner by concentrating more
power in the priorities and planning and the operations committees.
30
 Mulroney
also spent more time than Chretien or Trudeau either cajoling or, if necessary,
browbeating his ministers to come to his point of view to establish Cabinet con-
sensus. Clark, meanwhile, relied on a formal inner Cabinet and other ministers
in managing his Cabinet and ministers.
To be sure, style and personalities are important in understanding how
Cabinet government works, and one is constantly reminded of this by politi-
cians, partisan political advisers, and permanent officials in the interviews. But
there are things that transcend both style and personalities when it comes to
understand the workings of cabinet government in a parliamentary system. Put
differently, style and personalities do differ, but there are things that remain
constant. First, the prime minister has access to virtually all the necessary levers
in Cabinet to ensure that he or she is the 'boss' in Cabinet, and that if he so
wishes - and prime ministers usually do - he can dominate Cabinet delibera-
tions and its decision making. Second, prime ministers are convinced that they
need to manage their Cabinet, to have a firm hand in shaping its discussions and
decisions for their government to function properly.
The first sign that the prime minister has the upper hand is now evident even
before they and their party assume power. Transition planning, a relatively new
phenomenon in Canada, has become a very important event designed to prepare
a new government to assume power. A former associate clerk of the Privy
Council writes that 'the first modern effort at transition planning in the public
service ... occurred for the June 1968 general election.'
31
 He adds that transition
planning has grown to become an elaborate planning process and now includes
'the entire deputy minister community.'
3 2
 It is the Privy Council Office (PCO),
however, that ieads the process and it is clear that the 'transition services [is for]
82 The Play
the incoming prime minister.'
33
 Indeed, the focal point throughout the PCO
transition planning process is on party leaders or would-be prime ministers. In
any event, it would be difficult for it to be otherwise, since in the crucial days
between the election victory and formally taking power, the only known mem-
ber of the incoming Cabinet is the prime minister. For other potential Cabinet
ministers, it is a 'moment of high anxiety,' waiting to see if they will actually be
invited to sit in Cabinet, and if so, in what portfolio.
34
The central purpose of transition planning is to equip the incoming prime
minister to have his hand on the levers of power in the government's first few
weeks in office. It is now widely recognized that these early weeks can be criti-
cal because they set the tone for how the new government will govern.
35
 It is
also the period when the prime minister, as recent history shows, will make
important decisions on the machinery of government and decide which major
policy issues his government will want to tackle during its mandate.
Once the prime minister is in office, it quickly becomes clear that his position
in Cabinet gives him far more resources than other ministers, including an abil-
ity to shape most of its activities and many of its decisions, at least the ones that
matter directly to him or in which he has a strong interest. The prime minister
hires and fires Cabinet ministers, sets the agenda, and sums up its deliberations
and decisions. In any event, ministers do not usually consider themselves to be
guardians of any political theory, including the primus inter pares theory.
Above all, they are politicians, they are deal makers, and they know full well
that they stand a much better chance of striking deals if they are in Cabinet, and
if they can count on the support of the prime minister at crucial moments. Min-
isters are also concerned about their own status in Cabinet, in caucus, and in
their own ridings. They know that loyalty to the leader, particularly if he has
been able to secure a majority mandate, is much valued in the party. In any
event, whatever else may be said about Cabinet deliberations, one thing is
clear - most ministers would much rather be on the prime minister's side than
against him in Cabinet.
The prime minister appoints Cabinet ministers and parliamentary secretaries,
and tradition and, more importantly, political realities require that they are loyal
to him and in particular to government policy. Should a minister or a parliamen-
tary secretary disagree with a government policy, he or she has two choices -
keep quiet and bear it or resign from the post. History suggests that the over-
whelming majority much prefer the first option.
It is true that Canada's prime ministers are not completely free to pick and
choose ministers. For one thing, ministers are drawn from the legislative branch
and so must come from the talent pool on the government side of the House of
Commons, or as a last resort the Senate. In addition, no Canadian prime minis-
Primus: There Is No Longer Any Inter or Pares 83
ter would appoint a Cabinet that lacked a proper regional, linguistic, and gender
balance. Some have even turned to the Senate to ensure regional balance if the
party failed to win a Commons seat in a province or region.
36
But prime ministers also never lose sight of the need for strong support in
Cabinet. Competence and regional balance are, of course, important, but no less
important is the need for the prime minister to make Cabinet and the govern-
ment his. And to do this, he needs a cadre of loyal soldiers in Cabinet. All
Canadian prime ministers are certain to appoint well-known loyal supporters to
their Cabinet (Trudeau appointed Romeo LeBlanc, Marc Lalonde, Allan
MacEachen, and Lloyd Axworthy; Mulroney had Elmer McKay, Bob Coates,
and George Hees; and Chretien brought in David Dingwall, Ron Irwin, Sergio
Marchi, and so on). In Canada at least, who supported whom in the party's
leadership race will have an important bearing on who ultimately makes it to
Cabinet. The strongest rivals to the prime minister will traditionally make it, but
their key caucus supporters are not likely to be as fortunate.
37
 They will be
bypassed for those who supported the prime minister.
How does one become a Cabinet minister? The first step is to become a
member of Parliament with the political party asked by the governor general to
form the government. The process begins with a run at the party nomination
and culminates with several weeks of intense political campaigning, knocking
on doors, speaking to local service clubs, and attending all party meetings.
Chances are that an individual who successfully navigates his party's nomina-
tion process and then goes on to win the riding for his party will be highly moti-
vated and ambitious. Chances are also that he or she will want a seat at the
Cabinet table. There are some members of Parliament who are quite happy not
to be in the Cabinet. But they are very much in the minority. One minister sug-
gested that 'at least 90 per cent of the government caucus, if not more, would
welcome an opportunity to sit in Cabinet. For the great majority of us, that is
why we run for Parliament.'
38
For those 90 per cent or more, it helps to be from a province with limited rep-
resentation on the government side (it is unlikely, for example, that Fred Mifflin
would have been in the 1997 Chretien Cabinet if he had been a member of Par-
liament from Ontario, where the Liberals won all but one seat in the election.
He was from Newfoundland and Labrador). It also helps to be noticed. Those
with a strong media profile stand a better chance of making it to Cabinet than an
unknown backbencher. But one has to be careful in seeking media attention. No
prime minister likes to have his Cabinet appointments appear in the press before
he makes his choice public. Moreover, as Gerald Kaufman, former British min-
ister, writes, 'Voting against the Government on a confidence motion or person-
ally insulting the Prime Minister is not recommended.'
39
 Unless one represents
84 The Play
a riding from a province where few government MPs are elected, the best
chance for an MP to make it to Cabinet is to establish a track record of loyalty
to the prime minister and to have gained the confidence not only of the prime
minister himself but also of his close advisers.
The prime minister's power of appointment also extends to the chairs and
membership of Cabinet committees. These appointments, especially to the
chairs, are significant signals as to who is in the prime minister's favour and
who is not.
The prime minister is completely free to decide on the kind of committee
structure he needs to support the work of his Cabinet. He can, as we saw in
chapter 2, overhaul the Cabinet committee structure at any moment without
consulting any of his ministers and add new committees or abolish existing
ones at the stroke of a pen. The prime minister also decides not only which
issues will come forward to Cabinet but when. In addition, the Cabinet does not
take votes, which provides the prime minister considerable latitude in defining
the consensus.
To have in your own hands the ability to define the Cabinet agenda and to
decide if the time is right to discuss a given issue or a proposal in Cabinet is to
have an extremely powerful instrument of public policy. The prime minister, as
we will see later, is able to draw on senior staff at the centre of government to
keep him informed of developments in departments, to let him know what min-
isters and their departments are thinking, and to help him decide when a given
issue should come before Cabinet.
Pierre Trudeau, as is well known, sought to introduce a much more rational
approach to Cabinet deliberations and to see to it that all sides of an issue be
fully aired before Cabinet made a decision. He established an elaborate Cabinet
committee structure to ensure that this would occur. He wanted, he said, to
wrestle policy influence away from departments and to give Cabinet the ability
to make policy based on competing advice. Indeed, Trudeau decided to over-
haul the Cabinet process precisely to break the stranglehold ministers and long-
serving deputy ministers had on departments. He felt that major policy deci-
sions and all administrative issues had become the preserve of line departments
and that the centre was left ill-equipped to challenge them. The solution -
strengthen the centre considerably. Richard French explains, 'The Prime Minis-
ter's often expressed conviction [is] that Cabinet is less easily captured by the
bureaucracy than are ministers operating independently.'
40
 Peter Aucoin writes
that Trudeau launched a major assault on the centre of government to correct
'the abuses and excesses of individual ministerial autonomy [which] had to be
replaced by a rigorous system of checks and balances within the Cabinet as a
collective executive.' He adds, 'The influence of the bureaucracy had to be
Primus: There Is No Longer Any Inter or Pares 85
countered to ensure that the organizational interests of departments and agen-
cies did not take precedence over required policy innovation and policy coher-
ence.'
41
 To sum up, Trudeau wanted policy making to be placed firmly in the
hands of Cabinet and removed from those of a few powerful ministers and man-
darins running government departments. This, in turn, explains why he decided
to strengthen the centre of government by enlarging his own office, expanding
the Privy Council Office and establishing new Cabinet committees, effectively
giving them the authority to make decisions.
But he saw limits to this approach, notably when he felf that there was a
chance the discussions would go in the wrong direction. He explained, 'If I
know that I am going to have a confrontation in Cabinet, if a minister is recom-
mending something and I think it's dead wrong, I won't let him put the thing to
Cabinet. I'll see him in my office, I'll set up an interdepartmental committee,
I'll meet him privately, I'll say, "Look, we're on a collision course, this can't
possibly be right." The whole role of the PCO, and the PMO to a certain degree,
is to inform me of the genesis of the discussion, how it's going. And if I think
it's going in a way that I approve, fine, I'm happy to let the consensus develop.
If I think it's not going in the right direction, I ask them to arm me with the
arguments and facts and figures.'
42
 Ministers, meanwhile, are expected to
remain loyal to the Cabinet and accept decisions that go against their wishes
after Cabinet has reconciled conflicting positions and the prime minister has
defined a consensus. The same, however, is not true for the prime minister, who
can easily manipulate the Cabinet agenda to get his way.
Some of the respondents revealed that Chretien has on occasion been even
more direct than Trudeau when seeing proposals that he does not like. One
career public servant who worked in the PCO under both prime ministers
reports that Chretien could, before the discussions went too far, simply say to a
minister in private or even in front of colleagues, 'I know what you are going to
recommend. The answer is no. Forget it.' Mulroney, in contrast, would, from
time to time and depending on the minister, take the time to talk a minister out
of a proposal or an idea that he did not like. But the consultations also reveal
that Mulroney could be very direct in telling a minister to abandon an idea. In
addition, Mulroney would rely on his deputy prime minister, much more than
Chretien, to manage 'a stupid idea out of the system.'
43
The prime minster has yet another advantage in securing the upper hand in
managing his Cabinet. In chairing Cabinet or a Cabinet committee, the prime
minister has full access to unshared knowledge. For each item coming before
Cabinet, the PCO will hand a memorandum to the prime minister outlining the
major issues, the positions of some of his ministers, and almost always a recom-
mended position. No other minister can come to the Cabinet table with this
86 The Play
knowledge, a view of the total picture, knowing what key ministers are going to
argue. Such knowledge, if nothing else, enables the prime minister, if he so
wishes, to play one Cabinet minister against another, enabling him to establish
the Cabinet consensus according to his own thinking. But here again the prime
minister has to be careful in choosing the issues he means to influence. The
prime minister's summary and decision or his definition of the Cabinet consen-
sus cannot always go blatantly against the sense of the meeting if he is to retain
the confidence of his ministers.
Still, interviews reveal that, at least since Trudeau, prime ministers do not
hesitate to make use of their power to define Cabinet consensus to tilt decisions
in their favour. One senior PCO official explained, 'When the prime minister
sees that 75 per cent of his colleagues are leaning in his direction, there is no
problem, and when he sees that 50 per cent are leaning in his direction, there is
still no problem. On very rare occasions, when he sees that he is clearly in the
minority with, say, only 25 per cent of ministers leaning in his direction, he will
often say to Cabinet, "I have to reflect on this and I will get back to you shortly
on it." A few days later, he may well direct PCO, through the clerk, to issue a
record of decision in his favour or simply hold the matter and have it put on the
Cabinet agenda a few months down the road when he thinks that more ministers
will speak out in support. My experience with prime ministers is that when they
don't have their way the issue is not all that important to them.'
44
 Another
senior PCO official who attended many Cabinet meetings as a notetaker reports
that 'on more than one occasion, I would take the head count, jotting down the
names of the ministers I felt were on the yes side and those on the no side. The
consensus was clearly on one side, but I would hear the prime minister draw the
consensus on the other.'
45
A minister in the 1993-7 Chretien government confirms that it is very rare
that the prime minister is openly challenged in Cabinet. He reports that 'I can
only think of three occasions between 1993
 an
d 1997 when the prime minister
was openly challenged in Cabinet, and this is not to suggest for a moment that
in the end he did not get his way. If my memory is correct, I believe that the
prime minister got his way on two of the three occasions. On the third one, I
think that the issue simply died, but I am not sure.'
46
 A senior PMO staff mem-
ber who attends Cabinet meetings remembers things differently. He reports that
he does not recall the prime minister being seriously challenged even once in
Cabinet in Chretien's first mandate. He adds, 'That is the problem. Nobody
wants to challenge him. In fact, a few of us in PMO do challenge his ideas from
time to time, but not so in Cabinet.' He went on to report that 'on a few occa-
sions ministers have come to me to say that the prime minister has it wrong on
this or that issue. I say to them, you are a minister, tell him. A few days later, I
Primus: There Is No Longer Any Inter or Pares 87
will raise the matter with the minister to see if he has challenged the prime min-
ister. Invariably, he will say no and that in the end the matter was not all that
important.'
47
The prime minister also has full access to other sources of advice and infor-
mation that are not open to ministers. These are in the areas of policy, machin-
ery of government, and political issues. On policy, the prime minister can draw
on both the Prime Minister's Office, the PCO, and, if he so desires, on individ-
ual ministers and their departments. No other minister has this access. On the
machinery of government, it is important to stress that the prime minister alone
has access to the expertise which resides in the PCO. For reasons explained in
the next chapter, machinery of government staff operate in relative secrecy
even at the centre of government. On political issues, the prime minister has
access to full Cabinet caucus and to his own office, which, comparatively
speaking, is not only large but also staffed by the most senior partisan assistants
in Ottawa.
The Constraints
The prime minister alone thus has access to virtually every lever of power in the
federal government, and when he puts his mind to it he can get his way on
almost any issue. But there are some constraints which inhibit his always get-
ting his own way.
The first is time. Indeed, prime ministerial time is the rarest of commodities
in Ottawa. The prime minister leads an incredibly harassed life, and securing
time with the 'boss' is not easy. The flip side to having most key channels of
public policy in Canada coming to him is that he can hardly find the time to
give each the proper attention and focus it deserves. Unless a prime minister
picks policy areas and issues he wants to concentrate on to influence their direc-
tion, he may be rendered ineffective by trying to shape too many activities and
decisions in too many areas.
There are always telephone calls to return, correspondence to deal with, gov-
ernment and patronage appointments to make, documents to read, meetings to
attend, party functions to support, and ministers and members of Parliament to
meet. The prime minister will also want to be available to meet foreign heads of
government, provincial premiers, and members of the business community.
Parliament, Cabinet, and caucus meetings eat into his agenda. The prime minis-
ter must also make time available for senior staff in his own office. When in
Ottawa, he meets four, and on occasions, five times a week first thing in the
morning with his principal secretary and the clerk of the Privy Council Office.
Trudeau met with his two senior officials every morning, Monday to Friday,
88 The Play
when he was in Ottawa. Mulroney met with them on average two times a week,
while Chretien, like Trudeau, tries to meet with them five times a week when in
Ottawa. However, Mulroney made full use of the telephone and the consulta-
tions reveal that 'he could be on the phone up to twelve times a day with Tellier
[clerk of the Privy Council from 1985 to 1992].'
4§
 Senior policy advisers and
the head of appointments also need to see the prime minister from time to time
if they are to do their jobs well. Making patronage appointments often requires
consultations with the relevant ministers and other senior party members,
including provincial premiers from the same party. The prime minister needs to
be briefed on potential appointments, and some of the briefings are better done
face to face. Meanwhile, policy advisers need access to the prime minister to
gain an understanding of his views and to bounce ideas around to make sure
that they can successfully pursue his agenda.
The prime minister is also a member of Parliament and needs to devote time
to his constituency, to maintain personal contact with constituents, and to meet
with riding association and local opinion leaders. As Marc Lalonde writes, 'The
prime minister, like all other MPs, represents a particular electoral riding. The
prime minister's responsibility to his constituents is the same as that for any
other member of Parliament. Residents of his constituency expect the prime
minister to provide them with the same services as are provided by all other
MPs.'
49
 One president of a federal crown corporation reports that he was
'startled one day to have Prime Minister Chretien on the phone inquiring about
a relatively minor issue involving his riding.'
50
Prime ministers read or should read about 30O-plus pages of briefing material
and correspondence every week (it is reported that Trudeau, perhaps because he
had such an elaborate Cabinet committee structure, because a great deal of
paper was generated for his decision-making process, and because more public
funds were available, had about 1,000 pages to read every week).
51
 Unless a
prime minister reads at least some of the more important briefing documents
and correspondence, he will go into meetings unprepared and perhaps not as
able to influence the outcome of the discussions as he would like. The 300
pages of material, Cabinet documents, correspondence, press clippings, and
briefing notes cover any number of policy issues from international security
matters to the government's fiscal health. Some will require a decision from
him, others are for information only. But they should all be attended to because
a careful prescreening will have already taken place. Officials in his own office
and in the PCO are all too aware of the pressure on the prime minister's time
and will be careful to weed out less urgent material.
Management literature suggests that current wisdom holds that a manager's
proper span of control should have anywhere between three and six people
Primus: There Is No Longer Any Inter or Pares 89
reporting to him. Current wisdom, however, is being challenged by more mod-
ern management thinkers, notably the widely read Elliott Jacques. Jacques
argues that 'you are likely to be able to get by with up to perhaps ten to twenty
immediate subordinates at middle levels, and less at corporate levels.' He adds
that one can increase the number of subordinates reporting to a manager 'where
the manager has no scheduling or technical problems, does not have to go to
any meetings, and can spend his/her time overseeing subordinates.'
52
 In line
with this argument, the prime minister should be decreasing the number of sub-
ordinates reporting directly to him or under his span of control. One can hardly
argue that the prime minister does not have to go to meetings or that he can
spend most of his time overseeing subordinates like the head of a standardized
production line or a typing pool.
The prime minister has twenty-four cabinet ministers and six junior ministers
responsible for a variety of policy fields and sponsoring a great diversity of
activities ranging from macroeconomic planning (Finance) to relations with
foreign countries and development projects for remote aboriginal communities.
All of these ministers can ask for a private meeting. Certainly, senior ministers,
including the ministers of Finance and External Affairs and the senior political
ministers from Ontario and Quebec, can probably see the prime minister on rel-
atively short notice. His chief of staff, senior PMO advisers, and the secretary
of the Cabinet also report directly to him. He appoints all deputy ministers and
heads of crown corporations, and he will want to be kept informed on how well
they are performing. In addition, he appoints all parliamentary secretaries, and
here too he will want to be kept abreast of their performance. This is not to sug-
gest that all these individuals report directly to him. But all can claim a link to
him and his office and many of them can also make a claim on his agenda.
A great deal of planning goes into putting together the prime minister's
agenda. Clearly, there are many more demands on his time than he can possibly
accommodate, and his staff will juggle several possibilities for most time slots
available. For example, Cabinet and caucus meetings are always blocked off
when he is in Ottawa and time is also made available to ensure that he meets a
cross-section of people and that he can focus on his priorities.
About twenty-five years ago, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau's agenda was
described as follows:
In an average month, he works about 250 hours. Roughly 90 of them, or 36 percent of
his working time, are spent on government business, including Cabinet and its commit-
tees, the House of Commons, the governor general and other government officials, for-
eign visitors and ambassadors, outside groups, and foreign travel. Political activities
involving ministers. MPs. senators, or Liberal Party officials account for 50 hours, or
90 The Play
20 percent of his time. He spends 12.5 hours, or 5 percent, in press conferences or other
forms of contact with the news media; 30 hours, or 12 percent, with staff in the PMO and
PCO; and 67.2 hours, or 27 percent of his time, on paperwork, correspondence, and tele-
phone calls. On a typical day, his activities as prime minister have spanned 11 hours.
53
I was shown a typical weekly agenda prepared for Prime Minister Chretien in
the fall of 1997. There was not an empty spot anywhere on it. Chretien's agenda
is always subject to last-minute changes to accommodate new political develop-
ments that he must attend to. The agenda, however, hardly tells the full story. It
does not include more important matters like quick exchanges with key staff
members, a private word with a senior minister in between meetings, and more
crucially, many important telephone calls.
54
 If nothing else, it is clear that the
prime minister needs to be able to manage his time very well to influence more
than a handful of public policy issues of direct interest to him simply because he
cannot influence everything at once.
I put questions to some former staff members of both Prime Minister Chre-
tien and former Prime Minister Mulroney to see how more recent prime minis-
terial workloads compare with those of some twenty-five years ago. If anything,
I was told, the workload is greater still. More time is now spent on provincial
government matters, on trade issues, and with heads of foreign governments
than was the case twenty-five years ago. There are now, for example, more
international summits (67, la francophonie, Commonwealth, APEC) requiring
the prime minister's direct involvement. Prime Minister Chretien spent nearly
two of his first fourteen months in office outside Canada attending international
conferences and promoting trade in Asia, Europe, and Mexico.
55
There are also constraints on the ability of the prime minister to manipulate
the levers of power in managing his Cabinet. To be sure, he can always ask a
minister to resign at any time - and without advance warning. But in Canada,
prime ministers are loath to do this, and history also tells us that it is rarely
done. There are also practical constraints to the prime minister's power to dis-
miss more than a handful of his ministers in a four-year mandate. The dismissal
of even one minister often entails a Cabinet shuffle. This is never a pleasant
task: cabinet shuffles are disruptive and the government can suffer, particularly
if they occur too frequently.
Dismissing two, three, four, or several ministers on one occasion or over a
period of a few months can indicate that the prime minister is losing control of
his Cabinet, as was the case during the last years of the Diefenbaker govern-
ment. The talent pool from some regions can also be severely limited (e.g.,
Chretien and Western Canada and Atlantic Canada in his second mandate;
Trudeau and Western Canada from 1972 onward; Clark and Quebec; and Mul-
Primus: There Is No Longer Any Inter or Pares 91
roney and Northern Ontario in his second mandate). Dismissing a minister from
a region which is underrepresented in the party can create new, more serious
political problems for the prime minister as he tries to juggle his Cabinet to
ensure regional balance.
There is also the risk that a dismissed minister will become a loose cannon,
shooting at the government from the outside, but still having intimate inside
knowledge. The prime minister has to weigh the advantages and the disadvan-
tages of having a minister in his Cabinet prone to mistakes as opposed to a
former minister on the outside acting as a thorn in the government's side.
Notwithstanding the above, the prime minister's power to fire ministers
remains a 'potent psychological threat for one reason, uncertainty.'
56
 Ministers,
particularly in Canada, know full well that they sit in Cabinet only because one
person wants them to be there - the prime minister. The prime minister may
well be reluctant to swing the axe, but no one knows for certain if or when he
will do it. One of the most powerful weapons in a prime minister's arsenal,
according to Jim Coutts, a former principal secretary to Prime Minister
Trudeau, is surprise.
57
 The weapon comes in handy not just in the House of
Commons and caucus, but also in Cabinet.
In any event, there are a variety of ways the prime minister can reprimand an
offending or accident-prone minister without resorting to ask his resignation.
He can take the minister out to the woodshed in full public view, as did Ronald
Reagan to David Stockman after Stockman was cited in Atlantic Monthly as
saying that Reagan's tax legislation was 'a Trojan horse, filled full of all kinds
of budget busting measures and secondary agendas.'
58
 Less drastic actions
include dropping the minister from a key committee, not supporting him in a
decision, or even not returning his phone calls promptly.
Caucus also requires time and attention. The prime minister attends weekly
caucus meetings while Parliament sits and special caucus meetings when it does
not. He also meets with the caucus chair for about half an hour, or longer, if
necessary, on a weekly basis to plan caucus strategy and to get feedback on the
views of individual caucus members. All prime ministers attach a great deal of
importance to caucus support and will invest the necessary time to explain gov-
ernment policies and measures to secure that support. Traditionally, Canadian
prime ministers have also insisted that their ministers attend caucus meetings to
explain their departmental policies and to answer questions.
Caucus members report that, while at times they have some highly heated
debates, caucus is not a very effective policy vehicle. Indeed, they report that
they are rarely, if ever, in a position to launch a new initiative, and worse, that
they are rarely effective in getting the government to change course. They also
do not consider themselves to be an effective check on prime ministerial power.
92 The Play
In fact, present and former government caucus members I consulted told me
that they would not want to use caucus to challenge the prime minister openly.
Moreover, the interviews reveal that there is a widely held understanding that
members should not attack the prime minister directly during caucus meetings.
If there is venom or harsh criticism to be dished out, it is directed at the minister
responsible for the policy, the program, or the proposed initiative, but never at
the prime minister. The prime minister may well decide to come to the defence
of the minister under attack, but he is never, or very rarely, the one put on trial
at caucus meetings.
One respondent succinctly explained the reluctance to attack the prime min-
ister in caucus: 'To be frank,' she said, 'some of us probably think that we
would make excellent ministers, or failing that, judges or senators. We all know
who makes these appointments, and why would we want to bite his hand when
we can bite the hand of one of his ministers who may need to be replaced at
some point or moved out of that department?'
59
Government caucus members past and present also report that while prime
ministers do attend caucus meetings, and while they are quite effective in
explaining government policies, caucus nevertheless has limited influence on
the government. 'We are not the Cabinet,' one pointed out, 'so that we do not
initiate. We simply respond to what Cabinet does, and there are limits to what
you can do when you are always reacting.'
60
 Another, a former government
caucus member between 1993 and 1997, was even more critical of caucus:
First, there is a regional caucus meeting where we meet every week before national cau-
cus. This meeting I would describe as a regional bitching session. We sat there week
after week bitching about this and that. We then went to national caucus. Regional cau-
cus chair would make a presentation. Then very often the bitching would start all over
again. Looking back, it is clear to me that we were not very effective. I will give you an
example. We in the Atlantic caucus were strongly opposed to changes to the unemploy-
ment insurance program. Caucus after caucus meeting, we bitched. We wanted it
stopped. But there was no way the changes would or could be stopped. The government
simply could not back down. Everyone knew that it had to cut spending and that UI had
to be reformed. Instead of trying to come up with some creative ways to cut UI, we stood
there against the wind. When we raised the issue, time and again, at national caucus, I
could tell that other members were tuning out, reaching for their newspapers or what-
ever. The prime minister and the Cabinet could then balance some caucus members
against others and come out wherever they wanted to, and they did.
Quite apart from that, there is another important problem with the operations of
national caucus. When I got up to speak, I had about ninety seconds to say what I wanted
to say. Unless you are a Winston Churchill and able to outline in ninety seconds a solu-
Primus: There Is No Longer Any Inter or Pares 93
tion to complex problems, you do not have much of a chance to influence things, espe-
cially proposals that have been worked out and fine tuned over many months by public
servants. We also did not have access to the necessary expertise to help us make a case.
We were virtually on our own while ministers have all kinds of expertise available.
About all we can do then is bitch, and we did that in spades, but it all came to precious
little.
61
Warren Allmand, a former Cabinet minister and a thirty-year veteran of the
House of Commons, recently wrote about the limited influence of both Parlia-
ment and government caucus. He reports, The only time when Parliament has
had an impact on policy were periods of minority government or a slim govern-
ment majority. These relatively rare intervals required governments to consult
seriously with the opposition and their own backbenchers.'
62
 Regarding the
government caucus, he writes that it has actually lost influence over the years.
He explains that caucus is not 'as effective as it was in influencing policy. Cau-
cus used to be the place where government policy could be hammered out in
private and backbenchers could let the cabinet know what the thinking was at
the grassroots. But caucus has become a place where MPs react to government
decisions and where ministers try to explain and win support for government
policy that has already been decided. Only in one case during this Parliament
[i.e., 1993-7]
 nas
 caucus been successful in turning back a bill. This is reflected
even in the way meetings are scheduled; Cabinet used to meet the day after
caucus - now it meets the day before.'
63
Still, the prime minister and his ministers cannot completely ignore caucus. If
nothing else, they need to manage the caucus bitching sessions. They have to
monitor the criticism to ensure that it does not become too widespread or that it
does not take on a life of its own. There are times when a proposed measure,
legislation, or government policy will be adjusted to attenuate caucus opposi-
tion. The proposed changes may be slowed down to accommodate general cau-
cus concerns or in other instances speeded up if caucus approves them. Only in
rare instances will a proposed piece of legislation be turned back and the
responsible minister asked to redraft it. To put it differently, the government
caucus appears to have, on occasion, the capacity to apply the brakes a bit and
slow things down, or push the gas pedal a bit and speed things up. It does not
appear, however, to be able to have a go at the steering wheel. Notwithstanding
caucus' lack of influence on policy, managing it takes time, and at a minimum
the prime minister must devote at least a few hours every week to it.
The prime minister is also leader of his party and must attend to party mat-
ters. The party has a full-time executive director and he will want access to the
prime minister from time to time. The same can be said about key party offi-
has
94 The Play
cials such as the head of the party in Ontario, Quebec, and so on. Fund-raising
and organizational matters often require the prime minister's attention, and in
some instances his direct involvement.
As head of the government, the prime minister is accountable to Parliament
for everything his government does. He can ask one of his ministers to respond
to an opposition question, but opposition members are free to put any question
to the prime minister. The role of opposition parties in the House of Commons
remains unchanged, notwithstanding the advent of New Public Management.
We know that 'a core function of the House of Commons is first to uncover and
then to magnify the complaints of the electorate so that the government hears
the signals from the political market and can position itself to respond in such a
way as to keep the loyalty of that market. The state of political and administra-
tive readiness - so central to the democratic effectiveness of our system -
depends on ministers attending closely to the small and great events.
 4
 One
thing is certain, no matter is too small, too trivial to raise in question period if it
enables an opposition party to score political points and to put the prime minis-
ter and the government on the defensive.
In Canada, the prime minister is expected to attend question period whenever
he is in Ottawa, and his participation is carefully scrutinized by everyone in the
House. In contrast, the British prime minister is only expected to appear twice a
week in the House to answer questions. Whether in Britain or in Canada, the
prime minister sets the tone for his government in question period and his repu-
tation can be strengthened or weakened depending on how well he is able to
field questions. Prime ministers have something to lose in question period. The
exercise exposes him to a potentially highly charged political environment
where everything simply cannot be scripted in advance. Indeed, question period
is not the place for a carefully prepared speech. Accordingly, there is always a
risk that the prime minister will end up second-best with the lowliest of back-
bench MPs.
65
 The opposition backbench MP, meanwhile, has little to lose when
clashing with the prime minister in question period, and a great deal to gain,
including exposure on the evening news and an opportunity to make a name for
himself.
Prime ministers will always want to take the time needed to be well briefed
for question period. Briefings can come from written material prepared by his
own office or the PCO or from oral briefings from one of his assistants. Prime
ministers always have on their staff-a dedicated legislative assistant whose
responsibility is to ensure that the prime minister is properly briefed on antici-
pated questions in the House and armed with suggested answers. Officials
working on this briefing material will look to a variety of sources for informa-
tion. Ministers, caucus members, partisan political staff members, and briefing
Primus: There Is No Longer Any Inter or Pares 95
material from line departments can all be surveyed for anticipated questions.
But the media, above all, will set the tone for the day's question period. As Jim
Mitchell, a former senior Privy Council official, and Sharon Sutherland write,
'In our media-driven policy ... the headline in the morning's Globe and Mail is
the first subject in the afternoon's Question Period.'
66
 John Crosbie, a senior
minister in the Mulroney Cabinet, writes that 'what television has done is to
elevate Question Period from being the focus of the parliamentary day to being,
in the public's mind, the entire parliamentary day ... [and] Question Period is a
forum for the Opposition.'
67
The media are likely at the top of the list of natural enemies for staff in the
PMO, and it is widely accepted that the prime minister now needs to be pro-
tected from them - especially television. A sea change has occurred over the
past thirty years between the media and the political leadership in much of the
Western world. The new media have many characteristics. One keen observer
writes that it is a far cry from the 'credulous coverage of the 19508 and 19605
when the quotes of public figures went unchallenged.'
68
 Today, the media,
much like society itself, are far less deferential to political leaders and political
institutions. Nothing is off limits anymore and political leaders must continu-
ally guard against letting their guard down when meeting the press. On this
point, former Deputy Prime Minister Erik Nielsen writes that 'the ethical stan-
dards of journalists in 1958, when I first came into contact with the parliamen-
tary press gallery, and the standards that prevail today in that same press gallery
have, with rare exceptions, altered radically. Perhaps the main reason is the
advent of technology, and the increasingly intense competition that the new
technology creates between the electronic media and the written media.'
69
The media now can intrude into the political arena and the operations of gov-
ernment to inform the public quickly, visually, and with considerable impact
about what is not working. If things are not working well, or perceived so, solu-
tions to remedy the situation are expected in short order. If these can be secured
from the head of government, so much the better. The media are not likely to be
impressed by suggestions that the prime minister cannot possibly produce the
answer quickly because it lies elsewhere in a government department. Simi-
larly, the media would scorn an answer suggesting that because of the arrival of
the New Public Management in government questions should now be directed
to managers down the line. In fact, it is very unlikely that a prime ministerial
press assistant would ever make such a suggestion for fear of losing control of
the media spin.
Yet the breathtaking speed of television news is putting enormous pressure on
government to make decisions quickly for fear of appearing indecisive and not
in control - one of the worst fears for a head of government. Television can give
96 The Play
its viewers a ringside seat to any political crisis in the making. Television news
is now widely accessible, even to the illiterate class, and it can zero in on a
moment's notice to an issue anywhere in the world and compare virtually any
given situation in one country to a similar one in another.
70
 The 1997 Kyoto con-
ference to deal with greenhouse gas emissions is a case in point. The media kept
a running scorecard before and during the conference to see which national gov-
ernment had unveiled plans to reduce emissions, by how much, and how fast.
71
A former senior Cabinet minister writes that the media 'have put an almost
unbearable pressure on political leaders. Television subjects leaders today to
unrelenting scrutiny night and day. How the leader looks and what he or she
says is immediately recorded, and is available for use at any time in the future,
and in any context whatsoever.' He adds, 'Intense media scrutiny makes it diffi-
cult for today's political leaders to make the kind of compromises our leaders
have historically had to make to hold their parties together, to implement
sweeping national policies, to reconcile the differences of disaffected re-
gions.'
72
 The electronic media can hardly follow a government process and they
have little interest in describing how it works. They need to focus on political
actors and the one that matters the most to their audiences. And the one that can
provide an answer to any question in any policy field is the prime minister.
The age of twenty-four-hour television news has also put a great deal of pres-
sure on the print media to provide 'context, perspective, and interpretation,
since they infer that many of their audience are already familiar with the basic
facts.'
73
 In addition, the pressure to produce something new, given TV pun-
ditry, Newsworld, RDI, CTV Ni, and the like, has seen many journalists 'begin
to strain to have something provocative to say.'
74
 The need to have something
provocative to say has, in turn, given rise to a new subjectivity. A cursory look,
for example, at the media in the aftermath of Bill Clinton's victory speaks to the
daunting challenge politicians - in particular, heads of government - are now
confronting. Time magazine declared Clinton Man of the Year for 1992 on
25 January 1993. Three weeks later, Time had Clinton on its cover again, this
time with the caption 'Stand and Deliver: With tough choices at home and a
dangerous world abroad Bill Clinton takes charge.' Only a week later, Time's
cover reported on 'Clinton's First Blunder' after the withdrawal of his attorney-
general designate. By June, Clinton's honeymoon with the media, or at least
with Time, was over. Its headline read, The Incredible Shrinking President.'
The memoirs of politicians and their key advisers are replete with observa-
tions on the influence of the media on government operations. David Stockman,
Reagan's head of the Office of Management and Budget, put it succinctly when
he wrote, 'Reality happened once a day on the evening news.'
75
 Advisers in the
PMO also report that developing and implementing strategies to deal with the
Primus: There Is No Longer Any Inter or Pares 97
media and to respond to negative stories take up a great deal of their time and
energy.
76
 They are not alone.
Political memoirs also reveal that political leaders and their advisers have
given up any hope of an objective press. They may well be right. George Bain,
one of Canada's most respected postwar journalists, recently wrote a book
describing the new breed of journalists who 'grew up in the heady 19605 ... and
brought forward certain generational traits [including] ... a distrust of all things
institutional, Parliament and notably government and a general anti-everything
prejudice founded on fond recollections of press clippings from their time as a
generation of idealists.'
77
 The news media, in Bain's view, took dead aim at the
two Mulroney governments (1984-93) and produced 'the most intense and
unrelenting campaign of denigration that any Canadian government has faced at
least this side of the Second World War.'
78
 Bain is not the only leading journal-
ist to question the work of the media. Elly Alboim, former CBC-TV Ottawa
bureau chief, observed on the day he left journalism for a new career, 'I'm tre-
mendously uncomfortable with some of the things journalists are doing. I think
we've lost our way a bit. When I joined this business there was an understand-
ing about a certain nobility of purpose and I'm not sure many journalists today
understand that or accept it.'
79
With both the media and the public scrutinizing recent governments as never
before, there is a tendency to lay ultimate responsibility for every act at the
prime minister's door. Little wonder, then, that the prime minister and his
advisers try to keep an eye on everything and to be ready on a moment's notice
to fire-fight.
Protecting the Head of Government
In politics, longevity in government is its own reward, and the determining
factor of longevity is often how well the prime minister is protected against his
natural enemies - the opposition parties and the national media. At his first
Cabinet meeting, Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien told his ministers that
for the 'good of the government' he expected that they would put in place mea-
sures to protect themselves against 'screw-ups' but that above all they should
always strive to protect the prime minister.
80
 On the first point, he bluntly told
his ministers. The first person who makes a mistake will be out,' and reminded
them that there was plenty of talent available on the backbench.
8
'
Ministers can falter or even fall, Chretien explained, but if the prime minister
should fall, then the government would likely follow, or at a minimum the party
would pay a hefty political price. The point was not lost on his ministers - they
were expendable, but the prime minister was not, and he who appoints them ulti-
98 The Play
mately decides who is expendable and who is not. In addition, what matters most
is protecting the head of government, and consequently the government itself.
Conventional political wisdom is that if the prime minister becomes weak or
vulnerable, then the government becomes weak or vulnerable. On the other
hand, if a minister becomes weak or vulnerable, the damage can often be con-
tained to that minister alone. What Chretien said to his ministers could just as
easily have been said by another Canadian prime minister at his or her first Cab-
inet meeting in more recent years, and no doubt it probably was.
82
How, then, does one protect the prime minister? There is no shortage of
ways. Ministers can make a point of praising the work of their leader in their
speeches or in media interviews, as they all do from time to time. They can also
volunteer, or be asked, to fall on their own sword in order to protect the prime
minister. It will be recalled that John Fraser, then minister of Fisheries and
Oceans under Mulroney, overruled his department's inspectors and ordered that
canned tuna that had been declared unfit for human consumption be released for
sale. The day after the story broke in the media, Prime Minister Mulroney
rejected opposition demands that Fraser be fired. The day after that, Fraser
announced the recall of the tuna but made it clear to the media that he would not
resign, and added, 'nor was I asked to.'
83
Mulroney subsequently applauded Fraser's decision to recall the tuna but
also told reporters that it was 'pretty damned obvious that the tuna should never
have been on store shelves.'
84
 However, later the same day Fraser explained to
reporters that the tuna issue had been 'in the Prime Minister's Office in detailed
form at least some weeks ago.' The next day in question period, opposition par-
ties took dead aim at the prime minister and his version of events. A few days
later, Fraser resigned as minister of Fisheries and Oceans. He later explained
that 'Certainly, in view of the contradictions [with the prime minister], I felt
that the appropriate thing was to step aside and end the controversy ... I think
without the contradictions we could have contained the issue.'
85
 Erik Nielsen,
deputy prime minister when Fraser resigned, confirms this view. He writes,
'Fraser would now have to go, not because of his original error of judgment but
because he had put the prime minister in a bad light by publicly contradicting
him.'
86
 The message was not lost on his former colleagues - it is one thing for a
minister to approve the sale of rancid tuna, but it is quite another to contradict
the prime minister and his office in the media.
The Prime Minister's Assistants
The prime minister does not stand alone at the apex of government dealing with
an incessant demand on his time, a hostile opposition in Parliament, a media
Primus: There Is No Longer Any Inter or Pares 99
always at the ready with daily doses of criticism, and a large bureaucracy to
direct. He has political assistants and others to help him, to protect him from
both internal and external threats, and to assist him in 'squeezing forty-eight
hours out of the Prime Minister's average day.'
87
Prime ministers, since Pierre Trudeau, have employed anywhere between 80
to 120 staff members in their own offices. Trudeau, as is well known, is the
architect of the modern Prime Minister's Office. He felt that the Pearson years
lacked a proper planning capacity at the centre, and as a result were marked by
confusion and chaos. He resolved that things would be different in his govern-
ment. He explained, 'One of the reasons why I wanted this job, when I was told
that it might be there, is because I felt it very important to have a strong central
government, build up the executive, build up the Prime Minister's Office.'
88
Trudeau, as noted earlier, considerably expanded the size of PMO and identi-
fied specific functions and tasks for it to perform. Tom Kent, principal secretary
to Prime Minister Pearson, describes the Prime Minister's Office before
Trudeau. He writes, The PMO was then utterly different from what it became
in the Trudeau era and has since remained. There was no bevy of deputies and
assistants and principal this-and-that, with crowds of support staff.'
89
No prime minister since Trudeau has sought to turn back the clock and cut
the size of the office back or to limit its functions to what they were before
Trudeau. Mulroney, in fact, did the opposite. He increased the staff at PMO by
one-third, increased the office's budget by 50 per cent, and added eight profes-
sional staff concerned with policy.
90
 When Chretien came to office, one of the
first decisions he made was to abolish the chief of staff position in ministerial
offices, a position which Mulroney had established. However, Chretien decided
to retain a chief of staff for his own office, who, as already noted, is ranked at
the deputy minister level.
Marc Lalonde, former principal secretary to the prime minister, described the
functions of PMO in the following fashion: 'The sum total of the role of PMO
today - it is a service organization and, as a by-product, it has an advisery capa-
bility.'
9
' There is no question that a great deal of what the PMO does is to pro-
vide administrative services and support for the prime minister. Another former
PMO staff member made this clear when he wrote that the office 'regularly
helps [the prime minister] answe r thousands of letters; makes travel to a number
of public meetings in a single day manageable; enables him to deliver a variety
of speeches or addresses within hours of one another, or appear on television
programs and hotlines across the country. It regularly brings order to a complex
schedule of meetings and consultations; reviews thousands of pages of docu-
ments and briefs; mobilizes to help him handle problems or crisis.'
92
PMO service functions have been well described elsewhere, and there is no
ioo The Play
need to go over them in any detail here.
93
 Suffice it to note that the office has a
director of communications with a staff of about ten people. They handle all
relations with the media, including requests for interviews, and they issue press
releases, arrange press conferences, prepare speeches, and monitor press reac-
tion and commentaries for the prime minister. They also promote the prime
minister's image by, in the parlance of journalism, spinning stories to his politi-
cal advantage. A correspondence unit handles the prime minister's mail, and an
appointment secretariat reviews names for government or patronage appoint-
ments. A legislative assistant, as already noted, is exclusively concerned with
the activities of the prime minister as a parliamentarian, Another assistant is
concerned with caucus relations. Though they have been given various job titles
over the years, there have always been regional assistants in the PMO since
Trudeau overhauled the office. Their task is to give the prime minister 'an addi-
tional view of social and political developments in each region.'
94
 Regional
assistants are also responsible for planning and managing the prime minister's
visits to their region. However, Chretien upgraded the position early in his sec-
ond mandate. In his first mandate, he and his advisers had 'not anticipated how
much international travel would have to be done by staffers working regional
desks and regional travel advance.' Chretien's chief of staff, Jean Pelletier,
announced in November 1997 that the office would now separate PMO staffers'
roles of 'regional assistant and travel advance to free regional assistants to con-
centrate on regional issues.'
95
To be sure, prime ministers bring their own style and approach to establish-
ing their own offices and they are completely free to shape it as they see fit.
Prime ministers can, at any time, restructure, reorganize, or restaff at will. Still,
there is a strong bond of loyalty between the staff and the prime minister. The
staff is partisan, of course, and enjoys tenure in office as long as that of their
leader. Also most senior staff members were comrades-in-arms with the prime
minister in previous political battles. But the office, with an annual budget of
over $5 million and a person-year complement of about ninety under Chretien,
represents - at the risk of sounding repetitive - the largest concentration of
highly paid partisan political advice found in any one place in Ottawa.
Some prime ministers (e.g., Trudeau) prefer to give a free hand to their prin-
cipal secretary or chief of staff to let him organize the office as he sees fit and to
have all PMO staff report through him, including senior political policy advis-
ers. Others (e.g., Mulroney and Chretien) prefer a less hierarchical approach,
enabling some advisers to bypass the chief of staff and report directly to them.
What goes on inside the PMO? People who work there, or have worked
there, report that what goes on is, much more often than not, 'chaotic.' There is
never enough time to do well all that needs to be done, to sit back and recharge
Primus: There Is No Longer Any Inter or Pares 101
one's batteries, or to have some time to think. Senior staff members have no
choice but to pick and choose the files on which to focus. There is never a short-
age of crises, or emerging crises, to manage, and the prime minister's mood
always reverberates around the corridors. PMO staff members will determine
what the prime minister wants done, the issues he wishes to pursue, and the
political problems he wants resolved. In the words of a senior Chretien adviser,
they will 'get to work on them by pushing and pulling whatever needs to be
pushed or pulled.'
96
To be sure, people are busy and the great majority of middle and senior staff
members at the PMO put in extremely long hours. They all have specific func-
tions and tasks, but since they know what everyone else is doing, they can come
to the assistance of one another. This is not to suggest that the office is free of
tension, conflicts, or rivalries. By all accounts, there are plenty of these. But
staff members are well aware that, if they are to survive, they need, in the words
of one former PMO staff member, to keep their 'eyes on the ball and protect the
PM.' He added, 'Our job is quite simple really, make the PM look good.'
97
The working relationship between the leader and staff and the relative influ-
ence of individual staff members can vary a great deal. A staff member not able
to deliver the goods or responsible for a screw-up can find himself isolated from
important meetings (although usually not for a very long time, given the office's
workload). Others will act as the eyes and ears of the prime ministers, and still
others will exert a great deal of influence on policy because of their special
access to the prime minister. Some will only spend about two or three years in
their job, while others will remain for as long as their leader is in politics.
There are also important differences in the way Canadian, British, and Aus-
tralian prime ministers traditionally have and continue to organize their own
staff and offices. British and Australian prime ministers rely on permanent pub-
lic servants to staff some of the positions in their own immediate offices. Cana-
dian prime ministers generally do not.
98
 Staff members in the PMO in Canada
are much like staff members in the Office of the President in the United States -
they are partisan, temporary, and above all loyal to the prime minister. Accord-
ingly, career officials are not usually welcomed in either Canada's PMO or in
the Office of the President in Washington. The difference is important. Career
officials are much more likely than politically appointed officials to view issues
in terms of the government rather than in the interests of the prime minister.
Conversely, political assistants will invariably be more partisan and loyal to the
prime minister than to the government and the public service. They have, as
noted, fought the leadership or other political battles by his side, or they have a
strong personal relationship with him (Trudeau and Marc Lalonde; Mulroney
and Bernard Roy; Chretien and Jean Pelletier), and with only rare exceptions,
102 The Play
the same applies down to the senior policy adviser or political assistants levels.
They will intuitively seek to protect the prime minister and may well even be
suspicious of some senior Cabinet ministers whom they suspect of coveting the
prime minister's chair.
No one questions the need for an office to support the prime minister, to
attend to his/her administrative needs, and to provide a host of services to assist
him to do his job. The more important issue is whether the PMO should play a
strong policy advisery role or act as a mini-Cabinet to the prime minister. The
argument here is that if the prime minister wants political and policy advice, he
should turn to his ministers, and if he should want advice on regional issues,
then he should consult the responsible regional minister or the regional caucus
rather than appointed officials in his office. When Trudeau decided to enlarge
the size and scope of the PMO in the late 19608, his first principal secretary
sought to reassure critics and Cabinet ministers that the office would remain
essentially a service-oriented organization. He explained that the office existed
to 'serve the prime minister personally, that its purpose is not primarily advis-
ery but functional and the PMO is not a mini-Cabinet; it is not directly or indi-
rectly a decision-making body and it is not, in fact, a body at all.'
99
It is, of course, not possible to clearly establish what is a service function and
what is a policy advisery function. Drafting a letter or preparing a speech for the
prime minister can constitute policy making, and many times does. There is
also no doubt that several senior officials in the PMO do provide policy advice
to the prime minister, and if some in Trudeau's PMO denied this, present-day
advisers and assistants certainly do not, nor did those in Mulroney's PMO.
PMO staffers have the prime minister's ear on all issues they wish to raise, be
it political, policy, administrative, or the appointment of a minister or deputy
minister. They can also work hand in hand with a minister to initiate a proposal,
and the minister will feel more secure in bringing the proposal forward, know-
ing that someone close to the prime minister is supportive. They can also, how-
ever, undercut a minister's proposal by raising a series of objections to it when
briefing the prime minister. In short, senior PMO staff members do not consider
themselves simply a court of second opinion. They are in the thick of it and do
not hesitate to offer policy advice or to challenge a Cabinet minister. One offi-
cial even observed in the interviews that 'if the objective is to challenge the
prime minister on a key policy issue, do not ask a Cabinet minister. Ask a senior
PMO staffer.' This, he added, after some prompting, 'is as true under Chretien
as it was under Mulroney, but perhaps it was less so under Trudeau.'
100
If a minister needs to be reigned in for fear that he or she may create prob-
lems for the prime minister or the government, PMO staff members will move
in and take charge either directly or indirectly. Examples will make this clear.
Primus: There Is No Longer Any Inter or Pares 103
David Dingwall, the government services minister in the Chretien government,
redirected some highways construction funding to the tune of $26 million from
one region of Nova Scotia to his own riding in Cape Breton. The issue was
raised in the media, and in question period. Hugh Winsor, a senior Ottawa-
based journalist with the Globe and Mail, wrote that 'Mr. Dingwall had begun
to attract too much bad publicity and the Prime Minister's Office decided it had
to act. Indeed, PMO officials had encouraged journalists to keep digging
because it would help their case to start tightening the reins."
01
 Within days,
the $26 million funding was restored to its original purpose, building a four-
lane bypass around a dangerous stretch of the Trans Canada Highway in Nova
Scotia's Wentworth Valley.
In the early 19808, Pierre DeBane, the minister of Regional Economic
Expansion in the Trudeau government, became embroiled in a high-profile con-
troversy, at least in the province of Quebec, over the proposed construction of a
paper mill in Matane, Quebec, with Yves Berube, the provincial Treasury
Board minister in the Levesque government. The controversy was essentially
over which level of government had committed itself to fund which part of the
project and under what conditions. In time, the issue was raised in question
period. PMO dispatched two of its officials to sit in DeBane's office to write his
speeches and press releases on the issue, and they stayed there until the contro-
versey died down.
102
Senior PMO staff will get involved in whatever issue they and the prime
minister think they should. It can be a major policy issue like NAFTA or the
budget, or a minor issue involving a political matter, or a controversy in the
media.
103
 Again, there are also no established limits to restrict the involvement
of the prime minister and his senior staff in whatever issue they decide to take
over and manage. The minister can, of course, state his preferences strongly and
press for his solution to prevail. But the one who ultimately decides, if he
chooses to get involved in the file, is the prime minister. He is the boss. The
prime minister, in turn, can seek advice from several sources. The responsible
minister will only be one of them.
Certainly the perception among current and past Cabinet ministers in Ottawa
is that PMO staff now carries a great deal of influence. When former Fisheries
and Oceans minister Brian Tobin heard that one of Chretien's senior policy
advisers was contemplating running for Parliament in a Montreal riding, he
applauded the suggestion, observing that 'I'd like to get him in cabinet with me
on an equal footing.'
104
 Former ministers, even high-profile ones, readily admit
that they have been called on 'the carpet for a dressing down' by senior PMO
staff members for having committed political mistakes.
105
Still, the interviews revealed that there are times when the prime minister
104 The Play
will decide to leave even his own staff in the dark and take a major decision
without consulting anyone. This happened with Trudeau (e.g., with the Bonn
spending cuts), Mulroney (e.g., with his support for President Bush in several
matters), and Chretien (e.g., with his decision to invite Stephane Dion and
Pierre Pettigrew to join his Cabinet).
To be sure, there are not enough senior PMO staff members, nor do they have
the necessary expertise, to be involved in all policy issues confronting the gov-
ernment. They are also no match for the policy capacity that exists in the Privy
Council Office, in other central agencies, or in line departments. But that doesn't
matter all that much given that central agencies, notably PCO, are also there to
assist the prime minister. In any event, most PMO staffers have little interest in
mastering the finer points of the policy process or all policy issues. They regard
their stay in government to be relatively short, and they would much sooner
spend their energy on promoting the prime minister's priorities, on spinning his
success stories, and on fire-fighting crises on his behalf than on becoming policy
experts. They will, however, happily haul problems or issues into their own
offices even if many of them are not properly within their competence. Most
PMO staff members only have a limited knowledge of government. It is impor-
tant to stress that the central purpose of PMO staff is not to protect the integrity
of the policy process in government. Their job is to fix problems or get things
done for the boss, to make him, and by extension his government, look good, to
score political points, and to manage political errors or embarrassments.
Revisiting Primus
Current and former ministers report that something happens to a colleague
when he becomes prime minister. Things change, they reveal, and one can
never be as relaxed with him as was the case before he became prime minister,
no matter how close the relationship was. One Cabinet minister explains,
'When your colleague becomes prime minister, overnight he assumes a differ-
ent persona, or perhaps it is us who see him differently. We respect the fact that
he has an impossible agenda, that now he has to deal with world leaders, and
that we can no longer walk in his office for a relaxed chat. We quickly come to
terms with the fact that he can no longer be one of us.'
106
 A former British
Cabinet minister writes that 'only those who have served in government fully
realize the gulf between a Prime Minister and even the most senior and eminent
of his colleagues. Even in casual conversation with them, he ceases to be
addressed as "Anthony" or "Harold" and, except perhaps when there is no one
else present, becomes Prime Minister.'
107
 Canadian prime ministers are not
much different from British prime ministers on this front.
Primus: There Is No Longer Any Inter or Pares 105
As already noted, students of parliamentary government are writing more
and more about a shift towards a presidential form of government. They claim
that it is increasingly difficult to write about collective ministerial responsibility
or prime ministers as leaders of teams because prime minister are fast becoming
- like presidents - individuals at the top of the pile. Patrick Weller, for one,
argues: '... their [i.e., prime ministers'] control over government activities is
regarded as excessive, and their accountability as far too limited. Observers
complain that the system has changed from Cabinet government to prime min-
isterial government, or that the office of prime minister has been presidentia-
lised.'
108
 John Mackintosh was the first to express concern over the growing
influence of the prime minister in his study of the British Cabinet in 1962.
109
 He
was later joined by a number of others expressing the same viewpoint, includ-
ing a highly regarded Cabinet minister, Richard Grossman.
110
 Mackintosh
answered his critics in the early and mid-1970s, but by the late 19708 he felt it
was no longer necessary.'" He simply made the point that 'events since [1962]
have done so much to confirm the general case argued in this book' that he felt
it unnecessary to make the case.
112
 The debate is not limited to Britain. A keen
student of Canadian politics suggests that Canada 'seems to have created a pres-
idential system without its congressional advantages.'''
3
Few observers in Canada believe that the prime minister is still primus inter
pares. The only time when the Canadian prime minister is still primus inter
pares is when he chairs a First Ministers' Conference. Premiers are not his
political equals, but they shape the discussions at the conference and advance
whatever position they wish, even when it is in sharp opposition to the prime
minister's position, as Clyde Wells did during the First Ministers' meetings that
led to the renegotiation of the Meech Lake Accord.
First ministers now meet on a regular basis and their meetings cover a wide
array of topics. The prime minister will consult with the chair of the Annual Pre-
miers' Conference in preparing the agenda. At one meeting, the first ministers
agreed to establish a Federal-Provincial-Territorial Ministerial Council on Social
Policy Renewal and subsequently agreed to launch a series of joint initiatives.
At the December 1997 meeting, the prime minister reported on the 'Team
Canada' trade initiative and led a discussion on health care, youth employment,
persons with disabilities, and on the development of a national children's
agenda."
4
 All first ministers have a say in shaping the agenda and all can voice
opinions without fearing a demotion at the hand of the prime minister. The
prime minister is also not free to define the consensus of the meeting according
to his own preferences. It is in this sense that the Canadian prime minister is
primus inter pares when he chairs a first minister's meeting. The same cannot
be said about Cabinet ministers. They have become much more the prime min-
io6 The Play
ister's subordinates than his pares. John Crosbie summed up the situation well
when he explained why Brian Tobin left the federal Cabinet to become leader
of the Liberal Party in Newfoundland and Labrador. He wrote, 'In politics,
never underestimate the importance of being number one. It is inevitably frus-
trating to work as a member of a government led by someone else. No matter
how much power and authority leaders delegate to you or how well they treat
you, they are still number one, and, when they choose to exercise their author-
ity, they naturally have their way. If my leader became trapped by some politi-
cal circumstance and blurted out a policy pronouncement in my area of
responsibility - even if he didn't know much about the subject - I had to live
with it. Even if he was completely wrong, I couldn't correct what he had done.
But if a person is the leader, he can make the final decision.'
! I 5
This chapter suggests that prime ministers leading a majority government can
drive virtually whatever initiative or measure they might favour. Cabinet and
Parliament are there, but with a majority of seats a prime minister can manipu-
late them when it comes to issues that matter a great deal to him. This is more
how a United States president operates (without Congress) than what a textbook
on British or Canadian politics would suggest is the proper role of the prime
minister.
To be sure, prime ministers do not always bypass their Cabinets or only con-
sult them after the fact on the great majority of issues. They will pick and
choose issues they will want to direct. Indeed, in some circumstances and on
certain issues a prime minister may well decide not to exert his or her authority
and let the Cabinet's collective decision-making process run its course. He may
also even let government caucus have its day from time to time and accept that
a government proposal or legislation should be pulled back and reworked to
accommodate the views of caucus members. There are issues on which a prime
minister may hold no firm view, and a detached assessment of the costs and
benefits of getting involved could suggest that it is best to keep one's political
capital in reserve for another day and for another issue.
Prime ministers and their staff, sitting as they do at the apex of power, from
where they can survey all developments in the government, come to believe
that their political judgment is superior to that of ministers and to value their
own opinion over others. After all, they made it to the top of the 'greasy pole'
while the senior ministers and their advisers, who also tried, did not.
Public opinion surveys also serve to strengthen the hand of the prime minis-
ter and his advisers. They no longer need to rely on the views of even powerful
regional ministers to gain an appreciation of political developments. Indeed, the
most recent public opinion surveys can enable them to challenge the views of
ministers. If, say, the minister responsible for Nova Scotia claims that govern-
Primus: There Is No Longer Any Inter or Pares 107
ment spending cuts are hurting the party in that province, PMO staffers can
point to a public opinion survey suggesting that the majority of Nova Scotians
support the government's efforts to deal with the deficit and debt problem.
There are now public opinion surveys documenting the views of Canadians on
virtually every public policy issue. It is worth noting that a key speech at the
1998 Liberal Party policy conference was by the party's pollster, Michael Mar-
zolini. Marzolini provided the 'national-mood numbers,' and his speech was as
widely reported in the media as the prime minister's own speech."
6
But there are other forces that serve to strengthen the hand of the prime min-
ister in the machinery of government. We know that globalization has become
more than a catchphrase. The emergence of global corporations, and new trade,
financial, and communication links are dramatically changing the policy con-
text for national governments in a shrinking world. The nation state, it has been
suggested, is being challenged from diametrically opposed directions - from
above by international and regional trade agreements and global firms, and
from below by the emergence of regionally based nationalism and by linguistic
or religious groups challenging the legitimacy of the nation state.
Yet national governments are still the ones being asked to solve many old
and new problems. The global economy can set the stage for national and local
economies to compete and lay down the rules under which economies and firms
must operate. It is hardly possible, however, to imagine a global economy tak-
ing shape without conflicts between firms, sectors, regions, and nations or with-
out far-reaching adjustments in some sectors and regions. The designers of the
new order in many ways will have to be national politicians and national public
services. They alone have the legitimacy.
117
 When leaders of national govern-
ments come calling in Ottawa, and many do in the course of a year, they always
call on the prime minister, and they invariably seek to deal directly with him.
118
National governments, precisely because of global economic forces, will
need to work increasingly with each other and with regional and international
trade agreements. They will also need to develop a capacity to move quickly to
strike new deals when the time is right, or to change course because of new or
emerging political and economic circumstances and opportunities. The focus
will be on the heads of national governments because of their ability to unblock
files, cut through the decision-making process, and to sign and monitor trade
deals."
9
 It is the heads of governments that meet at Gj, at Commonwealth
meetings, at la francophonie, and at the APEC conference. As the national gov-
ernment is being challenged from above and from below, it appears that power
is getting even more concentrated at the centre of government.
The Canadian prime minister, unlike the American president, who has to deal
with Congress, or the Australian prime minister, who has to deal with a power-
io8 The Play
ful elected and independently minded Senate, has a free hand to negotiate for
his government and to make any deal with foreign heads of government adhere.
The final hours of negotiations on NAFTA between Prime Minister elect
Chretien and the United States president, through his Canadian ambassador, are
telling. At one point, the American ambassador wondered about Chretien's
political authority to agree to a final deal, given that he had yet to appoint his
Cabinet. The ambassador put the question to Chretien, 'What happens if we
work all this out and then your new trade minister doesn't agree?' Chretien
replied, Then I will have a new trade minister the following morning.'
120
It is hardly possible to overemphasize the fact that the Canadian prime minis-
ter has no outer limits defining his political authority within the government. To
be sure, the media, opposition parties, question period, and public opinion can
all serve to inhibit prime ministerial power. Similarly, what may appear at first
to be a seemingly innocent incident can take on a life of its own and gain a high
profile in the media and force the prime minister to reconsider a government
strategy or a proposed initiative. But inside government, the prime minister is
free to roam wherever he wishes and to deal with any file he chooses. There is
ample evidence to suggest that Prime Ministers Trudeau, Mulroney, and Chre-
tien have all sought to push back the frontiers of their political authority.
Events, the requirements of modem government, the role of the media, the role
of first ministers in Canada, and the rise of the global economy have all served
to strengthen considerably the hand of the prime minister. A strong minister
may object, but there is little else he can do, except resign, which, again, Cana-
dian history shows is rarely done. It appears that the most significant limit on
the prime minister's political power is time, or a lack of it. There is no question
that Canadian prime ministers, like their British counterparts, have for some
time been trying to cope with an overload problem.
121
Still, there is an elaborate machinery of government and policy and decision-
making process always at the prime minister's disposal at the centre of govern-
ment to assist him in defining and managing the issues on which he wants to
spend some of his time and to keep the other issues on an even keel. Prime
ministers know that they can always turn to a safe pair of hands in the Privy
Council Office for help.
The Privy Council Office:
A Safe Pair of Hands
Never one to overstate a position, Gordon Robertson, former clerk of the Privy
Council Office and secretary to the Cabinet, described PCO's role as 'one of
information, co-ordination, follow-up and support provided to the Prime Minis-
ter and the Cabinet as a whole unit, as a vital aspect, maintaining constant rela-
tions with all departments of the government.'' The PCO is that, but it is also
much more. Indeed, it is hardly possible to overstate the importance of the
office to the government's policy and decision-making process. As a former
senior PCO official once observed, 'the PCO has a great deal to do with the suc-
cess or failure of any government.'
2
The office is, in many ways, the nerve centre of the federal public service. Its
purview encompasses the prime minister, the Cabinet, and individual ministers,
but also Parliament, other central agencies, line departments, and the media.
The clerk of the Privy Council Office and secretary to the Cabinet is also the
head of the federal public service, thus occupying the most senior permanent
position in government. The office briefs the prime minister on any issue it
wishes, controls the flow of papers to Cabinet, reports back to departments on
the decisions taken, or not taken, by Cabinet, advises the prime minister on the
selection of deputy ministers and briefs chairs of Cabinet committees (with the
exception of the Treasury Board), supports the operation of Cabinet and Cabi-
net committees, advises the prime minister on federal-provincial relations and
on all issues of government organization and ministerial mandates, and pre-
pares summaries of strategic memoranda.
Thus, a variety of issues and competing demands come to PCO from all quar-
ters of government, along with the jockeying for position on the part of minis-
ters to promote their pet projects, as well as ambitious public servants trying to
gain visibility in order to make it on the list of potential deputy ministers. A
senior PCO official explained that 'things are rarely simple or straightforward
5
i io The Play
here. There are many twists and turns, many bumps in the road on the way to
getting things done. Sometimes we see things that do not square nicely with
what one would assume to be proper public policy making.'
3
 To be sure, PCO
officials have to develop a strong capacity to secure information from depart-
ments about their plans and the views of their ministers. At the same time, they
must be very careful with whom they share their information. PCO does not
have programs of its own to implement, so here, more than anywhere else,
information is power, and one has to become very adroit at using it. For exam-
ple, it may well be that on occasion information received from a department
will need to be employed to keep the department's minister in check. Former
British Prime Minister Harold Wilson was asked if he had ever regretted not
becoming a permanent public servant in the Cabinet Office, where he served
during the Second World War. 'Heavens no!' he replied. 'I couldn't have stood
the intrigues.'
4
In this chapter, I discuss the role of the PCO and its various functions. The
PMO, as we have just seen, links the prime minister to the world of politics,
Cabinet ministers, caucus members, the party, and the media. The PCO, mean-
while, links the prime minister to the world of administration and to government
departments - in brief, to the machinery of government. Accordingly, the prime
minister receives two basic streams of paper, one from his own office and one
from PCO. The two worlds overlap from time to time and there is close cooper-
ation between the two offices. But both also recognize the line where the world
of partisan politics begins, and PCO intuitively tries to avoid it. Still, the two
offices occupy the same building, the historic Langevin building on Wellington
Street, directly across from the Parliament buildings and where, as one official
puts it, they live 'cheek by jowl.' Though there are moments of tension and
sharp disagreement between the two offices, it is in their mutual interest to col-
laborate, and on the great majority of files, there is, indeed, close cooperation.
From time to time, for example, the staff of both offices will organize joint
planning sessions or retreats to review a specific issue. In late June 1997, they
held a joint retreat in the Gatineau region on citizen engagement. The purpose
of the retreat was to clarify the concept of 'citizen engagement and produce
principles and models for engagement.'
5
 The retreat concluded with a call for
more research on the topic and to identify 'change' agents in departments to
promote the concept further. It appears that little was actually accomplished
through follow-up action, but the point here is that both offices do cooperate
and on many occasions work from a joint agenda.
Tension and sharp disagreements will surface, however, because PMO and
PCO can have different perspectives on the same issue. But PCO maintains that
any such tension can be healthy. In its submission to the 1978 Lambert Royal
The Privy Council Office 111
Commission, PCO claimed that the different perspective enables 'the Prime
Minister to protect himself from the dangers both of narrowly partisan advice
and of unrealistically bureaucratic advice. For this process to work, PCO shares
its information base with PMO, although the reverse is not the case.' It added
that 'the Prime Minister is the focus of the process,' and that 'PCO is the Prime
Minister's departmental staff in his capacity as head of government and his
functions focus and unite PCO's activities in support of Cabinet.'
6
To be sure, the prime minister and the clerk of the Privy Council and secre-
tary to the Cabinet enjoy a unique working relationship, one that is not found
anywhere else in government. For one thing, the prime minister is completely
free to appoint whomever he wishes to the position. No other minister enjoys
the same prerogative with respect to his deputy minister. For another, the clerk
of the Privy Council is not only head of the public service but is also dean of the
community of deputy ministers. The clerk has a direct hand in deciding who
should become a deputy minister and who should not. This alone ensures that
she will enjoy a great deal of influence inside government. As anyone who has
worked in government can attest, no one should underestimate the power of
appointment. The one who wields this power decides, at the highest levels in
the public service, who wins, who doesn't, who is in the ascendency, and who is
not. But that is not the clerk's only source of influence since, by virtue of his/
her position at the centre of government, he/she is the prime minister's principal
policy adviser. At least from the public service perspective, the clerk represents
the final brief for the prime minister on all issues.
Primus in the Public Service
The PCO submission to the Lambert Commission is significant in that the
office itself pointed to the prime minister, not Cabinet, as 'the focus of the pro-
cess,' and stated that it constituted the prime minister's departmental staff. Sev-
eral years after that submission was tabled, PCO became even more explicit
about its role as the prime minister's department. Paul Tellier, clerk of the Privy
Council Office from 1985 to 1992, time and again reminded deputy ministers,
assistant deputy ministers, and others that he was wearing not one but two
hats - one as the prime minister's deputy minister and the other as secretary to
the Cabinet. In 1992 he added yet another hat, that of head of the public ser-
vice.
7
 The last position was formally recognized through special legislation
enacted to implement the Public Service (PS) 2000 initiative which was intro-
duced to modernize government operations. The legislation in many ways,
however, simply stated in statute what had long been established in fact.
Another former clerk argues that there is a fourth hat that the clerk of the
H2 The Play
Privy Council should wear since 'he has a. fiduciary role of custodian of the sys-
tem as a whole in assuring integrity and continuity in the administration of gov-
ernment.'
8
 In Canadian Public Administration, Arnold Heeney reports on a
seminal event: incoming Prime Minister Diefenbaker met with outgoing Prime
Minister Louis St Laurent and argued that 'the British tradition should be fol-
lowed' in the disposition of Cabinet records. He wrote that Diefenbaker and St
Laurent agreed 'that the Secretary to the Cabinet should now be accepted as the
custodian of Cabinet papers, responsible for determining what communication
should be made thereof to succeeding administration. With that agreement, the
Cabinet Secretariat became a permanent institution of Canadian government.'
9
Within minutes of Canada's being born, the prime minister oversaw the
swearing in of the clerk of the Executive Council of the united province of Can-
ada as clerk of the Privy Council of the Dominion of Canada. But for nearly
seventy-five years, the incumbent performed largely clerical activities. Arnold
Heeney changed all that when, during the Second World War, he assumed a
newly created position, secretary to the Cabinet, and added it to the title clerk of
the Privy Council. Heeney, like his British counterpart, knew full well that he
had to perform a delicate balancing act and again saw his work, above all else,
as secretary to the Cabinet. He believed that his principal task was to ensure that
Cabinet would ran smoothly. However, he also, it will be recalled, annoyed
Mackenzie King from time to time when he attenuated the prime minister's
criticism of his ministers. But Heeney, like all his successors up to Gordon Rob-
ertson (who held the appointment from 1963 to 1975), saw the focus of his role
and functions more properly tied to the Cabinet than to the prime minister.
Robertson disagreed fundamentally with Tellier's assertion that the role's main
function was as the prime minister's deputy minister. For Robertson, the job of
clerk of the Privy Council and secretary to the Cabinet was precisely what it is
called - secretary to the Cabinet and not a 'kind of political fixer for the prime
minister.'
10
Some observers believe that Trudeau's appointment of Michael Pitfield as
clerk-secretary in 1975 changed the role forever. Trudeau and Pitfield had, for
many years, maintained a close friendship. Trudeau appointed Pitfield at the age
of thirty-seven and, in so doing, overlooked more senior public servants who
had served for many years as deputy ministers both in line departments and in a
central agency. Pitfield's experience in government, meanwhile, had largely
been acquired in PCO. The argument is that Pitfield turned things upside down,
and instead of seeing the clerk of the Privy Council as representing the public
service as an institution to the prime minister and Cabinet, he represented the
prime minister to the public service. The argument also is that no clerk since Pit-
field has been able to revert to the old understanding of the role. If Arnold Heeny
The Privy Council Office 113
successfully resisted Mackenzie King's desire to make the secretary to the Cab-
inet 'a kind of deputy minister to the Prime Minister,' or 'the personal staff
officer to the Prime Minister,' secretaries to the prime minister from Pitfield to
today have not been as willing to resist the desire of the prime minister to make
the position 'a kind of deputy minister to the Prime Minister.'
11
When Joe Clark came to power in 1979, he fired Pitfield as being 'too parti-
san."
2
 Colin Campbell writes that 'when Trudeau restored [Pitfield] to clerk-
secretary after his return to power [in 1980], he confirmed definitively the polit-
icization of Canada's top bureaucratic job.' Campbell adds that the fall and rise
of Pitfield 'tipped the scales toward the conclusion that the Trudeau-Pitfield
friendship had short-circuited the distance that previously existed between the
prime minister and a clerk-secretary.'
13
1 asked three former Trudeau ministers
whether they regarded Pitfield more as secretary to the Cabinet or as deputy
minister to Trudeau. All three had no doubt that Pitfield was above all
Trudeau's deputy minister and that he was regarded by ministers as such.
14
Still, no secretary to the Cabinet since Gordon Robertson has sought to
describe their main job as secretary to the Cabinet. In 1997, the Privy Council
Office produced a document on its role and structure whose very first page
makes it clear that the secretary's first responsibility is to the prime minister. It
states that the 'Clerk of the Privy Council and Secretary to the Cabinet' has
three primary responsibilities:
1 As the Prime Minister's Deputy Minister, provides advice and support to the
Prime Minister on a full range of responsibilities as head of government,
including management of the federation.
2 As the Secretary to the Cabinet, provides support and advice to the Ministry
as a whole and oversees the provision of policy and secretariat support to
Cabinet and Cabinet committee.
3 As Head of the Public Service, is responsible for the quality of expert, profes-
sional and non-partisan advice and service provided by the Public Service to
the Prime Minister, the Ministry and to all Canadians.'
5
The direct link between the prime minister and the secretary to the Cabinet and
the Privy Council Office is made clearer still in the office's mission and values
statement. Its mission is 'to serve Canada and Canadians by providing the best
non-partisan advice and support to the Prime Minister and Cabinet.' Its values
statement makes absolutely no mention of Cabinet. It reads: 'We recognize the
special need of the Prime Minister for timely advice and support. We dedicate
ourselves to our work and to the effective functioning of government. We believe
that integrity, judgment and discretion are essential to achieving our mission."
6
H4 The Play
Tellier's decision to add the title of the prime minister's deputy minister to
his job and to declare that he was the prime minister's deputy minister simply
reflected reality in his day-to-day work. Indeed, the secretary to the Cabinet is
accountable to the prime minister, not Cabinet, and the great majority of his
daily activities are now designed to support the prime minister, not Cabinet.
The prime minister, not Cabinet, appoints the clerk of the Privy Council and
secretary to Cabinet; the prime minister, not Cabinet, evaluates his perfor-
mance; and the prime minister, not Cabinet, will decide if he stays or if he
should be replaced. All this is to say that not only does the secretary to Cabinet
wear the hat of deputy minister to the prime minister, it is without doubt the hat
that fits best and the one he wears nearly all the time. A former senior PCO offi-
cial observed that 'all clerks since Pitfield have done an excellent job at being
deputy minister to the prime minister. As far as secretary to the Cabinet, the
performance has been spotty.'
17
The deputy minister's hat is also the one that gives him most of his influence
inside government. His influence begins with the prime minister's power of
appointment. A minute of council first issued in 1896 and last reissued in 1935
gives the prime minister the power to appoint deputy ministers.
18
 All prime
ministers have made it a point to retain this power in their own hands, and for
good reason. It is key to controlling government operations and to ensuring that
the government goes in the intended direction.
Former Cabinet minister and deputy minister Mitchell Sharp writes that 'the
fact that deputy ministers are appointed on the recommendation of the Prime
Minister means that, with the exception of the Clerk of the Privy Council, who
reports to the Prime Minister himself, they have a degree of independence from
their own ministers, which gives them freedom in offering advice and adminis-
tering the departments. They are in a sense part of the structure by which the
Prime Minister controls the operations of the federal government.' He adds that
the 'appointment of deputy ministers also enables the Prime Minister to ensure
continuity in the administration of a department, notwithstanding his replace-
ment of the minister, the political head of the department.'
19
The prime minister is, of course, free to turn to several sources for advice on
who would make a strong deputy minister. But no one has more influence in
this area than the clerk of the Privy Council. The Privy Council Office houses a
secretariat, which reports to the prime minister through the clerk and which
screens candidates for order-in-council appointments, including deputy minis-
ters, associate deputy ministers, and heads of agencies.
Officials in PCO report that the prime minister will accept the clerk's recom-
mendation on deputy ministers' appointments 'at least nine times out of ten.' A
senior PMO official goes even further and reveals that the clerk's 'batting aver-
The Privy Council Office 115
age on DM appointments' is 1,000 and only in extremely rare circumstances
would the prime minister not accept the clerk's formal recommendation.
20
 He
adds, however, that there are plenty of occasions for the prime minister and the
clerk to share views in private on the work of deputy ministers and other senior
government officials so that the clerk can gain an understanding of the prime
minister's views and preferences. Prime ministers at least since Trudeau (and
probably before) will spend time with the clerk to discuss potential deputy min-
isters so that the clerk knows that the names he formally puts forward for
appointment will receive the prime minister's blessing. There are also instances
when the prime minister will need to bring the clerk onside in his choice for an
appointment. This was the case, for example, when Mulroney appointed Stan-
ley Hartt as deputy minister of Finance. Similarly, there are instances when the
clerk will also need to bring the prime minister onside. In all instances, how-
ever, there is a tacit understanding that neither one will impose a choice on the
other. It appears that neither the prime minister nor the clerk will want to hear
from one another 'I told you so' if a deputy minister appointment does not work
out.
21
The prime minister knows full well that his ability to direct the work of his
government and to deal with problems and crises as they arise is, to some
degree, tied directly to the position and status that the clerk of the Privy Council
enjoys with ministers, deputy ministers, government departments, and agencies.
If the prime minister has a matter that needs attending to somewhere in govern-
ment, he knows that no one is likely to be in a better position to help him than
the clerk. The clerk knows everybody in government at the senior levels, and
indeed, many deputy ministers and associate deputy ministers likely rose to
their position on his or her recommendation. If a deputy minister hopes to be
assigned to a larger department, then he knows that how the clerk views his
abilities will be a key, if not the determining factor. In addition, when the clerk
homes in on a given issue, it is rightly assumed that he has the prime minister's
full backing. The clerk can very often persuade ministers and deputy ministers
to take a certain decision, or even assist a department in difficulty. He can,
whenever he decides, also have a private word with the secretary of the Trea-
sury Board or the deputy minister of Finance to move a file forward.
If the prime minister does not accept the great majority of recommendations
on senior appointments from the clerk, then word will soon get around Ottawa
and the clerk's ability to assist the prime minister on other matters could well be
compromised. Indeed, in such instances the prime minister will more than
likely decide to replace the clerk and he would be well advised to do so.
What about the role of ministers in the appointment of their deputy minis-
ters? It varies. A few of the more senior ministers in any government have a
ii6 The Play
kind of droit de regard and can turn down the clerk's recommendation if they
put up a fuss. But precious few ministers enjoy or have enjoyed this privilege.
In addition, the droit de regard is considered a privilege, not a right, even in the
case of the most senior ministers, and it can be revoked at any moment if the
prime minister so decides. Marc Lalonde and Allan MacEachen enjoyed a droit
de regard under Trudeau, as did Don Mazankowski under Mulroney and Paul
Martin under Chretien. But the clerk, better than most, knows which ministers
have the droit de regard on the appointment of their deputy ministers and will
have the good sense to have a private chat with them on a possible appointment
or even recommend the individual favoured by the minister. The minister, hav-
ing in turn gained the confidence of the prime minister, will also be wise to the
ways of government and will promote someone who is well known and
respected by the clerk. In other words, both a senior minister and the clerk know
that confrontation on the appointment of a deputy minister is in neither of their
interests and they will usually do what is necessary to avoid it.
Other ministers will be informed on possible choices, and still others (the
great majority) will simply be told a day or two in advance who will be
appointed as their deputy minister. There have been occasions when even that
courtesy was not observed. One former minister reveals that he first learned of
the identity of his deputy minister on the radio in the morning while shaving.
22
PCO officials explain that deputy ministers are often appointed in a 'DM shuf-
fle,' which can involve several appointments at a time, and that it would not be
realistic to shop around names to see which minister is interested in whom. In
addition, the prime minister's prerogative to appoint deputy ministers must
always be protected for both the practical reasons of managing the process,
and also, as Mitchell Sharp explained, because it is one of the most important
levers available to the prime minister to 'control the operations of the federal
government.'
The appointment of associate deputy ministers, the final development posi-
tion before becoming a full deputy minister, meanwhile, is regarded essentially
as the preserve of the clerk with the advice of the Committee on Senior Offi-
cials (COSO), a committee of deputy ministers. Only rarely will the prime min-
ister or the most senior minister question the clerk's recommendation. This is a
relatively new position, about twenty-five years old, and ambitious public ser-
vants covet these appointments, knowing that if they perform well at this level,
it is only a matter of time before they become full deputy ministers. The last
two clerks, Glen Shortliffe and Jocelyne Bourgon, both served as associate
deputy ministers before becoming deputy ministers and, later, clerk. Aspiring
public servants know that the one person they need to impress to make it to
associate level is the clerk.
The Privy Council Office 117
Selecting deputy and associate deputy ministers remains a highly subjective
process. In the world of business, there are clear measures of success, ranging
from sales volume to cost of production and market penetration. To establish if
a salesperson is successful is a fairly straightforward matter. In the sports world,
it is easy to tell if one hockey player is better at scoring goals than another, if
one baseball pitcher wins more games than another, or if a golfer is better than
others. Even in the world of academe, it is possible to identify the leading schol-
ars in any field of research by consulting the most reputable learned journals.
But things are never that straightforward in government. I continue to marvel
at how reputations are made, or at times lost, in the federal public service and at
how senior officials become deputy ministers. For any deputy minister there
will be six senior officials who will insist that he or she should never have been
appointed. Another six will applaud the appointment. There are simply no
clear-cut criteria that can apply to every case and at all times to determine the
competence of a senior government official. In fact, I doubt very much if such
criteria could ever be identified. There are simply too many variables, too many
factors at play. In addition, the work of the public service is by nature collec-
tive, which makes it difficult for individuals to shine (on a strictly objective
basis) over others.
How, then, does one become a deputy minister? A senior government official
carried out a review of deputy ministerial appointments and concluded that:
First, experience in a central agency, most notably the PCO, is now a virtual prerequisite
for deputy-level appointment. Second, notwithstanding the increasing recognition of the
importance of managerial performance and service to the public, almost two out of three
deputies have no experience in program management; experience in line departments is
most typically in policy and process management. Previous experience in the department
is not usual for deputy appointees except in the case of central agencies and appoint-
ments at the associate deputy minister level. Furthermore, most deputies have no federal
experience outside the National Capital Region. Overall, deputies are primarily general-
ists, not specialists,
2
'
It is rare indeed for someone to be appointed deputy minister in Ottawa without
having worked directly with the current clerk at one point in his career or
having caught the clerk's eye for one reason or another. The subjective nature
of the appointment process strengthens the hand of the clerk and the centre of
government because it gives the centre a relatively free hand in deciding who
makes it and who does not.
Jacques Bourgault and Stephane Dion describe how the performance of dep-
uty ministers is assessed. They report that 'the performance appraisal system of
ii8 The Play
federal DMs is hierarchical in that the final decisions on ratings and bonuses are
made by the Prime Minister on the recommendation of the Clerk of the Privy
Council. Peers participate in the system at an earlier stage, through a committee
whose function is to provide the Clerk with opinions on the performance of
each colleague.'
24
 Peers participate through the Committee on Senior Officials,
which is chaired by the clerk. COSO also includes the heads of other central
agencies and several deputy ministers from line departments selected by the
clerk. The committee provides the clerk with opinions on the performance of
deputy ministers.
25
 In addition, the committee will review the performance of
senior officials (at the assistant deputy minister level) and offer advice to the
clerk on future deputy minister or associate deputy minister level appointments.
The clerk will review carefully the advice COSO has to offer, but he/she will
always reserve the right to seek his/her own counsel or to turn to the advice of
subordinates at PCO on senior appointments. A member of COSO explains:
'We review individual cases and we voice our opinions, but ultimately it is the
clerk, and the clerk alone, who holds the short list on possible senior appoint-
ments. She can listen to us or completely ignore us. I have seen her do both.' He
added, 'We never see the names which she actually sends to the prime minister.
She keeps the list very close to herself and perhaps to a handful of her senior
advisers in PCO. But she is not alone. As far as I can tell, previous clerks all did
the same thing.'
26
In addition to COSO, the clerk will also consult relevant ministers to get their
views of the performance of their deputy ministers and other senior departmen-
tal officials. This system applies to all deputy ministers, including members of
COSO who are asked to withdraw from the meeting when their own perfor-
mance is being discussed. The system applies to all that is, except the clerk,
'who has a "different status" appraisal... this person's performance is done by
the Prime Minister alone.'
27
 Bourgault and Dion concluded their study with a
series of recommendations, including one which read 'that a list of roles, quali-
ties and special considerations be prepared and distributed to COSO members,
to serve as a checklist during performance appraisals.'
28
The above is to make the case that the competence of senior government offi-
cials, including deputy ministers, is often in the eye of the beholder - or more
precisely in the eye of the clerk of the Privy Council Office. The problem,
simply stated, is how can one determine if a government department has had a
particularly successful year? It depends on how one defines 'successful' - to
some, a substantial downsizing of both programs and staff is a sign of success,
while to others it may be how well the department was able to protect itself
from further spending cuts. The list of pros and cons goes on. But even if one is
able to state that a department has had a particularly successful year, who is to
The Privy Council Office 119
tell who or what was largely responsible? Was it the minister, the deputy minis-
ter, lack of media attention, lots of media attention, political circumstances out-
side the control of the department, pressure from interest groups? And so on.
Though there is no objective and widely recognized measure to determine the
performance of senior officials, there is one development that can quickly jolt
the career of a deputy minister or an assistant deputy minister who aspires to
greater things. A 'screw-up' which reaches the media and which makes the
minister look bad or not in control or which makes the department look incom-
petent can have grave consequences for the deputy minister. Indeed, current and
former deputy ministers I consulted put the ability to keep 'their ministers and
the department out of political trouble' as the single most important criterion of
success.
29
Given all the above, the clerk has considerable flexibility in determining who
should get promoted to the ranks of deputy and associate deputy minister and
who should not. This power of appointment constitutes an awesome tool for the
clerk of Privy Council to set the policy advisery capacity and management
direction and style in the public service. But that is not his or her only point of
influence.
The Privy Council Office, through the clerk, will also offer advice to the
prime minister on Cabinet appointments. The office can single out departments
that face strong challenges, that have had problems in the recent past, or that
need some fresh thinking, and then recommend the appointment of a Cabinet
minister whom it considers to be particularly well suited to meet these chal-
lenges. The office can also provide a kind of report card to the prime minister
on who has performed well in Cabinet committee and who works well with his
deputy minister and who does not. PCO is, of course, only one out of several
sources of advice the prime minister can turn to in appointing his Cabinet or
when considering a Cabinet shuffle. I do not mean to suggest that PCO is
always the most important source of advice on this front, but PCO's advice
does matter, a fact that is not lost on either aspiring ministers or ministers hop-
ing for a more senior Cabinet appointment.
The clerk also chairs the Coordinating Committees of Deputy Ministers
(CCDM). The CCDM policy committee meets most Wednesdays over lunch
and brings together senior deputy ministers from central agencies (e.g., secre-
tary of the Treasury Board) and several line departments. The committee
reviews major policy issues facing the government and debates the main issues
of the day, thus constituting a source of advice and information for the clerk of
the Privy Council. It is also designed to keep 'the heads of central agencies
informed of the collective concerns of the Government.'
30
But CCDM also has another purpose. The clerk can turn to CCDM to gener-
120 The Play
ate advice to the prime minister and, as one former senior PCO official wrote, to
'provide an early warning system for emerging contentious issues that will
likely require the attention of the Prime Minister.'
31
 Members of CCDM are
very well positioned to survey all new potential developments in government
departments and to advise the prime minister on any likely bumps in the road
ahead.
CCDM has been described as the 'executive committee of the public service
and the Secretary [i.e., the clerk] meeting with Associate Secretaries of Cabi-
net.'
32
 This last point is made because deputy ministers of the other central
agencies sit on CCDM and, according to some insiders, they are, in effect,
'associate secretaries' to the Cabinet, given the nature of the work of central
agencies. Officials in PCO do not deny that this perception exists, but they are
quick to point out that CCDM is only an advisery committee and that it has no
decision-making authority in its own right. While this is true, its deliberations
do influence decisions and its existence enables the centre to request and get a
great deal of information about what goes on in departments. In addition, there
is a CCDM management committee, which the clerk also chairs and which
brings together the heads of all central agencies. But this committee now meets
infrequently and, if necessary, management issues are dealt with at CCDM pol-
icy meetings.
The clerk also chairs a weekly breakfast meeting of deputy ministers and
heads of agencies, monthly luncheon meetings of deputy ministers, and two
retreats of deputy ministers every year. At these sessions, the clerk will brief
deputy ministers on Cabinet deliberations and discuss new government initia-
tives, the policy environment, and measures to strengthen the public service.
Some deputy ministers can be asked to make presentations on special issues of
interest (e.g., the deputy minister of Finance might address the government's
fiscal position), particularly so at the retreats which are often held outside of
Ottawa.
33
 The meetings also provide 'an opportunity for Deputy Ministers to
conduct informal business and discuss issues of general interest.'
34
The clerk attends all Cabinet meetings. She, together with two senior PCO
officials, sits away from the Cabinet table along the back wall with one or two
note-takers also from PCO, usually assistant secretaries. The clerk does not
speak at Cabinet meetings, unless the prime minister specifically asks that she
clarify a matter, and this rarely happens. Much more often the clerk or one of
the prime minister's own senior officials from PMO will slip him a handwritten
note to clarify a point or to provide added information on an item being dis-
cussed.
Still, the only permanent officials who know precisely what is said at Cabinet
The Privy Council Office 121
meetings are from PCO. From time to time, a minister who is asked to provide a
briefing to Cabinet will bring his deputy minister to the meeting. But these
occasions are infrequent and their purpose is largely to provide background
information and briefing material to Cabinet. Accordingly, in most cases,
departments can only look to their own ministers or to senior PCO officials to
get an understanding of how their proposals were received, how their depart-
ment is regarded, and what the prime minister's major concerns are. What min-
isters report back is important, but only PCO officials can debrief with authority
on Cabinet deliberations. In any event, it is PCO officials, not individual minis-
ters, who write Cabinet decisions on behalf of the prime minister.
The clerk also has direct access to the prime minister as needed. In addition,
as already noted in an earlier chapter, the clerk on average meets with the prime
minister four or even five mornings a week when he is in Ottawa. These meet-
ings with the prime minister are now restricted to two individuals - the prime
minister's chief of staff and the clerk of the Privy Council Office. The clerk of
the Privy Council will chair a meeting of several senior PCO officials most
mornings to identify issues to raise with the prime minister. They will look to
the media, to their own files, and through their own contacts in line departments
to identify the issues.
Not only do the meetings provide guaranteed access to the prime minister,
they also offer an opportunity to raise whatever matter or to make a recommen-
dation on any issue of interest to PCO or the prime minister. The prime minis-
ter, in turn, is also able to raise any issue and to direct the clerk to pursue any
matter anywhere in government. The prime minister will very often ask the
clerk to handle delicate or sensitive issues rather than asking his political advis-
ers or senior minister. The clerk knows all the key policy actors in government
well, including ministers and deputy ministers, and she is a seasoned veteran of
interdepartmental battles. The clerk also knows which lever to pull or button to
push without setting off alarm bells or giving rise to a series of events that could
have political consequences. Outside of purely partisan matters, the clerk is for
the prime minister the safest pair of hands available to him to deal with delicate
issues or, for that matter, even not so delicate issues.
The clerk is also responsible to ensure that the government's decision making
operates as smoothly as possible and that the integrity of due process is
respected.
35
 To this end, she directs the work of all the secretariats in PCO, and
m turn these secretariats have a hand in every policy area. PCO, employing
about 500 full-time equivalents, is a relatively large organization, given that it
does not deliver any programs, and so it has the resources to keep a running
brief for the prime minister on the key issues confronting the government.
122 The Play
Managing the Process
When asked to sum up the work of the Privy Council Office from the perspec-
tive of a line department, a former senior line deputy minister observed, 'If
PCO, or for that matter other central agencies, were ever asked to ice a hockey
team, they would put six goal tenders on the ice.'
36
 There is an element of truth
in this observation. But it does not tell the whole story. To be sure, the Privy
Council Office has a well-honed capacity to stop the great majority of proposals
from line departments dead in their tracks, if it has to. But the office also has the
capacity to make things happen and to take the lead in certain areas. Indeed, in
one area - machinery of government - only PCO has the mandate and the abil-
ity to promote and initiate change.
What goes on inside PCO? People who work there, or have worked there,
report that there is never a shortage of things to do. The office is organized by
functions and, at least until recently, in parallel with the Cabinet committee sys-
tem. The staff is expected to have an overview of government policies and pro-
grams and to be fully aware of cutting-edge issues and problems which are
likely to require the attention of the prime minister and Cabinet in the foresee-
able future.
37
 At all times, PCO staff know that they are responsible for manag-
ing the complex system of decision making 'on behalf of the prime minister'
and it is this that 'gives them considerable responsibility and influence.'
38
It is important to review here in some detail the nature of the work carried out
by senior PCO staff. As noted above, two senior PCO officials accompany the
clerk to Cabinet meetings - the deputy secretary to the Cabinet (plans) and the
deputy secretary to the Cabinet (operations). Both these officials are at the deputy
minister level, direct the bulk of day-to-day activities at PCO, and oversee rela-
tions with line departments (see Chart i). It is also important to note that the PCO
organization has changed a great deal during the past twenty-five years, but only
at the margins. The basic structure first established under Trudeau — Planning,
Operations, and Machinery of Government branches - has remained stable.
The deputy secretary (plans) oversees the work of the Priorities and Planning
Secretariat, the secretariat for Macroeconomic Policy, the Communications and
Consultant Secretariat and the Strategic Projects Unit. She is called upon to pro-
vide advice on strategic policy issues, and to pay particular attention to the bud-
get, the Speech from the Throne, and other priority issues as identified by the
prime minister, the clerk, or by events.
Several specialized units report directly to the deputy secretary (plans). The
Policies and Planning Unit provides staff support for meetings of full Cabinet,
deputy minister's breakfast meetings, and the coordinating committee of deputy
ministers on policy. Another unit, the Secretariat for Macroeconomic Policy,
The Privy Council Office 123
Chart 1
Privy Council Office
Clerk of the Privy
and Secretary
Cabinet
Council Associal
Deputy
Privy
Deputy Deputy Deputy Clerk Senior Adviser to
Secretary, Secretary, of the Privy the Privy Council
Operations Plans and Council Office and
Consultation and Counsel Coordinator of
Security and
Intelligence
- Assistant
Secretary,
Economic and
Regional
Development
Policy
- Assistant
Secretary,
Social
Development
Policy
- Assistant Clerk
of the Privy
Council
(Orders-
in-Council)
- Assistant
Secretary,
Priorities
and
Planning
- Assistant
Secretary,
Liaison
Secretariat
for
Macroeconomic
Policy
- Assistant
Secretary,
Legislation
and
House
Planning/
Counsel
- Assistant
Secretary,
Machinery of
Government
e Secretary
abinet and
3lerk of the
Council
- Assistant Assistant Assistant Assistant
Secretary, Secretary, Secretary, Deputy
Security and Management Foreign and Minister,
Intelligence Priorities and Defence Corporate
Senior Policy Services
Personnel
- Executive Director,
Intelligence
Assessment
Secretariat
-Assistant
Secretary,
Communications
and Consultation
- Executive
Director, Strategic
Project Unit
Source: Privy Council Office, December 1997
provides analysis and advice on economic and fiscal matters and on major eco-
nomic issues, including the budget. The communications and consultation sec-
retariat is responsible for coordinating government-wide communications an d
consultations efforts.
39
 Departments coming to Cabinet with a proposal must
124 The Play
include a section that outlines how they propose to deal with the media and with
the visibility issue, and the secretariat reviews all communication plans. The
Strategic Projects Unit, meanwhile, is responsible for undertaking research in
'various horizontal policy areas identified as priorities by senior management,
or on matters of special interest to the Clerk of the Privy Council. '
4
°
The deputy secretary (operations) has overall responsibility for the operation
of the Cabinet committees for the Social Union, the Economic Union, and for
the Special Committee of Council. She directs the work of two policy secretari-
ats (economic and social development) and both are directly responsible for the
functioning of the two Cabinet committees. She is also responsible for the
approval of orders-in-council, regulations, and other statutory instruments, for
planning swearing-in ceremonies at Rideau Hall of new ministers, and all Cabi-
net shuffles. Another unit provides administrative support services to Cabinet
and Cabinet committees. It is responsible for the format, distribution, and con-
trol of Cabinet papers, Cabinet committee meeting agendas, memoranda to
Cabinet and other documentation, and for preparing the schedule for Cabinet
and Cabinet committee meetings.
41
The Privy Council Office has on staff an assistant secretary responsible for
foreign and defence policy. The incumbent has two major functions: 'The first
derives from the Prime Minister's responsibility as head of government to be
actively involved in the formulation and execution of foreign and defence pol-
icy. The Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet provides advice to the Prime Minis-
ter on major foreign policy issues, and supports him or her in dealings with
other heads of government and heads of state (e.g., correspondence, visits to
Canada, and foreign travel). In addition, the Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet
deals directly, on behalf of the Prime Minister, with foreign government repre-
sentatives in Canada and with senior officials of foreign leaders's offices.'
42
Another assistant secretary is responsible for coordinating the government's
legislative program for each session of Parliament and 'advises on tactical mat-
ters.'
43
 Yet another provides support on all matters relating to the prime minis-
ter's prerogative and responsibilities as architect and umpire of our system of
Cabinet government. The business of the secretariat includes providing advice
and support on the structure, organization, and functioning of government; min-
isterial mandates and responsibilities; and transition from government to gov-
ernment, including organizing Cabinet and its committees.
44
 And still another
assistant secretary provides advice and support on the selection, appointment,
career planning, compensation, performance review, and termination of
governor-in-council appointees, 'with particular emphasis on Deputy Min-
isters, Associate Deputy Ministers, and Heads of Agencies.'
45
 All the assistant
secretaries are supported by at least several senior level officials.
The Privy Council Office 125
PCO also houses secretariats responsible for security and intelligence. These
secretariats assist the prime minister by providing information and advice on
security and intelligence policy matters and by overseeing the intelligence
assessment function, a service designed to produce intelligence assessments on
a wide range of subjects for the prime minister and other senior government
officials.
46
 There are also other units responsible for providing administrative,
financial, and personnel support services to the office, including one that is
responsible for processing mail addressed to or from the prime minister as head
of government.
47
It is also important to note that the relationship between the commissioner of
the RCMP and the head of Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) on
one side, and the prime minister through the PCO on the other, has become so
close over the past twenty years or so that the minister responsible - the Solici-
tor General - for the two agencies is now effectively cut out of some of the most
important discussions and decisions. It was not always the case. In the early
19608, for example, the commissioner of the RCMP regularly met the minister
responsible on a one-on-one basis to brief him on sensitive security matters. In
turn, the minister would inform and advise the prime minister on specific cases,
as required.
48
Formal job descriptions, by all accounts, do reflect fairly accurately what
goes on in PCO and the kind of work the office performs. But, again, it does not
tell the whole story. The rest of the story lies not only in what they actually do
in their day-to-day activities, but for whom they actually do it. I asked all
former and current PCO officials I consulted whether they felt that they were
accountable to the prime minister or to Cabinet. Some said the prime minister,
but the majority said both. I then asked if they were ever put in a situation
which involved a conflict between supporting the prime minister and Cabinet
who they would support? Everyone answered that they would support the prime
minister. In fact, one expressed surprise that I would even want to ask this ques-
tion, thinking that the answer should be obvious to all students of government.
49
Only one insisted that he would not pick sides because he could never imagine a
scenario when he would be asked to do so. 'The point,' he explained, 'is that the
prime minister always has a right of veto in Cabinet, and he will exercise it if he
has to. So we will never be asked to pick sides because the prime minister can
always have his way if he wants it. He can ask that an item not appear on the
Cabinet agenda even though it has successfully gone through Cabinet commit-
tee. I have seen prime ministers do precisely that on more than one occasion. He
can also establish the Cabinet decision he wants rather than what the majority of
ministers want, and I have seen prime ministers do that too.'
50
None of the current or former PCO officials I consulted could remember a
126 The Play
single instance when they were ever asked to take sides between the prime min-
ister and Cabinet. One former official argued that 'such a scenario might have
been possible forty years ago, and I do not know this for certain. What I do
know is that it would not happen now.'
5
'
I put another question to several present and former PCO officials - do you
spend most of your time working for the prime minister, for Cabinet, or in man-
aging the Cabinet process? By and large, they responded that it is not possible to
divide the three responsibilities into three different and watertight components.
The three responsibilities, one PCO official claimed, 'actually come in one
package, not three.'
52
 However, it became clear in the discussions that the focus
of PCO officials in their day-to-day work is first the 'prime minister,' and sec-
ond, maintaining 'the integrity of the Cabinet process for the prime minister.'
PCO, in its submission to the Lambert Royal Commission, argued that 'the
Prime Minister is responsible for the process of Cabinet operations.'
53
 PCO
officials certainly view their role as being helping hands to the prime minister in
managing the integrity of the Cabinet process. Indeed, they are now being asked
to focus more on the prime minister and his requirements than at any time in the
past. In fact, in many cases, their only client now is the prime minister and his
office. It will be recalled that Prime Minister Chretien abolished several Cabi-
net committees when he assumed office in 1993, including, among others,
Priorities and Planning, Communications, Operations, and Foreign Affairs and
Defence. The secretariats in PCO supporting these committees were not, how-
ever, abolished, and they continue to be fully staffed and operating.
The Priorities and Planning Secretariat, with the disappearance of the com-
mittee, is now focusing more and more of its energy on the budget process and,
together with the other secretariats, on managing the prime minister's early
warning system - that is, to alert the clerk and the prime minister to emerging
issues, potential interdepartmental conflicts, and any matter that might be of
interest to either or both.
The PCO secretariats carry out a number of functions for the prime minister,
Cabinet, and the two remaining sectoral Cabinet committees. They are respon-
sible for Cabinet papers and for preparing records of decisions for Cabinet and
Cabinet committees. They monitor all developments in their sectors and main-
tain close contact with departments falling in their areas of responsibility. They
provide advice to the prime minister and to the chairs of the Cabinet commit-
tees. They also frequently act as a kind of broker in mediating jurisdictional or
interdepartmental disputes. They can be called upon by the prime minister to
search for or 'arrange for a compromise' and to provide the forum for different
departments and agencies to get together to sort out differences.
54
How does the Cabinet decision-making process work and what is PCO's
The Privy Council Office 127
role? In early 1995, the prime minister decided that in future he would hold
three Cabinet retreats a year - one on the budget, one on strategic orientation,
and one on implementing the government's work plan or agenda. Discussions
at these retreats are wide-ranging and very rarely focus on resolving specific
issues. Briefing material is presented, for example, on the government's fiscal
position, and Cabinet members can voice their concerns and even question
some of the points made in it. But they are not asked to approve or reject any-
thing specific. What can emerge from these Cabinet retreats is at best a very
broad sense of where the government is at on important issues like the budget.
They can also provide a sense of direction for Cabinet ministers as they go
about their work.
However, even regular Cabinet meetings tend to focus more on broad policy
agenda items than on specific issues. Indeed, Cabinet deliberations today are
vastly different than was the case under Prime Ministers St Laurent and Pear-
son. Cabinet then was expected to make decisions even on questions of detail,
such as awarding relatively minor government contracts. Trudeau's decision to
establish an elaborate Cabinet committee system pushed many issues away
from the Cabinet table down to committees such as Priorities and Planning,
which he also chaired. Mulroney did much the same as Trudeau, and when he
wanted a consensus on specific issues he decided not to manage himself, he,
like Trudeau, turned them over to the Priorities and Planning Committee rather
than to full Cabinet.
Chretien, as already noted, abolished many Cabinet committees, including
Priorities and Planning. It appears, however, that Cabinet has continued to
function much as it did under Trudeau and Mulroney, and it has not, as envis-
aged when Chretien came to power, become 'the senior forum for collective
decision-making.'
55
 Current and former Chretien ministers reveal that Cabinet
is not where decisions are made. Rather, it is where briefings are presented,
information is shared, and where the prime minister and certain ministers pro-
vide a general tour d'horizon. The issues that keep surfacing at regular Cabinet
meetings include the government's fiscal position, national unity, the govern-
ment's political standing, and foreign affairs. These issues do not lend them-
selves to Cabinet decisions.
Every Cabinet in Ottawa since the introduction of standing committees of
Cabinet in the 19608, and this includes the Chretien Cabinet, has had at least two
Cabinet committees to coordinate and take decisions in the two broad sectors of
economic and social policy.
56
 PCO officials provide policy advisery and admin-
istrative support to these committees and a strong relationship invariably devel-
ops between the relevant assistant secretary and the chair of the committee.
Prime ministers since Trudeau, and again Chretien is no exception, are quite
128 The Play
prepared to let Cabinet committees make decisions. Full Cabinet can always act
as a court of appeal for these decisions, and Cabinet documents include an
appendix which lists all Cabinet committee decisions for formal Cabinet
approval. But very few ministers will want to appeal a Cabinet committee deci-
sion before full Cabinet, and it is in fact very rarely done. Still, if for no other
reason/the right of appeal serves at least one purpose. It 'is important in main-
taining the constitutional myth of collective Cabinet decision-making and
responsibility.'
57
 Myth, it appears, is the apposite word. Consultations for this
book reveal that in Chretien's first mandate (1993-7) ministers challenged or
asked for a review of only three Cabinet committee decisions. In all three cases,
the prime minister took on the ministers. Current and former PCO officials
reveal that prime ministers from Trudeau to Chretien do not like ministers ask-
ing Cabinet to review a committee decision. This is because a request to review
a Cabinet committee decision is a clear signal that the committee did not do its
job properly. In addition, if they were a 'real problem with the decision,' one
former senior PCO official explains, 'the prime minister would have been fully
briefed beforehand, and he would have taken steps to resolve the matter or
taken the item off the Cabinet agenda.'
58
 Another former PCO official who reg-
ularly attended Cabinet meetings observed, 'It takes real guts for a minister to
question in full Cabinet a Cabinet committee recommendation. Certainly, Chre-
tien and Mulroney had little tolerance for this, and so did Trudeau, though I am
told that he could be a bit more tolerant.'
59
Prime Ministers Trudeau and Mulroney chaired the Priorities and Planning
Committee, where important issues were resolved. Chretien does not chair any
Cabinet committee, but this is not to suggest that the centre of government has
less control over its policy agenda or the operation of the remaining Cabinet
committees. The prime minister's early warning system operates as well, if not
better, than at any time in the past. Indeed, PCO officials now have more time
to spend operating and refining it since they do not have to service the elaborate
committee systems of the Trudeau and Mulroney years.
How does PCO secure information from departments to feed its early warn-
ing system? PCO officials report that they employ 'any number of means,' but
that in any event the great majority of departments will happily share informa-
tion with them. One former PCO official reports that he 'made it a point of reg-
ularly having lunch with departmental assistant deputy ministers responsible for
policy' and that he had little difficulty in securing all the information he needed
to do his job.
60
 Assistant deputy ministers know full well that PCO will have a
strong, if not determining say, in any future promotion.
Another former PCO official reports that he always insisted that his 'staff
attend all departmental retreat meetings, and all major policy meetings in the
The Privy Council Office 129
departments for which they were responsible.'
61
 Yet another reveals that most
deputy ministers will happily share whatever information they have with PCO
because it is very much in their interests to do so. He explains, 'A deputy minis-
ter knows that it is not in his or even in his department's interest to shortcircuit
the system, to do an end run, or to surprise me or anybody else in PCO. He may
get away with it once, but even then the clerk will have a private word with him.
If he tried to do it often, he will get clobbered and he simply will not survive.
Deputy ministers are all very well aware of this.'
62
1 then asked, what if a min-
ister should direct his deputy minister not to inform PCO? His response: 'This
happens from time to time. But a competent deputy minister knows better, and
he will ignore his minister's instructions in such a situation, or at least in most
instances. He will have a private word with someone at PCO, perhaps even the
clerk, to explain what his minister wants and what were his instructions.'
63
It does sometimes happen that a deputy minister is told by his minister to
favour a particular position while central agency officials are making it clear to
him that they favour another, even contradictory, position. In most cases, the
latter know the prime minister's position, and if he agrees with theirs, then
everyone knows that the minister will not secure approval for his initiative. And
the prime minister usually does agree with the views of his central agency offi-
cials, if only because PCO and Intergovernmental Affairs officials have devel-
oped a keen sense of where the prime minister would stand on any given issue.
But there are exceptions to the above. There are instances, however infre-
quent, when a minister is able to get his way by getting to the prime minister
before the matter goes to Cabinet. A former deputy minister of Indian Affairs
and Northern Development reports, for example, that at one point he was caught
between the views of his minister and those of PCO and what was then the Fed-
eral-Provincial Relations Office. In response to the Penner report in the early
19805, the minister wanted to reduce substantially administrative controls
attached to the funding of aboriginal programs. Central agency officials made it
'very clear' to him, 'time and again,' that they disagreed 'fundamentally' with
his minister on that point. He reports that he accompanied his minister to Cabi-
net committee (Priorities and Planning) and it 'became clear that my minister
had done his homework with the prime minister. The prime minister put me in a
difficult position when he specifically asked where I stood on the matter. I had to
respond that I was supporting my minister. The prime minister also indicated his
support for my minister and in the end my minister won the day. There were a
few difficult moments for me with senior central agency staff for a week or two
after that, but they understood very well that I was put in a difficult situation. I
would add, however, that this kind of situation did not happen very often. In all
my years in government, I do not recall PCO officials losing too many battles.'
64
130 The Play
PCO officials will prepare a brief two- or three-page memorandum for the
clerk and the prime minister at the first sign that something is developing in a
government department which could be of interest to them. The note usually
concludes with a recommendation so that PCO knows where the clerk and the
prime minister, or even senior PMO officials, will stand on the matter if it ever
goes forward. PCO officials report that at times the note will come back from the
prime minister with instructions, but that often, perhaps more so under Chretien
than his predecessors, there will be no feedback. Trudeau, they add, would
respond in the great majority of cases, Mulroney not always, but more often than
Chretien. In all cases, however, whenever something caught the prime minis-
ter's interest, he would respond with fairly clear instructions and would often
continue to follow the issue and ask for briefings from that moment on.
PCO officials will communicate to departments how well their proposal or
their issue is progressing in the system, especially if they sense problems. They
will, however, usually not say, The prime minister thinks, or the prime minister
does not like the idea.' A much more popular approach is to tell a department
'this will not fly' or 'you need to adjust your proposal' or 'there are some con-
cerns from several quarters.'
65
 Departments will usually respond by adjusting
their proposals, but sometimes they do not, and the minister may press ahead
and bring a proposal to Cabinet committee.
The chairs of Cabinet committees are also kept in the loop, and PCO officials
will inform them of the prime minister's views. Senior PMO officials commu-
nicate frequently with chairs of Cabinet committees and will sort out any poten-
tial political or policy problems directly with them. Central agency officials
report that the chairs are usually on 'the same wave length' as the prime minis-
ter and 'they do talk.'
66
 As mentioned in chapter 4, one senior PMO official
showed me a copy of the prime minister's weekly agenda. He was quick to add,
however, that the agenda 'does not even reveal all that much about how things
work. The telephone and how often the prime minister uses it is in many ways
much more important than what the weekly agenda reveals.'
67
 A former senior
policy adviser to Prime Minister Mulroney made precisely the same point, and
added that the prime minister and Cabinet committee chairs had a strong work-
ing partnership. 'The prime minister,' he said, 'trusted their judgment to make
the kind of decisions that he would make. That is why he appointed them over
others. When committee chairs were not certain where the prime minister stood,
or would stand, on a particular issue, they would raise it with him, or with me,
or with someone in PMO. The lines of communications were always pretty
strong.'
68
It is important to stress, however, that not all issues raised in memoranda sent
to the clerk and the prime minister by PCO staff involve a proposal, a Cabinet
The Privy Council Office 131
memorandum, a potential interdepartmental conflict, or an initiative involvin g
new money. It is also important to bear in mind that not all memoranda to Cab-
inet require a decision - some are for information purposes only. Short briefing
notes are also designed to brief the prime minister before a meeting with a Cab-
inet minister, or premiers, or a foreign head of government, and so on. PCO
officials will secure a full understanding of the issues from the relevant depart-
ments and gain an appreciation for what their minister wishes to raise with the
prime minister, and brief the prime minister accordingly.
Present and former PCO officials report that a great deal of time is spent
managing what they label as visible and invisible errors. Visible errors are those
that are brought up in question period or appear in the media. They nearly
always involve ministers. Examples include Marcel Masse's decision to use a
government jet to deliver a speech in Boston, David Dingwall's decision to use
his influence to reallocate federal funding for highways construction from one
region of Nova Scotia to his own in Cape Breton, and John Fraser's decision to
release rancid tuna for public consumption. Or it may be a minister fumbling
the answer to an anticipated question from the media or mishandling a govern-
ment report. The list goes on.
How does one handle such a problem? PCO officials clearly cannot bring an
offending minister back on track and call him on the carpet. The prime minister,
one of his senior staff members, or the clerk of the Privy Council can have a pri-
vate chat with a minister to go over where and how he created problems for the
government. PCO officials, meanwhile, will provide a thorough briefing on the
issue and certainly communicate concerns from the centre to the minister's
senior departmental officials.
What about invisible errors? These are far more common than visible ones
and come in 'all shape and sizes.'
69
 They are only invisible because people out-
side government have not uncovered them, or if they have, they have not made
an issue of them. In describing an invisible error, a senior central agency offi-
cial observed, 'Take, for example, the case of Senator Andy Thompson. He
spent only twelve days in the Senate since 1990 when it first started taking
attendance. Senators knew there was a problem with Senator Thompson, but
nothing was done. The Ottawa Citizen broke the story and made it front page
news. Only then did the problem become visible outside of the Senate. At that
point the Senate had to respond because the invisible had suddenly become very
visible.'
70
 The same applies to government, he adds, insisting that 'there are
many, many errors or problems that never become a full-blown political crisis
or even a crisis at all. Sometimes we are able to manage them, but more often
we simply get lucky.'
7
'
I asked for specific instances. Officials mentioned as an example a minister
132 The Play
announcing a project or even a policy proposal without having first submitted it
to the Cabinet committee and Cabinet process. As I was conducting some of the
interviews for this book in the fall of 1997, a minister had made a public state-
ment regarding tobacco advertisement without having gone through the Cabinet
process. That was an invisible problem to everyone outside of Cabinet and
PCO. If that minister could do it once, he could do it again, and worse, it could
encourage others to do the same. There is, after all, no quicker way to introduce
a new policy than by simply announcing it. But it also goes to the heart of the
integrity of the Cabinet decision-making process. Again, the prime minister, or
one of his senior staff members, or the clerk of the Privy Council will have a
word with the offending minister to make clear that it should not happen again.
Invisible errors can also include a minister making a statement at a public
meeting which is in direct contradiction to government policy. Again, at the
time I was carrying out the interviews in PCO in November 1997, word got
around that a senior minister had contradicted government policy in a media
scrum in Fredericton, New Brunswick. PCO communications officials were
quickly in contact with departmental and PMO officials to ensure that everyone
knew the facts and that a game plan was ready to deal with the situation in case
the media made a story of it. The media, however, never did, and the problem
remained invisible. Former PMO and PCO officials also report that it is not
uncommon for a minister to be at complete loggerheads with his deputy minis-
ter. Indeed, they claim that there have been situations when the two were not
even on speaking terms. The problem often has to wait for a minister or deputy
minister shuffle for resolution, and the hope is always that in the meantime this
situation will not become visible, and that, in addition, it will not give rise to a
new political crisis because a file has been mismanaged or left unattended.
A serious conflict between two ministers also constitutes an invisible prob-
lem. It may be, for example, that the minister of Industry favours protection for
drug manufacturers to promote research and development in Canada while the
minister of Health will oppose such protection, insisting that it leads to higher
costs for drugs. PCO officials will have an excellent grasp of the conflict even
before it surfaces at Cabinet committee or Cabinet. They will work with depart-
mental officials to find common ground and identify a position which both
departments and their ministers will support.
A measure of success for officials working at the centre is whether they are
able to manage such situations so that they remain invisible. A story on the
evening news or in the Globe and Mail on a serious disagreement between two
ministers is never a welcome development in the Langevin building corridors.
One senior PCO official, explaining his role in managing invisible problems,
described his job in this way: 'What I do here is to fall on hand grenades. Our
The Privy Council Office 133
role here is to manage problems so that they do not become unmanageable
political crises.'
72
A number of present and former central agency officials also expressed
concerns over the use of decks - a series of slides presenting ideas and recom-
mendations in bullet form - to make presentations to Cabinet and Cabinet com-
mittee meetings. The deck first surfaced in 1983 in the later months of the
Trudeau government. It has now become an instrument of choice for ministers
and their senior officials.
Decks, it is argued, fall short of the traditional Cabinet memoranda in a num-
ber of ways. For one thing, they are largely empty of analysis. The traditional
Cabinet memorandum has numerous headings which must be respected, includ-
ing the identification of the issue, the recommendations, rationale for the
recommendations, identification of problems and strategies, political consider-
ations, intergovernmental relations, and the position of relevant departments. It
also contains an analysis heading under which options to deal with the situation
at hand are outlined. Decks, on the other hand, tend to focus on the bottom line
immediately and to concentrate on political considerations.
Decks also tend to discourage interdepartmental consultations, since they
only present, in point form, a relatively small part of the information. PCO offi-
cials now insist that all decks must be accompanied by a traditional Cabinet
memorandum. However, ministers and other departmental officials still tend to
look only at the deck and ignore the traditional memorandum.
The result is that the substantive debate on a Cabinet proposal increasingly
takes place between the sponsoring minister and his department and central
agency officials, who are often the only ones sufficiently well plugged in to a
proposal to see it take shape, and who have the time and resources to focus on
both the deck and the memorandum. The upshot is that decks tend to strengthen
the hand of central agencies in their dealings with departments and to weaken
the interdepartmental community. The abolition of several Cabinet committees
has also had a similar impact.
Finance officials report that their minister, Paul Martin, has now taken decks
to a new level. He prefers to brief Cabinet with power points rather than a sim-
ple deck. Power points are developed through the aid of the most modern com-
puter techniques involving colour, large print, small print, and other forms of
visual enhancement. The more substantive aspects of power points are captured
in just a few words and, according to officials, do not lend themselves to in-
depth policy discussions. They are, in the words of one, 'overheads with
panache, a kind of Disney production.'
73
What about the charge that if asked to ice a hockey team PCO would put six
goaltenders on the ice? I put the question to several present and former PCO
134 The Play
officials, and they all agreed that there was something to the observation. One
explained, 'There is a misconception out there. PCO is not a policy shop. It is
into operations. It is into transactions. It is not into coming up with new, grandi-
ose policy solutions. The bottom line is that PCO is into risk management. That
is its line of work. That being the case, you obviously try to minimize risks by
stopping or derailing things that can go wrong.'
74
 Another, who did not dis-
agree with the goaltender analogy, added, however, that 'on occasions, PCO
does take the lead. I can think of the transfer of human resources development
programs to the provinces where we played a key role. Without us, I doubt if
the initiative would have ever taken place.'
75
There are other examples when PCO officials take charge of a file, having
been instructed by the prime minister 'to make things happen.' One pointed to
federal relief assistance for Manitoba flood victims in April-May 1997 as a case
in point. He explains, 'We made things happen at extremely short notice. In fact,
the prime minister told us at 4:00 p.m. one day to get the package done, and by
8:00 the next morning, everything was in place and we were pretty well ready
for an announcement.'
76
 At about the same time, another initiative, a $25 million
package, was put together and announced, all in a matter of a few days. An offi-
cial of the Western Economic Development Department who put the package
together reports that in all his years in government he had never seen something
happen so quickly. 'It became clear,' he reports, 'that the prime minister and the
Privy Council Office had decided that this needed to happen. There was no sign
of any interdepartmental meetings. In fact, I was effectively working for PCO
when I prepared the initiative. I have never seen a Treasury Board submission
getting approved so quickly. From start to finish, it took no more than seventy-
two hours. Yet before and after, I attended countless interdepartmental meetings
where Finance officials insisted that there was no money.'
77
Another official mentioned the Oka crisis as yet another example of PCO
taking charge of a file. He explains, 'The clerk, at the urgent request of the
prime minister, essentially brought the file into PCO. Most mornings, Tellier
[Paul Tellier, then clerk of the Privy Council] would meet with senior officials
from the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and from
other relevant department, such as Justice and the RCMP, to manage the file.
He did this until the crisis was over.'
78
Foreign Affairs, Defence, and Security
Prime ministers traditionally have retained a special interest in foreign rela-
tions. Indeed, from 1912 until 1946, the prime minister also acted as his own
secretary for External Affairs.
79
 Even since 1946, the prime minister and his
The Privy Council Office 135
minister of Foreign Affairs have had to forge a close working relationship, and
particularly in more recent years, the onus is on the minister to make it work. To
be sure, if the two are always at loggerheads either in 'temperament or in pol-
icy,' the minister will have to go.
8
° Other ministers, meanwhile, can get a 'look-
see' in Canadian foreign affairs, but they do not have much of a say in its devel-
opment. As noted above, there is no longer a Cabinet committee on foreign
affairs and defence. Ministers will, from time to time, get a briefing in foreign
affairs from the minister or the prime minister at Cabinet meetings, but these
are quite general in nature and rarely focus on a specific point for resolution.
Canadian prime ministers, however, have, since Trudeau, sought to establish
an independent source of advice on foreign affairs and to have a strong say in
shaping policy. Trudeau appointed Ivan Head as international relations adviser
in his own office from 1970 to 1978. We are now informed that 'during his ten-
ure, Head usually exerted more influence on Canadian foreign policy than the
incumbent secretary of state for external affairs.'
81
Since the 19705, the Privy Council Office has also retained a strong capacity
to provide an independent source of advice. But this capacity is not simply reac-
tive or a court of second opinion. It can also be proactive on selected files and
shape new initiatives. Consultations with senior government officials reveal, for
example, that the key organizers of the high profile land mines summit in
Ottawa in late November 1997 were from PMO and PCO, not from Foreign
Affairs. As he left the conference, Prime Minister Chretien turned to the assis-
tant secretary of Foreign and Defence Policy from PCO and observed, 'Con-
gratulations, you have organized a very successful conference.'
82
 The prime
minister left little doubt as to who was the driving force behind the conference,
and his comments were not lost on anyone, including officials from Foreign
Affairs. A senior PCO official explained that 'the success of the treaty banning
land mines had everything to do with the prime minister. Only the prime minis-
ter could make it happen in the Ottawa system and have access to the other
heads of government to get them to focus on the issue. It is one case where
[Lloyd] Axworthy [the minister of Foreign Affairs] gets a great deal of the
credit, but where the prime minister is largely responsible for the success.' He
added, 'One would have to be extremely naive about international relations to
think that a minister could deliver the so-called Ottawa process which led 125
countries to sign a ban of land mines. Without the prime minister's direct
involvement, we would still be trying to get 12 countries to sign.'
83
Barbara McDougall, former minister of External Affairs in Mulroney's gov-
ernment, commented that heads of government 'talk to one another quite often.
There is now such a thing as the telephone.'
84
 The prime minister cannot con-
trol or even predict when and on what issue a foreign head of government will
136 The Play
wish to communicate with him. The growing reliance on international regional
summits ranging from the 67 to APEC and la francophonie meetings also
places the prime minister front and centre in dealing with many international
issues. But there are other reasons. An observer of British politics writes that
'Prime Ministers [also] have a more personal motive. Visits abroad and summit
meetings have glamour. Every Prime Minister has devoted decades to seem-
ingly intractable domestic problems. The world stage offers a different kind of
politics where he automatically enjoys dignity and prestige ... At home, he is a
politician. Abroad, he is a statesman.'
85
Whatever the motive, it is clear that international summits, combined with
modern means of communications, together with his or her power of appoint-
ment, provide the prime minister, his office, and the Privy Council Office with
a strong capacity to shape Canada's position on many foreign affairs issues.
Two observers of Canadian politics write that 'If someone sneezes within
PMO, they sometimes said at the Foreign Affairs Department, everyone catches
a cold at their offices at Fort Pearson.'
86
The prime minister, PMO, and PCO will obviously pick and choose the inter-
national issues they want to influence, and when they do so, they will dominate
the discussions and even shift the debate away from other issues at hand. In his
comparative study of Canadian and Australian foreign affairs, Andrew Cooper
writes, 'A tell-tale sign of how Canada's economic and diplomatic strategy
were subordinated to political tactics in agricultural trade was the routing of all
important decisions in this issue area in the later stages of the GATT negotia-
tions through the central agencies of the Prime Minister's Office and the Privy
Council Office. The decisive impact of the constitutional issue in this matter
inevitably stymied the government's ability to perform effectively in the con-
cluding phase of the Uruguay Round.'
8 7
As in foreign affairs, so in defence. Here too the centre plays an important
role. For one thing, diplomacy and defence are interrelated. For another, some
of the most important defence issues now relate to the purchase of military
equipment, ranging from fighter jets and helicopters to armoured land vehicles.
These purchases are not only very expensive, having a considerable impact on
the government's expenditure budget, but they also have international trade
implications. The trade implications and the value of the contracts are such that
foreign heads of government will get involved and will call the prime minister
on the matter. Large military contracts also have regional implications as the
provinces vie for a share of the pie. For these reasons and others, the prime min-
ister and the Privy Council Office will invariably want to be directly involved in
the decisions.
In addition, the prime minister, as head of government, 'cannot escape a spe-
The Privy Council Office 137
cial responsibility for the security of the country.'
88
 Whenever there is a Cabi-
net committee on security and intelligence, it is the prime minister who chairs
it. Though there are at the moment no operating Cabinet committees for secu-
rity and intelligence, the Privy Council Office still houses secretariats in For-
eign and Defence Policy, Security Intelligence, and Intelligence Assessment, all
headed by assistant deputy minster level officials reporting to the clerk of the
Privy Council through a deputy clerk who is a deputy minister level official.
89
These secretariats, along with the others in PCO, perform a variety of functions,
but again, the most important one is to brief the prime minister on all significant
developments in their areas.
PCO has two important policy instruments at hand to play a proactive role,
and it never hesitates to employ them. One, the preparation of mandate letters,
is a recent development, and the other, organizing the machinery of govern-
ment, is virtually as old as Confederation, but it has gained a great deal of
importance since the early 19708.
A Mandate for Ministers
In the late 19708, the Privy Council Office began the practice of preparing man-
date letters for delivery to ministers on the day of their appointments. It has
since become an integrated part of the cabinet-making process. Mandate letters
are now handed to all ministers when they are first appointed to Cabinet and
also when they are assigned to a new portfolio.
It is now extremely rare even for a senior minister to be reassigned without
receiving a mandate letter signed by the prime minister. There are very few
exceptions. One former PCO official explains, 'In the case of [Don] Mazan-
kowski [deputy prime minister in the Mulroney government], it really did not
make much sense to hand him a mandate letter when he received a new assign-
ment in Mulroney's second mandate, and we did not prepare one. But in virtu-
ally all cases, we had mandate letters prepared.'
90
 All ministers in the Chretien
government, for example, were handed a mandate letter at the time he formed
the government in 1993 and again in his second mandate in 1997.
What are the contents of these mandate letters? The letters are brief in most
cases, only about two to three pages in length. They are also tailored to the recip-
ient. That is, a mandate letter to a newly appointed minister will be different
from one to a veteran Cabinet minister. In the first instance, it will outline basic
issues about becoming a Cabinet minister, including conflict-of-interest guide-
lines, and the need to respect the collective nature of Cabinet decisions. In all
cases, the letters will point to issues the minister should attend to and identify
priority areas, if any, for her to pursue. Here, again, there are two basic mandate
138 The Play
letters. One states, in effect, 'Don't call us, we'll call you.' That is, the prime
minister has decided that the department in question should not come up with a
new policy agenda or legislative program. In these cases, the message is essen-
tially: keep things going, do not cause any ripples, and keep out of trouble.
91
In other cases, the letter will refer to particular policy objectives and major
challenges. In these cases, they can be quite specific, singling out proposed leg-
islation, a special concern that needs attending to or a program that needs to be
overhauled.
Mandate letters are drafted in the machinery of government secretariat in the
Privy Council Office. They are routed to the prime minister via the clerk.
Things can get quite hectic at the time a new Cabinet is sworn in. The identity
of the minister needs to be confirmed, the letters need to be drafted and, once
approved, to be translated. In the past, there have been very few changes made
to the letters either by the clerk or by officials in the Prime Minister's Office.
To be sure, there is always discussion on the contents of the proposed letters so
that the drafters are not working in a vacuum. But by and large, PMO staff do
not substantially alter the letters once drafted. The one exception was the 1997
swearing in of the Chretien Cabinet, where a number of the letters were
returned by the Prime Minister's Office for revisions.
Where does machinery of government staff get its information to prepare the
letters? First, from PCO officials with sectoral responsibilities - that is, those
who are in constant communication with departments because of their work
with the Cabinet committees for economic and social policies. Second, from the
departments themselves. The deputy minister will be asked for his views on
what needs to be accomplished and to identify the department's priority areas.
The third source is PMO staff, who will bring a political perspective to the pro-
cess and establish what is important politically and what is not. Other sources
may be consulted, including officials in the intergovernmental affairs group. I
asked current and former PCO officials if the election platform of the party in
power was consulted. They said that it could be, but they certainly left the
impression that if it were it would be at the bottom of the pile.
A mandate letter may also be prepared when a deputy minister is appointed.
Unlike the case with ministers, until Jocelyne Bourgon became clerk not all
newly appointed or reassigned deputy ministers received a mandate letter. It
depended. It depended on the department, on the circumstances, and on the
individual being appointed. When there was some uncertainty or when it was
clear that a certain task needed to be undertaken, the clerk of the Privy Council
directed that a mandate letter be prepared to the newly appointed deputy minis-
ter for his signature. Bourgon now insists that a mandate letter be handed to all
newly appointed or newly reassigned deputy ministers.
The Privy Council Office 139
Are mandate letters taken seriously? The answer is yes. Indeed, ministers
consulted said that it is the very first thing that they will read after leaving the
swearing-in ceremony at Rideau Hall. They also report that they take their con-
tents quite seriously. They know, as one observed, that 'the prime minister can
always dig out his copy and ask about the status of a particular point.'
92
 More
importantly, the letters reveal what the prime minister expects from them dur-
ing their stay in their departments. In addition, present and former PMO and
PCO officials report that all prime ministers, from Trudeau to Chretien, take
mandate letters to ministers seriously and that they spend the required time for
the process to work properly.
I asked whether mandate letters inhibit the ability of ministers to come for-
ward with a new idea, one not originally identified in the letter. The answer is
no. Things do change, new ideas can surface anytime and anywhere, and minis-
ters do not feel hobbled by the letters with regard to new proposals. Privy Coun-
cil officials also confirmed that this was indeed the case. They report that no
one, including the prime minister, would likely use a mandate letter to tell a
minister that he could not look at a new idea or promote a new proposal. If the
letters are employed to hold ministers accountable, and from time to time they
are, it is in the sense that they may be asked to explain why they have not deliv-
ered on an issue identified in the letter as a priority matter. That said, letters to
ministers in a new mandate make it pretty clear which departments will enjoy a
priority status at the centre of government and which will not.
I asked both present and former senior PCO officials if mandate letters do not
fly in the face of the collective nature of Cabinet decision making. How can pri-
orities be established and major tasks identified even before Cabinet has held its
very first meeting? Where, I asked, is the collective aspect of these decisions?
The answer was that mandate letters are not from the Cabinet. They are from
the prime minister. It is the prime minister who identifies priority issues for his
government, and if a minister cannot accept them, then, as one former senior
PCO official explained, 'He is free to leave or to resign on the spot. He is not,
after all, forced to stay in Cabinet.'
93
 The same can of course be said of mem-
bers of the U.S. Cabinet.
Organizing the Machinery of Government
Some thirty years ago, the Privy Council Office established a new secretariat to
advise the prime minister on the structure and functioning of Cabinet and the
reorganization of departments, agencies, and crown corporations. The secretar-
iat is somewhat peculiar to Canada. Other countries with a parliamentary sys-
tem, like Britain and Australia, have officers at the centre responsible for such
140 The Play
issues, but it appears that none has a secretariat headed by an assistant deputy
minister level official and employing a dozen or so people.
Even within PCO, the machinery of government secretariat enjoys a special
status. It reports to the prime minister through the clerk, and it does not readily
share its information or its briefing material with other PCO secretariats. It is
the prime minister's prerogative to organize the machinery of government as he
sees fit. He may decide to consult a few advisers and ministers when contem-
plating changes, but he may not. One thing is certain. Such changes, big or
small, are never submitted to Cabinet for consideration. When they are
announced by the prime minister, they are already a fait accompli. Staff in the
machinery of government secretariat never assume that the prime minister will,
in the end, make the anticipated decision. Accordingly, they are always careful
to protect and hold very close to their chests what they consider highly sensitive
advice. They also argue that to have any chance of success in introducing the
changes, the prime minister and they must operate in relative isolation and
secrecy. They point out that 'adjusting the machinery of government raises all
kinds of fear in line departments which, when threatened, tend to marshall their
forces against proposed changes.'
94
Why is it that changes to the machinery of government are the sole preroga-
tive of the prime minister? One reason, no doubt, is that the prime minister pre-
fers it that way. The thinking also is that ministers and their officials are hardly
in a position to rise above the fray and contemplate changes in a detached
fashion, ignoring their own interests and those of their departments. PCO,
meanwhile, is directly involved not only because it is the prime minister's
department, but also because it stands at the centre of government with no pro-
gram responsibility or turf to protect. One former clerk of the Privy Council
wrote that 'without input from the Privy Council Office, the outcome of inter-
departmental boundary disputes may be determined by the relative negotiating
strength of ministers and/or officials. Such outcomes may not reflect the wishes
of the prime minister or all ministers.'
95
 He also gives two reasons for the need
for secrecy at the centre, including 'keeping the prime minister's options open
until the last moment [and] protecting the change from preemptive attacks by
those with other interests in mind.'
96
The machinery of government secretariat is asked, again in the words of a
former clerk, 'to cope with an endless stream of minor and major changes.'
97
The secretariat, together with the priorities and planning secretariat, for exam-
ple, takes the lead on behalf of the clerk in all transition planning and in prepar-
ing or coordinating briefing books for the new or re-elected government.
The secretariat also advises the prime minister on a continuing basis on mak-
ing minor adjustments to the machinery of government. These could involve
The Privy Council Office 141
sorting out overlapping jurisdictions or mandates between departments, such as
moving regional development agencies under the 'Industry' portfolio or alter-
natively granting them a stand-alone and independent status.
But the secretariat also advises the prime minister on far-reaching changes.
Two examples will make this point clear. In the early 19808, Pierre De Bane,
the minister of Regional Economic Expansion (DREE) in the Trudeau Cabinet,
concluded that how a government organizes itself to promote regional eco-
nomic development was as important to the success of its efforts as was the sub-
stance of its economic development policies. He felt that his department lacked
clout in the interdepartmental policy community in Ottawa. He had fought and
lost several battles with the then minister of Industry, Herb Gray, over the loca-
tion of new automotive plants and the application of duty remission for certain
automobile manufactures, notably Volkswagen, to locate in Canada.
98
De Bane wrote to Prime Minister Trudeau to ask for his support for a com-
plete review of the policy and also of the government organization in regional
development. In his letter he suggested that 'DREE's responsibilities - to
ensure that all Canadians have an equal chance to make a living with dignity -
can't be handled by one department with one per cent of the federal budget.'
Sadly, he wrote to Trudeau, DREE, an organization Trudeau had established in
1968, had been a failure because of the department's inability to muster a con-
certed federal government effort. De Bane's hope was that he would be asked to
lead the review and then report to Cabinet with a series of recommendations."
Trudeau wrote back saying that De Bane had raised some valid concerns and
that his officials in the Privy Council Office would now look into the matter.
Several months later, Trudeau announced a major government reorganization
for economic development. The review was conducted in complete secrecy by
machinery of government staff. Not only was De Bane not asked to lead the
review, he was kept completely in the dark until two days before Trudeau's
public announcement, when the prime minister briefed him and told him that he
was being reassigned as a junior minister responsible for la francophonie and
international development.
100
 DREE was to be disbanded and a new Depart-
ment of Regional Industrial Expansion (DRIE) established. As well, a central
agency responsible for managing economic policy under PEMS was to be
renamed the Ministry of State for Economic and Regional Development
(MSERD) and given new provincial offices. The 'decentralized central agency'
was geared to provide a greatly improved regional information base. But it
proved short-lived. It, too, was disbanded a few years later.
Machinery of government officials at the time of the review had become
deeply concerned with constant bickering in Cabinet committees between De
Bane and Gray, the ministers of DREE and Industry. Indeed, shortly after the
142 The Play
reorganization was announced, an official in the Privy Council Office described
in a media interview the advantages of the new organizational structure: 'It
[heated debates between two cabinet ministers] will never happen again ...
DREE had its own ideas on Volkswagen and IT&C (Industry) had different
ideas ... There was a lot of squabbling. Now that they're together, they'll have
to resolve their differences internally and then go to Cabinet.'
101
The machinery of government secretariat implemented far more ambitious
and sweeping changes in 1993. On the day she was sworn in as prime minister,
Kim Campbell unveiled a massive restructuring of the government's opera-
tions. Certainly by Ottawa standards, the move was radical. The purpose was to
reduce the number of government departments from thirty-two to twenty-three,
by reshaping eight departments, providing new mandates to three others, and
merging or breaking up fifteen more.
102
 Prime Minister Campbell declared that
the move represented the 'first step toward providing Canadians with leaner,
more accessible and more efficient government to meet the challenges facing
Canada over the balance of the decade and into the 2ist century.'
103
 She
explained that the Cabinet had been cut to its smallest size since 1963. 'A large
cabinet,' she added, 'can be too bulky to be bold, too massive to meet, too dif-
fuse to direct."
04
 The Globe and Mail reported that this would 'fundamentally
alter the way the government operates.'
10 5
Staff in the machinery of government had long been planning a major over-
haul of government organization in the belief that how the government was
organized had become in itself an important problem. They were not alone.
Robert De Cotret, one of Mulroney's Cabinet ministers, had led such a review
in the early 1992. De Cotret asked several former senior government officials,
including a former clerk, a former associate clerk and secretary to the Treasury
Board, and a former deputy minister of Agriculture and Employment and Immi-
gration, to become members of an advisery group. Nick D'Ombrain, deputy
secretary in the Privy Council Office responsible for the machinery of govern-
ment and senior personnel, was also appointed to the group. Jim Mitchell,
assistant secretary of machinery of government, was the main contact in the
PCO for the review and also coordinated all the staff work.
Some advisery group members contributed think-pieces to the review. John
Manion, former secretary to the Treasury Board and associate secretary to the
Cabinet, for example, wrote a number of notes on the role of central agencies,
forcefully making the case that some streamlining was urgently required. Man-
ion looked to other countries and argued that in most instances central agencies
are small and staffed with forward- and outward-looking experts who are strate-
gically rather than operationally oriented. In Canada, he suggested, the federal
government was heavily burdened with central agencies. He insisted that cen-
The Privy Council Office 143
tral agencies had a great deal to do with the success or failure of governments
and that the De Cotret exercise should review their scope, size, and operations.
Manion offered a number of possible solutions. The Treasury Board secretar-
iat could be renamed the 'Board of Management,' as the Lambert Commission
had recommended, but he was opposed to this idea and he made his opposition
clear. Treasury Board, he argued, should transfer its Bureau of Real Property
Management to a line department, substantially cut down or even eliminate its
Administrative Policy Branch, and become the sole authority charged with set-
ting standards and policies in all areas of human resource management. He
argued that the Office of the Comptroller General should be rebuilt and fully
integrated in the Treasury Board secretariat. The office, he urged, should,
among other things, be responsible for the 'functional direction of internal audit
and program evaluation, special audits, monitoring the implementation of min-
isters' policies and decisions on management and administrative issues.' Con-
sideration should also be given, he suggested, to having the board's Program
Branch report to both the Finance department and the Treasury Board secretar-
iat. This would eliminate serious problems of overlap and duplication in the
work of both Finance and the secretariat. The Public Service Commission,
meanwhile, should be turned into a small agency dealing solely with initial
appointments to the public service. Other members of the advisery group mean-
while suggested that the Federal Provincial Relations Office should also be sub-
stantially reduced or, if possible, eliminated after the most recent constitutional
storm had passed.
106
The De Cotret review argued that government operations should be organized
like a 'deck of cards.' He made the case that much like 'hearts should be with the
hearts and the spades with the spades,' government programs designed to pro-
mote human resources development should all be brought under one roof, those
with industrial and economic development under another roof, and so on.
107
To be sure, there was concern not just in central agencies but also in the dep-
uty minister community over the role De Cotret and his advisery group played
in reviewing key issues of the machinery of government. Many were puzzled
why the prime minister would ask a minister, occupying a junior portfolio at
that, to lead such an exercise.
In any event, the ongoing constitutional problems, together with the staging
of a national referendum on a proposal to renew the Constitution, not only dom-
inated the media, but also the prime minister's own agenda. De Cotret submit-
ted his report on time, but the one person who could give it life - the prime
minister - had other preoccupations. The Constitution and dealing with the
aftermath of the failed Charlottetown Accord remained priority issues for
Ottawa throughout the summer and fall of 1992. In addition, the prime minister
144 The Play
was considering his own future and was hardly in the mood to rethink his Cabi-
net, particularly its membership. The De Cotret report was put on hold.
Still, all was not lost. If nothing else, the exercise proved to be a good dry run
for the Privy Council Office. It revealed that a widespread consensus existed
among ministers and permanent officials that the existing machinery of govern-
ment was lacking on several fronts. Finally, it confirmed, once again, the view
held in the Privy Council Office that the best time to introduce sweeping
changes to the machinery of government is during a transition - when there is a
change of government, when a new leader is elected to lead the governing
party, or following a general election even if the government is re-elected.
Machinery of government people had tried to make substantial changes to
government organizations in 1988 at the start of Mulroney's second mandate.
They felt that there were too many ministers and too many departments, with
the result that the administration of government had become fragmented. Min-
isters took too many issues to Cabinet committees for resolution and all too
often acted as the mouthpiece for some interest groups. This, in turn, was giving
rise to all kinds of problems: there was interdepartmental bickering and a lack
of policy coherence, officials were constantly fighting for turf, and government
departments and programs were working at cross-purposes. In addition, there
were too many spending ministers clamouring for a larger piece of the pie, a pie
that was increasingly being financed through borrowed money. Lastly, it was
felt that with a forty-member Cabinet, many interest groups could too easily
pitch their message directly at the Cabinet table since they could easily identify
one minister who would happily take up their cause if only because it was his
departmental responsibility to do so.
PCO saw a chance to introduce change in the machinery of government in
the 1992 or 1993 transition, in anticipation of a change of government or a
change in prime minister. The then clerk of the Privy Council, Glen Shortliffe,
opted for a strong hands-on approach in managing the transition planning exer-
cise. The 1993 transition was special in that, as was the case in 1984, there
would perhaps be more than one transition. Kim Campbell became the new
leader of the Progressive Conservative Party (and, therefore, prime minister) in
June 1993, but a further change of government was of course possible follow-
ing a federal election that would be held no later than the fall of that year.
Glen Shortliffe and his staff identified four basic options to reform the gov-
ernment organization. Shortliffe submitted these to Prime Minister Campbell
presenting the pros and cons of each. In the end, Campbell accepted Shortliffe's
advice and opted for 'the most radical of the four viable options.'
108
 She only
added a few more ministers, to bring the total to twenty-four.
Though Campbell, as Cabinet minister, had in the past shown little interest in
The Privy Council Office 145
government organization issues, she embraced Shortliffe's transition recom-
mendations on government restructuring. Much like John Turner, who in 1984
had abolished the coordinating ministries of state, Campbell was able to make a
clear break with the past and show that a new hand was at the tiller. As Patrick
Weller pointed out, 'She had nothing to lose from the dramatic gesture. If she
lost, any difficulties would not be hers. If she won, there would be time to sort
out the problems. Unlike most policy areas where the announcement long antic-
ipates any consequences in the community, the public impact of machinery of
government changes is immediate - even if the problems of implementation
will be delayed, often not finally settled for some years."
09
 However, like
Turner, Campbell went down to a resounding defeat at the polls only a few
months after taking office.
The clerk of the Privy Council established an Implementation Board which
he chaired and whose task was to oversee the early implementation phase of the
restructuring. Again, the central agencies were well represented on the board.
Peter Aucoin writes that the board included the 'Secretary of the Treasury
Board, the Chair of the Public Service Commission, the Deputy Secretary to the
Cabinet for machinery of government, and the prime minister's chief of staff. It
was subsequently expanded to include a few deputy ministers.'
110
The Treasury Board secretariat also played a key role in the first implementa-
tion phase. It was asked to provide a proposed program structure to the reorga-
nized departments and new expenditure targets. It was also directed to develop
'savings targets' for all departments. In the end, the Program branch in the
Treasury Board secretariat played an important role not only in the implementa-
tion phase but also in some of the events and the planning leading to the June
1993 announcement. The board's staff provided key information to PCO offi-
cials on budgets, staff complements, and departmental organization. The Public
Service Commission subsequently played a critical role in human resource
management in the implementation phase.
PCO officials envisaged three phases to the implementation: the first would
involve the head office operations of the restructured departments and senior
personnel issues; the second would deal with regional operations; and the third
would review what the federal government should and should not be doing. A
PCO document reads, 'A third phase will begin later this year and will include a
fundamental review of roles and services.' The document was distributed to all
federal government employees on 9 August 1993. In the end, phase III became
the program review exercise launched by the Chretien government shortly after
it came to office
 m
Some senior members of the federal Liberal Party were critical of the reorga-
nization. Marcel Masse, a former clerk of the Privy Council but now a Liberal
146 The Play
candidate, argued that the government should have first examined its activities
and decided what it wanted to keep, shed, or reform. Masse was also critical of
the secretive ways in which the changes were developed and planned, with no
proper analysis and debate about the role of the federal government.
112
 Masse
was not alone in his criticism.
In his review of the 1993 reorganization, Peter Aucoin writes that the centre of
government was far too secretive and heavy-handed in planning the reorganiza-
tion. He was also critical of its part in the implementation phases. He writes, 'The
centre reduced the discretion of departments by applying a number of conditions.
Chief among these were directives and targets concerning the streamlining of
corporate services and the rationalization of regional structures. This approach
ran directly counter to the new philosophy of management that the centre, par-
ticularly the Treasury Board Secretariat, had been preaching ...'"
3
 Aucoin adds
that PCO's decision to manage the restructuring in 'considerable secrecy' came
at a price. For one thing, he argues that PCO 'denied' itself the advantages of hav-
ing advice from a wide range of participants knowledgeable about government
operations, notably senior officials from line departments. He also insists that the
centre was sending out a signal to the senior executives (and presumably minis-
ters) in line departments that they could not be trusted with state secrets.
114
Notwithstanding Masse's criticism, the newly elected Chretien government
largely left the reorganization intact. The one exception was the decision to
establish a Department of Public Security. This had been designed to bring
together the former portfolio responsibilities of the solicitor general (the federal
police, the security and intelligence agency, the federal prison system, and the
parole service); immigration policy, selection, enforcement, and appeals from
the former Department of Employment and Immigration; the passport office
from the Department of External Affairs and International Trade; and the bor-
der inspection and control service from the Department of National Revenue -
Customs and Excise.
115
 Chretien, in opposition, vowed to undo the change if
elected. Once in office, he re-established the solicitor general portfolio and
established a new portfolio of Citizenship and Immigration. With that excep-
tion, though, Chretien essentially stayed with Kim Campbell's streamlined
Cabinet and new government organization. He also pursued phase III, the pro-
gram review phase.
In the end, Chretien happily inherited what Kim Campbell delivered. What
Campbell delivered in turn was something that the Privy Council Office had
been envisaging for some time. Still, Glen Shortliffe, a key player in the reorga-
nization and at the time clerk of the Privy Council, stressed that Kim Campbell
alone made the call on the restructuring. He explained: 'Sure, I advised, but I
didn't decide.'
116
The Privy Council Office 147
It is clear that PCO did not advise that the centre of government be
restructured. Manion's advice produced for the De Cotret exercise was
ignored. Central agencies were left largely untouched, except for the Office
of the Comptroller General, which was merged with the Treasury Board sec-
retariat. However, this development had already begun in 1987, when the
comptroller general began to report to the president of the Treasury Board
through the secretary of the Treasury Board. No attempt was made to rebuild
the office along the lines suggested by John Manion. The Federal Provincial
Relations Office was substantially cut back and what was left of it was
moved over to the Privy Council Office. But the failed Charlottetown Accord
essentially dictated this action. The office has subsequently been integrated in
the PCO but it has again grown in size to its pre-Charlottetown days. The
Privy Council Office, meanwhile, was left virtually untouched, as was the
Public Service Commission, the Department of Finance, and the Treasury
Board secretariat.
In an interview, I put the question to Glen Shortliffe - why did you not advise
that central agencies also needed to be restructured? He was, of course, well
aware of Manion's earlier work. He said that the decision to leave things as is
was 'a judgment call.' It was essentially decided that one could blow everything
up by overloading the agenda. He explained that Parliament had recently passed
the first amendment to the Public Service Employment Act in twenty-five years.
To rethink the role of central agencies would have required changes to legisla-
tion governing the Public Service Commission, and pressing the point could
have compromised all the other changes.
117
The above explains perhaps why no effort was made to change the Public
Service Commission. But what about the other central agencies - PCO,
Finance, Treasury Board secretariat, even the Prime Minister's Office? This too
was a judgment call. One former senior PCO official explains that to have over-
hauled these central agencies, the clerk of the Privy Council would 'have had to
bring onside the heads of these central agencies to make it happen. He decided
not to do so." '
8
 In short, there are two sets of rules and procedures, one for line
departments and another for central agencies. The clerk did not think it was
necessary to 'bring onside' the heads of the line departments being restructured.
In fact, he did not even see the need to inform them beforehand of what was
about to happen to their departments.
But on this point Shortliffe is no different than earlier clerks. For example, in
the case of the 1982 government reorganization for economic development,
neither the minister nor the deputy minister affected by the reorganization was
informed - let alone consulted - before the reorganization was fully defined and
ready for its public announcement.
148 The Play
Intergovernmental Relations
Briefing material for ministers prepared by the Privy Council Office makes it
clear that 'the Prime Minister has direct responsibility for the conduct of federal-
provincial relations.''
I9
 The reason, PCO officials explain, is that only the prime
minister is in a position to intervene in an area assigned to one of his colleagues
to assert the primacy of broader federal-provincial relations considerations over
the specific programs or policies for which a minister may be responsible. They
add that relations with the provinces have grown in such importance over the
past thirty years or so that they now permeate virtually every area of federal gov-
ernment activity. Only the prime minister, they insist, can take a government-
wide perspective and ensure that arrangements or programs that may appear to
be highly desirable in a particular area do not have implications inconsistent
with the general approach to intergovernmental relations.
The prime minister can hardly do this alone or on the back of an envelope
before Cabinet meetings. He needs assistance, and the kind of help he needs
goes beyond the expertise available in his own immediate office. For this rea-
son, there has been a capacity at the centre since the mid-1970s dedicated
exclusively to federal-provincial relations.
The head of the intergovernmental group cautions ministers to keep his offi-
cials informed of developments in their areas of responsibility that could affect
the federal-provincial relationship. This is the only way, he argues, that his
group can play the lead role in coordinating the prime minister's bilateral and
multilateral meetings with provincial premiers. He also strongly encourages
ministers and their departments to keep abreast of general developments in fed-
eral-provincial relations and the government's overall approach to the conduct
of intergovernmental affairs by consulting his group. Lastly, he reminds minis-
ters to address federal-provincial considerations in all memoranda and discus-
sion papers submitted to Cabinet.
Trudeau established a stand-alone central agency dealing with federal-
provincial relations in 1975 and appointed Gordon Robertson, former clerk of
the Privy Council and secretary to the Cabinet, to head it up. Robertson essen-
tially turned a relatively small unit housed in PCO into a full-fledged central
agency - the Federal-Provincial Relations Office - and ever since federal-
provincial relations have enjoyed a strong presence at the centre of Ottawa's
decision-making process. This is not to suggest, however, that responsibility for
federal-provincial relations has always enjoyed separate central agency status.
It has alternately been a part of PCO or had its own separate status. It has never,
however, shrunk to pre-1975 days, when it had only about eight officials dedi-
cated to it. The most recent change occurred on 25 June 1993 when the Privy
The Privy Council Office 149
Council Office was again given responsibility for federal-provincial relations
through the reintegration of the Federal-Provincial Relations Office into PCO
with the establishment of the Intergovernmental Affair s Office.
120
Still, this office is headed by a deputy minister who serves 'the Minister of
Intergovernmental Affairs and, through the Clerk of the Privy Council and Sec-
retary to the Cabinet, the Prime Minister and Cabinet.' Though he has no direct
program responsibility, he is responsible for four areas:
• policy advice and strategic planning related to national unity, the broad
federal-provincial agenda, and constitutional and legal issues;
• liaison and advice on relations with the provinces, including assessment of
provincial priorities, monitoring of policy files with important intergovern-
mental dimensions, and renewal of the federation;
• communications support on issues and initiatives with important federal-
provincial dimensions; and
• aboriginal affairs.
121
As Chart 2 shows, the head of the Intergovernmental Affairs Office directs
the work of two deputy secretaries, one responsible for intergovernmental pol-
icy and communication and the other for intergovernmental operations.
Accordingly, the organization is patterned on the PCO, which also has two dep-
uty secretaries, one responsible for plans, the other for operations. The four
deputy secretaries in PCO are on a scale ranging from DMi to DM3, with the
latter level reserved for the most senior level appointments, including the clerk
of the Privy Council and secretary to the Cabinet.
The deputy secretary of Intergovernmental Policy and Communications is
responsible for the development of strategic planning, integrated analysis, and
options and advice on policy and communications issues related to Canadian
unity and intergovernmental relations. The deputy secretary is supported by
four directors general: one is responsible for intergovernmental communica-
tions, another for policy and research, another for constitutional affairs and
intergovernmental policy, and one is responsible for strategy and plans.
122
The deputy secretary (operations), like his counterpart in PCO, directs a
hands-on team, and he is expected to work closely with the deputy secretaries
of both operations and plans at PCO 'to integrate federal-provincial consider-
ations in the assessment of policy options."
23
 He is also responsible for provid-
ing an integrated view of relations with the provinces across the government's
broad policy agenda. In addition, the deputy secretary provides advice on the
federal-provincial aspects of the aboriginal policy agenda. He also directs the
work of a director general, provincial analysis, a director general responsible
Chart 2
Intergovernmental Affairs
Deputy Minister,
Intergovernmental
Affairs
Clerk of the
Privy Council Office
Secretary to
the Cabinet
Deputy Secretary,
Intergovernmental
Policy and
Communications
Deputy Secretary
Intergovernmental
Operations
Director General,
Policy and Research
Director General,
Intergovernmental
Communications
Director General,
Constitutional
Affairs and Inter-
governmental
Policies
Director General,
Strategy and Plans
Assistant Deputy Minister
Aboriginal Affairs
Director General,
Strategic Analysis
Director General,
Provincial Analysis
Director General,
Coordination and
Advisory Services
Source: Privy Council Office, December 1997
for coordination and advisery services, another for strategic analysis, and
finally an assistant deputy minister of aboriginal affairs. These senior level offi-
cials, in turn, direct the work of at least several officials.
124
There are striking similarities in the job descriptions of officials operating in
traditional PCO units and those in intergovernmental affairs. Though officials
in both claim that the concerns of PCO and intergovernmental affairs are basi-
150 The Play
Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs
The Privy Council Office 151
cally different, there is no denying that there have been moments of tension
over turf between the two. These will surface more readily when both groups
report directly to the prime minister. At the moment, while the intergovernmen-
tal affairs group has a reporting relationship to the prime minister, it does so
through the clerk of the Privy Council.
In the early 19805, Trudeau became exasperated over 'duplications, repeti-
tions, and occasional contradictions' in the briefing material sent to him by
PCO and the Federal-Provincial Relations Office. He bluntly asked his senior
officials whether he had to coordinate their activities himself or if they some-
how could do the sorting out themselves.
125
The Privy Council Office reminded the prime minister that it was responsible
for advising him on the management of the government and in maintaining the
integrity of the Cabinet. It pointed out that the federal-provincial relations
aspect could be handled by adding a section on intergovernmental relations in
all briefing material sent to him. This would serve to avoid duplication, and cer-
tainly any contradictions. The Federal-Provincial Relations Office meanwhile
insisted that things could never be that simple. It had a mandate to advise the
prime minister on the management of the federation, which had gained in
importance in recent years and which was now equal in importance to advice on
the management of the government.
The office insisted that management of the federation permeates, and at times
even dominates, many aspects of government business. It could not be broken
down into watertight compartments or contained in one government depart-
ment. It could only work if the prime minister had a direct hand in its work and
if federal-provincial relations generally fell under his purview. The office did
not need to convince Trudeau on this point. On 12 May 1983 he had argued
before the Miscellaneous Estimates Committee that 'the Federal-Provincial
Relations Office is part of the Privy Council Office ... The purpose of that office
is to ensure there is an overview which I have always believed should come
under the Prime Minister or some ministers working directly with him, so that
indeed ministers of energy, agriculture or public works who are having business
with the provincial authorities know what the other ministers are doing and that
there be a coordinated approach.'
I26
Prime Ministers Mulroney and Chretien have followed Trudeau's lead and
both established a direct relationship with federal-provincial relations or inter-
governmental affairs. Mulroney had the secretary of Federal-Provincial Rela-
tions report either directly to him or indirectly through the clerk of the Privy
Council and a minister. Chretien has the head of intergovernmental affairs
report to him also through the clerk and a minister. This enables the prime min-
ister to have a hand in all important issues regarding federal-provincial relations.
152 The Play
The prime minister does not, of course, wish to be briefed on all federal-
provincial issues. Many are resolved at the officials level and between the
intergovernmental affairs group and one or several departments. Even line
department ministers may or may not be informed of various developments.
But the prime minister will be directly involved in all important issues, par-
ticularly those that gain media visibility. The prime minister was firmly in
charge of the failed Meech Lake and Charlottetown constitutional accords. The
two initiatives were not born out of Cabinet's collective decision-making pro-
cess. Similarly, Chretien's Verdun speech on national unity was drafted by his
key advisers and others at the centre. Cabinet was not consulted on its contents,
let alone asked to make a contribution, and Chretien read and approved every
letter Stephane Dion, the minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, sent to the
Quebec government in the summer and fall 1997 which sought to establish a
number of positions in the event Quebec voted for separation in a future refer-
endum.
127
 Cabinet was kept informed of developments in the exchange of
letters, but it was not asked to agree to their contents.
Long-serving officials in intergovernmental affairs made the case in the con-
sultations for this book that federal-provincial relations are both a 'substantive'
and 'process' matter. By this they mean that advising the prime minister on
whether, how, and when a specific initiative ought to be carried out is only part
of the job. They also have to be fully conversant with the substance of a policy
or program before advising on its implications. This, in turn, requires a capacity
to gain a proper understanding of what departments are doing and proposing.
Simply looking at what they write under 'Political Considerations' and
'Federal-Provincial Relations Considerations' headings in Cabinet documents
is not sufficient.
Put differently, federal-provincial relations are no longer just limited to con-
ferences and meetings. They cover virtually every aspect of the federal govern-
ment decision-making process. Prime ministers invariably come to believe that
provincial governments are much better at understanding this and applying it in
their decision-making process than is the federal government. They believe
that there is rarely any one-off initiative in provincial government decision
making, particularly in the case of Quebec when sovereignists hold power. The
thinking is that provincial governments have a game plan in their relations
with the federal government and that everything fits into it. The prime minister,
his office, and the Privy Council Office will push the federal government
decision-making process to do the same thing. This, in turn, means that the
Intergovernmental Affairs group and, in the past the Federal-Provincial Rela-
tions Office, will want to be present at departmental and interdepartmental
meetings to shape policies and even decisions to promote more coherence,
The Privy Council Office 153
at least from an intergovernmental perspective, in federal government pro-
gramming.
Senior PCO officials and several current and former deputy ministers insist
that provincial governments are much better at coordinating their relations with
the federal government than vice versa. One senior PCO official reports, for
example, that 'all letters coming from the Quebec Government to all federal
departments and agencies are written by two people. Imagine if we tried to do
that."
28
 The federal government does not try to do that but it does from time to
time ask one, several, or in some instances, all departments to check with the
centre of government before it launches an initiative which could have implica-
tions for federal-provincial relations, particularly in Quebec.
It appears, however, that the federal government is constantly playing catch-
up with provincial governments in their efforts to define a game plan for
federal-provincial relations. Departments are for the most part left to manage
day-to-day relations with provincial governments until a political crisis or a
media report highlighting a problem come to light. Then the centre of govern-
ment gets involved and, depending on the issue and the political circumstances,
it can 'micromanage' the file, with senior line department officials essentially
playing an advisery role.
The centre of government, however, has not been successful in defining an
overall federal-provincial strategy for line departments. One line deputy minis-
ter reports that 'this has been a problem for us. We should be able to relate what
we do to an overall government strategy. But that is not the case and we are
paying the price for it.'
129
 Senior PCO officials acknowledge that this is indeed
the case but insist that it has been the case for some time. One reports that 'until
1 came here a few years ago, we did not even know what federal-provincial
agreements existed. We had no inventory of them at the centre of government.
At least now we have an idea of what is going on. Still, there is a problem of
size. It is much easier for provinces to get their act together to establish a strat-
egy than it is for the federal government."
30
The Centre Permeates and Dominates
Officials in the Federal-Provincial Relations Office in the early 19805 told the
prime minister that they needed to brief him on many issues because the man-
agement of the federation 'permeates' and at times 'dominates' many aspects of
government business. They could just as easily have argued that the centre of
government 'permeates' and 'dominates' many aspects of government business
and that they wanted to be a full partner at the centre of government, not a part-
time one.
154 The Play
Any issue can be of interest to the centre. If the prime minister expresses an
interest in any given matter, that is reason enough for the Privy Council Office
to bring it into its own office, or at least to monitor its development very
closely. The office also scans departmental activities to see if it should get
involved, invoking an early warning system to identify issues that may create
problems for the government in future that the prime minister may wish to
review or that may gain notoriety in the media in the months ahead.
The centre holds in its own hands the key instruments of administration and
policy. It holds the power of appointment which, as Mitchell Sharp once
observed, is an important part of the structure 'by which the Prime Minister
controls the operation of the federal government.' It now prepares mandate let-
ters for ministers and deputy ministers that outline in broad terms what is
expected of them as they assume new responsibilities.
The centre is responsible for policing boundaries dividing ministers and
departments. It alone decides on mandates, on which department should be
responsible for what. It can launch a major reorganization and fundamentally
redesign the machinery of government in relative secrecy. Indeed, history tells
us that that is usually precisely how major government reorganizations are
conceived. History also tells us that, while the centre is quite prepared to
recommend major surgery on line departments, it is much more reluctant to
recommend major surgery on itself.
The centre is responsible for maintaining the integrity of the Cabinet
decision-making process. A minister who wishes to modify his departmental
policies or launch a major new initiative must do so through the cabinet pro-
cess. Failure to do so can only invite problems for the offending minister and
his department. It will also likely mean that the prime minister, a senior member
of his staff, or the clerk of the Privy Council will have a word with the minister.
But here again there are two sets of rules — one for the centre and another for
line ministers and departments. The prime minister can, at any moment, launch
a new initiative, and he will decide if he will respect the Cabinet decision-
making process. We also know that, traditionally, Canadian prime ministers
have taken a special interest in certain areas of policy which can transcend the
work of all government departments. These include federal-provincial relations,
foreign affairs, and defence and national security.
13
'
But prime ministers do not feel bound by their traditional areas of interest.
During the consultations for this study, I was informed of many instances when
they decided on their own or on the advice of one or two key advisers to under-
take a major initiative in other areas, while completely bypassing the Cabinet
decision-making process.
Prime Minister Chretien, for example, decided in September 1997 on a new
The Privy Council Office 155
millennium scholarship fund for low- to moderate-income students. He decided
to unveil the fund in his reply to the throne speech, and without consulting Cab-
inet. The cost of the fund to the federal treasury has been estimated at $2.5 bil-
lion and Chretien labelled it the 'government's most significant millennium
project."
32
1 put the question to Chretien's senior advisers - why did the prime
minister decide to ignore the Cabinet process in the millennium scholarship
fund, given its importance both in political and financial terms to the govern-
ment? The answer - Tf we had respected the process, the idea would never
have come out at the other end the way we wanted it. Intergovernmental affairs
would have argued that the matter was provincial, not federal; the Human
Resources Department would have argued that the idea was in its jurisdiction,
while Heritage Canada would have made a similar claim. The prime minister
asked one of us [a PMO official] to call Paul [Martin, minister of Finance] and
his deputy minister to let them know what we were doing. In that way he got
what he wanted.'
133
The minister of Finance could have pointed out that Chretien not only
ignored the Cabinet decision-making process, but also that his decision flew in
the face of the program review exercise he, his department, and the Privy Coun-
cil Office had completed a few years ago. Underpinning that exercise were five
fundamental questions designed to determine if the federal government should
continue delivering certain programs and activities. The millennium scholar-
ship fund would not have met this test. A line minister coming forward with this
initiative would have been told, as officials at the centre readily admit, that his
idea would go nowhere.'
34
Yet, the minister of Finance, and for that matter the prime minister, are con-
sidered the 'guardians' in shaping the government's revenue and expenditure
budget. They are the ones always ready to put the brakes on proposed new
spending plans. They, together with the president of the Treasury Board, must
confront the spenders - line ministers and their departments. There is now a
whole body of literature describing the struggle between the guardians and
spenders in shaping government budgets.'
35
 But as the next chapter argues, the
relationship between guardians and spenders has evolved considerably in recent
years.
6
Finance: Let There Be No Light
In discussing the budget process with some of his close advisers, Prime Minis-
ter Jean Chretien once observed that he could not afford any light to show
between his minister of Finance and himself.
1
 Chretien was not referring just to
public disagreement. He also meant that there could not be any disagreement
between the two before Cabinet colleagues. Accordingly, the bulk of the discus-
sions between the prime minister and the minister of Finance over budget mat-
ters take place in private in the prime minister's parliamentary office or over
lunch at 24 Sussex.
The Department of Finance and its minister occupy a position of pre-
eminence in Ottawa. No minister of Finance has ever been fired, and the sudden
resignation of John Turner as Finance minister in the mid-1970s caused, in the
view of many, irreparable political damage to the Trudeau government, which
went down to defeat in the next election.
2
 The minister and Department of
Finance cover the entire range of government activity. They are concerned with
fiscal, and tax policy, federal-provincial relations, government expenditures,
international trade and finance, and social and economic policies. In short, they
are the guardians of the public purse.
They are also the government's economic adviser, a function they jealously
guard. They do not easily tolerate other departments and agencies offering alter-
native views on economic policy. The department prides itself on holding 'quite
firmly the reins of economic, fiscal, and financial policy' and on being 'consid-
erably more influential than the US Treasury.'
3
 It is well known, for example,
that the Finance department was the key player in the undoing of the Economic
Council of Canada in 1992. It will be recalled that Don Mazankowski announced
the abolition of the council in his budget speech that year. Irving Brecher, emer-
itus professor of economics at McGill University and former vice-chairman of
the council, writes that the 'Department of Finance, the self-proclaimed govern-
Finance: Let There Be No Light 157
mental fountainhead of economic wisdom ... had been uneasy about the
Council's influence on economic policy, even though it was not designed to
act - and did not act - as a competing source of ongoing advice to the federal
cabinet.'
4
The department's intellectual roots now firmly lie in the neoclassical school
of economics. Certainly when Bob Bryce was its deputy minister (1963-70),
the department had a Keynesian orientation. But Keynesian economics fell out
of favour as the government's fiscal situation deteriorated alarmingly, and the
department rediscovered its earlier roots.
5
 It is now largely anti-interventionist,
and there is no doubt that it has a great deal of confidence in the allocation of
resources by the market. Its opposition to the great majority of proposed initia-
tives from departments is as predictable as its advice is inflexible. One deputy
minister argues that 'the department has an economic theology. It is a theology
that must not be challenged either from within the department or from other
departments.'
6
 Accordingly, not only should there be no light between the
prime minister and the minister of Finance, the department's economic theol-
ogy should not be exposed to a light other than its own.
The purpose of this chapter is to review the role of the minister and Depart-
ment of Finance. They too operate at the centre of government. Arthur Kroeger,
a former deputy minister who served in several departments, observed that
'through the budget, [they can] define the content of the entire government.'
7
He later wrote that 'governing is a continuous process of balancing aspirations
and reality, of reconciling infinite wants and finite means. These are quite
essentially the responsibilities of the minister of Finance, and in any cabinet
only the prime minister occupies a more important position.'
8
 Still, the power
and influence of the minister and Department of Finance are not static. Their
ability to define the content of government can vary, and this chapter explains
why. It also outlines what the department does, explores the kind of relationship
it has with other government actors, and discusses how it makes decisions.
What the Department Does
The Department of Finance outlines in considerable detail its organization, pro-
grams, and responsibilities in part III of the government annual expenditure
plan.
9
 This material is readily accessible, and there is no need to reiterate here
the information contained in that document. Suffice it to note that the department
employs about 700 full-time equivalents. It differs from most of its 6-7 coun-
terparts in that it does not review departmental spending in detail. The Finance
or Treasury ministries in Japan, Germany, Britain, Italy, and France all not only
prepare their government's, budget but also tend to carry out program-by-
Chart3
Organization of the Department of Finance
Deputy Minister
Source: Department of Finance, November 1997
program spending reviews and perform government accounting and financial
control functions. In Canada, the Treasury Board secretariat reviews program
spending and it is also responsible for accounting and financial control.
Accordingly, the federal Department of Finance is, comparatively speaking,
smaller than its G-7 counterparts, and it tends to focus mostly on policy and
program analysis. It also has very limited program administration. Unlike the
case in France, for example, the Department of Finance is not responsible for
revenue collection. Finance officials insist, however, that even though the
department is 'small and focussed exclusively on policy and analysis ... [it is] as
powerful as most of its G-j counterparts in designing the economic agenda and
moving it forward.'
10
 They point out that there is very little policy content in
revenue collection and that it does not matter a great deal where the capacity to
add numbers is ultimately located in government. Moreover, they are quite
happy not to be burdened with these functions since they would detract from the
more important macroeconomic and budgetary issues. The department defines
its organization along functional lines (see Chart 3).
The Economic and Fiscal Policy branch advises on the country's economic
circumstances and prospects and on the government's fiscal framework, includ-
ing the revenue and expenditure outlook and financing requirements. It also
158 The Play
Associate
Deputy Minister
Legal Services
Counsel to the
Department of
Finance
Consultations and
Communications
Corporate
Services
Economic and
Fiscal Policy
International
Trade and
Finance
Tax Policy Financial
Sector
Policy
Federal-
Provincial
Relations and
Social Policy
Finance: Let There Be No Light 159
plays the lead role in preparing the government's budget. In addition, it defines
the government's overall economic strategy and reviews and evaluates the pro-
grams and activities of government departments in the areas of industrial,
regional, resource, environment, and science and technology policy. The branch
also 'advises on the consistency of the microeconomic policy approaches in
individual sector areas [and] provides advice on specific microeconomic policy
and program issues."'
The Tax Policy branch conducts ongoing reviews of existing tax measures
and is responsible for developing new tax policies or adjusting existing ones
whenever necessary. It also prepares analyses of federal-provincial tax mea-
sures and recommends what, if any, changes are needed to maintain or
strengthen the effectiveness and efficiency of the national tax system. The
International Trade and Finance branch prepares briefing material and recom-
mends positions for the minister and the prime minister for their participation in
various bilateral and multilateral negotiations and conferences. It is also respon-
sible for program management of Canada's participation in the 6-7, G-io, IMF,
World Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and APEC.
The Financial Sector branch manages the public debt and advises on financial
sector issues. It is also responsible for advising on the regulatory framework
governing financial institutions.
12
The Federal-Provincial Relations and Social Policy branch advises the minis-
ter and the government on fiscal federalism and social policy in general. It man-
ages the federal-provincial transfer payments program and advises on federal-
provincial fiscal arrangements. It is this branch, for example, that advises the
government on the financing of the Canada Pension Plan.
13
The department also has direct responsibility for several programs. It over-
sees transfer payments to the territorial governments, which are determined on
a formula-based mechanism, and unconditional payments made to the prov-
inces under conditions established by the terms of Confederation.
The department manages the fiscal equalization program, which consists of
unconditional transfer payments to selected provinces. As is well known, the
Constitution requires that Parliament and the government of Canada make
'equalization payments to ensure that provincial governments have sufficient
revenues to provide reasonably comparable levels of public services at reason-
ably comparable levels of taxation."
4
 Payments are determined by a fairly com-
plex formula which compares each province's per capita capacity against the
average per capita capacity of five middle provinces. These five provinces
exclude the richest province - Alberta - and the four poorest - the Atlantic
provinces.'
5
 The department is also directly responsible for the government's
fiscal stabilization program, which provides unconditional transfer payments to
160 The Play
a province or provinces to accommodate 'over the year decline, exceeding five
percent, in its revenues caused by changing economic circumstances.'
16
Lastly, the department is responsible for managing the Canada Health and
Social Transfer (CHST), transfers to the provinces and territories designed to
support the provision of health, post-secondary education, social assistance, and
services. The CHST program replaced the Established Program Financing Act
and the Canada Assistance Plan in 1996-7. The transfers are now made through
a combination of cash and tax points. They involve a substantial amount of pub-
lic funds, amounting to about $27 billion in fiscal year I996-7.
17
 When these
payments are combined with those made under the fiscal equalization program
and transfers to the territorial governments, the Department of Finance spends
over $20 billion in cash (i.e., excluding tax points) a year (1998-9), which rep-
resents about 15 per cent of the government's expenditure budget.
When one looks back ten, twenty, or twenty-five years, one is struck by the
degree of stability in the organization of the Department of Finance. Indeed, its
1978 organization chart is not very different from the one above.
18
 Department
officials maintain that this should not come as a surprise, since the basic
requirements of the government budget-making process has changed little. One
former senior Finance official explains: 'We still need a capacity to look at the
tax system, at economic circumstances, at projected revenues, at proposed
spending plans, and at government programs. Sometimes things do not change
because they should not change. There are not seven ways, or even two ways, to
prepare a budget and to provide advice on economic policy."
9
The Department of Finance has also long prided itself as being the 'largest
and best' department of economics in Canada. Many of its former deputy min-
isters were noted economists in their own right, and there is no denying that
they have left their mark on Canadian public policy. They include W. Clifford
Clark, Robert B. Bryce, and Tommy Shoyama.
20
Twenty years ago, a Department of Finance official observed that 'we are the
economics powerhouse in Ottawa... I work in the best economics department in
the country, have the type of resources and staff with which I can really do eco-
nomic analysis, and, above all, have a chance to be in on decisions which have a
tremendous impact on the economy. Departments are constantly coming up
here with ill-conceived ideas which would either screw up the economy and/or
employ an economic instrument, like taxation, for a social or cultural goal. I
find it satisfying and exciting to see these policy proposals shot down ... purely
on the grounds of economics.'
21
 These observations are not dissimilar to what I
heard from Finance officials ten years ago when I was carrying out research for
a book on government spending, or from what I heard more recently from
Finance officials while preparing for this book. They still maintain that the
Finance: Let There Be No Light 161
department is the best economics department in the country. One senior official
suggested that 'the way we work in here is much like a graduate school. We
argue, we debate issues at great length.'
22
But this is not to imply for a moment that they do not stake out policy posi-
tions. In an interview in late 1997, the deputy minister of Finance said, 'In this
department you can't be a shrinking violet in the public policy debate.'
23
 It is
made clear to all staff that there ought to be no sign of weakness in putting for-
ward Finance's position at interdepartmental meetings. Tom Kent, a former
head of the Prime Minister's Office, deputy minister in several federal depart-
ments, and a keen observer of government, writes that 'the Department of
Finance can ... be a special problem. It regards its territory as involving, more
than others, matters of policy as well as administration that professionals under-
stand and amateurs, whether politicians or civil servants of lesser departments,
do not. The attitude readily develops, among some Finance officials ... that
everyone else should simply accept their word as to what will work and what
will not.'
24
 David Good, in his study of the budget process, quotes a former
deputy minister of a line department who said that 'Finance has always had the
strongest deputy ministers. They lecture the cabinet as if they were ministers
themselves.'
25
There is a strong corporate culture and firmly established ways of doing
things in the Department of Finance that seem to survive changes in ministers
and deputy ministers. For one thing, perhaps because the department has so few
programs to manage, or because those it does have do not lend themselves to
management, given that they are formula-based (e.g., equalization), the depart-
ment and its senior officials do not attach much importance to management
issues or even how best to manage the department's resources.
The federal government established in 1988 a new management centre, the
Canadian Centre for Management Development (CCMD), to promote manage-
ment development and also to conduct research in public sector management.
The Department of Finance has scarcely been present in CCMD activities, and
Finance officials will, much more often than not, avoid attending management
courses. In consultations with present and former Finance officials, the New
Public Management was hardly ever discussed, despite occasional efforts on
my part to do so. It is not too much of an exaggeration to report that the topic is
of no interest to them.
Finance officials, however, take great pride in their ability to work very well
with their ministers. One is struck by the number of hours they spend briefing
their ministers every week. This was as true when Marc Lalonde was Finance
minister in the Trudeau government as it was when Michael Wilson was minister
in the Mulroney government - and as it is with Paul Martin in the Chretien gov-
162 The Play
ernment. Finance officials can spend anywhere between eight and thirty hours a
week briefing their minister, with the length of time increasing as the budget date
gets closer. No minister in a line department comes close to this level.
New employees in Finance quickly discover that they are in the business of
saving public money, or protecting the public purse. This was true even when
Bob Bryce, a Keynesian, was deputy minister, and it is even more so today.
Bryce explained that 'much of the work of the Department of Finance is of the
nature of a critical appraisal of the proposals of others.'
26
 One former finance
official recounted his early experience in the department.
Shortly after I went to the Department, I was asked to prepare a briefing for the Minister
on a proposal from the Department of Health and Welfare. I concluded that the proposal
was a good one and I recommended that our Minister support it. I sent the note up the
line but a few days later I was called into the Deputy Minister's office. He made it very
clear that I had prepared a stupid note. 'What if the note had gone ahead and the Minister
would have supported the proposal before his colleagues?' he asked. He then explained
that there were many departments and agencies and thousands and thousands of officials
whose job is to prepare spending proposals. Our job is to oppose them. We are the inter-
nal opposition in government. He concluded by asking, 'if we don't protect the Treasury,
who do you think will?'
27
Quite apart from its role in the budget process, Finance plays its opposition
role to spending proposals in various ways. Officials will oppose new proposals
at interdepartmental committee meetings, in bilateral meetings, or in exchange
of correspondence with departments. You can always count on finance offi-
cials, reported one senior departmental official, to pour cold water on proposals.
The minister, after having been properly briefed by his officials, will also voice
his views at Cabinet committee or bilateral meetings with his colleagues and in
discussions with the prime minister and his staff.
How the Department of Finance is organized and how department officials
regard the role and importance of their department may not have changed much
over the years, but how the department is regarded by others and how effective
it may be in the Ottawa decision-making process has. Though it always oper-
ates from a position of considerable strength, the department's influence has
waned and waxed over the years.
Finance's Changing Fortunes
Finance was different in the pre-Trudeau days. For one thing, the minister and
Department of Finance, particularly from the end of the Second World War up
Finance: Let There Be No Light 163
to the first few years of the Trudeau government, were in the business of sorting
out when to inflate, when to deflate, when to do nothing, when to cut spending,
or when to increase it.
Moreover, the minister and the Department of Finance 'acted almost unilat-
erally' in preparing the budget.
28
 Walter Gordon, Finance minister in the Pear-
son government, provides a detailed account of the budget-making process in
the 19608 in his A Political Memoir. He writes, 'I went over the budget with the
Prime Minister several times very carefully ... The budget was my responsibil-
ity, of course, but it was reassuring to know that the Prime Minister was so
pleased with it. I asked him if he would like me to show it to Tom Kent, his per-
sonal adviser on policy matters, and whether I could properly do this under the
general principle of budget secrecy. He instructed me not to do so.'
29
It is important to note that Pearson's instructions applied not just to his own
staff. Gordon also writes that he asked Pearson whether it would 'not be wise to
discuss the budget proposals with a committee of cabinet, including Lamon-
tagne and Sharp in particular, in view of the fact that it introduced so many new
features. Pearson replied that if we brought in a group of Cabinet ministers, they
would all want to make changes ... Therefore, the budget proposals were not
discussed in Cabinet until either the morning of their presentation to the House
or perhaps the day before. No one voiced any serious reservations about any
of the proposals, although quite obviously they had no real chance to study
them.'
30
For his part, Pearson writes in his own memoirs that the budget was indeed
prepared by Gordon and that he 'was shown in the course of two meetings the
important aspects of what the Minister of Finance was proposing.'
31
 Pearson
does not report that anyone from his staff or from the Privy Council Office
attended the briefings. Yet the opposition made an issue of the fact that Walter
Gordon had hired three experts from outside the Department of Finance and had
them sworn to secrecy as temporary officials. He later stood in the Commons to
say, 'I take full personal responsibility for the budget.'
In his memoirs, John Diefenbaker does not spend a great deal of time dealing
with the budget process in his government. He reports, however, on bilateral
discussions with his minister of Finance, Donald Flemming, and on memoranda
dealing with sensitive budgetary issues which he received from him. There is
no indication that this information was shared further.
32
Trudeau challenged Finance's preeminent position by not allowing it to
escape his strong desire to introduce checks and balances in the Ottawa deci-
sion-making process, to promote rational debate in government, and to avoid
the 'abuses and excesses of a monopoly of ideas advanced by a single author-
ity.'
33
 Looking back, it is now clear that the Department of Finance which
164 The Play
Trudeau bequeathed to his successors, and which they have largely left intact, is
vastly different from the one that operated from Confederation to the early
19708. Before Trudeau, powerful mandarins settled in the department and
became virtually unchallenged experts in public finance and macroeconomic
policy. An indication of this is the fact that in the 100 years from 1870 to 1970,
there were only seven deputy ministers of Finance.
34
 From 1970 to today, we
have had ten, which means that they now stay in their position on average only
three years.
35
Trudeau looked to the Privy Council Office to introduce a number of specific
measures to check the 'excesses of a monopoly of ideas' which emerged from
the Department of Finance. When he was told that his proposed changes would
upset the department, he is reported to have responded that Finance had to be
upset. 'Otherwise the minister there would be as powerful as I am.'
36
One of the greatest political strengths of the minister of Finance comes from
the department's monopoly control of macroeconomic policy. Trudeau, in his
desire to institute countervailing forces, broke Finance's monopoly, much to the
dismay of the minister and his senior officials. Apart from introducing a capac-
ity in the PCO to advise on macroeconomic policy, Trudeau later established
two new central agencies responsible for managing the PEMS process, one on
the economic side, and the other for social policy. These new central agencies
would constitute new streams of policy advice at the centre of government and,
if nothing else, would challenge Finance's monopoly of ideas.
Trudeau created a new position, 'Senior Economic Advisor,' in the PCO, a
position which has remained on the organizational chart to this day. He made it
clear that he wanted the PCO, on occasion his own office, and certain economic
departments to come forward with new ideas and not to hesitate to voice opin-
ions on the direction of the government's macroeconomic policies that chal-
lenged the Department of Finance. For example, Finance fought the PMO and
the PCO over the introduction of price and wage controls in the mid-1970s and
lost.
37
 They also fought over a number of other issues, including the budget. A
Finance official reported in the 19705 that his department had reached the point
'where the budget is going to have to be negotiated through the entire cabinet.
Much of this is PCO's doing.'
38
In addition, the Trudeau government launched a major priorities-setting exer-
cise in early fall 1974, with staff from his own office and the PCO responsible
for its coordination. The Department of Finance, meanwhile, was essentially
left on the outside looking in. Staff from PCO and PMO were asked to inter-
view each minister and to ask two questions: 'What does the government have
to do during its mandate in order to win the next election?' and 'What do you
want to be remembered for having done should the government lose the next
Finance: Let There Be No Light 165
election?' The hope was that these interviews would give rise to major new pol-
icy thrusts and that no more than about half a dozen overarching priorities
would be identified by full Cabinet at a special Cabinet retreat in November. To
ensure that the exercise was taken seriously, the prime minister met with all
deputy ministers to stress its importance and to ask them for their full support.
39
Richard French writes that 'the priorities exercise represents a rather heroic
attempt to plan.'
40
 He also writes, however, that the exercise failed badly. For
one thing, PMO and PCO were never able to limit the number of priority areas
to half a dozen, and in the end sixteen were identified. PMO and PCO officials
quickly concluded that ministers and departments lacked 'vision' and simply
reverted to a shopping list approach to the exercise by pushing their pet
projects. They were also unable to keep the exercise on schedule and the pro-
cess, as well as decisions, was continually pushed back. More importantly,
'economic and political events had evolved beyond it [i.e., the priorities exer-
cise]. The wage-price spiral continued unabated. John Turner, the minister of
Finance, pondered his political options and ... the Prime Minister's Office ...
smelled disaster.'
41
It was wage and price controls, not the priorities-setting exercise, that effec-
tively redefined the public policy agenda. George Radwanski argues that wage
and price controls, combined with the collapse of the priorities exercise, proved
to be a turning point for the government. He argues, 'From that point on,
Trudeau and his government found themselves doing exactly what the ill-fated
and politically costly priorities exercise had been designed to avoid: they were
reduced to stumbling along without a plan, racing to catch up to events, impro-
vising desperately.'
42
Ian Stewart, economic adviser in the Privy Council Office, and who acted as
a counterweight to the Department of Finance, played a key role in the develop-
ment of the anti-inflation program. He also wrote a discussion paper, The Way
Ahead, published by PCO in 1976. The paper, widely read, at least in Ottawa,
sought to outline 'the economic and social directions the government [intended]
to take after controls end. '
43
 The paper was middle of the road, stressing the
importance of the market, but also pointing to the need for social goals and
emphasizing public consultations.
44
 It was also the kind of paper which the
Department of Finance would not have produced, and Finance officials made
no attempt to hide their disapproval. In any event, the document had limited
impact. The unexpected persistence of stagflation - that is, inflation, slow
growth, and high government deficits - were posing new problems for Ottawa,
and some, in particular Finance officials, were calling for new stringent fiscal
measures.
John Turner was not the only one to resign from the Department of Finance.
166 The Play
Simon Riesman, the department's deputy minister, also resigned in the mid-
19705. He felt that the department was being 'downgraded' because the govern-
ment no longer relied on it for economic advice. Mr Riesman 'found himself
unable to control the economic policy advice being tendered the government:
sometimes he didn't even know what the advice was.'
45
 Put differently,
Finance's theology was being both challenged and ignored at the very centre of
government. Light began to appear between the prime minister and his minister
of Finance, and the minister decided to part company. The department's deputy
minister also left, convinced that the department's credibility and raison d'etre
were being challenged not so much by spending ministers and their departments
as by the centre of government itself.
It would not be the only time Trudeau would allow light to appear between
himself and his minister of Finance. In 1978 it became clear the government
had not been able to wrestle inflation to the ground as Trudeau had promised,
and the government was still trying to deal with a stubborn deficit, despite four
years of restraint. Trudeau returned from a trip to Bonn, where he had discussed
government restraint measures with West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt,
determined to introduce new spending cuts to deal with the deficit rather than
rely on restraint.
Trudeau's advisers had some bad news for him on his return from Bonn.
They told him that the government would not be able to keep the growth in
spending in line with increases in GNP unless spending cuts were made. In
addition, they reported that the latest public opinion surveys revealed that he
was widely perceived as having only limited interest in economic policies.
46
Trudeau decided virtually on the spot to deliver a speech on the economy on
national television and to announce that 'we must have a major re-ordering of
government priorities. We must reduce the size of government.' Unless this was
done, he declared, 'Canadians within several years would almost certainly be
faced with a fiscal crisis.'
47
 He also announced that $2 billion would be cut
from federal expenditures.
The cuts would later become known in Ottawa as 'the guns of August'
because no one other than Trudeau and a few, key advisers knew they were
coming. Jean Chretien, then Trudeau's minister of Finance, was left com-
pletely in the dark. Chretien would later write that the cuts made him 'look like
a fool. Normally, a minister of Finance would resign in such an embarrassing
situation. I decided not to mainly because I was worried about the effect of a
French-Canadian senior minister resigning when a separatist government was
in power in Quebec.'
48
 There is no doubt that this was one of the low points for
the Department of Finance. A minister of Finance was again pondering his
political future in light of Trudeau's initiative, a fact that did not go unnoticed
Finance: Let There Be No Light 167
in the department. In addition, the minister was losing a public relations battle
with his Quebec counterpart, Jacques Parizeau, over a tax question, a fact that
was open knowledge to the prime minister and his colleagues.
49
 The deficit
was also growing, and it appeared that there was little the department could do
about it.
Things did not improve much for the department during the short-lived Clark
government. Indeed, it was the Crosbie budget that brought down the Clark
government and ended its brief hold on power. Many observers pinned the
blame on the Department of Finance for the government's downfall by produc-
ing a politically naive budget for a minority government.
The department was again in the ascendancy, however briefly, in the early
19805. On returning to power, Trudeau decided to concentrate his energy on a
few issues: national unity, energy, and, subsequently, an international peace ini-
tiative. He personally handled the national unity file together with a few key
advisers, including Michael Kirby and Michael Pitfield. He asked his former
principal secretary and now his Quebec political lieutenant, Marc Lalonde, to
handle the energy file.
He appointed as Finance minister Allan J. MacEachen, one of his most senior
and trusted ministers. MacEachen had masterminded Trudeau's return to lead
the Liberal Party into the 1980 election campaign. It will be recalled that
Trudeau had resigned as leader of the Liberal Party a few months before the
Clark government lost a confidence motion in Parliament. MacEachen gave a
passionate speech to caucus, urging its members to call on Trudeau to lead the
party into the next election campaign. One minister who was present at the cau-
cus meeting reports, 'MacEachen gave the finest political speech I have heard
in my life. There was just no doubt after MacEachen spoke that caucus would
ask Trudeau to stay.'
50
Trudeau also appointed his economic adviser, Ian Stewart, as deputy minister
of Finance. Officials who worked in the Privy Council Office report that it was
'obvious to everyone in the office that Trudeau was giving MacEachen and
Stewart a completely free hand in preparing the budget and that he had full con-
fidence in them.'
5
'
But, as is well known, the 1981 MacEachen budget proved to be a 'political
disaster.'
52
 The budget called for significant tax increases resulting from the
closing of tax loopholes on the assumption that the economy would continue to
expand rapidly, despite high interest rates. But by the time the budget was
tabled, economic growth had already come to a stop. Accusations of ineptitude
and arrogance were hurled at the government from several quarters, and the
government was soon on the defensive.
53
Ian Stewart resigned as deputy minister of Finance, and in his letter of
168 The Play
resignation to the prime minister he acknowledged that 'the Department of
Finance and many of those who inhabit it have come under considerable
public attack.'
54
 Trudeau also asked Marc Lalonde to replace MacEachen in
Finance.
The 1981 budget held considerable and lasting fallout for the Finance depart-
ment. Many in Ottawa believed that the department lacked the necessary skills
to protect the government's political interests in preparing the budget. Donald
Johnston, then Treasury Board president, would later write, 'Who had been
consulted? Certainly not Cabinet ministers. I can vouch for that. The budget
documents had been preserved from the eyes of all except key officials in the
Department of Finance and, I presume, the Prime Minister himself. I was both
offended and amazed that, as the Treasury Board President ... I had not been
consulted ... We had shot ourselves in the foot with the famous MacEachen
budget.'
55
An official in the PCO in the aftermath of the 1981 budget now reports that
'it became a defining moment for the budget process.' She adds, 'Never again
would the prime minister and PCO give carte blanche to the Department of
Finance to write a budget.'And, indeed, from that moment on, the prime minis-
ter and senior PMO and PCO officials began to review key issues in the budget
before they were tabled. It became widely accepted in PCO at this time that the
Department of Finance was 'too much economics, too technical, and not suffi-
ciently political to be trusted to produce on its own a budget for the govern-
ment.'
56
 It is important to stress, however, that this did not signal a shift away
from Finance to line ministers and departments. It simply meant that from that
moment on it became standard practice for the prime minister, his staff, and
senior PCO staff to receive fairly thorough budget briefings from the minister
of Finance and his officials. In addition, PCO has retained an in-house capacity
to generate its own numbers to test those of Finance in preparing the budget and
in briefing the prime minister. When the numbers do not match, the prime min-
ister will often ask the Finance minister to double check his, and to report back
on them at a future briefing session.
But for ministers, even those in important economic portfolios, nothing had
changed, and they continued to be kept in the dark over budget matters. In many
ways, Don Johnston's criticism applies today as much as it did in the Mulroney
years. Mulroney's senior ministers would, from time to time, express their dis-
pleasure over unpopular government measures which they only learned about a
day or two before the budget speech and, in some instances, on budget day.
57
One PCO official reveals that 'I recall John Crosbie telling Mazankowski that
he found it extremely hard to take not being informed of important budget mat-
ters until the last minute. I also recall Mazankowski reminding Crosbie that he
Finance: Let There Be No Light 169
was the minister for Alberta when Crosbie produced his budget, but that he only
discovered one hour beforehand that he was increasing gasoline tax to .18 cents
a gallon. So in other words, Maz was telling Crosbie, I am only doing to you
what you did to me, except that in my case it was worse, since I was the minis-
ter for Alberta.'
58
Consultations with current and former Chretien ministers reveal that Paul
Martin from time to time presents a deck to Cabinet on the state of Canada's
public finances and on the government's fiscal framework. But important bud-
get items are not presented to them, let alone discussed, until it is too late for
any input. The one exception is the various spending decisions made during
the government's program review exercise, discussed below.
59
 Finance offi-
cials explain that ministers and Cabinet are not involved in preparing key ele-
ments of the budget because there are only three questions that need to be
answered: how much of the public debt should be retired? What taxes should
be cut or increased, and when? And should new spending initiatives be
included, and if so, what should these be? They point out that only the prime
minister and the minister of Finance can answer the first two questions, but
admit that some balance and some discussions need to take place to answer
the third.
New budget processes introduced in the late 19705 and early 19808 also
served to weaken Finance's hand. As we saw in an earlier chapter, the Policy
and Expenditure Management Systems (PEMS) sought to impose discipline on
spenders by having Cabinet committees face the fiscal consequence of their
decision. Richard Van Loon writes that PEMS was the result of the 'continuing
attempts within the federal government to impose financial and qualitative dis-
cipline and a notion of collective responsibility on what was hitherto a rather
undisciplined policy process.'
60
 It will be recalled that two large central agen-
cies were also established to manage policy envelopes and to oversee the opera-
tion of PEMS. Spending decisions were taken by Cabinet committees on the
advice of these two central agencies.
The Department of Finance thus became one of several central agencies con-
cerned with the government's expenditure budget. Accordingly, the depart-
ment's focus for most of the 19708 and early 19808 was mostly on the revenue
side, on taxation policy, and in preparing the fiscal framework. A former deputy
minister who worked in several departments during this period reports that
'back then Finance would be mostly concerned with the revenue budget. I
remember that Finance officials would make presentations on projected reve-
nues. We always believed that the department was low-balling revenues for the
years ahead. Ministers would then argue that revenues would be higher. It was
all a bit of a game and we were all wise to it. But it was probably the only way
lyo The Play
Finance thought that it could get a handle on the expenditure budget.'
61
 All in
all, however, the elaborate Cabinet committee process, PEMS, other central
agencies, and the ability of some ministers and departments to make 'end runs'
around all of these not only played havoc with the government's budget, but
also weakened Finance's hand.
Finance, however, was able to regain some power when the two central agen-
cies operating PEMS were disbanded and when Mulroney came to office. The
Mulroney government was sworn to office on 17 September 1984, and within
days it announced a freeze on staffing and discretionary spending and promised
that more cuts were on the way. Mulroney appointed as Finance minister
Michael Wilson, a one-time rival for his party leadership with strong ties to the
business and financial communities. Mulroney made it clear early on that he
would support Wilson in Cabinet and in preparing budgets. But we now know
that he did not always respect that commitment.
62
Mulroney had strong reservations about Wilson's political judgment. He felt
that Wilson had too much Bay Street in him to appreciate 'real political prob-
lems.' In his briefings to Cabinet, Wilson came across as far too technical and
bureaucratic, and he lost the attention of many of his colleagues who wanted a
more political discussion.
63
 Mulroney also had a tendency to strike bilateral
deals with premiers and even with individual ministers, only informing Wilson
after the fact that he had made new spending commitments.
64
 In addition, he
personally oversaw the development of major spending plans such as the estab-
lishment of two new regional development agencies for which over $2 billion
of new money was allocated. Wilson knew full well that he could hardly fight
this funding commitment in Cabinet and expect to win. In the end, the minister
of Finance in such situations has two choices - to quit or pick up the pieces.
Invariably, he picks up the pieces.
When Chretien came to office, Finance was able to come full circle and
regain its position of power. Without a doubt it has become the most important
economic actor on the Ottawa stage. It does not have to contend with several
Cabinet committees, including the powerful Priorities and Planning Committee,
which had existed since the 19605, but which Chretien abolished on assuming
office. Nor does it have to contend with other central agencies, as it did in the
late 19708 and early 19805. Other economic voices, like the Economic Council
of Canada, have also been silenced.
Chretien had once served as minister of Finance, one of only three such min-
isters to become prime minister. He had been minister of Finance in the late
19705, just before PEMS was born and when spending ministers were challeng-
ing Finance numbers on the revenue side - and when they were often successful
in using Cabinet committees or other means to secure approval for their pet
Finance: Let There Be No Light 171
projects. Chretien came to office convinced that 'Prime Ministers and finance
ministers must be seen as one' and that 'his finance's minister's authority
[should not be] diminished.'
65
 In short, experience had taught him that the most
important ally the minister of Finance has is the prime minister.
66
Chretien's experience as minister of Finance, like others who have occupied
the post, made him a fiscal conservative. Many in Ottawa are convinced that the
Department of Finance can capture any newly appointed minister, and whatever
his political beliefs may have been, turn him into a 'non-interventionist, nay-
sayer politician.'
67
 They point to Marc Lalonde, a free spender in Health and
Welfare, and Allan MacEachen, one of the most interventionist liberals ever
who after a stay in Finance became a fiscal conservative. The same is said about
Jean Chretien. A former colleague in the Trudeau Cabinet explains, 'Look at
Chretien. He was once prone to boast that he had established more new national
parks than any minister in Canadian history. Even the Treasury Board could not
stop his spending ways. As President of the Treasury Board, he launched a
costly and ambitious government decentralization program. Trudeau appointed
him in Finance and that was the end of him [i.e., as a strong spending minis-
ter].'
68
 It is true that after Finance, Chretien never again wore the spending hat
in Justice, or Energy, Mines and Resources that he had so happily worn in his
other pre-Finance portfolios.
If Trudeau looked to the Constitution, energy, and foreign affairs as his three
priorities during his last mandate, Chretien's 'holy trinity' would be the deficit,
reforming Canada's social security programs, and national unity. He and his
advisers would handle the national unity file and the Finance minister would
deal with the deficit. Chretien appointed Paul Martin, a former leadership rival
also with strong ties to the country's business community, to Finance. Chretien
left no doubt in the minds of other ministers that he would stand by his minister
of Finance whenever the need for it arose. Contrary to Mulroney, he did not
back away from his commitment.
Martin's first budget, in 1994, was important. It presented tough spending
cuts in areas previously shied away from. It introduced spending reductions to
unemployment insurance and closed down some defence bases. Both came as a
surprise to ministers. Martin, with Chretien's full support, wanted no public
consultation, nor did he want to deal with the lobbying of ministers and govern-
ment backbenchers on either issue. Accordingly, 'Chretien, Martin, and [David]
Collenette [then Defence minister] agreed that it should be a budget decision:
fast, clean, and hard to go back on. So, by virtue of budget secrecy, the informa-
tion on which bases would go was held with a tight circle.'
69
This budget was also noteworthy for other reasons. Martin included a $2.4
billion contingency fund and made full use of prudent economic assumptions in
172 The Play
preparing his budget.
70
 He also picked up on the last phase of Kim Campbell's
restructuring of government operations and announced that a review of all
departmental spending would be carried out to identify where savings could be
realized through the elimination or reduction of low-priority programs.
71
Program Review
Marcel Masse, for a very brief period clerk of the Privy Council and secretary
to the Cabinet, was by 1993 a Liberal candidate in the Hull-Aylmer riding. He
delivered a major address during the campaign - 'Getting Government Right' -
in it declaring that, if elected, a Chretien government would 'start by deciding
what needs to be done by government, and what we can afford to do.'
72
 The
Liberal National Campaign Committee reproduced the speech and gave it wide
circulation. In another speech a few months later, Masse referred to the earlier
speech, revealing that 'Mr. Chretien personally reviewed my previous speech
before it was delivered. He has not only endorsed the ideas in it but has chal-
lenged me and my Cabinet colleagues to turn these brave ideas into action.'
73
 In
his second speech, Masse announced that 'over time, governments collectively
have promised more than they could deliver and delivered more than they can
afford.'
74
Masse spoke to his public service rather than to his political experience in the
speech. In fact, he had resigned as a senior deputy minister only a few weeks
before the election. His last public service appointment was as head of the Fed-
eral-Provincial Relations Office, and he, like other deputy ministers, had lived
through numerous across-the-board cuts introduced by the Mulroney govern-
ment, all designed to bring down the deficit. He knew that Mulroney and his
Finance minister on assuming power had been alarmed over the size of the
government's accumulated debt and its $38.6 billion annual deficit. While in
office, the Mulroney government had embarked on fifteen exercises to reduce
expenditures and introduce restraint. These included several steps to limit fed-
eral transfers to the provinces, including a reduction in transfers for Medicare
and post-secondary education. Yet at the time Masse was sworn in as a minister
in the Chretien government, the annual deficit amounted to $42 billion and the
accumulated debt had tripled to $460 billion.
75
Senior central agency officials (and Masse had been one of them only a few
months before being elected to Parliament) had become convinced that the gov-
ernment had to find a new approach to tackle the deficit. Across-the-board cuts,
the standard approach taken during the Mulroney and, for that matter, the
Trudeau years, had failed to bring the annual deficit down.
Finance: Let There Be No Light 173
Apart from across-the-board cuts, the Mulroney government had also sought
to identify spending cuts. The deputy prime minister, Erik Nielsen, chaired a
task force of nongovernment and government officials to review government
programs. But the effort hardly proved successful.
76
 One government official
observed that the task force had 'generated a lot of work but that nothing was
done.'
77
Martin's first budget was very much in the Mulroney mould. It announced a
series of spending cuts, but the media, particularly the financial press, dis-
missed it as just more of the same. Martin was taken aback by the criticism. He
had just announced a series of tax increases, spending cuts in international
assistance, in subsidies to business, in unemployment insurance, in defence, and
in government operations. All in all, there were $3.7 billion in spending cuts in
his 1994 budget. But the verdict from the media was still negative. Indeed, Mar-
tin discovered that the 'economic chattering classes and those ... who swapped
bonds around the globe ... [turned] thumbs down on his first budget... His tough
approach to UI and defence demonstrated ... gutsiness ... but it was offset by
mounds of mush elsewhere. The media saw little difference between the first
Martin and past budgets from the Mulroney Government.'
78
There was also a discernible shift in public opinion. During the early 19905, a
number of provincial governments, notably New Brunswick and Alberta, had
aggressively pursued restraint measures. Balanced budgets were now a reality,
or at least in sight. In addition, Finance officials held meetings with a number of
interest groups in the wake of the budget and discovered a 'greater receptivity
than they had expected to suggestions that government expenditures needed to
be reduced.'
79
In his budget speech, Martin announced that Marcel Masse would chair the
program review. Officials report that no one, including the prime minister and
the Finance minister, would have predicted the importance and scope the exer-
cise was to assume. Public servants, one official reports, had grown tired of the
'axes, meat cleavers, and scalpels applied to departmental budgets during the
past ten years or so.'
80
 But at the same time, they had become quite concerned
about Canada 'hitting the wall,' as New Zealand had done. A line deputy minis-
ter 'felt that the government couldn't simply continue tearing at the carcass, a
more profound approach was required ... [he] dubbed several dozen copies [of a
television news program on New Zealand's deficit experience] and sent them
around town to the other deputies.'
81
 The Department of Finance also made pre-
sentations suggesting that modest economic growth and low inflation, which is
what it was forecasting, could never generate sufficient revenues to reduce the
deficit substantially. They also maintained that there was only limited room for
174 The Play
increasing taxes. Canada, they said, was close to a tax revolt, and as proof
pointed to the political difficulty the Mulroney government had experienced in
implementing a new Goods and Services Tax.
82
In the immediate aftermath of Martin's first budget, the centre of government
began to explore new ways to deal with the deficit and to develop an approach
to undertake, as Martin had promised, a 'review of all departmental spending.'
Between budget day and May 1994, they made a number of decisions. First, a
review exercise would look at all spending except major transfers to persons
(e.g., unemployment insurance and payments to senior citizens) and major
transfers to governments (e.g., Established Program Financing and Canada
Assistance). It was decided that these would be subjected to separate review
processes. Second, the exercise would be 'designed and managed ... by three
central agencies of the federal government: the Privy Council Office, the
Department of Finance, and the Treasury Board secretariat.'
83
The centre also established a Steering Committee of Deputy Ministers
(SCDM) to guide the work of the review. Jocelyne Bourgon, the clerk of the
Privy Council and secretary to the Cabinet, chaired the committee, and its mem-
bership included the deputy minister of Finance, the secretary of the Treasury
Board, the deputy secretary (plans) at the Privy Council Office, and three dep-
uty ministers from line departments. This committee was there not only to
guide the work of departments, but also to advise ministers.
A Coordinating Group of Ministers (CGM) was also established. Marcel
Masse chaired the group, which included Paul Martin, Treasury Board presi-
dent Art Eggleton, the three Cabinet committee chairs Sheila Copps, Andre
Ouellet, and Herb Gray, and three other ministers - Brian Tobin, Ann McLel-
lan, and Sergio Marchi — to provide the regional perspective. The group was set
up as an informal committee to advise the prime minister and the Finance min-
ister. The prime minister was steadfast in his opposition to the proliferation of
formal Cabinet committees and it was he who decided that the committee be ad
hoc. Accordingly, the papers submitted to the group did not go through the for-
mal Cabinet document process. They were, however, circulated to members of
CGM, in PCO, and PMO. Two senior members of the prime minister's staff
attended all CGM meetings. Initially, it was envisaged that the program review
would apply from fiscal year 1995-6 to 1997-8. However, the exercise was
extended, and a second phase was initiated in the summer of 1995 which
extended the exercise to 1998-9 (see Table 2 below).
Early in the exercise, the Privy Council Office put together a series of
tests against which the programs would be assessed. The office came up with
six formal questions and circulated them to all departments. The questions
were:
Finance: Let There Be No Light 175
Public Interest Test: Does the program or activity continue to serve a
public interest?
Role of Government Test: Is there a legitimate and necessary role for govern-
ment in this program area or activity?
Federalism Test: Is the current role of the federal government appro-
priate, or is the program a candidate for realign-
ment with the provinces?
Partnership Test: What activities or programs should or could be
transferred in whole or in part to the private or vol-
untary sector?
Efficiency Test: If the program or activity continues, how could its
efficiency be improved?
Affordability Test: Is the resultant package of programs and activities
affordable within the fiscal restraint? If not, what
programs or activities should be abandoned?
The Privy Council Office also established a secretariat to support the pro-
gram review and to assist both the steering committee of deputy ministers and
the coordinating group of ministers. The secretariat, with the help of the Depart-
ment of Finance and the Treasury Board secretariat, prepared assessment notes
and attached them to departmental submissions. It also sought to brief both
groups on interdepartmental issues. The notes were circulated first to the com-
mittee of deputy ministers and subsequently revised and circulated to members
of COM and to the relevant ministers and departmental officials. Finance and
Treasury Board officials also prepared briefing notes for their own ministers,
but these were not circulated.
84
Given that the program review was not directly tied to the Cabinet decision-
making process, the interdepartmental consultation process was not as formal
or as demanding as it usually is. Usually, when formal Cabinet memoranda are
written, there is a requirement for sponsoring departments to hold interdepart-
mental meetings to inform other departments of the proposed measure and to
seek their input. Indeed, the Privy Council Office usually insists on at least one
interdepartmental meeting and often on a consensus recommendation before it
will agree to place an item on a Cabinet committee agenda.
While the Privy Council Office was developing the six questions, the Depart-
ment of Finance was busy determining the amount that needed to be cut from
the expenditure budget. Once this was established, it then set out to break the
total amount into notional targets for each department. The minister was
directly involved in establishing these targets and did not hesitate to review
questions and issues in some detail.
176 The Play
TABLE 2
Program Review Timetable
Phase I
May 1994 Program Review official launch
The minister responsible for the review, Marcel Masse,
writes to his colleagues
The clerk informs all DMs of the exercise
June-August 1994 Reviews begin in each department/portfolio
Fall 1994 The Coordinating Group of Ministers and the Steering Committee of
Deputy Ministers begin work on the action plan drawn up
by the departments/portfolios
February 1995 Budget includes results of Program Review I
Spring 1995 Each department/portfolio begins implementation of PR outcomes
Phase II
September 1995 Program Review II official launch
Minister Mass6 writes to all his colleagues
DMs are officially informed
Early Fall 1995 Ministers Massed Martin, and Eggleton meet with ministers
whose departments/portfolios are expected to make
major contributions
Fall 1995 Review begins in each department/portfolio
November 1995 The Coordinating Group of Ministers and the Steering Committee of
Deputy Ministers begin their work
March 1996 Results of the reviews are incorporated in the budget
Spring 1996 Each department/portfolio implements the Program Review II
outcomes
Source: Privy Council Office, November 1994
Finance: Let There Be No Light 177
Arthur Kroeger, a former deputy minister, at the request of the Canadian
Centre for Management Development, prepared a study of the role of central
agencies in the program review exercise. He carried out numerous interviews
with Finance officials and, on the issue of notional targets for line departments,
he concluded that 'it is universally acknowledged by those who participated
that this process was utterly unscientific. The reductions were broadly divided
into three categories: large, being 25 percent or in some cases more; substan-
tial - 15 percent; and token - 5 percent. The assigned reductions were to be
implemented over a period of three years.'
85
 Kroeger explains why the 'rough
and ready' approach was adopted. He writes, There was not much alternative
[and] ... there was no time for elaborate evaluation studies.'
86
Finance officials, however, report that they did look to several sources to
determine the size of proposed spending cuts. The Liberal campaign's 'Red
Book' had pledged to bring the deficit down to 3 per cent of GDP and to cut
defence spending and subsidies to business. Department of Finance officials
also report that they had a very good sense of what departments did and an even
better sense of the amount of spending cuts that were 'urgently needed.' One
official explained, 'We were under the gun, there is no question about that. We
did not have the luxury to wait twelve months for an elaborate study to tell us
that expenditure cuts were required or where we should make the cuts. We
knew two things for certain - we knew that we needed to cut spending and we
knew that we had to do it quickly. In hindsight, we made some bad decisions. I
do not think, for example, that we should have cut Research and Development
as much as we did. But we had to move quickly and there was no time for
sophisticated studies.'
87
To be sure, line ministers and departments were taken aback by the size of
the proposed cuts. Masse and Martin initially announced that the government
would need to cut $10 billion out of the $50 billion under review. Several
months later, Martin returned to the table and declared that he needed still more
spending cuts, a great deal more, to deal with a possible impending crisis.
In December 1994 Mexico was plunged in a currency crisis and the Mexican
economic miracle came to an abrupt end. Within weeks, the Canadian dollar
came under attack. Given its high accumulated government debt, Canada also
became the focus of scrutiny by international financial markets. In early Janu-
ary 1995, the Wall Street Journal described the Canadian dollar as a 'basket
case.' The Journal ran an editorial on 12 January 1995 called 'Bankrupt Can-
ada?' and declared that 'Mexico isn't the only U.S. neighbour flirting with the
financial abyss.' It went on to argue that 'if dramatic action isn't taken in
the next month's federal budget, it's not inconceivable that Canada could hit the
debt wall and have to call in the International Monetary Fund to stabilize its
178 The Play
falling currency.'
88
 This editorial had a major effect on those in the Cabinet still
hesitant to accept the general expenditure stance advocated by Finance; indeed,
the deputy minister of Finance, David Dodge, later described it as a 'seminal
event' in the politics of the 1995 budget.
89
 In any event, the developments led to
higher interest rates, which in turn led to higher public debt charges so that
spending targets established several months earlier needed to be adjusted.
By most accounts, the three central agencies (PCO, Finance, and Treasury
Board secretariat) were able to work well in developing and managing the pro-
gram review exercise.
90
 That is not to suggest that there were no disagreements.
Initially, PCO officials wanted to avoid establishing notional targets, arguing
that financial targets would come to dominate the discussions. Finance officials
resisted, insisting that 'national government' or priority-setting exercises had
been tried many times in the past and they had all failed.
91
 Finance won the day.
Finance officials were prepared to go further and not only tell departments
how much to cut, but also, at least in some instances, which activities should be
cut. PCO officials resisted and this time they were successful. Arthur Kroeger
argues that PCO's view prevailed 'because of PCO's primacy as the Prime
Minister's department, but also because the Minister of Finance and his deputy
saw merit in the broader approach ... At the same time, however, there was
undoubtedly a widespread sense among Finance officials that they should keep
their powder dry.'
92
The Treasury Board secretariat meanwhile circulated 'perspective docu-
ments' to each department during late summer and early fall 1994. The objec-
tive was to point to possible future developments and their likely impact on the
department's budget and programs. Opinions differ on the importance of these
documents. Treasury Board officials suggest that though their quality varied,
they were useful in putting the work of individual departments and their budget
in perspective and in pointing to future challenges. On the other hand, line
department officials claim that they were not a factor in the program review
exercise; some even report that the documents added nothing and were utterly
useless.
93
Paul Martin met ministers individually in June 1994 to inform them of the
target cuts for their departmental budgets. At the same time, Finance, Treasury
Board, and PCO officials were already discussing with departments the amount
of cuts needed and how they could be realized. Departments knew by early June
that they were expected to produce either 'large,' 'substantial,' or 'token'
cuts.
94
A number of line ministers and their departments did not, at least initially,
take the notional spending cuts seriously. Some felt that they were politically
unrealistic and fully expected that the government would not go through with
Finance: Let There Be No Light 179
them. But by the end of June, it was a different story. At the last Cabinet meet-
ing before the summer break, Prime Minister Chretien left 'no doubt whatso-
ever that he was four square behind Martin.' He made it clear that he would 'do
whatever was necessary to reach the 3 per cent deficit target.'
95
 Though the
prime minister did not participate directly in the work of the CGM, he was
always fully aware of its deliberations. Two senior staff, members from his
office, and the clerk of the Privy Council attended CGM meetings, and they
regularly briefed the prime minister on the status of the program review. In
addition, it had been agreed early on in the process that no decisions would be
considered final until the prime minister had 'signed off on them.' My consulta-
tions reveal that while the prime minister agreed with most of the decisions, he
also did not hesitate to overturn some and modify others. The consultations also
reveal, however, that the prime minister 'stood firm at all times when ministers
came calling to ask that he overturn Martin's decision on the proposed spending
cut for their department or to plead for a special project.'
96
One by one, ministers came to accept that Chretien would not allow any light
between himself and his Finance minister throughout the program review.
Chretien stood firm on notional targets and on program review decisions.
Indeed, ministers came to recognize that the notional targets were not simply
Martin's targets, they were also Chretien's. And in many ways they were. After
Finance had come up with the targets, PCO reviewed them and made some
relatively minor adjustments to them on behalf of the prime minister.
Departments spent the summer of 1994 working on program review submis-
sions, and by September they began meetings with the clerk and her committee.
The committee of officials reviewed the proposals and offered advice to depart-
ments in preparing their ministers to appear before the program review group. It
also enabled the clerk to see which departments would be able to put forward
solid and well thought out proposals and which ones were simply going through
the motions.
It became clear, for example, that John Manley and his Department of Indus-
try officials would try to avoid the six questions altogether and make the case
that their department should be spared.
97
 But Finance had targeted the depart-
ment for a 'large' spending cut. Manley took the unusual step of writing
directly to the prime minister to inform him that Finance and the ministerial
group were about to 'make a major political mistake' in cutting one of his pro-
grams.
98
 It became, in the words of one Finance official, a game of 'political
chicken and see who would blink first. We knew that this was a critical moment
in the exercise, and if we were forced to back down on this one, there was no
telling where the exercise would end up. We stood firm. The prime minister
supported us completely and Industry had no choice but to play ball. Cuts to its
i8o The Play
budget would be made with or without the involvement of the minister of
Industry and his officials.'
99
 As it was, the prime minister did not reply until
budget day, and when he did, he effectively supported the decision to strip the
program in question of government funding.
Other ministers made impassioned pleas before their colleagues to protect
their departmental programs. Ralph Goodale, the minister of Agriculture, asked
his colleagues on the review group, 'What gives you the right to act as judges
on what generations of other people have created? From what divine right do
you derive the power to decide that fifty of my scientists will be without work
tomorrow?'
100
 Still other ministers, like Andre Ouellet, who had served under
Trudeau, and who was also a member of the ministerial program review group,
expressed deep concern that the program review would have grave political
consequences for the government. Still, the prime minister stood firm.
In September 1994 the Coordinating Group of Ministers began to meet once
a week, on Mondays at 3 p.m. The meetings lasted about three hours. Later the
group started to meet two and three times a week for up to six hours. It tried to
consider the work of three ministerial portfolios at one meeting. Relevant min-
isters accompanied by their deputy ministers attended the sessions and PCO
staff provided the logistics for all meetings. Though the COM did not constitute
a formal Cabinet committee, the Cabinet was briefed on the outcome of the
group's deliberations. The briefings in reality took the form of a summary of
the group's recommendations, and detailed decisions were formulated, similar
to normal records of decisions.
101
 But again, this occurred only after the prime
minister had signed off on all decisions taken by the Coordinating Group of
Ministers.
By October-November 1994, it became clear that the review exercise would
fall considerably short of the target established by Finance. Another round of
spending cuts was planned, but in the end even this round would not be suffi-
cient. As already noted, the Mexican currency crisis had pushed Canadian inter-
est rates up, thus increasing public debt charges. Still more spending cuts would
be needed to bring the deficit to its target of 3 per cent of GDP. Those officials
interviewed now admit that the Mexican currency problem nearly plunged the
government into full crisis mode between December 1994 and January 1995.
One reports that 'Martin would literally be briefed on a daily basis, and he
would tell his Cabinet colleagues that he needed more in spending cuts to
accommodate higher interest rates.'
102
The crisis atmosphere led Martin and Finance to take charge of the process.
Indeed, they decided to put everything back on the table and to reverse earlier
decisions. Cuts in defence spending would not be off limits as was initially
envisaged, given the cuts the department had suffered in Martin's first budget.
Finance: Let There Be No Light 181
More importantly, the social policy review headed by Lloyd Axworthy on a
separate track and assisted by special task forces and a number of outside advis-
ers and consultants would now be derailed. Martin lost patience with this exer-
cise, wanting immediate decisions to deal with the emergency at hand. Martin
got his way on this, and on several other issues. In his 1994 budget plan, he had
warned his Cabinet colleagues that if the social security review did not generate
the necessary savings, then 'other measures will be taken to achieve them.'
103
As is well known, there was limited progress on social review throughout 1994,
and in the first week of January 1995, Martin, in concert with the prime minis-
ter, instructed the minister of Human Resources Development to produce
$1.8 billion in spending cuts and to reduce his department's staff complement
by 5,000 over a three-year period.
The result of the program review and spending cuts contained in the 1995
Martin budget are well known. Suffice it to note that under the program review
45,000 public service and military positions were eliminated. Long-established
programs like Freight Rate Assistance and transportation subsidies for Western
farmers were also eliminated, and major reductions were implemented in
various agricultural and industrial subsidies. A further $i billion in spending
cuts were made in defence and $500 million in foreign aid. And the list goes on.
New cuts were introduced to the unemployment insurance program and to
federal-provincial transfers in the social policy area. Seventy-three boards,
commissions, and advisery bodies were shut down. All in all, $29 billion in cuts
were announced. By 1996-7 program spending would be reduced to 13.1 per
cent of GDP, the lowest level since I95i.
104
Phase II of the program review was launched as planned, but it never enjoyed
the profile of phase I, nor the scope. Phase II was conducted between the 1995
and 1996 budgets. Finance did establish notional targets for each department,
and these were met. There was, however, a much greater reliance on 'user fees,'
costs recovery, and 'contracting out' to meet the considerably more modest tar-
gets in phase II than was the case in phase I.105 In June 1995 tne Cabinet
approved a reduction of the deficit to 2 per cent of GDP by 1997-8 and vowed
to bring down the government's borrowing requirements to zero by 1998-9.
This in turn required another $2 billion in spending cuts by 1998-9.
The process for phase II was rather straightforward. Decisions were made to
make further cuts in defence, foreign aid, and social housing. More impor-
tantly, phase II relied on across-the-board cuts; each department was to pro-
duce cuts of 3.5 per cent in their respective budgets. As already noted, many
turned to user fees, cost recovery, and contracting out to meet this target.
Finance decided on an across-the-board cut, even though a year earlier Paul
Martin had declared that 'blind cuts are bad cuts.' Future responsibility for the
182 The Play
program review was formally turned over to the Treasury Board secretariat fol-
lowing the 1996 budget.
106
It is widely agreed that the program review was a success. Marcel Masse, in a
special published report in 1997 called Getting Government Right, applauded
the government's success in getting Ottawa's fiscal house in order. He main-
tained that 'these achievements in meeting the government's fiscal objectives
result from a fundamental rethinking of priorities, programs and relationships
through Program Review.'
I0?
 The clerk of the Privy Council wrote in one of her
annual reports to the prime minister that 'program review made a significant
contribution to redefining federal roles and to deficit reduction.'
108
 She added
that the program review was necessary because it had become clear that 'past
efforts to address pressure on public finances [which] took the form of across-
the-board cuts and efficiency improvements' were no longer effective.
109
 A
year later she was even more direct in her praise of the exercise. She wrote,
'The magnitude and nature of the transformation underway and the period of
time over which the transformation is occurring are unprecedented since World
War II... it is clear that an exceptional story about reinventing the role of gov-
ernment is being written in Canada today.'
110
She credits the success of the program review to the full participation of pub-
lic servants in identifying the cuts, rather than relying on outside consultants or
outside expertise. She adds that the 'program review was a collective exercise
of reform in which ministers, with the help of their departments, led their own
reviews and were the architects of their own reform. Central agencies were the
guardians of the process, ensuring that a consistent approach was used and that
the underlying principles of the Review were sustained.''
l
'
A former PCO official who worked directly in the review writes that 'the
program review has transformed the traditional approach to reform, and the
results have been significant.'
112
 In explaining its success, she writes that the
six questions had proved very helpful in focusing the effort, and incorporating
program review in the budget process had provided momentum and a sense of
importance to the exercise. She adds, The formation of a Steering Committee
of Deputy Ministers, chaired by the Clerk of the Privy Council, also contributed
to building a sense of importance about the exercise. The requirement for each
Deputy Minister to appear before a peer review panel chaired by the head of the
Public Service to explain the departmental submission acted as a motivator for
reform. In addition to the power of her position, the Clerk of the Privy Council
had demonstrated her desire and support for innovation in government in some
of the early reform thinking that took place when she was the Deputy Minister
at Transport Canada, prior to becoming Clerk.'
113
 Finally, she argues that to
have the Privy Council Office play a lead role in the exercise was important
Finance: Let There Be No Light 183
since 'it made sense that the department which provides support to the Prime
Minister took charge of the exercise." '
4
Several papers produced by academics on program review also gave the
exercise a solid passing grade."
5
 In addition, the Institute of Public Administra-
tion of Canada published a collection of papers on the program review and on
the whole they too found it to be successful.
116
 Some observers believe that the
decision to spread the cuts over three years rather than just one year, or even a
matter of a few months, as in the past, had also contributed to the exercise's
success (it should be noted, however, that initially the cuts were to be made
over a five-year period).
A number of officials maintain that the prime minister's refusal to permit
'end runs' proved to be key to the eventual success. Some ministers, including
Industry Minister John Manley, had tried to play under a different set of rules,
but the prime minister made certain that they did not succeed. Once it was
established that 'end runs' would not be tolerated, then everyone knew that the
exercise was 'not only serious but that there was no avoiding it.'
1
'
7
Still, the program review highlighted a number of problems, shortcomings,
and flaws in the Ottawa decision-making process. One observer writes that
while the program review did start off to 'reinvent government' by asking a
number of fundamental questions, it 'degenerated into an exercise in fiscal
restraint.'"
8
 Certainly, those persons charged with reviewing social policy
would agree with this observation. There is no denying that the Mexican cur-
rency crisis and the jump in interest rates in December 1994-January 1995 shot
the review into crisis management mode. Indeed, by early January, interest
rates had reached a 'worst case scenario,' a scenario Martin had described only
a few months earlier.''
9
One result of the currency crisis is that it placed the minister of Finance and
his department firmly in the driver's seat. But the majority of the officials
consulted for this book insisted that they had been there all along. One stated,
'When all is said and done about the program review exercise, the most
important factors were the notional targets for spending cuts. They were pro-
duced by Finance and they established the ground rules for the review and
they had everything to do with its final results.'
120
 The other five questions
were, by most accounts, of limited relevance. It also became clear that though
the CGM played a significant role in promoting spending cuts, when it truly
mattered it was still the prime minister and the minister of Finance who made
the decisions. As one observer wrote, 'The final decision on where the axe
will fall lies with Martin and the prime minister."
21
 For their part, Finance
officials insist that the program review was critical to 'ensuring that ministers
and departments would buy into the need to introduce large spending cuts on
184 The Play
an urgent basis."
22
 By and large, however, their praise do not go further than
this.
It is clear that the prime minister never lost control of the steering wheel. As
already noted, two of his senior staff members attended meetings of the Coordi-
nating Group of Ministers. The clerk chaired the meetings of deputy ministers
and also attended the ministerial meetings. Early on in the exercise, the clerk, as
already noted, made it clear to everyone that no important decisions would be
considered final until the 'prime minister had signed off on them.'
123
 Not only
did this involve the prime minister directly in all crucial decisions, it also served
notice to line ministers and their departments once again that 'end runs' were
simply not on.
124
 Accordingly, the prime minister was always well aware of the
discussions around program review. He knew where the tension points lay and
which ministers and departments were not delivering cuts. He also knew when
to intervene in Cabinet and what to say. One central official summed up the
exercise in this fashion: 'The prime minister and Paul Martin looked after the
substance and everyone else looked after the process."
25
Still, the centre of government was found lacking in several respects. Depart-
ments complained that the notional targets were never firm until well into the
exercise. One official remarked that 'there was more than one surprise from
Finance through the fall and early 1995. Central agencies do not like surprises
coming from us but they sure do not mind pulling them off."
26
The centre was also not clear or consistent when it came to numbers. In fact,
a good many central agency officials consulted admitted that there is a serious
numbers problem in government. This became apparent in the program review
exercise. In developing notional targets for spending cuts, Finance turned to its
own data. Many line departments, meanwhile, were operating from their own
budget figures and from a different set of budget numbers. To add to the confu-
sion, the Treasury Board secretariat, the keeper of the government's expendi-
ture budget, had yet another set of numbers - and authoritative figures only for
the current year. The program review and the notional targets, meanwhile, were
for a three-year period. This proved to be very confusing for departments oper-
ating sunset programs, those which only had, say, a three-year life cycle. Were
the notional cuts to apply on a department's sunset programs, to the ongoing
'A' base, or to both? If only to the latter, then how should sunset programs be
treated?
The Department of the Environment and its Green Plan is an excellent case in
point. Senior Environment officials report that they had a great deal of difficulty
in determining from what base the cuts should be made. The Green Plan had
(initially, at least) added $3 billion of new money to the federal government's
expenditure budget. The Department of Environment was to receive about
Finance: Let There Be No Light 185
40 per cent of the total by 1996-7. However, $1.2 billion from the total amount
had already been cut within two years of the plan's inception. It will also be
recalled that Green Plan spending was to be temporary - initially allocated over
a five-year period, later to be spread over six years. The question was whether
the money should be treated as 'A' base money for the purpose of the program
review or as temporary spending. The Department of Finance and the Treasury
Board secretariat argued that it should not be treated as 'A' base spending, but as
temporary. In other words, the six-year Green Plan funding should not be
included in the base and spending cuts should be made from the budget level
established prior to the Green Plan. Accordingly, the central agencies wanted a
30 or 33.3 per cent cut (depending on the week, according to Environment offi-
cials) from a base of 72 per cent of the current budget, which actually meant a 50
per cent cut from the department's current base. Environment resisted, insisting
that 'the Green Plan funds had become deeply integrated into the operations of
the department's ongoing programs and ... they could not possibly be separated
out. Fully 40 percent of the Green Plan budget over the previous five years went
to DOE, with the result that 28 percent of DOE's budget came from Green Plan
money.'
127
 Environment eventually won the day on this issue. After several
attempts, its minister, Sheila Copps, and her officials successfully made the case
that Environment should not be treated like other departments because the Green
Plan dominated their programs and had been fully integrated in the department.
By contrast, they argued, other departments with Green Plan funding all had less
than i o per cent of their budget tied to the plan.
Copps was a member of the Coordinating Group of Ministers, but it was
Martin, not the group, who made the decision. It has been suggested that Martin
agreed with Environment's position because he had gained a strong apprecia-
tion for the department's programs while opposition environment critic.
128
 In
any event, Environment was the only department which had Green Plan fund-
ing calculated into its base; other departments had to make their cuts from their
pre-Green Plan budgets. Though the final decision helped Environment in
meeting its target, the confusion at the centre over numbers and the ensuing
disputes, particularly in the summer of 1994, considerably frayed relations
between central agencies and a number of line departments. Indeed, according
to some officials, The difficulties in establishing accurate expenditure data for
Program Review at one point threatened to put the entire exercise at risk.''
29
The program review also demonstrated that the centre of government was
extremely weak in managing horizontal or interdepartmental issues. Even
observers who generally approved of the exercise acknowledge that horizontal
issues were left unattended. The focus of the review had been on departments
and there was a high price to pay for it. Line department officials explain that it
186 The Play
was not always possible to take advantage of some opportunities to rationalize
spending and operations because to do so would have required a multidepart-
ment perspective. This became all too obvious in the case of the science depart-
ments, where closer cooperation among various research institutes could have
given rise to significant savings. But untapped opportunities also existed in a
number of ongoing programs. For example, the Department of Fisheries and
Oceans (DFO) sought to redefine its role and responsibilities for freshwater
fisheries. This had obvious implications for the Department of Environment but
officials there were not apprised of what DFO was planning. Line departments
blame the centre for this failure, insisting that it, not they, have the mandate and
capacity to deal with horizontal or multidepartment issues.
A great number of line department officials consulted also argue that the
centre of government was being self-serving in maintaining that the program
review was a bottom-up exercise and that departments were relatively free to
identify spending cuts. Although the program review largely made unnecessary
a new round of across-the-board cuts, some insist that since all departments had
to suffer cuts, it proved that the exercise was driven by fiscal realities, not by a
desire to identify priorities.
The majority of the line department officials also claim that the reason the
centre chose not to identify spending cuts is because it was incapable of doing
so. It is worth quoting at length a former deputy minister who was a full partici-
pant in the exercise. He argues,
Think back to the Joe Clark government when it was in office in 1979. The prime minis-
ter declared that his approach to the Quebec issue was for his government not to get
involved. Clark said that it was largely a decision for Quebecers to deal with. The fact is
that Clark simply came up with a rationale for his government's inability to get involved.
He had one elected member of Parliament, Roch Lasalle, hardly a heavyweight, in his
Cabinet and a handful of unelected senators with no credibility in Quebec or anywhere
else. The simple fact is that Clark did not have the capacity to intervene, and rather than
admit this, he came up with a rationale. The same logic applies to the centre's decision to
turn to departments to identify the cuts. It simply did not have the capacity to do it, but it
did not want to admit it.
13
°
How well did the centre itself fare in the exercise? At the start of the review,
the clerk of the Privy Council directed that the three central agencies, PCO,
Finance, and the Treasury Board secretariat should all take '315 percent cut to
their staffs and to their budget. Central agencies were also asked to cut another
3.5 percent of their budgets as part of the phase II exercise.'
131
 She argued that
this was necessary if only to give the exercise credibility. The deputy minister
Finance: Let There Be No Light 187
of Finance strongly opposed the clerk's recommendation, arguing that it would
weaken the department at a crucial time in the government's fight to reduce the
deficit. He also pointed out that Finance was not a large department and that it
could ill afford to take a spending cut. The clerk and deputy minister of Finance
debated this matter on several occasions in the meetings of the Steering Com-
mittee of Deputy Ministers. Finance, however, decided not to pursue the issue
in the Coordinating Group of Ministers. The clerk, with the prime minister's
support, won the day on this issue.
In the end, however, PCO's budget did not suffer the same fate as the other
central agencies. It needed new funding to build up its intergovernmental affairs
group, and the office was provided with an additional $5 million over a two-
year period, beginning in 1996-7, because 'the intergovernmental agenda is
expected to be active with a number of major issues requiring extensive federal-
provincial consultation.'
132
Though the prime minister made certain that no light would appear to
Cabinet colleagues between himself and his Finance minister throughout the
program review, a glimmer became visible to those operating at the centre of
government. Edward Greenspon and Anthony Wilson-Smith admirably docu-
ment the disagreement that surfaced between Chretien and Martin over old age
pension reform.
133
 At one point, officials in the Privy Council Office feared that
Martin would resign over the issue. They were well aware that if the country's
Finance minister were to resign on the eve of the budget the country could well
be plunged into a serious financial crisis. Martin wanted to introduce old age
pension reform in his 1995 budget by calculating benefits on a sliding scale
based on family income, not an individual income. Poor families would receive
more, while those with a family income above $40,000 would be worse off.
Chretien believed that the 1995 budget would contain more than enough cuts
as it was, and there was no pressing need to tackle the politically explosive
issue of old age pension reform just yet. He was particularly worried about the
impact of old age pension reform in the upcoming Quebec referendum. Martin,
however, remained adamant. A senior policy adviser to the prime minister came
up with a compromise at the last minute. Martin would not get his way in 1995,
but the prime minister would agree to the reform in the following year. In addi-
tion, Chretien permitted Martin to highlight the issue in his 1995 budget speech,
which he did.
Cabinet was left completely in the dark, and at no time was it brought in to
help resolve the matter. Indeed, very few ministers knew if or how the budget
would deal with old age pensions until the last minute. Certainly, it was an issue
with major political and policy implications, but it was also a budget issue, and
it was left to the prime minister and his minister of Finance to resolve.
188 The Play
Now More Than Just a Budget
For many people, the word budget has come to conjure up images of a thick
document crammed with obscure jargon understood only by economists and
accountants. To be sure, Ottawa's budget documents have evolved greatly over
the years. Today, the budget consists of much more than a speech accompanied
by a document. In reality, it comprises several documents, though the minister's
budget speech in Parliament remains the most important.
Traditionally, budget speeches have reported on the state of the Canadian
economy, the government's fiscal health, its economic accomplishments, and
any adjustments needed to the country's taxation system. Former deputy minis-
ters who worked in Ottawa during the 19605, 19708, and even as late as the
early 19808, report that in their day these were the issues budget speeches were
largely preoccupied with.
This was still true when Marc Lalonde was minister of Finance. His 1984
budget speech reported on the government's efforts to contain inflation, to
reduce the deficit, to increase investment, and on new measures to simplify the
taxation system. It introduced, for example, changes to the manufacturer's sales
tax and amendments to the Income Tax Act and to the Customs Tariff and
Excise Act.
134
 No new major expenditure programs and no major policy state-
ments were presented. In other words, the last Lalonde budget stuck to its knit-
ting. This is no longer the case.
The Trudeau government, however, a year earlier had turned to Lalonde's
budget speech to announce a $4.8 billion special recovery program designed to
promote job creation. Half of that amount was made available to the private
sector to support private investment, and the remaining $2.4 billion was to
upgrade public facilities.
135
 The initiative, however, had been discussed in Cab-
inet committee meetings, and Cabinet and regional ministers had been asked for
their input in shaping its development before Lalonde made the announcement.
Michael Wilson and Don Mazankowski pushed back the traditional limits of
budget speeches as Finance ministers in the Mulroney government. Budget
documents under Wilson gained new importance in that they shaped specific
economic and social policies. Indeed, both Wilson and Mazankowski used
the budget to deal with microprogram decisions. For example, in 1992 Don
Mazankowski's budget speech unveiled new measures to help small business
and to support Canadians with disabilities. This budget also closed down
twenty-one government bodies and merged another ten.
136
 Senior Mulroney
ministers admit that by the time they learned of these changes they were already
a. fait accompli.
131
Paul Martin has pushed the scope of the budget document still further. It now
Finance: Let There Be No Light 189
delves into any policy area the minister and his department deem necessary. The
budget is now the government's major policy statement, covering virtually the
whole waterfront. If the minister and Department of Finance, for example, decide
that a particular department is slow off the mark in reviewing a certain policy,
they will move in and direct that action be taken in short order. And that is not all.
Budget speeches in recent years have announced new alternative service
delivery measures, including new agencies, such as a single food-inspection
agency. They have also restructured federal-provincial transfer agreements,
established a new health services research fund, overhauled Canada's old age
security system, provided increased assistance for child support, new funding
for education and skills development, and increased education tax credits. And
they have announced new funding for the Business Development Branch and
for the Farm Credit Corporation. They have increased the number of communi-
ties receiving the necessary electronic infrastructure required to access new
communications technologies. In the 1997 budget, the minister of Finance
declared that $425 million in 'new' federal money would be added to the
Canada Infrastructure program. Paul Martin also used his budget speech to
announce the establishment of a Canada Foundation for Innovation. The foun-
dation was provided with an up-front federal government investment of $800
million. The list goes on and on, and includes measures to update the govern-
ment's equalization program and an overhaul of the Canada Pension Plan.'
38
In short, the budget has come to dominate policy and decision making in
Ottawa as never before. This holds significant advantages for the centre of gov-
ernment. It enables the prime minister and the minister of Finance to introduce
new measures and policies under the cover of budget secrecy and avoid debate
in Cabinet - and perhaps, more importantly, long interdepartmental consulta-
tions and attempts to define a consensus.
This is not to suggest that all of the budgetary announcements come as a sur-
prise to all ministers and departments. Ministers, for example, were well aware
of the spending cuts produced by the program review exercise. But because
they are budget measures, they are treated differently from regular run of the
mill policy and program changes. Leaving aside the program review, many
budget measures are presented to Cabinet ministers as a fait accompli, as part of
the Finance minister's briefings, in the form of a deck or power points. Others
can catch ministers and their departments totally unprepared.
In all cases, it is the prime minister and Finance minister who debate the
options and make the final decision. The decision to create the Canada Health
and Social Transfer program to replace other transfer programs was taken at the
centre of government, not in Cabinet. Yet, it was an important decision involv-
ing $25 billion in transfers to the provinces in the form of cash and tax points. It
190 The Play
also provided more flexibility to provincial governments to administer health
care, post-secondary education, and social service programs.
This is not to suggest, however, that the prime minister and minister of
Finance are always in agreement on measures contained in the budget. Consul-
tations reveal, for example, that the prime minister insisted, over the objection
of the Finance minister, that new funding be allocated to the Canada Infrastruc-
ture program. On the other hand, it was Martin's idea, not Chretien's, to support
the establishment of the Canada Foundation for Innovation and to give it
$800 million of up-front money.
The above measures were not promoted by spending ministers, but by the
guardians at the centre of government, and this change speaks to a different
dynamic in the budget-making process. In brief, it means that the traditional
guardians of the pubic purse have become the new spenders.
When Guardians Become Spenders
The key actors in my 1990 book The Politics of Public Spending in Canada
were the guardians and the spenders.
139
 The guardians were the prime minister,
the minister of Finance, and the president of the Treasury Board. The spenders
were the line departments. The guardians were pitted against the spenders in an
effort to limit government spending. If the guardians, with the exception of the
prime minister, wanted to promote a pet project, they would usually ask the rel-
evant line department minister to come forward with the proposal. One former
Trudeau minister explains, There was a kind of bartering system in place. I
would propose something knowing that the Finance minister wanted it. There
was an understanding that I could come back later for something for my region
or my department."
40
 The abolition of the elaborate Cabinet committee system,
including Priorities and Planning and the Operations committees, now provide
fewer opportunities for the minister of Finance, the president of the Treasury
Board, or even the prime minister, none of whom have direct access to pro-
grams, to work out deals with spenders. In their absence, guardians are now
able to turn to the one document that matters, the budget - the one that they
hold in their own hands - to advance their projects without having to strike side
deals with spending ministers.
This change in the game plan has not been lost on line ministers and their
departments. One theme that came up time and again in my consultations was
the extent to which the centre, the budget, and the Department of Finance have
come to dominate all policy areas. There are now two sets of rules, not just for
the budget documents, but also the expenditure budget: one for the guardians
and the other for the spenders.
Finance: Let There Be No Light 191
The tension between the two erupted in the media in early December 1997.
The minister of Finance had informed his Cabinet colleagues that autumn that
$300 million in new spending would be available. The two Cabinet committees,
the economic and social committees, held a joint meeting on 2 December 1997
to begin allocating Martin's 'fiscal dividends.' Neither the prime minister nor
the minister of Finance attended the meeting.'
41
 A few months earlier, the Privy
Council Office had issued a general call for spending proposals, a decision with
which the Department of Finance did not agree. PCO officials wanted to see
what departments would come up with in terms of innovative ideas to spend the
newly found fiscal dividends. Finance officials felt that the call was premature
and would only serve to raise expectations.
A number of ministers were quick to make clear their frustration, not so
much with PCO's call for proposals, but rather with the government's overall
policy and decision-making process. They were openly critical of Paul Martin,
for example, for putting his own priorities outside the Cabinet review process
and securing funding without consulting anybody except the prime minister. A
government source explained that 'a number of ministers suggested that every-
body but the Finance minister took their priorities through the Cabinet process
as they were asked to do.' The Globe and Mail reported another source as say-
ing that ministers felt that the UI tax cut, which the minister of Finance had
recently announced, but which was not discussed in Cabinet, was 'not necessar-
ily what Canadians are asking for.' A Finance official replied, however, that
Paul Martin did not unilaterally make the UI tax cut, but in conjunction with the
Human Resources minister and 'with the approval of Prime Minister Jean Chre-
tien.' Consultations with senior federal government officials for this book
reveal that this is precisely what happened. The Globe and Mail quoted yet
another source in its front page story, saying that 'while sceptical, they must
live with Mr. Martin's [decision]."
42
Ministers could jus t as easily have pointed the finger at the prime minister. He
had only a few months before agreed to cost share a $300 million highway
agreement, committing $150 million in federal funding without consulting Cab-
inet or Cabinet committee. Several months earlier he had committed $50 million
to projects in British Columbia after meeting with Premier Glen Clark, and sim-
ply instructed government officials to look after the paperwork. The same is also
true for the Canada millennium scholarships. Similarly, political commitments
assembled by the prime minister and a handful of his advisers in the 1997 elec-
tion campaign amounted to $1.1 billion. They too were not submitted to the
Cabinet process. The list goes on. More than one minister at the 2 December
1997 meeting felt that they were left to allocate the crumbs, while the big ticket
items were firmly in the hands of the prime minister and the minister of Finance.
192 The Play
Certainly, the prime minister and the minister of Finance have come to hold
in their own hands all major and some minor decisions. They decide how the
budget will take shape and the broad contours of government economic poli-
cies. They even decide which spending proposals should go forward, and this
with or without Cabinet consent. Chretien and Martin have taken this process to
new heights but it is important to stress that it did not start with them. Mulroney
did much the same. He did not, for example, bother with the Cabinet process
when he decided to allocate over $2 billion of new money to two regional eco-
nomic development agencies he established in 1987, or when he decided to sup-
port numerous bilateral deals he had struck with premiers and some of his own
ministers.
It was Trudeau who launched a frontal attack on the power of the Department
of Finance. It may well be that his original intention was to introduce checks
and balances in the Ottawa decision-making process and to remove some of the
powers of the Department of Finance in order to strengthen the hand of Cabinet.
The actual results, however, proved different. He did not strengthen the hand
of Cabinet, only his own, that of his advisers, and the Privy Council Office.
Neither Mulroney nor Chretien have turned back the clock.
The centre of government is not only concerned with macroeconomic deci-
sions or even with developing spending proposals. It also has a hand in micro-
program decisions and in management issues. The Treasury Board secretariat
and the Public Service Commission both have a mandate to review micropro-
gram and management decisions.
7
Treasury Board and the Public Service
Commission: Pulling against Gravity
I asked a former secretary to the Treasury Board to describe his job for me in a
few sentences. His answer: 'I do not know if I could describe what I do in a few
sentences. But I do know what is expected of me and what ministers dislike
immensely. They do not want any surprises and they somehow expect me to
look after that.' He added, 'Treasury Board ministers will listen and usually nod
their heads in approval when you talk about empowering departments and their
managers, but let the media report on something that has gone wrong in a
department and they are more than likely to ask or wonder where was the Trea-
sury Board secretariat in all of this?'
1
 I repeated the essence of these comments
to another secretary of the Treasury Board for his reaction, and he responded
'Yes! That's about how it is in here.'
2
 Both could have added that they too do
not much like surprises.
The work of the Treasury Board and its secretariat go to the heart of recent
reforms to modernize government operations and to the New Public Manage-
ment movement. If anyone in government is in a position to encourage the
manager to manage, it is the Treasury Board. To be sure, the Public Service
Commission also plays an important role in human resources management, as
do the Department of Public Works and Government Services in several admin-
istrative areas. But it is the Treasury Board that must take the lead and in con-
cert with the Privy Council Office set the reform agenda and then pursue it. It is
also the Treasury Board that lays down the rules on expenditure budgets, how
human resources and real property are managed, and how official languages
policy is applied.
In addition, it is the Treasury Board that sets in motion initiatives to de-
volve decision-making authority to line departments and frees managers from
centrally prescribed administrative rules and regulations. Treasury Board, for
example, has been leading the charge in introducing Special Operating Agen-
194 The Play
cies (SOAs) which are designed to operate with less bureaucratic red tape than
line departments. Its secretariat also provides support to the clerk of the Privy
Council whenever he or she decides to launch reform measures, as was the case
in 1989 in the implementation of Public Service 2000.
To the casual observer, it would seem that officials in the Treasury Board
secretariat and, albeit to a lesser extent, those in the Public Service Commission
lead schizophrenic lives. Certainly, on the face of it there ought to be a great
deal of tension, if not outright contradiction, between the centre's need to limit
'surprises' and its responsibility to empower managers and bring the New Pub-
lic Management to government operations. To remove or attenuate centrally
prescribed rules may empower line departments, but it may well give rise to
unwelcome surprises.
The purpose of this chapter is to review the roles the Treasury Board secre-
tariat and the Public Service Commission play in financial and human resources
management. These are, of course, the lifeblood of any government organiza-
tion and they are also what drives the New Public Management. We should bear
in mind that every government reform measure, starting with the Glassco Com-
mission in the 19605, has sought to modernize government operations by
empowering line managers to manage their financial and human resources.
We begin by reviewing Treasury Board's role in several major public service
reform efforts. We will pay particular attention to its responsibility for manag-
ing the expenditure budget process, knowing that 'budgetary decisions are the
single most important factor that constrains and defines the delivery of pro-
grams and other nonfmancial issues such as human resources management.'
3
The chapter also seeks to answer a number of questions: what role has the cen-
tre played in introducing New Public Management to government? How suc-
cessful has it been? What changes have been introduced to empower line
department and agencies? How has the expenditure budget process evolved
during the past thirty years or so? How well do central agencies, in particular
the Treasury Board secretariat and the Public Service Commission, work
together given that in human resources matters their mandates overlap? One
would assume that they make every effort to work well together. After all, cen-
tral agencies pride themselves on their ability to promote a horizontal or corpo-
rate perspective on issues.
The Treasury Board: Looking Back
The Treasury Board was established on 2 July 1867 and made a statutory com-
mittee in 1869. Unlike other Cabinet committees, much of its responsibility is
specified in legislation under a number of acts, including the Financial Admin-
Treasury Board and the Public Service Commission 195
istration Act, Federal Real Property Act, and the Public Sector Employment
Act. These acts empower the Treasury Board to speak for the government on
matters relating to general administrative policy, financial and personnel man-
agement, and such other matters as may be referred to it by the governor-in-
council.
Treasury Board is also the only Cabinet committee that does not rely on the
Privy Council Office for secretariat support. It is served by its own secretariat.
The modus operandi of Treasury Board differs from that of other Cabinet com-
mittees: its president and his or her ministerial colleagues sit on one side of the
table while the secretariat officials sit opposite and present the cases to be con-
sidered. Only in exceptional circumstances are ministers and officials from the
department under review invited to elaborate on the case, but even when they
are, they are usually asked to leave before the Treasury Board ministers make
their decision. In the case of other Cabinet committees, ministers present their
own cases and, accompanied by selected departmental officials, they mostly sit
where they choose.
Most Treasury Board decisions relate to the board's statutory authorities
under the Financial Administration Act, and where they do not involve issues of
general policy are not referred to Cabinet, but are reflected in a letter of deci-
sion from the Treasury Board secretariat to the deputy minister of the depart-
ment concerned.
4
 On matters of more general concern to the ministry, the
Treasury Board produces committee reports for confirmation by full cabinet.
The Treasury Board secretariat does not enjoy the influence and glamour of
either the Privy Council Office or the Department of Finance. Indeed, in many
ways, the secretariat is Finance's poor cousin. One senior government official
summed up the difference between the three central agencies in this way: 'PCO
looks after the broad picture and resolves conflicts between ministers and
departments. Finance looks after the big economic and budgetary decisions.
The Treasury Board looks after the little decisions.'
5
 But the little decisions do
matter to departments. Indeed, while the decisions may appear to be 'little'
from the perspective of some people at the centre, they are often big decisions
for line departments and programs managers. In addition, the Treasury Board
secretariat has the deepest knowledge of government programs of any central
agency because it reviews in considerable detail departmental spending plans,
or at least in more detail than is the case for the other two. The result is that
PCO and Finance often have to turn to the Treasury Board secretariat for infor-
mation and advice.
6
A former secretary to the Treasury Board wrote nearly thirty years ago that
the Treasury Board has two important responsibilities - the management of the
public service and the expenditure budget.
7
 The Glassco Commission, it will be
196 The Play
recalled, sought to make the Treasury Board the management arm of the gov-
ernment by removing it from the Department of Finance and by giving it a new
broader mandate than simply reviewing departmental budgets. The government
adopted the Glassco Commission recommendation and the Treasury Board has
ever since been expected to take the lead on management issues in government.
But it has company. The Public Service Commission and the Department of
Public Works and Government Services also play a part, the former in human
resources management and the latter in several administrative areas.
When it was part of the Department of Finance, the Treasury Board secretar-
iat was not only small, it was also largely concerned with the Financial Admin-
istration Act and managing the expenditure budget, and it was preoccupied with
issues of financial and administrative details. The head of the Glassco Commis-
sion, Grant Glassco, a leading executive from the private sector, had been taken
aback to discover that the public service, a large institution operating in Ottawa
and in various cities and towns across Canada, had no management capacity at
the centre. Essentially, the commission urged that the traditional concern with
audits to ensure parliamentary control over resource inputs be supplemented
with the authority to determine whether the purposes and results of programs
were consistent with their legislated intents and stated objectives. The commis-
sion also recommended that departments and agencies have greater authority to
administer their programs.
8
 In short, Glassco's objective was to transform the
Treasury Board and its secretariat into a modern central agency and to give it a
management mandate.
When Glassco looked at the work of the Treasury Board and its secretariat, he
discovered an institution which Prime Minister Bennett had essentially defined
and provided with a central purpose. Indeed, before Bennett, the Treasury Board
had never quite been able to find a solid footing. It never became the strong com-
mittee of Cabinet Sir John A. Macdonald had envisaged when he established it.
For many years after Confederation, the board dealt mostly with the form of gov-
ernment accounts, the details of personnel administration, and the financial and
administrative transactions criticized by the auditor general.
9
 In his report on the
federal public service in 1912, Sir George Murray even concluded that the Trea-
sury Board should be abolished, believing that most of its work could be done by
other officials and individual ministers.
10
 Murray's recommendation was not
accepted, however, and throughout the 19205, the board 'continued to deal with
a variety of subjects, apparently at a leisurely pace.'
11
 The subjects brought
before the Treasury Board were still relatively minor administrative matters,
including superannuation questions and remission of some custom duties.
When Bennett came to power in the summer of 1930, he wanted urgent
action to cut government spending to reduce the deficit and to maintain
Treasury Board and the Public Service Commission 197
Canada's credit ratings in financial markets abroad.
12
 Bennett appointed him-
self minister of Finance and decided to overhaul the Treasury Board.
Bennett was taken aback by the apparent lack of financial control and the
government's inability to tell him how much departments had already spent in
the fiscal year. Indeed, it took officials six months before they could brief him
on the government's financial position, and even then Bennett was not certain
he had firm numbers. I.E. Hodgetts reports that 'Much to Bennett's horror, it
appeared that the economic and social chaos in the country at large was hardly
any worse than the administrative chaos which had reigned in the federal
bureaucracy for years, insofar as financial control was concerned."
3
Bennett decided to overhaul the expenditure estimates, to establish an Office
of the Comptroller of the Treasury, and to introduce an elaborate record of all
expenditures and outstanding commitments. Cabinet also agreed to give the
board authority to review a number of small administrative matters. For example,
the Treasury Board would even review 'the installation of each new telephone in
government offices and the purchase of each motor vehicle by government
departments."
4
 These cases were presented to the board as 'routine,' so that
ministers did not spend much time, if any, on them. Still, they were part of the
material presented to the board so that an inquisitive minister was free to raise
any question. This was in pre-Keynesian days. Government was small so that
ministers did have the time to inquire about relatively minor administrative mat-
ters. Even by the mid-i930s, the Treasury Board had only a 'very small staff to
assist the estimates and cases.' We are informed that the board had a clerk of the
estimates, two other senior clerks, and three or four stenographers.'
5
The staff serving the Treasury Board expanded considerably between the
mid-19308 and the early 19608, when Glassco formulated his recommenda-
tions. But by and large, the Treasury Board continued to function along the
lines Bennett had established. The federal government had grown substantially
since the Bennett years, and Glassco concluded that it was time to turn over the
operations of government to managers. Not only did he think that there was a
need to promote a management perspective at the centre, he also concluded that
the time had come to let the manager manage. The commission maintained that
'what was a relatively simple government organization in 1939 had become
today a complicated system of departments, boards, and commissions engaged
in a multitude of different tasks. Obviously, the methods found effective for the
management of the relatively compact organization of the prewar days cannot
control without extensive alteration the vast complex which has come into
being in the past twenty years."
6
 It insisted that the government's financial con-
trols were too cumbersome, with a wide variety of 'checks, counterchecks and
duplication and blind adherence to regulations."
7
198 The Play
Though Glassco may have been the first to call for a new role for the Trea-
sury Board, he would not be the last. The Lambert Commission, some fifteen
years after Glassco, made a similar recommendation. More recently Prime Min-
ister Chretien declared, on appointing his new ministry for his second mandate
on ii June 1997, that 'the Treasury Board has been re-oriented to play an
enhanced role as the government's management board.'
18
 But, again, Chretien
was not the first prime minister to make such a statement.
19
 Brian Mulroney,
during the 1984 election campaign, had announced that the goal of his govern-
ment would be 'to let managers manage,' and that his government would 'shift
from reliance on regulations, controls, and detailed procedures towards greater
reliance on managers' competence and their achievements of results.'
20
 Thus,
some twenty years after the Glassco report, Mulroney could still put forward
deregulation of management and decentralization as important reform propos-
als and initiatives.
21
The easy part, clearly, is to make the declaration. The hard part is to define
what the shift actually means, and harder still, to make the new approach stick.
To turn the Treasury Board into a management board invariably involves trans-
ferring more authority from the centre to line departments. The idea suggests
that the Treasury Board should act more like a board of directors of a large cor-
poration than a board concerned with financial and administrative controls.
The 1986 budget documents heralded the management board concept when
they revealed that the government would give 'individual ministers and their
departmental managers more latitude and more direct responsibility to manage
the resources entrusted to them so that they can react quickly and effectively to
the changing environment.'
22
 A few months later, Robert De Cotret, the minis-
ter responsible for the Treasury Board, declared that the government 'will be
more concerned with what departments do both in program results and in meet-
ing service-wide policy objectives and less concerned with how well procedural
rules are followed.'
23
 Fast forward to 1997, when Peter Harder, the secretary to
the Treasury Board, gave an interview to the magazine Canadian Government
Executive in which he argued that 'results-based managing and a strengthened
results-based accountability will become the order of the day within the Secre-
tariat.'
24
 Again, the kind of changes De Cotret and Harder proposed some ten
years apart had already been proposed by their predecessors in one form or
another ever since Glassco tabled his findings.
The Treasury Board Secretariat Today
The Treasury Board secretariat has witnessed important changes, if not a great
deal of uncertainty, in its top management in recent years. Three individuals
Treasury Board and the Public Service Commission 199
held the position of secretary in the span of about two years between 1994 and
1995 (I
an
 Clark, Robert Giroux, and Peter Harder). Peter Harder, not long after
assuming his position in November 1995, decided to 'flatten' or 'de-layer' the
organization. Until his arrival the secretariat had been organized into two major
branches, both headed by deputy secretaries, one essentially responsible for the
expenditure budget (the program branch) and the other for human resources.
Harder also decided to reorient what he labels the secretariat's 'business
lines.' This is not to suggest, even for a moment, that many secretariat activities
were jettisoned in favour of new and distinct ones. Indeed, even only a cursory
reading of the secretariat activities contained in Part III of the document esti-
mates for, say, 1988-9 and 1998-9, reveals that core functions remain largely
as they were ten or even twenty years ago. To be sure, there are some new activ-
ities and some old ones, such as information technology, that have been recast
and given a much higher profile. But it would not be too difficult, for example,
for Gerard Veilleux, secretary in the late 19805, to recognize his old depart-
ment. He would, however, be struck by the number of new approaches the
board had introduced to strengthen management since he left. This chapter
reports on them. He would also see that departments have to bring far fewer
cases to the board for consideration than when he was secretary.
Yet he would discover that, as Al Johnson observed nearly thirty years ago,
the Treasury Board remains in essence the Cabinet committee 'on the expendi-
ture budget' and 'on management.'
25
 The secretariat's organization still reflects
this dual mandate, as indeed it has ever since it was broken off from the Depart-
ment of Finance.
Harder's reorganization had a number of purposes. As already noted he
wanted to de-layer the organization. But he was also seeking to move the Trea-
sury Board 'towards a management board role ... to modernize the way in
which it exercises its responsibilities ... [and to place emphasis on] a much
stronger strategic and results-oriented focus and away from an emphasis on
individual transactions and approvals.'
26
 In addition, he wanted to deal with the
often-heard criticism in Ottawa that the Treasury Board secretariat 'can never
get its act together,' that 'there is not one but several Treasury Boards,' or that
'the Secretariat is a series of silos hardly connected to one another.'
27
 But
Harder was not the first secretary to try to deal with this criticism. Gerard
Veilleux, for example, had it at the top of his priority list in 1986. Al Johnson
also probably had this problem in mind when, in 1971, from his vantage point
as secretary, he authored a paper, 'The Treasury Board of Canada and the
Machinery of Government in Canada.' He began his paper by comparing the
Treasury Board secretariat to Kafka's Castle.
28
Harder is not the sole architect of the modern Treasury Board secretariat. Ian
200 The Play
Clark, one of his predecessors, established a new position in July 1993, 'Chief
Information Officer,' and made the incumbent, together with his staff, 'respon-
sible for developing policy and standards for information management and
technology and related telecommunications activities.'
29
 The then president of
the Treasury Board, Jim Edwards, reported that his goal was 'to eliminate paper
from the government's internal administrative processes by the end of the
decade [and] along with the paper, I hope I will have eliminated a great deal of
red tape.'
30
 The first person appointed to the position had previously been head
of the Office of the Comptroller General. That office was fully integrated into
the Treasury Board secretariat in Kim Campbell's 1993 restructuring, so that
establishing the new post of chief information officer only a few weeks after
Campbell's announcement proved to be convenient in more ways than one. The
two secretaries before Peter Harder had also introduced other changes to the
organization. Indeed, there were several changes to the Program and Human
Resources branches in 1993 and 1994. For instance, consolidation took place
in several branches and some management de-layering was introduced in all
branches.
But Peter Harder, more than anyone, shaped the organization from below. He
had, while deputy minister of Citizenship and Immigration, overhauled that
department by substantially de-layering its management levels. He would do
the same at the Treasury Board secretariat. There are now at least twelve indi-
viduals reporting directly to the secretary. As was the case for the other central
agencies reviewed in earlier chapters, there is no need to describe in detail the
work of the various levels. This is available elsewhere, particularly in Part III of
the Estimates for the Treasury Board secretariat and in a number of other docu-
ments published in recent years by the secretariat.
Evert Lindquist writes that 'for many observers inside and outside the gov-
ernment, the Treasury Board's Program Branch is the Treasury Board Secretar-
iat.' The Program branch produces the expenditure budget and deals with
departments and agencies on all budgetary and financial matters. The argument
is that budgetary decisions, more than any other, define what departments do
and how they do it.
31
The Program branch has recently been reorganized into five sectors, each
headed by an assistant secretary reporting directly to the secretary. The func-
tions performed by these five sectors are little different than those performed in
the past by the Program branch. One assistant secretary is responsible for the
economic sector, another for the social and cultural sector, and the other for
government operations, which includes foreign affairs and defence. While the
functions of the old branch may have been spread around a bit, they remain
essentially unchanged. Policy and multiyear program requirements still must be
Treasury Board and the Public Service Commission 201
Chart 4
Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat
Ministerial and
Executive Services
Infrastructure
Works Canada
President of the
Treasury Board
Secretary of the
Treasury Board and
Comptroller General
Chief Human
Resources Officer
Chief Information
Officer
Deputy Comptroller
General
Government Operations
Sector
Social and Cultural
Sector
Public Affairs
Legal Services
- Economic Sector
• Alternative Service
Delivery Crown
Corporation Policy
- Expenditure
Management Sector
— Corporate Services*
* Joint services with the Department of Finance, 1 November 1997
Source: Based on information provided by officials in the Treasury Board Secretariat,
November 1997
202 The Play
analysed to enable the secretariat to advise the Treasury Board on the allocation
of resources. There is also a 'requirement to provide technical support to
departments - in the preparation of business plans, main estimates submissions
and to maintain an up-to-date account of planned government expenditures.'
32
There is an assistant secretary, again reporting directly to the secretary, respon-
sible for the management of the estimates and expenditures. He and his staff
work closely with Department of Finance officials to finalize expenditure bud-
get numbers, particularly in the weeks leading up to budget day. Finally, there
is an assistant secretary charged with identifying and promoting alternative ser-
vice delivery approaches. It is this group that is responsible for the SOA con-
cept, discussed below.
Another part of the organization handles what the secretary describes as the
'second line of business - Human Resources Management.'
33
 This group is
responsible for developing a 'human resources management framework' and
for a good part of its implementation. The framework consists of 'legislation
and policies related to job evaluation, compensation, terms and conditions of
employment, training and development, labour relations, employment adjust-
ment, the human resources framework of Alternative Service Delivery, the pen-
sion program, pay equity, employment equity, and official languages.'
34
 The
staff also has a number of duties related to job classification and collective bar-
gaining. During the early and mid-1990s, for example, they produced a number
of options on how to plan and implement government downsizing and, subse-
quently, on how to retain competent managers at a time when their salaries
were frozen for several years. The Treasury Board secretariat has produced a
detailed report for Parliament which outlines the various activities carried out
by these five assistant secretaries.
35
Secretariat officials are increasingly convinced that new information technol-
ogy holds the key to improved service delivery, and have established a group to
promote its use in government. The group carried out, for example, a review of
the government's information and technology standards program 'to ensure the
application of standards supports shared infrastructure, software and data across
government.'
36
 It also works with departments to review a number of issues,
including Internet access, and to identify means to address the year 2000
problem.
The Office of the Comptroller General, established in 1978, was fully inte-
grated in the Treasury Board secretariat in 1993. Its function in the secretariat
has been guided by the following framework - the operation of a single consol-
idated fund; an estimates and supply process consistent with parliamentary
rules; a solid body of financial and other administration policies; a professional
financial, material, property, and review staff; efficient and effective manage-
Treasury Board and the Public Service Commission 203
ment practices within departments; and effective performance reporting. There
are signs, however, that things could be changing on this front. The current
leadership at the Treasury Board would like to sharpen the existing accountabil-
ity and performance reporting regime, insisting that in management 'what gets
measured, gets done.'
37
 Both the president and the secretary of the Treasury
Board have recently expressed a strong desire to 'renew' and 'modernize' the
comptrollership.
The president, Marcel Masse, established an independent review panel drawn
from the private sector in November 1996 and asked it to identify 'critical suc-
cess factors... to achieve successful comptrollership modernization.'
38
 The panel
reported that 'many of the fundamental conditions and assumptions of the past
no longer apply [and] that embracing modern comptrollership will involve dra-
matic further change and a quantum leap.'
39
 It then stated that 'the single most
important change proposed in this report is a move to a new guiding philosophy
for comptrollership. In very general terms, it is proposed that the philosophy
guiding comptrollership move from a "command/control" orientation to a
more contemporary one, sometimes called "loose/tight." A "loose/tight" orien-
tation combines a strong commitment to central standards and values and
achievement of planned results, with flexibility regarding processes and opera-
tional approaches.'
40
 But the centre of government, and more specifically the
Treasury Board and its secretariat, have been pursuing a 'loose/tight' approach
virtually since it was established, and in particular since the mid-1980s.
If You Stand Here Long Enough, It Will Go Around Again
To be sure, the Glassco Commission had a substantial impact on government
operations. A long-time student of government observed that Glassco brought
a sort of managerial revolution in the bureaucracy.'
41
 Many of the previously
strict controls exercised by central agencies over administrative matters such as
salaries, travel, and office equipment were removed. In addition, the govern-
ment began the shift towards program-based budgeting and away from line item
budgeting. Moreover, a number of people who worked with the commission
later came to occupy senior positions in government. They were joined by oth-
ers with private sector experience in financial and personnel management who
were brought in to implement the radical reforms.
But while officials were still busy implementing the Glassco recommenda-
tions, the government came under attack for 'waste, extravagance and other
abuses in the spending of government money.'
42
 A special debate was held in
the Commons on the government's apparent inability to protect the public Trea-
sury in refitting the aircraft carrier Bonaventure. In the debate, specific cases
204 The Play
were identified, such as the awarding of two separate contracts - for different
amounts - to remove fifty-two chairs from the Bonaventure's briefing rooms.
Glassco's call to 'let the manager manage' was now being put severely to the
test in the political arena.
In response, the then Treasury Board president unveiled new measures to
improve efficiency in government. One of the most important of these was the
establishment of a special administrative policy branch in the secretariat. The
branch was designed to draw up administrative norms for departments, cover-
ing fields like accommodation, construction contracts, travel, material acquisi-
tions, and to develop an accounting system for these expenditures. In a circular,
Treasury Board made it clear to all departments that the work of the branch
would be directed towards ensuring qualities of probity and prudence in gov-
ernment. The new branch quickly identified two types of administrative activi-
ties: those dealing with the quantity and quality of goods and services (such as
accommodation and furnishings) and those dealing with acquiring them (con-
tract regulations). The Treasury Board would have a direct hand in both. To
implement the new approach, the branch employed three instruments: legisla-
tion (such as the Financial Administration Act or Access to Information Act),
regulations (mandatory instructions approved by the governor-in-council), and
directives (mandatory instructions approved by the Treasury Board that are nor-
mally to be followed).
43
The auditor general also pressed the federal government in the mid-1970s to
establish a new deputy minister level position, that of comptroller general. He
wanted a chief financial officer to oversee how money was being spent in gov-
ernment. Jean Chretien, then Treasury Board president, resisted the suggestion
because he did not want two deputy ministers reporting to him. He observed, 'I
do not want to be caught between two men.'
44
 Convinced that the government
would never follow up on his recommendations, the auditor general put the cat
among the pigeons in 1976 when he wrote in his annual report that 'Parliament
and indeed the Government - has lost, or is close to losing effective control of
the public purse.'
45
 Again, the notion of letting the manager decide was being
put to the test in the political arena.
On the very day the auditor general made his annual report public, the presi-
dent of the Treasury Board rose in the Commons to announce the setting up of a
royal commission on financial management and accountability with a mandate
'to ensure that the departments and agencies meet the highest attainable stan-
dards.'
46
 Robert Andras was the new Treasury Board president. Unlike his pre-
decessor, he decided to negotiate directly with the auditor general the creation
of a new position - that of comptroller general. Andreas tried unsuccessfully to
persuade the auditor general to agree that the comptroller general should be
Treasury Board and the Public Service Commission 205
the associate secretary to the Treasury Board. The Office of the Comptroller
General, headed by a deputy minister reporting directly to the president of the
Treasury Board, was established in 1978.
To Treasury Board officials, the Office of the Comptroller General repre-
sented a purely political move to placate the media, the auditor general, and the
Public Accounts Committee. One official explained that 'the problem they
wanted resolved was a political one; their intention was not to institute greater
financial controls in government or to improve public administration generally.
The consideration that went into all this was - "we've got a political problem.
Now, how do we get out of it?" The answer was "if we do appoint a comptroller
general - we will make a good number of people happy, so let's do it - and to
hell with the rest.'" He went on to argue, 'We knew right from the start that his
office would not do much.'
47
The Office of the Comptroller General had many problems during its fifteen-
year existence. In 1984 Mulroney directed Robert De Cotret, the president of
the Treasury Board, in his mandate letter to clarify the role of the Office of the
Comptroller General and to focus or limit its activities to financial manage-
ment. The Privy Council Office and the Treasury Board secretariat had con-
cluded that the Office of the Comptroller General was not playing the strong
financial role envisioned and that it was focusing too much on general manage-
ment issues.
In terms of the expenditure budget, its most important shortcoming has been
in evaluating programs. It assumed full responsibility for the coordination of
evaluation planning, for policy guidance, and for assessing the quality of evalu-
ation findings in studies carried out by departments. Shortly after the office was
set up, it served notice that it would urge all departments to establish program
evaluations and that it would conduct studies on issues of interdepartmental or
government-wide concern. It would also take the lead in developing the appro-
priate methodology and procedures for such evaluations. A keen student and
practitioner of public administration predicted shortly after the office was estab-
lished that the growing concern over increased government spending would
lead to 'a new industry, The Evaluation Industry.'
4
^ We now know that pro-
gram evaluations did indeed develop into a growth industry, one that grew
around the Office of the Comptroller General. It remains today an important
and largely Ottawa-based industry.
Some observers felt that the establishment of the Office of the Comptroller
General had pulled the rug out from under the new Royal Commission on
Financial Management and Accountability, or as it became known, the Lambert
Commission. But the commission kept at it and soon concluded that there were
still two other problems that needed fixing. First, it expressed the urgent need
206 The Play
'to avoid waste' in government. It declared that 'in the context of today's fiscal
situation and the pervasiveness of government activity, managers in the public
service are being challenged to rediscover a sense of frugality and a commit-
ment to the careful husbanding of resources.'
49
 The message from Lambert was
clear enough - government managers are not sufficiently competent to let them
manage.
Second, it argued that the serious malaise in management stemmed from 'an
almost total breakdown in the chain of accountability.'
50
 It then sought to repair
this situation and to restore a sense of frugality and good management practices.
It presented over 130 recommendations, ranging from a restructuring of the
Treasury Board secretariat and the Public Service Commission to the transfer of
the government's day-to-day cash management to the Department of Finance
from Supply and Services. To strengthen accountability in government, the
commission urged, among other things, that deputy ministers be appointed for
three to five years and that goals be set for all managers to meet. Moreover, it
recommended that the goals should provide 'an objective basis for measuring
the manager's performance.'
The commission noted with great concern that ministers, deputy ministers,
and senior managers were far more interested in policy issues than management
ones.
51
 Deputy ministers, the commission concluded, were largely deficient in
management skills. It then argued that central agencies should take the lead in
evaluating the performance of deputy ministers and that new importance be
attached to their management functions.
To ensure a proper evaluation of senior managers and that increased empha-
sis be placed on management rather than policy, the commission recommended
a complete overhaul of the central agencies. It reported,
The deficiencies in the central management of government today relate in no small mea-
sure to a failure to plan thoroughly at the top. Accepted, instead, is a planning process too
often dependent on trying to marry uncoordinated proposals coming up from the bottom.
There is a consequent failure to budget rationally, and a confusion of responsibility for
control and evaluation. The follow-up by central management to see if commitments have
been met or indicated levels of performance attained has been lacking. The shortcomings
of the existing system stem as well from a failure to define precisely and distinctly the
tasks and responsibilities of the central agencies. Accountability of the central agencies
themselves for the way in which they have performed their own roles is incomplete.
52
The commission also recommended that the management of governmental
functions be 'consolidated.'
53
 Specifically, it suggested that the Treasury Board
be renamed the Board of Management, and that it assume new responsibilities
Treasury Board and the Public Service Commission 207
for overseeing all aspects of management in government. The Board of Man-
agement would be supported by two secretaries of the board, one the secretary
for personnel management and the other the comptroller general. The former
would assume responsibilities for 'government-wide policies on manpower
planning, appraisal of senior management personnel ... collective bargaining,
classification and official languages.'
54
 The latter would essentially lead
the expenditure budget process at the officials level. The role of the Public
Service Commission would, in turn, be substantially reduced, with most of its
responsibilities transferred to the Board of Management. The commission
recommended that the Public Service Commission be reconstituted as a 'Parlia-
mentary Department with the duty of ensuring that selection and appointment to
the public service are made on the basis of merit.'
55
The government in the end rejected most of the commission's recommenda-
tions. To many senior officials, the Lambert Commission 'had a very naive
view of how government operates. It had a strong private sector bias in its work.
What works in the private sector does not necessarily work in government and
no doubt what works in government would not apply in the private sector.'
56
One senior official reported that when the Lambert report was released, 'we
[senior departmental officials] went away for a day and a half session to study
the report. We were able to finish the review after only just a few hours. The
report did not measure up in any way and it was far removed from the quality
and substance of the Glassco Commission. The Lambert report was simply
fluff, pure fluff, with no practical application.'
57
Many senior government officials felt that the commission even lacked a
basic grasp of how parliamentary government works. They argued that in
describing a process in which departments are held accountable 'through the
Board of Management to Parliament,' the commission confused the roles of the
executive and legislative branches of government and the manner in which indi-
vidual ministers are directly answerable to Parliament for the exercise of their
responsibilities. They point out that the president of the Treasury Board
answers to Parliament for the exercise of his responsibilities, including that to
develop good management practices and standards. Other ministers, however,
are not, and cannot be, responsible through him, or through the Treasury Board
which he chairs, to Parliament.
58
One ol the Lambert recommendations, however, did strike a chord with a
good number of senior officials - that the role of the Public Service Commis-
sion be substantially reduced, and that most of its responsibilities be transferred
to a newly constituted Board of Management.
59
 But the Trudeau government,
only months away from calling a general election, decided that it would be
unwise to be seen to be tampering with the merit principle in the public service,
208 The Play
fearing that it could turn out to be a politically charged issue in the campaign.
The role of the Public Service Commission was left unchanged.
Shortly after coming to power, the Mulroney government, wishing to deliver
on its campaign commitment to let manager manage, declared that it 'will be
more concerned with what departments do both in program results and in meet-
ing service-wide policy objectives and less concerned with how well procedural
rules are followed.'
60
 Robert De Cotret, the then president of the Treasury
Board, announced that the government was introducing a new approach to deci-
sion making - Increased Ministerial Authority and Accountability (IMAA).
There is no need to review in detail here the workings of IMAA.
61
 Suffice to
note that if IMAA was implemented through two complementary initiatives - a
general review of Treasury Board policies, and the development of individual
memoranda of understanding (MOUs) between departments and the Treasury
Board.
The policy review was designed to identify the potential for greater flexibil-
ity, deregulation, and delegation, to reduce reporting requirements to the board,
and generally to simplify policy. The review prompted some changes. Among
other things, departments could now sponsor conferences without having to
secure Treasury Board approval, the ceiling on competitive contracts for con-
struction and consulting without reference to the board was doubled, depart-
ments could classify positions, except in the management category, and
approve organizational changes. The number of reports required under various
administrative policies was reduced by 65 per cent, and the delegation of
authority in certain areas of human resource management reduced departmental
requests to the secretariat by about 1,000 a year. Moreover, departments were
allowed to carry into the next fiscal year 5 per cent of their capital budget, to a
maximum of $25 million in 1988-9, rising to $75 million in 1990-1. There is
no denying that these changes, among other factors, served to reduce Treasury
Board's involvement in the day-to-day operations of departments.
The second major activity was the negotiating of MOUs with departments
and agencies. The memorandum of understanding outlined the department's
increased authority and flexibility in delivering programs and established an
accountability framework against which performance can be assessed. The MOU
covered the responsibilities of all the branches in the Treasury Board secretariat
and the Office of the Comptroller General, and it spelled out in one place the
levels of authority delegated to deal with all Treasury Board policies. Further,
any savings realized by departments as a result of more efficient operations under
IMAA would remain with them for reallocation to priority initiatives.
62
But IMAA did not live up to expectations and it eventually petered out. For
one thing, only eight departments signed a MOU. To make matters worse, those
Treasury Board and the Public Service Commission 209
that did sign were disenchanted with IMAA, claiming that the paperwork
involved and the reporting requirements were not compensated for by the lim-
ited freedom they received from central agency controls.
63
 In short, the paper-
work practically equalled that required to process their former submissions to
Treasury Board. Word quickly spread, and departments simply stopped asking
the Treasury Board secretariat to sign MOUs.
In any event, IMAA was soon overtaken by yet another approach. On
12 December 1989, Prime Minister Mulroney unveiled Public Service (PS)
2000. Its purpose was clearly stated: to cut red tape, empower managers and
their employees, and improve service to the public. One could only be left won-
dering, however, what the purpose of IMAA had been, given the stated objec-
tives of PS 2000. Only a few years after Treasury Board had completed a
general review of its policies and requirements under the IMAA initiative, the
Privy Council Office declared in introducing PS 2000 that 'the personnel and
administrative management regimes are encrusted with barnacles of rules and
procedures that are wasteful and hamper efficiency.
4
The then clerk of the Privy Council and secretary to the Cabinet, Paul Tellier,
led the PS 2000 exercise and became closely identified with it. The fact that PS
2000 was seen as the clerk's initiative sent a signal throughout the system that it
should be taken seriously. And it was, at least initially .
Tellier appointed John Edwards, a long-serving senior public servant, to
establish and lead a secretariat to develop and promote PS 2000. Ten task forces
were assembled, with a total membership of 120 deputy ministers and senior
managers to review specific management areas, including administrative policy
and common service agencies; classification and occupational group structures;
compensation and benefits; management category; resource management and
budget controls; service to the public; staff relations; staffing; training and
development; and workforce adaptiveness. PS 2000 was designed to be an
internal public-service-driven exercise, and it was largely an attempt by the
public service to reform itself. John Edwards explained, This is indeed an
unabashedly management-driven exercise, and is based on a gamble: that we
can do better than a conventional Royal Commission, that we know the prob-
lems, we are capable of finding the solutions, and perhaps most important we
will be around to inculcate the changes into the public service.'
65
PS 2000's main finding was that the public service needed to undergo a
fundamental cultural change. The secretariat produced a table to contrast the
'old culture' with the desired 'new culture' (see Table 3 below). It is clear that
the shift from the 'old' to the 'new' culture was inspired by the New Public
Management Movement which was by the early 19908 starting to take root in
the United States.
66
210 The Play
TABLE 3
Changing Civil Service Culture
The PS 2000 secretariat said that the transition from the old culture to the
new would require a 'shift centred on prudence and probity, to one which rec-
ognizes the primacy of service to clients while accepting the need for reason-
able prudence and probity.'
67
 It put together more than 300 recommendations
for 'delayering,' reducing central controls, reducing the number of job classifi-
cations from seventy-two to twenty-three, and making it easier to staff posi-
tions. The PS 2000 secretariat also put together a number of 'broad strategies'
to support the change: decentralization of decision making, empowerment, the
notion of trust and confidence in a nonpartisan, objective, and professional pub-
lic service, a reduction on controls on managers, more flexible organizational
structures, upgrading the skills of government managers, and a stronger sense
of service to the public. Departments were also encouraged to launch their own
PS 2000 review exercises to identify 'useless' red tape and to 'delayer' manage-
ment levels.
To implement these strategies required changes, especially to ensure that
centrally prescribed controls were attenuated, if not eliminated. More specifi-
cally, the centre of government would again have to change its ways and to
review its own policies and practices. It was made clear, for example, as it had
been before, that the Treasury Board secretariat would have to overhaul many
of its requirements and in future act less as a treasury board and more as a man-
agement board preoccupied with good management practices rather than rules
Old Culture New Culture
Controlling Empowering
Rigid Flexible
Suspicious Trusting
Administrative Managerial
Secret Open
Power based Task based
Input/process oriented Results oriented
Preprogrammed and repetitive Capable of purposeful action
Risk averse Willing to take intelligent risks
Mandatory Optional
Communicating poorly Communicating well
Centralized Decentralized
Uniform Diverse
Stifling creativity Encouraging innovation
Reactive Proactive
Source: Public Service 2000 Secretariat, Ottawa
Treasury Board and the Public Service Commission 211
and regulations. Another key target was the Public Service Commission, with
its elaborate rules and regulations governing staffing, training, promotion, and
dismissal. The secretary to the cabinet, in his J.J. Carson Lecture delivered on
8 March 1990, argued that, 'For the Public Service Commission, the changes
will mean getting out of the management business and focusing on its role as
Parliament's agent in protecting the integrity of the personnel system.'
68
Changes such as these require not only alterations to the machinery of gov-
ernment but new legislation. On 18 June 1991, the president of the Treasury
Board, Gilles Loiselle, tabled legislation 'to support Public Service 2000 and to
overhaul the federal public service.'
69
 The background briefing material in sup-
port of the legislation reported that the government would be delegating more
authority down the line, reducing levels of management, and simplifying
government budgets and the classification of positions. The new legislation
provided for a number of changes, including measures to make it easier for
departments to hire casual workers, to 'release' poor performers, and to contract
out activities to the private sector. The legislation restated the merit principle as
the fundamental rule for public service hiring and promotion. While collective
bargaining also remained largely unchanged, departments were given a greater
role in collective bargaining and in handling grievance adjudications for cases
that do not have a service-wide impact. The proposed changes made clear that
employees could be 'released' on grounds of 'incompetence, incapacity, and
unsatisfactory performance.' This was a necessary step 'to let the manager
manage.'
Indeed, Treasury Board secretariat officials insisted at the time that the PS
2000 legislation was tabled that in future managers would be free to manage.
However, the performance of managers would also be evaluated. They wrote
that a 'manager's performance evaluation will reflect how she or he has
recruited and developed women and minority groups - members of visible
minorities, aboriginal peoples and persons with disabilities.'
70
 These were not
the only criteria to be used in assessing a manager's performance, and as
already noted, determining the performance of a government manager is hardly
an exact science. Some would even question whether it is at all possible, given
the varied criteria and the many reasons why one can be successful or not in
managing government operations.
In the early months of PS 2000, it was widely assumed that significant
changes to central agencies would be introduced. The thinking was that they
would be cut back substantially. The clerk of the Privy Council and secretary to
the Cabinet pointed out, for example, that the mandate of the Public Service
Commission would be reformulated to perform essentially an audit role. Line-
department managers were arguing that if there were to be any real meaning
212 The Play
this time to 'letting-the-manager-manage,' then it was important to cut back
central agencies. However, the legislation did not attempt to do this, not even
with the Public Service Commission, which mounted a concerted defence of its
organizational interest, and which was left intact.
71
 Nor was any administrative
reform introduced to cut back the size of the other central agencies. It will also
be recalled that a few years later, Kim Campbell, in a massive restructuring of
government, also left the central agencies virtually unchanged.
PS 2000, as noted earlier, did formally designate the clerk of the Privy Coun-
cil and secretary to the Cabinet as head of the Public Service. This, however,
simply cast in legislation what had become clear for some time, at least to
officials in the Privy Council Office. Still, the Treasury Board remained the
'employer' and continued to monitor public service performance. Some inside
government wondered why the secretary to the Treasury Board was not for-
mally designated head of the public service.
72
 The authors of the PS 2000
report, who were senior PCO staff members, explain that the clerk is 'the most
senior deputy minister ... who takes the lead in policy and issues of manage-
ment ... [and who is the] leader of the Public Service.' They add that the clerk
'is responsible to the Prime Minister for the overall effectiveness of the public
service's support to the Ministry.'
73
Did PS 2000 live up to expectations? By most accounts, no. The government
declared a wage freeze and announced that it would cut the number of senior
executives by 10 per cent at about the same time PS 2000 was unveiling its rec-
ommendations. In addition, the notions of letting the manager manage and of
risk management were given a sudden jolt when it was discovered that Al-
Mashat, Iraq's ambassador to the United States until January 1991 and Iraq's
principal spokesman during the Gulf War, had been permitted to enter Canada
as a landed immigrant.
The Mulroney government refused to accept responsibility for the decision to
admit Al-Mashat, pinning the blame on the bureaucrats instead. In the after-
math, three observers wrote, 'Senior executives now heard a mixed message
from the government: We want you to take risks, we expect you to make mis-
takes sometimes; but if you screw up, we may hang you out to dry publicly. The
refusal of ministers Joe Clark and Barbara McDougall to take responsibility in
the traditional manner for departmental errors reinforced public service caution
and scepticism about taking risks.'
74
 In a seminal article on the issue, Sharon
Sutherland wrote that the controversy 'led the Clerk to fire on the troops in
order to give comfort to the government of the day.'
75
 The message was clear:
the concept of 'letting the manager manage' had its limits. Suddenly, Tellier's
PS 2000 exercise began to ring hollow.
Gradually, observers, politicians, and even public servants began to make the
Treasury Board and the Public Service Commission 213
case that PS 2000 had not delivered 'the goods.' Marcel Masse, as newly
appointed minister responsible for public service renewal in the Chretien gov-
ernment, but a senior deputy minister when PS 2000 was developed, wrote that
'while PS 2000 did achieve some important successes, notably the passage of
legislative changes which have helped to remove needless red tape and provide
more flexibility to managers, it became tainted through a series of events start-
ing in 1991 ... For these and other reasons, PS 2000 put its tail between its legs.
In many government departments, managers no longer refer to it, as it has lost
credibility as a symbol for reform and renewal.'
76
In his review of PS 2000, the auditor general reported that he encountered a
great deal of cynicism among managers about the initiative.
77
 Meanwhile, a line
deputy minister reported, 'I continue to modernize my operations but I do not
call it PS 2000. It now lacks credibility.'
78
 Another deputy minister claimed that
PS 2OOo's inability to deal head on with the work of central agencies explains
its modest success. She explained, 'Unless you are prepared to deal with the
structure and role of central agencies, the PS 2000 will be little more than an
exercise of finely crafted words. So if you are not prepared to deal with this
problem - and obviously PS 2000 is not - you are not prepared to deal with the
real problems of government operations.'
79
 John L. Manion, former associate
secretary to the Cabinet and secretary to the Treasury Board, wrote that 'the
abiding impression of PS 2000 is that it dealt with marginal issues. It did not
come to grips with the need for institutional reform, particularly at the core of
So
government.
In the end, there was virtually no one left in Ottawa singing the praises of PS
2000, not even those who earlier had been its most ardent supporters. Even Paul
Tellier began to speak about its shortcomings. He left his position to became
president of CNR, a crown corporation, and after about eighteen months in his
new job, he gave a provocative and remarkably candid speech on public service
reform. It is worth quoting at some length his views on the matter. He wrote,
'When I was at the Privy Council Office we had a vision of re-engineering the
bureaucracy: PS 2000. I deplore letting some of my colleagues convince me to
go slow in reforming some processes.' He insisted that for re-engineering to
work, you require bold implementation (Tellier's italics). Government, he
implied, does not move in bold ways even when the clerk of the Privy Council,
the most powerful person in the public service, is leading the charge. He
reported, T introduced and implemented more change in the last 12 months at
CN than I was able to do in my last seven years in the public service.' He ech-
oed the views of many line deputy ministers when he observed, 'In my 13 years
as a deputy minister, I spent far too much time having to justify my decisions to
the comptrollers of the comptrollers. The problem was never at the deputy or
214 The Play
associate deputy minister level, but rather at the lower ranks [where] I had to
answer irrelevant questions from individuals who were just trying to justify
their existence.'
He then took aim at the Treasury Board secretariat, asking, 'What is the
added value of the bureaucracy of the Treasury Board Secretariat? I don't mean
the Committee of Ministers, which has the responsibility of reviewing financial
or personnel transactions. I mean the very large bureaucracy which supports
that Cabinet committee. But I use the Treasury Board Secretariat as an example
because, perhaps better than any other agency [it] reflects a lack of added
value.' He concluded by saying that 'had I known then what I know now, I
would have introduced more radical changes.' As a case in point, he wrote, 'PS
2000 involved a radical, bold and rapid change of the classification system. It
could have been completed in six months. Instead, we adopted a slow, gradual
approach that focused on the executive category. The end result? Very small,
modest changes. What's the big deal in combining the SM and EX-i groups!
And today we still have a system where senior managers hire consultants to
write lo-page job descriptions that nobody reads.'
81
Ian Clark, at the time secretary to the Treasury Board, decided to respond to
Tellier's stinging criticism. He reminded him that in government 'collegiality'
is important and that Tellier himself had made an important contribution in pro-
moting it within the ranks of the senior public service while he was clerk (Tel-
lier, for example, had initiated the weekly deputy ministers' breakfast). He also
reminded Tellier that only politicians can take decisions on structural or
machinery changes, and that ultimately they also have to decide whether one
can move on government reform or not. Clark wrote, 'Public service reform
must obviously compete with other government priorities. In this context, one
can see why Public Service 2000 was not more boldly implemented by senior
public servants. During the early 19905, the federal government had a very full
policy agenda, including the attempt to secure an agreement with the provinces
on a new Constitution. Negotiations with the provinces and other groups, and
the extensive public consultations, taxed the energies of many of the best policy
and managerial minds throughout the Public Service. This affected the progress
that could be made on other major initiatives, including management reform.
To evaluate progress on public sector reform without acknowledging such pres-
sures is to unfairly assess the true possibilities for success.' He added that 'the
initiatives launched under Mr. Tellier's leadership came close to the boundaries
of what could be achieved without risking the ire of Parliament. To have
accomplished more, in my view, would have required a consensus within the
government, and among the opposition parties, on the goals and the mecha-
nisms for public service reform.' Clark concluded that 'while it is fashionable
Treasury Board and the Public Service Commission 215
to deride the Public Service 2000 exercise, its impact has been lasting and its
principles have been reflected in many subsequent initiatives.'
82
Though admittedly it did not meet expectations, PS 2000 undeniably had an
impact. As Marcel Masse suggested, it did remove at least some 'needless red
tape.' PS 2000 also introduced the operating budget concept to government
operations, and a number of senior officials I consulted certainly approved of
this. The concept enables managers to pool funds allocated for salaries, operat-
ing costs, and small capital projects and then decide the most cost-effective
ways of getting the work done. In implementing the operating budget concept,
the Treasury Board secretariat dropped its person-year control. Departments are
now free to use salaries for other operating costs and, conversely, resources ear-
marked for other purposes can be employed to pay salaries. Still, departments
are still expected to do a head count and report the number of their full-time
equivalents to Parliament.
83
PS 2000 also reintroduced an old IMAA concept under which enabled depart-
ments could carry forward 2 per cent of their expenditure budgets into the next
fiscal year. In the past, there was always a rush to find ways to spend resources
towards the end of every fiscal year, since any unspent resources lapsed. Under
PS 2000, the amount allowed to be carried forward into the next fiscal year was
increased from 2 per cent under IMAA to 5 per cent. PS 2000 also did away with
many centrally prescribed administrative and financial requirements. Deputy
ministers were given new authority to delegate some staffing decisions to their
senior managers in the departments, to award competitive contracts, to approve
hospitality expenditures, to purchase goods, and so on.
84
In the summer of 1991, while PS 2000 was still in the implementation phase,
the Treasury Board secretariat decided to introduce yet another new approach,
the shared management agenda. It had four objectives: to improve communica-
tion between the Treasury Board and line departments; to improve service to
the public; to encourage better 'people management'; and to promote empower-
ment. The shared management agenda worked as follows: the secretary of the
Treasury Board and deputy ministers agreed - either in the form of a letter or a
memorandum of understanding - on the management issues and objectives the
departments wanted to address over a one- to three-year period. They then
agreed on the steps required to meet these objectives. Such steps included, for
example, decentralizing more authority to the department and improvements in
the operations and policies of the Treasury Board.
85
 The shared management
agenda, according to Treasury Board officials, was essentially another attempt
at transforming the 'command-and-control' model of government decision
making into an empowered business-management model. In short, it was yet
one more attempt to let the manager manage.
216 The Play
Again, however, the approach was met with a high degree of scepticism.
Officials in line departments called it a 'paper exercise,' and a 'make-work'
project designed to keep central agency officials busy. One deputy minister
maintained that there was little to be gained in the exercise for line departments,
with all the 'information going one way, and that is to central agencies. We still
have not been able to figure out what advantages it holds for departments. Still,
we go through the motions, not so much because it will accomplish anything.
What it does, however, is avoid creating problems with the Treasury Board.'
86
The Treasury Board secretariat introduced still another new approach by
looking to Margaret Thatcher's 'Next Steps' initiative for inspiration. The sec-
retary to the Treasury Board explained, 'Canadian interest in special operating
agencies [SOAs] was spurred by the Executive Agency, or Next Steps initiative
in the United Kingdom.'
87
 Members of the Treasury Board secretariat staff
were sent to London to study the agency concept and returned with ideas on
how to adapt it to Canada.
Government officials report that one of the main reasons for establishing
SOAs was to provide 'the first clear break with the traditional control and com-
mand model and to offer concrete evidence of the beginnings of a culture for
government services that emphasizes the practices of management in place of
the systems and processes of program administration.' The Treasury Board sec-
retariat made it clear that SOAs should be 'business units oriented to good man-
agement' and should, over time, promote more 'business-like services, improve
service to the customer, and demonstrate concern for efficient management.'
88
At the risk of sounding repetitive, SOAs are also designed to let the manager
manage.
The SOA initiative did not attempt to deal with the principle of ministerial
responsibility. Unlike in Britain, where there is a direct relationship between the
agency head and the minister, in Canada the deputy minister remains the key
point of contact. The Treasury Board simply reported that 'no change is contem-
plated in the current accountability relationship. If anything, accountability will
be strengthened and made more transparent under the Agency approach. Simi-
larly, the establishment of an Agency will not change the status of an employee
as a public servant, nor will it change union representation.'
89
 Still, the Treasury
Board insists that it is possible to decentralize a number of management author-
ities. This includes, among other things, the power to introduce organizational
change without going to central agencies for approval, to establish a pay-for-
performance plan, increase staffing authority, provide more flexibility in assign-
ing tasks and duties to employees, and give the head of the agency freedom to
move funds around to different tasks within an existing budget.
But the implementation of the SOA concept has not been without problems
Treasury Board and the Public Service Commission 217
and a fair dose of cynicism. One deputy minister argued in print that it was 'a
bureaucratic version of a halfway house. It is neither a jail, nor is it total free-
dom. It is part of a department, yet separate from it.' He added that SOAs 'are
still very much part of the federal family. Staff in agencies are still public ser-
vants. SOAs still report to the department, to the Minister and to the Treasury
Board.' The secretary to the Treasury Board wrote that 'SOAs are not quasi-
Grown corporations. They remain a distinct part of the home department, albeit
with enhanced operational authority.'
90
The uncertainty over what precisely an SOA is gave rise, at least at first, to
some confusion. Senior officials readily admit that 'some Deputy Ministers are
concerned about accountability and what might be called the balkanization of a
department.' This, in turn, has led to tension between the agency head and the
parent department, with agencies pushing for more authority and departments
resisting it.
9
' Senior SOA officials complain about a lack of 'authority,'
'empowerment,' or overall support from the system. Unlike in Britain, where
the head of the agency is the chief executive officer, in Canada the chief execu-
tive officer is the department's deputy minister, while the head of the agency is
the chief operating officer. This, they insist, places the deputy minister in a con-
flict between the set of rules stemming from the department and those estab-
lished internally by the agency. There are all kinds of incentives for a deputy
minister to favour the department over an agency that is continually striving to
secure arm's-length status. In any event, they argue, deputy ministers are far too
busy with their own jobs to give much time to SOAs. Agency personnel also
report that the lines of accountability for SOAs have never been properly
defined.
The biggest complaint one hears, however, is that SOAs have changed pre-
cious little. Centra] agencies continue to exercise some control as formal rules
and guidelines still apply - in the name of accountability. In the early years of
development, middle-level officials in the SOAs became very critical of how
the agencies were being established. One reported in 1994 that 'the rules are the
same and the senior executives are the same. We have seen no new blood com-
ing from outside. If anything, the home department has made things more diffi-
cult, perhaps because they do not like part of their empire hived off. For me and
my colleagues. SOA no longer stands for Special Operating Agency; it stands
for Screwed Once Again. If anything, we have less freedom than before.'
92
During my interviews for the research for this book in the fall of 1997 and
winter 1998, 1 still heard essentially the same kind of criticism. A number of
senior federal government officials met in early 1997 to review 'critical man-
agement issues and central agency intervention/withdrawal' and asked 'what
would happen to central agencies if you went the route of executive agencies
2i8 The Play
like in the United Kingdom?'
93
 They also concluded that 'in Canada we are
cautious and timid. We have 16 SO As which critics say combine the worst of
the private and public sector.'
94
 I put a question to a senior government official
who had been directly involved in the late 19805 in identifying alternative ser-
vice delivery models for the government, and that is, 'Why is it that there are
still only nineteen special operating agencies in operation?' His response,
'Because we never had the courage to introduce real change. We did not do like
the British and say here is a new way of doing things; it is vastly different, there
is some risk, but we are prepared to take those risks. We have been far too ten-
tative. We have lacked the required political will and political interest to intro-
duce real change, as opposed to cosmetic change.'
95
But there have been other problems. A government-sponsored review of the
SOAs suggests that there has been a 'lack of coordination among central agen-
cies' in developing SOAs. It goes on to report that 'central agencies other than
Treasury Board have been virtually absent in the initiatives.'
9
The lack of a coherent view from the central agencies explains why the SOA
concept has evolved in an unfocused manner. Indeed, it has not been possible
for anyone to sort out precisely why the centre of government would want to
establish SOAs. Thatcher's rationale for establishing executive agencies was
never in doubt, nor was her desire to have them operate from substantially dif-
ferent rules than regular government departments.
97
 The federal government,
unlike Britain, has been tentative in both the number of SOAs established and
in the actual changes it has been willing to allow.
In short, Treasury Board decided to apply to Canada a scaled-down version
of Thatcher's innovative approach, and on a much more modest scale. One gov-
ernment official writes,
Several different perspectives inspired the establishment of the initial five SOAs. Some
viewed the initiative as a way of delaying pressures to privatize or as a half-way station
to privatization. Others viewed SOAs as pilot projects or 'laboratories' for public sector
reform, responding to the same impulse that led to Public Service 2000 - to improve ser-
vice to the public, to unleash the creativity of people, and to introduce accountability for
results. From yet another perspective, the SOA concept offered a 'prototype' for the pub-
lic service, an alternative approach to delivering government operations similar to the
Executive Agencies in the United Kingdom. Given the range of expectations attached to
the initiative from the start, it is not surprising that as additional SOAs were named, each
for its own particular reasons, the rationale for the initiative became even more cloudy.
98
One thing is clear, however. It is only the Treasury Board secretariat which
has actively promoted the SOA concept. It is the Treasury Board which granted
Treasury Board and the Public Service Commission 219
SOAs flexibility in managing financial and 'person year' resources. But the
others at the centre of government have been less forthcoming 'in administra-
tive policies and common services, and least willingly in the personnel area.
The tendency has been to use existing ground rules and not concede much
more. Salary freezes, however, have applied to SOAs as they have to the rest of
the public service.'
99
 Though SOAs recently have been granted more financial
independence, the 1991 budget, for example, subjected SOAs, like everyone
else, to a 10 per cent cut in the management complement, even though they
were all operating on a cost-recovery basis.
The SOA concept did give the Treasury Board secretariat a chance to test
new opportunities. SOAs were the first in government, outside of crown corpo-
rations, to produce business plans for the Treasury Board. The thinking behind
business plans is that they enable the Treasury Board to focus on the larger
issues, on broad directions, and leave administrative-type decisions to the front
line managers, where they belong. In addition, properly prepared business plans
serve to strengthen the board's hand in its efforts to establish performance tar-
gets for government activities and determining whether standards or commit-
ments are being met.
The Treasury Board has now adopted the business plan approach for its deal-
ings with all departments. At the same time, the board decided to do away with
Multi-Year Operational Plans which departments had to submit every fall as
part of the annual estimates process, as well as the shared management agenda
and the IMAA initiative. That said, departments still have to produce Annual
Reference Level Updates and their Part III of the Estimates.
100
The business plans are designed to be different from past approaches on a
couple of fronts. Unlike, for example, IMAA, they do not focus on operational
details. In addition, the secretariat declared that it would make every effort to
bring down its 'silos' mentality. For this reason, it decided to create teams to
deal with individual business plans. Teams, it was argued, would create a 'sin-
gle window' at the Treasury Board for line departments so that they would not,
as in the past, go from branch to branch to sort out different Treasury Board
requirements.
Evert Lindquist has reviewed the business plans approach and writes that
thus far it has met with 'qualified success."
01
 He also writes that 'the adoption
of business planning is generally a promising, overdue development.'
102
Though departments believe that much more can be done, they are pleased with
the secretariat's efforts to establish a 'single window.' They also approve the
board's decision to focus on broader issues and not on questions of detail.
But there are problems. Again, there is some cynicism about yet another
approach designed, in Peter Harder's words in his correspondence to a deputy
220 The Play
minister, 'to better articulate the evolving management board role for the Trea-
sury Board and its Secretariat."
03
 The fact that the business planning concept is
being implemented in the immediate aftermath of the program review exercise
does not help matters. In addition, in light of the criticism levelled at previous
approaches, including IMAA, PS 2000, and the shared management agenda,
one can appreciate that government managers will keep their enthusiasm in
check. The fact that Robert Giroux, the Treasury Board secretary who played a
key role in promoting the approach, quit and left the public service after less
than two years on the job did not help matters.
There is also a great deal of concern that business plans will become little
more than a paper-pushing exercise. Three years after the introduction of the
plans, we are hearing about the need to move from 'business plans' to 'business
planning.'
104
 The implication is that both departments and the Treasury Board
have been far too preoccupied with the need to publish a document called
'Business Plan' than with producing strategic thinking or identifying ways to
assess the success or performance of departmental plans and programs.
Questions have also been asked about the capacity at the centre to review
business plans and to make some contributions to their development. Depart-
ments have complained that there has been a lack of 'substantive feedback from
the Treasury Board' both from secretariat officials and ministers. All too often,
they report, the feedback has been in the form of 'the plan is helpful or of a
superior quality, but little else.' Someone at the centre also needs to answer the
question - what are the consequences for ministers and their line departments
when they do not produce solid business plans?
105
 Thus far, at least, business
plans have had no or very little impact on the government expenditure budget.
Managing the Expenditure Budget Process
At the time the Treasury Board secretariat was established, the expenditure
budget process was fairly straightforward. Treasury Board ministers were
handed a series of documents from the secretariat which included 'A,' 'B,' and
'X' budgets. 'A' budgets represented ongoing programs at current levels of ser-
vices, 'B' budgets were new proposals or measures that were yet to be
approved, while 'X' budgets were low-priority programs which could be
dropped to make room for high-priority new programs.
106
When new approaches were introduced, notably PEMS, Treasury Board's
hand in trying to manage the expenditure budget was weakened. Decisions on
new expenditures were taken elsewhere in other Cabinet committees followed
by routine ratification in full Cabinet. The proposal was then referred to Trea-
sury Board 'for consideration of resource aspects.' Treasury Board ministers
Treasury Board and the Public Service Commission 221
then could either challenge a Cabinet decision or agree to the new spending. A
former secretary of the board once observed to the board ministers that 'with
this system you don't need a Treasury Board, you just need an adding
machine."
07
In February 1995, the then Treasury Board president, Art Eggleton, in some-
what of an overstatement, announced that the government was 'revamping, for
the first time in 15 years its Expenditure Management System."
08
 (After all,
doing away with PEMS, establishing an expenditure review committee, among
other changes, also constituted new approaches.) Eggleton explained that
'Under the [new] system, departments will now provide Outlook documents to
Parliament every spring. The Outlook will be drawn from the department's
business planning on program priorities and expenditures. It will show how
departments will adjust their programs over the next few years to operate within
the resources set out in the Budget."
09
The new system does not have policy reserves for funding new initiatives
between budgets. The current system leaves no doubt whatsoever that the bud-
get is the key document for decisions on funding major new initiatives. If
departments have any new proposals they wish to bring forward between bud-
gets, they need to fund them from their own budgets through reallocation. They
are also asked to lead the process to identify options for reallocation 'with
advice and assistance of the Treasury Board Secretariat."
10
The Treasury Board published a document to explain the new system. It out-
lines in some detail the roles of all the key players in the expenditure process
from the Privy Council Office to line departments (this part of the document is
reproduced in appendix A at the end of this chapter). The document also out-
lines the expenditure budget cycle. It notes that the process begins in the spring
with a general briefing to Cabinet on the 'results of the last budget' and a
review of 'high' priorities. Cabinet policy committees are asked to 'oversee' the
design and implementation of initiatives unveiled in the previous budget.
Departments, meanwhile, prepare their business plans while the Treasury Board
secretariat begins the review process.
In the summer months, the Department of Finance, in consultation with the
Privy Council Office and the Treasury Board secretariat, prepares strategies and
identifies options for the minister of Finance to manage the consultation pro-
cess. At the same time, Finance updates its fiscal and economic outlook. In the
fall, the minister of Finance briefs Cabinet on his public consultation strategies
and the department prepares a series of consultation papers. The Department of
Finance, again with the assistance of other central agencies, identifies prospec-
tive fiscal and expenditure targets. In November-December, the Finance minis-
ter and his department develop the overall budget strategy.
222 The Play
In the winter months, or between January and March, the budget documents
are fine-tuned and 'put to bed.' The minister of Finance provides a general
overview of his budget strategy to Cabinet. The government document makes it
clear, however, that 'the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance make the
final decisions.'
111
 The Department of Finance finalizes the budget documents
and the Treasury Board secretariat produces the main estimates, 'incorporating
Budget decisions to the extent possible."
12
 The minister of Finance then
delivers the budget speech and the president of the Treasury Board tables the
estimates. The Treasury Board will also require departments to prepare their
business plans consistent with 'Budget targets, strategies and new spending and
reduction initiatives.'
113
The current expenditure management system differs from earlier approaches
on several fronts, but it also has a holdover from the past. Like several previous
approaches, most notably the PPBS, the new system is designed to promote per-
formance evaluation and productivity. It also calls for decentralizing manage-
ment and at the same time improving financial management in government
departments. The Treasury Board secretariat now stresses performance evalua-
tion at every turn, and departments are expected to identify ways to measure
program performance in their submissions to Treasury Board.
The secretariat has launched a major effort to report performance reviews to
Parliament as part of its effort to strengthen accountability. The president of the
Treasury Board secretariat now tables an annual report to Parliament called
Improving Results Measurement and Accountability.
114
 The report is part of a
broader effort to promote 'a results-based culture in the Public Service while at
the same time continuing to ensure appropriate controls.'
115
 The secretariat
explains that in the years ahead it will continue to explore 'which [performance]
indicators are most useful; how they should be selected, measured and reported
... how to link the indicators back to the actual programs and initiatives.'
116
Long-serving federal public servants can no doubt recall that the Treasury
Board secretariat made precisely the same observations over twenty-five years
ago in introducing PPBS.
In addition, the board's desire to redefine or modernize the comptrollership
function is tied directly to the secretariat's desire to place stronger emphasis on
performance evaluation. The trade-off in having less control from the centre on
financial, administrative, and personnel matters is to have departments be more
forthcoming in evaluating their performance and that of their programs. Perfor-
mance evaluation is also a central feature of the new public management move-
ment and its desire to focus on results rather than process. Much of what the
Treasury Board secretariat is doing in performance evaluation squares with the
new public management literature.
117
Treasury Board and the Public Service Commission 223
Managing the expenditure process is an important activity of the Treasury
Board secretariat, but it is not the only important activity. We saw earlier that a
substantial part of the secretariat's organization is responsible for the manage-
ment of human resources. However, it is not alone at the centre of government
in having this responsibility .
Public Service Commission
The Public Service Commission is a central agency but it is fundamentally dif-
ferent from the others. As already noted, as a parliamentary agency it enjoys a
degree of independence from the government that the others do not. The PSC is
accountable to Parliament and 'then only for its overall performance, not for
specific actions. The PSC is headed by a chair and two other commissioners, all
appointed for a ten-year term and who can be removed prematurely only by
joint resolution of both the House of Commons and the Senate.'"
8
The Public Service Employment Act gives the commission 'exclusive'
responsibilities to make appointment to or from within the public service, to
develop processes and standards for the selection of candidates for position in
the public service, to operate an appeal system for appointment, to audit staffing
activities, to investigate allegations of irregularities or inequities in staffing, to
oversee or protect the political rights of public servants, and to recommend to
the governor-in-council exclusions from the Public Service Employment Act.
The Public Service Commission also has responsibilities which are not exclu-
sive or which are shared or delegated from the Treasury Board. These include
middle management, supervisory and specialty training, language training,
development courses, audit of certain personnel management functions, investi-
gation of complaints of harassment, and a series of activities in the fields of
human resources planning, counselling and career development for the execu-
tive group, and measures to promote the participation of under-represented
groups.
1
'
9
The commission has defined four business lines, namely resourcing (i.e.,
staffing), learning, recourse and policy, and research and outreach. The organi-
zation (see Chart 5 below) reflects the commission's four business lines.
The staffing program accounts for about 40 per cent of the commission's
operational expenditure and total workforce and has a strong presence both in
Ottawa and the regions. The program covers a wide range of activities in sup-
port of delegated staffing authority to departments and nondelegated authority.
These activities include policy and program development, monitoring, estab-
lishment of tests and standards for selection, and recruitment.
The training program concerns both language training and staff development.
224 The Play
Chart 5
Organization of the Public Service Commission
Parliament
I
Minister of Canadian Heritage
1
Commissioner President Commissioner
Secretary General Legal Services
Staffing Programs Executive "Programs Audit and Review Appeals and Investigations
Training Programs Administration
1
 In matters dealing with the Public Service Employment Act, the minister of Canadian
Heritage is designated as spokesperson for the commission in Parliament and is also the
appropriate minister within the context of the Financial Administration Act.
The language training component assesses the potential to succeed of employ-
ees who are eligible for language training. It provides mandatory and discre-
tionary language training in both official languages and related orientation and
language-training services in conformity with government policy to meet the
needs of departments and agencies in the federal public service. It also provides
second-language courses designed to meet job-related linguistic requirements,
and a range of advisory, informational, and coordinating services related to
language training. The staff development component provides professional,
technical, policy, middle management, and supervisory training and related
specialized training and training services to public servants across Canada in
response to Treasury Board policies and departmental demands. It also provides
courses designed to meet the job-related training and developmental require-
ments of departments and a range of advisory, informational, and coordinating
services related to training.
The appeals and investigations program, through the establishment of inde-
pendent boards and investigators, sees that appeals by public servants against
Treasury Board and the Public Service Commission 225
internal appointments and complaints against deployments are heard with
respect to alleged breaches of the Public Service Employment Act and regula-
tions. The program also provides for an investigation into complaints of irregu-
larities in staffing and in certain other personnel actions. In addition, complaints
of alleged personal harassment in the workplace are also investigated. Training,
advice, and assistance are provided to departments, employees, unions, and
other interested individuals and organizations. An audit and review program
reviews departmental and PSC staffing practices and procedures in order to
determine that appointments conform with the Public Service Employment Act
and regulations and commission policy. It reviews the manner in which depart-
ments administer selected aspects of their personnel services for which Trea-
sury Board has policy responsibility.
120
The mandate and activities of the Public Service Commission have been
remarkably stable over the past fifty years. This is true despite repeated calls
from royal commissions for change. Ted Hodgetts writes that in the administra-
tion of 'private concerns' it goes without saying that management responsibility
for effective performance carries 'with it full command over [human]
resources.' He adds, 'In the public administration the situation is not so clear
cut."
21
 In public administration, there is the need to think in terms of a unified
public service with at least some standardized conditions of employment. In
addition, we saw in an earlier chapter that the fight against political patronage
in public service appointments gave rise to a capacity at the centre of govern-
ment which would be imposed on departmental managers.
Over twenty-five years ago, Hodgetts argued that 'the need to preserve uni-
formity and the need to protect the so-called merit system have encouraged the
growth of an ambivalent attitude towards personnel management which has
resulted in a confused sharing-out of this function.'
122
 Hodgetts could write that
same sentence today and it would ring as true now, if not more so, than it did in
1973. More importantly, the same point was made earlier in a 1946 royal com-
mission report, and again by another in 1979 - not to mention by a countless
number of senior public servants in between and ever since.
As early as the 19305, observers were writing about a cold war between the
Treasury Board and the Public Service Commission.
123
 In 1945 the government
established a royal commission to review the classification and pay of senior
public servants. The Gordon Commission, however, extended the scope of its
inquiry beyond these two administrative matters and sought to resolve turf
issues between the Public Service Commission and the Treasury Board secre-
tariat. The commission borrowed a page from the British experience, where the
Treasury controls much of the personnel management field. Accordingly, it
urged that the Treasury Board assume more authority while the Public Service
226 The Play
Commission be given less. The government, however, did not aceept this rec-
ommendation. Had it done so, the role of the Public Service Commission would
have been confined to recruitment from outside and a review of departmental
recommendations for promotion and transfers.
124
Some sixteen years later, the Glassco Commission also urged a redefinition
of the role of the Public Service Commission. Glassco wanted the commis-
sion's emphasis to be on auditing, reviewing, and appellate functions: 'person-
nel decisions - on appointment, promotion and disciplinary matters.'
125
 The
Treasury Board would have, in turn, inherited many of the functions of the
Public Service Commission.
In 1979 the Lambert Commission expressed concerns over the ambiguities
lying between the Treasury Board and the Public Service Commission. It
pointed to numerous specific problems, reporting, for example, that 'the levels
of authority delegated by the Public Service Commission and the Treasury
Board [to departments] are uneven. The PSC has delegated less authority for
staffing senior positions than the Treasury Board has delegated for classifying
senior positions. The Treasury Board, in turn, has delegated less authority for
classifying senior positions than it has for organizing the management team.
Not only is this situation confusing, it also reduces the real authority of the
'deputy head.'
126
 Lambert recommended that a new board of management take
over much of the personnel function for the Public Service Commission and
that in turn 'the Public Service Commission be reconstituted as a Parliamentary
Department with the duty of ensuring that selection and appointment to the pub-
lic service are made on the basis of merit, and that the PSC report annually to
Parliament those instances where personnel policies, procedures and actions
fail to support the merit principle.'
I2?
 The government, as already noted, did not
accept the Lambert Commission recommendations.
PS 2000, it will be recalled, was designed to empower managers and remove
needless red tape. Some senior public servants, even at the centre of govern-
ment, strongly urged the clerk of the Privy Council to recommend to the gov-
ernment that the Public Service Commission be reconstructed as a small
statutory body which would be responsible only for initial appointments from
outside. They insisted that the 'competition and overlap' between central agen-
cies dealing with personnel issues should be confronted once and for all.
128
 The
importance of personnel issues and the problems associated with them was
brought home in the PS 2000 initiative when seven of the ten task forces estab-
lished to come up with recommendations to modernize government operations
focused on this issue. PS 2000 did not, however, introduce any significant
changes to the Public Service Commission.
The architects of the massive 1993 government restructure were also urged
Treasury Board and the Public Service Commission 227
by some senior officials at the centre such as John L. Manion, who had recently
left his position as associate clerk of the PCO, to deal with the 'overlap' and
'confusion' between the Treasury Board secretariat and the Public Service
Commission. Manion told the Privy Council Office that 'past efforts to reform
administration in the federal government have all crashed on the rocks of the
Public Service Commission."
29
Consultations with both central agency and line department officials between
September 1997 and January 1998 reveal that relations between the Public Ser-
vice Commission and the Treasury Board secretariat remain in a state of 'cold
war.' The impact is felt at the centre of government and in line departments
over both big and small issues. Examples will make this clear.
The Treasury Board and the Treasury Board secretariat in their role as the
employer decided in the late 19805 that the government should recruit recent
university graduates with the potential to excel as managers. A management
trainee program (MTP) was first introduced in 1990-1. Recruitment has varied
from year to year, given the need to cut spending. But in the 1994-5 recruitment
campaign, for example, some twenty external candidates and seven internal
candidates were recruited. The selection process was rigorous, with all candi-
dates subjected to a series of tests and interviews. Once enrolled in the program,
MTP participants were given a series of special assignments in central agencies,
in line departments, and in regional offices. They were also given special lec-
tures and courses. Participants graduated from the program after five years, at
which point they would take up a permanent appointment in a central agency or
line department. The Public Service Commission objected, pointing out that
'MTP participants should not have a leg up on others and that the merit princi-
ple should apply."
30
 One Treasury Board secretariat reported, 'You cannot
begin to appreciate the number of high-level meetings that were held between
us and the PSC on this issue. It was plain crazy. At one point, we even had MTP
people declared surplus so that they could be appointed. It really did not make
any sense whatsoever. We wanted it one way, departments agreed with us,
MTP individuals agreed with us, but not the PSC. It is true that we finally did
solve the problem, but at a tremendous cost to taxpayers and to good manage-
ment."
3
' She added, 'The fundamental problem is that the PSC wanted to
administer what we rightly regarded as an employer issue. In any event, I never
heard anyone even hint that MTP participants were politically partisan. So what
was the problem?"
32
Jocelyne Bourgon, the clerk of the Privy Council Office, led the charge in
launching a high-profile initiative which she labelled La Releve. La Releve is
designed to be 'a new way of thinking' in human resources management,
to ensure that 'every public servant has the competencies and tools required to
228 The Play
maintain a world-class public service' and to 'help shape the public service of
the future' by making sure that competent people are available to assume lead-
ership roles.
133
Bourgon devoted a full chapter to La Releve in the clerk's fourth annual
report to the prime minister on the Public Service of Canada. She referred to
'La Releve' as 'Our Greatest Challenge.' She summed up the problem in this
fashion: 'For the first time [public servants] are questioning their career choice:
[they] would not advise their children to follow in their footsteps; some students
would not consider a career in the Public Service if presented with other
options.'
134
 Much of the work to promote La Releve, she argued, should be in
line departments. But, she insisted, 'Central agencies owe it to departments to
support their efforts and act decisively in areas requiring corporate attention."
35
She provided a list of things central agencies needed to do, including 'acceler-
ated executive development, prequalification of potential assistant deputy min-
isters, appointment to level for assistant deputy ministers, compensation and
retention, support for professional communities [e.g., the policy community
inside the government] and external recruitment.'
136
Three central agencies have a direct hand in promoting La Releve. The Privy
Council Office, in part because of the clerk's strong and visible leadership role
in its development, but also because the clerk is now formally head of the pub-
lic service. In addition, PCO has, as we have seen, a legitimate role in advising
order-in-council appointments, including all those at deputy minister and asso-
ciate deputy minister levels. The Treasury Board secretariat has a role in La
Releve because of its status as an employer and its responsibilities in the areas
of classification, pay, collective bargaining, medical and pension plans for pub-
lic servants, and so on. Finally, the Public Service Commission has a role
because of its responsibilities in the areas of staffing and training.
The consultations reveal that La Releve has been down a bumpy road and the
level of cynicism is as great as it was for previous reform initiatives, such as PS
2000. Even strong supporters now acknowledge that La Releve has not been as
well received as was at first envisaged.
137
There are many reasons to explain these difficulties: Some officials report that
the decision to identify winners through its assistant deputy minister prequalify-
ing and its accelerated executive development programs created problems and
fuelled cynicism. Some 450 senior public servants applied under both programs,
but only 20 qualified for the assistant deputy minister prequalifying program and
55 under the accelerated executive development program. Moreover, the oppor-
tunity for senior managers to apply under the programs were for nearly everyone
the first opportunity for advancement in several years, given various cuts to gov-
ernment programs and the program review exercise. Few at the centre had fore-
Treasury Board and the Public Service Commission 229
seen the need to manage expectations or to match 450 expectations with only 75
opportunities. The 'losers,' as some began to refer to themselves, could hardly
be expected to praise La Releve. In fact, they did the opposite, claiming that the
selection process invariably favoured individuals who had worked or were
working in central agencies over those with line department experience.'
38
 Cen-
tral agency officials insist, however, that this criticism is unfair and that, toute
proportion gardee, there have been as many from line departments who quali-
fied under the program as from central agencies. One explained, 'We have pretty
solid balance in both programs in terms of gender, linguistic, regional, head
office, central agency, and line department.'
139
But there were other problems. There had been a great deal of tension
between the three central agencies, tension which became all too apparent to
line departments. PCO and Treasury officials became convinced that PSC was
moving much too slowly to promote La Releve properly. They argue that PSC
always challenges new ways of doing things and that in any event it unnecessar-
ily complicates things.
Officials in both PCO and TBS insist that the Public Service Commission is
on a never-ending process to 'reinvent itself but that, in the end, very little
actually changes. The PSC, they argue, can never focus properly on the imme-
diate task at hand. Some were highly critical of a series of 'search conferences'
on governance sponsored by the Public Service Commission which had nothing
to do with La Releve, and which they considered to be extremely abstract,
impractical, and costly.
140
 The search conferences and other such initiatives
sponsored by the PSC in the mid- and late 19905 served to distract the commis-
sion from the purposes at hand, such as La Releve. They also diverted precious
financial and human resources away from priority issues to, in the words of one
senior PCO official, 'exoteric initiatives which were outside the PSC's man-
date, parliamentary or otherwise."
4
' The fact that the chair of the Public Ser-
vice Commission can only be removed by a joint resolution of both the House
of Commons and the Senate limits the centre's ability to change the commis-
sion's leadership prematurely.
For their part, Public Service Commission officials report that their mandate
is unlike that found anywhere else, whether in other central agencies or depart-
ments. Their purpose is to act as guardian of the merit principle on behalf of all
Canadians. 'Sometimes,' one senior PSC official argued, 'we have to say, hold
it a minute, we need to square this idea with our parliamentary mandate. This
may well upset people in government, but after all, we have a specific mandate
to pursue.'
142
In any event, the criticism that the Lambert Commission levelled at the Trea-
sury Board secretariat and the Public Service Commission over their inability to
230 The Play
delegate the same authority still holds. In a letter sent to all deputy ministers in
April 1990, the secretary of the Treasury Board announced a 'particularly sig-
nificant decision concerning the delegation of Management Category Classifi-
cation authority ... Effective July I, 1990, Deputy Heads will be empowered to
exercise classification authority for positions [up] to the EX3 levels inclu-
sive."
43
 The Public Service Commission, meanwhile, as part of its staffing
reform for La Releve, announced in late 1997 that deputy ministers would now
be empowered to 'design, manage [and be] responsible for internal staffing up
to the EX level (or for positions below the EX, that is the senior executive
level).'
144
 The Public Service Commission also announced that an accountabil-
ity mechanism would be introduced to ensure that departments 'respect and
defend merit' and 'establish meaningful, timely, reasonable performance and
outcome measures as they assume new staffing authority for non executive
positions."
45
The commission provided a written explanation to the other central agencies
and line departments as to why it would not agree to 'get out of EX staffing and
give it to departments.' It argued that 'EXs are a corporate resource, things
[which] are done on behalf of the system need to be managed in a coordinated,
systematic way ... The PSC believes that it must be able to provide Parliament
with special assurances on political non-partisanship of this group. Its involve-
ment in EX appointments is a visible way of doing so."
46
The Public Service Commission, as already noted, is a different kind of cen-
tral agency in that it is a parliamentary agency. It enjoys a degree of indepen-
dence from the prime minister, Cabinet ministers, and the Privy Council Office
like no other agency; notably, Finance and the Treasury Board secretariat. The
chair of the commission is appointed for a ten-year period and can only be
removed by a joint resolution of the House of Commons and the Senate. This
means that the commission, if it so wishes, can walk to the beat of its own
drummer and ignore much of what the Privy Council Office and the Treasury
Board secretariat may -have to offer. That said, staffing and training are key
components of human resources management, and the Privy Council and Trea-
sury Board secretariat insist that all the actors in the field should coordinate
their efforts.
The above explains in no small measure why the Privy Council Office
decided to launch the La Releve initiative. Many officials consulted for this
study suggested that the initiative was designed to strip the Public Service Com-
mission of some of its responsibilities in order to get things done, given that
PCO could not direct it to action. A few years after the La Releve initiative was
launched, PCO unveiled yet another measure in human resources management
and located it outside the Public Service Commission and the Treasury Board
Treasury Board and the Public Service Commission 231
secretariat. The prime minister announced on 4 June 1998 the creation of a
'Leadership Network,' which he described as a 'new horizontal organization ...
[to] support the collective management of Assistant Deputy Ministers.'
147
The new organization was established through an order-in-council and desig-
nated as an agency with its own spending estimates. It reports to the clerk of the
Privy Council and COSO. The clerk explained why the network was being
established when she wrote that assistant deputy ministers were 'being asked to
play many roles - that of expert manager, strategist, and visionary leader. You
are also expected to operate in an environment where issues are increasingly
horizontal and service delivery must be seamless."
48
 The centre concluded that
a new capacity was needed at the centre itself, but outside of PSC, to meet the
challenge.
Under the collective management approach, new assistant deputy ministers
are appointed to level, not to a position. 'Corporate exercises' are conducted to
prequalify assistant deputy ministers. Candidates can self-identify or be nomi-
nated by a deputy minister and are assessed against leadership competencies.
There is now one 'corporate pool' of assistant deputy ministers so that 'Assis-
tant Deputy Ministers in the Department of Foreign Affairs and International
Trade will be considered for assignments outside the Department. Conversely,
Assistant Deputy Ministers will be considered for assignments in the Depart-
ment of Foreign Affairs and International Trade."
49
The decision to shift to a collective management of the assistant deputy min-
ister community and to promote to level rather than to a position is a significant
development for the public service. It means a fundamental shift away from the
classical Weberian public service organization. Weber insisted that the require-
ment of the position was of paramount importance. For him, everything turned
on the job, not the individual.'
50
 Under the new approach, everything turns on
the individual who prequalifies and not the requirements of the position.
The new approach will favour 'generalists' for promotion to the assistant
deputy minister level, and from there to the deputy minister level. The various
background documents published in support of the new approach speak to this
issue through many references to the need to 'diversify experience' and to
'work in an environment where issues are increasingly horizontal."
51
 Accord-
ingly, in future more senior officials will make it to the top because of their gen-
eral knowledge of the system, because of their ability to manage a difficult
situation, and because of their capacity to work with the centre of government.
Specialized knowledge of a particular sector or the policies and programs of a
given department will become less important for those wishing to rise above
their peers.
The new approach also strengthens the hand of the clerk of the Privy Council
232 The Play
in deciding who gets promoted and weakens that of the chair of the Public Ser-
vice Commission. COSO will play a role in the management of the network, but
it is the clerk, not the chair of the Public Service Commission that chairs COSO.
In government, securing promotions is the one indicator of success understood
by all. In the absence of market forces to decide who wins and strictly objective
criteria about who should get promoted, the ones who hold in their hands the
ability to appoint individuals to a level will inevitably also hold considerable
influence within government. It is also interesting to note that the establishment
of the network and a stand-alone agency reporting to the clerk and COSO can,
potentially at least, weaken the Public Service Commission, a parliamentary
agency. Yet, the matter was hardly raised, let alone fully debated, in Parliament.
Has Anything Changed?
It would be easy for the reader to conclude that those in Ottawa who wish to
reform the system are kept busy turning cranks not attached to anything and that
in the end nothing changes. One senior government official offered this telling
observation. 'Shortly after I joined the public service, I was told of a new
approach and I got pretty excited about it. My manager, who had been around
for some time, said, "Don't get too excited. If you stand here long enough, it
will come around again under different buzz words." I thought then, "This guy
is pretty cynical." But, you know, I look back and I now know where he was
coming from.'
152
 We have seen one major reform measure after another intro-
duced in quick succession, most of them pursuing essentially the same objec-
tive - to empower managers and get rid of needless red tape.
There has not been one reform effort introduced in recent years that has lived
up to expectations. Indeed, if one is to believe consulted officials or former pub-
lic servants like Paul Tellier or John L. Manion, who have written about their
experience in government, none ever succeeded in meeting even modest objec-
tives. Another former senior deputy minister, Arthur Kroeger, writes that
'the roll-call of innovations launched during the 19705 and 8os includes Pro-
gramming, Planning and Budgeting, Management by Objectives, cost-benefit
analysis, effectiveness evaluation, Operational Performance System, strategic
overviews, and Multi-Year Operational Plans. Each had a certain plausibility in
its time, but in the event none lasted for more than a few years, and it is striking
how little difference any of them actually made in the end, despite the efforts of
many talented people.'
153
 The innovations during the 19905 such as PS 2000
and La Releve could now be added to the list. By all accounts, then, there has
been no fundamental change.
Still, there is no denying that some things have changed. Both central agency
Treasury Board and the Public Service Commission 233
and line department officials agree that there is now much less need to go to the
Treasury Board than, say, eight or fifteen years ago. Departments and managers
have a great deal more freedom than they have ever had to move financial
resources around and to manage human resources. One has only to look at the
number of Treasury Board decisions over a period of fourteen years to see that
there have been some changes. In 1983, the Treasury Board issued 6,000 deci-
sions.
154
 By 1987 the number had dropped to 3,500.
155
 By 1997 the number had
dropped still further, to about i,ioo.
I5<5
Treasury Board and line department officials admit that there is more than
one reason to explain this sharp drop. For one thing, there is little or no new
money available at the Treasury Board for departments to apply for. That was
not the case in the early 19805, in the mid-1980s, or even in the early 19905.
One senior Treasury Board official reports, for example, that she had 'to handle
six or seven cases a week in the late I98os-early 19908 to approve funding
under the Green Plan.'
157
 This, she reveals, had more to do with financial
resources being available than to a lack of delegated authority to departments.
But it is clear that the Treasury Board has, at least since PS 2000, freed depart-
ments from many controls and administrative requirements. This is as true in the
area of human resources management as it is in financial management. Ministers
and senior officials now have much more authority to approve spending from
their own approved budgets than was the case several years ago. An assistant
deputy minister from a line department explains, 'We now have in essence two
budgets - one O & M (salaries, consultants, travel, etc.) and another Grants and
Contributions (program spending). If we want to move money from one budget
to another, we need to get Treasury Board approval. Failing that, we are pretty
well left alone to do what we want. Our signing authority is sufficiently high that
there is very rarely a need to go to the Board."
58
The Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA) is a case in point. At the
moment, the head of the agency (the deputy minister) can approve all spending
up to $ i million without even having to go to his minister. Meanwhile, the jun-
ior minister responsible for ACOA has signing authority to approve all spend-
ing up to $3 million. The senior minister, the minister of Industry, can approve
all spending up to $20 million without having to go to the Treasury Board.
There is, however, one exception to this pattern. ACOA was the government's
implementing agency in Atlantic Canada for both phase I and phase II of the
Canada Infrastructure programs. For this program, all projects had to be submit-
ted to the president of the Treasury Board for approval, but not, however, to the
Treasury Board.'
59
It is important to note that departments have varying degrees of signing
authority so that department X can approve spending up to, say, $20 million
234 The Play
while department Y can only do so up to $5 million. There is no longer any
authority that applies to all departments at all times.
Treasury Board officials also report that the great majority of cases submitted
to the board are 'appendix' (about 65 per cent) or 'routine' cases (25 per cent)
rather than 'considered' cases (about 10 per cent). Routine cases are very rarely
discussed by ministers and their approval is usually straightforward. A Treasury
Board minister can ask to speak to a routine case but this is also very rarely
done. The majority of routine cases are from the human resource side of the
secretariat, and they are submitted to the board often simply because an act
requires it. It could involve, for example, declaring somebody a common-law
spouse for pension purposes or even declaring someone dead in order to stop
pension payments.
There are two kinds of routine cases, those that are flagged and those that are
not. Flagged cases suggest that they may be of interest to a Treasury Board min-
ister because they have the potential to be of interest to the media, or because of
regional or other concerns. The secretariat always ensures that an official is
available to speak to the case should a minister wish to pursue it. An appendix
case, meanwhile, could involve a proposal to reclassify an EX4 position to the
EX5 level. Treasury Board ministers are handed a precis of appendix cases for
consideration, but not the full submission.
Considered cases are major proposals, and in some instances they may
require more than one Treasury Board meeting to arrive at a decision. Consid-
ered cases could involve a proposal to restructure the personnel classification
system, to establish a new approach to service delivery, or to reallocate a sub-
stantial amount of funds from one program to another.
160
Treasury Board officials do not believe that delegating authority to depart-
ments has lessened their own influence. They point out that 'delegation of author-
ity can be a moving target' and that 'track record matters a great deal.' One senior
official explained, 'We do not blindly transfer authority to departments. We know
exactly what is being transferred to whom. We know departmental track records.
A couple of screwups matters a great deal and we do monitor closely what goes
on in departments."
61
 In any event, they insist that delegating more authority to
departments has actually strengthened their own hand in managing government
operations from the centre. They claim that all they have lost to departments is the
authority to nitpick and that there is no value for anyone, including the centre, in
having 'nitpicking' authority. 'What difference does it really make,' one
Treasury Board secretariat official asked, 'if we have the authority to review a
proposal to reclassify a position from an EXi level to EX2?"
62
The Treasury Board and its secretariat can always reinstitute its authority to
nitpick. In many instances, there is no need to do so. A simple telephone call
Treasury Board and the Public Service Commission 235
from the secretary to a line deputy minister asking that a certain initiative be
stopped or reviewed will suffice. An example will make this point clearer. An
official with the Canadian Centre for Management Development (CCMD), a
federal government agency, worked for nearly one year on a project to develop
a management course and a series of special events or projects on management-
labour relations. The then secretary of the Treasury Board telephoned the head
of CCMD suggesting that the whole initiative should be dropped because of
high-profile management-labour disputes , including a strike over a wage freeze.
The initiative was dropped.'
63
In 1992 the auditor general delivered a 'broadside' to the government for its
administration of payments to employees under its workforce adjustment pol-
icy.'
64
 The policy, it will be recalled, was introduced to assist those employees
whose positions were being cut from the public service. The secretary of the
Treasury Board came under attack before Parliament's Public Accounts Com-
mittee for the secretariat's apparent inability to monitor properly how de-
partments had managed the board's workforce adjustment directive. Some
employees, for example, had received special payments when their positions
were abolished but were rehired to another position only a few weeks later. At the
next deputy ministers' breakfast meeting, the secretary made clear his displea-
sure with the turn of events, his inability to answer questions at Public Accounts,
and particularly over the fact that he was 'caught by surprise. "
65
 Departments, he
argued, should have alerted the secretariat of the potential problem. He also made
it clear that the secretariat would be putting in place 'a system which will never
again put me in a position of having to say I do not know."
66
 We are informed
that the fallout from this 'put added pressure on human resources staff [at the
Treasury Board secretariat] to assess its capacity to monitor complex human
resource policies for which it was responsible, and to clarify the accountability
relationships among TBS, Parliament, and operating departments."
67
The Public Accounts Committee or, for that matter, question period, will not
always search out precisely to whom questions should be asked if political
points can be scored. The president of the Treasury Board can find himself in
the direct line of fire if a question involves government spending or personnel
management issues. Ministers may not insist that a system of administrative
and financial controls be firmly in place to prevent all potentially politically
embarrassing situations. They will insist, however, that they are well briefed on
potential political problems before walking into the House of Commons for
question period facing a media scrum.
This and the preceding chapters, however, raise a number of questions. One
of these is how ministers and line departments view the centre. We noted in the
introduction that a senior central agency official observed that 'much of what
236 The Play
we do is related to the need to keep corralling bouncing politicians and bounc-
ing departments.' How do ministers and line departments view central agen-
cies? Do they regard them as a positive or a helpful force in their work? If yes,
how? If no, why not? The next two chapters seek to answer these questions.
Appendix
Roles within the Expenditure Management System
Parliament
The changes to the House rules in February 1994 enhanced the role of Parliament in the
budget process. Through the operations of standing committees, Parliament will review
the departmental Outlooks and provide its views on future spending priorities. In addi-
tion, these committees will continue their traditional role of reviewing and reporting on
spending proposals in the Estimates for the current fiscal year. The Standing Committee
on Finance will discharge its responsibilities to review and report on the budget consul-
tation papers.
The Public
The release of budget consultation papers in the fall will give various groups and indi-
viduals the opportunity to provide input to the minister of Finance on the budget.
Similarly, the public can be invited to comment on proposed spending plans to the
parliamentary standing committees when they consider departmental Outlooks in May
and June.
Cabinet
As the executive decision-making body, Cabinet will review budget strategies, policy
priorities, and fiscal targets based on advice on various reallocation and expenditure
reduction options that the minister of Finance and the president of the Treasury Board
have provided.
Policy Committees of Cabinet
The policy committees will:
Ÿ formulate strategic sector priorities for input into the budget and expenditure planning
processes;
Treasury Board and the Public Service Commission 237
• oversee the design and implementation of new programs announced in the budget;
and
• take the lead in putting together reallocation packages to fund any significant new ini-
tiatives that, due to exceptional circumstances, were not identified during the budget
planning cycle.
The Privy Council Office
The Privy Council Office will:
• focus on overall government and prime ministerial priorities and the integrity and
functioning of the system;
•  provide support to Cabinet and its committees and coordinate Cabinet review of bud-
get consultation papers and strategies; and
•  advise the prime minister, Cabinet and policy committees of Cabinet on specific pro-
posals in the budget and budget consultation papers.
Finance
The minister of Finance, assisted by the Department of Finance, will:
set the fiscal framework;
focus primarily on the economic outlook, macroeconomic management, and tax and
fiscal policy;
ensure that decisions on the macroallocation of resources are compatible with the
government's economic and fiscal policies;
prepare the budget consultation papers and the budget documents, a process which
includes updating the economic outlook and fiscal plan and recommending fiscal tar-
gets; and
focus on expenditure management at the macro level with the primary emphasis on
major statutory expenditures, debt management, the financial policy framework, and
guidelines for loan and guarantee programs and Crown corporation borrowings.
The Treasury Board
The Treasury Board, assisted by its secretariat, will:
exercise its statutory responsibility for accounting for expenditures, including the
preparation, based on Cabinet decisions, of the main estimates and their tabling;
advise Cabinet on the extent to which departments are using their resources efficiently
and effectively through its 'budget office' functions - namely, the costing, design,
and performance of programs and the management of resources within specified
targets;
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
238 The Play
assist the Cabinet policy committees and departments in developing any reallocation
options that were not identified during the budget planning process and provide
advice to the policy committees of Cabinet on the viability and costing of identified
options;
review departmental business plans;
manage the operating reserve; and
focus primarily on all expenditures other than major statutory payments and public
debt charges. This includes grant and contribution programs, defence spending, pay-
ments to crown corporations, operating and capital expenditures, and public sector
compensation.
Departments and Agencies
Ministers and the deputy heads of departments and agencies will:
deliver effective and efficient programs and services to their clients;
inform the Treasury Board about the effective and efficient use of resources within
their .departments in keeping with the corporate framework and Treasury Board
authorities and seek advice and assistance from the Treasury Board on intradepart-
mental reallocations;
develop, in consultation with the appropriate policy committees, new departmental
initiatives to be funded through reallocating internal resources;
develop departmental business plans and release Outlooks that reflect the budget and
report on key strategies and plans their departments have developed so that they can
manage within their resources; and
prepare departmental estimates, including Part III, which provide, in relation to stated
objectives, performance expectations for the estimates year and performance informa-
tion on the results of previous years.
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
8
Ministers: Knowing When to Land
In their book Double Vision, journalists Edward Greenspon and Anthony
Wilson-Smith tell us a story. Prime Minister Chretien was reading a newspaper
on an airplane flight early in his first mandate when he came across an article
quoting one of his ministers, Ralph Goodale. Goodale was quoted at some
length on a sensitive trade issue, without uttering a word of substance. Chretien
told one of his assistants, 'Now that's how a minister should talk!'
1
 Chretien
should know. Before becoming 'the boss,' he had spent sixteen years as a min-
ister in the Pearson and Trudeau Cabinets. The secret to being a successful min-
ister, thus, is to know how to circle an issue without landing or, better yet,
perhaps, to know when to land.
The purpose of this chapter is to consider the role of ministers and how they
work with the centre of government. Ministers, in theory at least, should consti-
tute the centre of government, not just in form but also in substance. Gordon
Robertson explained nearly thirty years ago that the nature of our executive is
very 'different from that in countries like the United States ... the first and most
obvious [difference] is that each member of the executive must know what is
involved in the policy and program decisions for which he shares responsibility
... The second is that each must have an opportunity to participate in those deci-
sions.'
2
 Robertson went on to argue that for the collective executive to function
properly, 'it should involve awareness of problems and relevant considerations
and discussion of lines of solutions at a stage early enough that a minister can
share in shaping the final result. Either to accept or to reject a finished product
may be totally unsatisfactory.'
3
 Robertson summed it all up: The ministers are
responsible. It is their government.'
4
This chapter explores a number of issues. How do ministers work with the
centre? Has their role changed in recent years? How do ministers make it 'their'
government? How successful are they? In an earlier chapter, we noted that a
240 The Play
prime minister must make the government 'his' or 'hers.' This begs the ques-
tion: is it possible for both the prime minister and ministers simultaneously to
make the government theirs?
What Makes a Minister Successful?
I asked several present and former Cabinet ministers what makes a minister
successful. One replied, 'The first thing one must do to become a successful
minister, and I am not trying to be funny here, is to become a minister. It is part
skills and part luck. What matters first is the election, what matters second is re-
election, what matters third is for one's party to win, and what matters fourth is
to make it in Cabinet. The point is that you can only become a successful minis-
ter if you are a successful politician. In other words, you do not become a
successful politician by becoming a successful minister. There are some excep-
tions, like Marc Lalonde, but they are very, very few.'
5
 Another replied that
'being a successful minister is like being successful at something else. You look
for a role model, or to someone who has been there before and who was suc-
cessful.' When asked what makes a good role model, he replied, 'Someone who
was able to have been in there a long time without getting either himself or the
government in too much political trouble.'
6
John Reid, a former Trudeau minister, writes that 'there is no system in the
federal Parliament to test whether a person is able to perform the job of Minis-
ter, and most Ministers lack any background or preparations for the task they
must perform as Minister. The first year of a Minister's existence is taken up
with on-the-job training. Many do not survive, even though they may linger on.
They find out what they can do and try to stick to that area.'
7
 Not only is there
no training available or any test possible to determine whether a person will be
able to perform the job, no job description exists (or could exist) outlining what
ministers should be doing and how they should go about their work. Apart from
getting elected to Parliament on the winning side and the fact that the prime
minister wants you as minister, about all that is required to become a Cabinet
minister is a security check to see if any criminal charges are pending. Over-
night, then, it is possible for a teacher, a small town lawyer, an entrepreneur, or
a medical doctor to be appointed to Cabinet and find himself in charge of a
large, sprawling government department.
To be sure, not all ministers are created equal. This point was made in vir-
tually every interview we had. There are always some ministers who, as John
Reid observed, simply 'linger on.' That is, they are not particularly strong in
any policy area, prefer to ride the political wave wherever it may lead, and are
not inclined to make too much of an effort to shape its direction. In short, they
Ministers: Knowing When to Land 241
never land on a policy issue. Their hope is to gain a positive media profile, to
stay out of political trouble and try, as best they can, to secure new initiatives
for their constituency or their province. Still, these ministers can be success-
ful, at least in the eyes of their riding and province, simply by lingering on
and taking care of the people who elected them. In Ottawa, they may well be
viewed as parochial, but back home they will be seen as able to look after
their constituency and region. Their power is manifested in securing an
appointment to a government board for a long-standing party member or in
getting new funding, however modest, for a high-profile initiative in their
region. This kind of activity sends out a signal that they have influence in the
corridors of power in Ottawa. As well, although it is the prime minister who
appoints senators, there is nothing to stop a Cabinet minister from taking the
credit for the appointment.
What matters to ministers who linger on is that they are Cabinet ministers,
that they are able to win the prized possession and hold on to it. In many ways,
this should not come as a surprise. We saw in an earlier chapter that political
candidates in Canada organize around leaders rather than around political prin-
ciples and ideologies.
8
 In the absence of principles and ideologies, sitting in
Cabinet becomes the end rather than the means. For these ministers, the centre
of government or the prime minister and his senior advisers are pretty well all
that matters in Ottawa. The key is to stay out of trouble with the media and to
handle question period with dexterity. Their focus is on the prime minister. One
long-serving deputy minister (over ten years) observed, 'You have no idea what
kind of power the prime minister holds over ministers. He has in his hands the
minister's car, his chauffeur, his office, his job, his ego, and so on. I have been
in the public service for nearly thirty years in the Privy Council Office and line
departments, and 1 can tell you that the grovel count in the great majority of
ministers has always been quite high and, if anything, it keeps getting higher as
the years go by/
9
There is no question that those who choose to linger on, or who, for any num-
ber of reasons, are forced to linger on, can still be very busy and give the
appearance, at least to those outside of the centre of government, that they are
making a difference. There is never a shortage of things for them to do. They
must spend time in their constituencies and province. They have to attend to
party matters, attend caucus, prepare for question period, and be accessible for
media interviews. They also have House duties, including attending to commit-
tee matters. They must meet regularly with their senior departmental officials.
There are also always any number of reasons to travel to different parts of Can-
ada on behalf of the party or their department. Powerful or not, ministers always
have specific projects to promote or some government funding to secure for one
242 The Play
reason or another. If the funding requirement is modest and can be secured from
within his or her department, so much the better. If the relevant program is in
another department, then the minister and his office will have to lobby or nego-
tiate to secure the project or the funding. This too takes time.
Ministers, independently of the portfolio they may hold, put in extremely
long hours, especially when Parliament is sitting. We were shown weekly
agenda for several Cabinet ministers in the fall of 1997. There was hardly an
open spot in any of them. Nor did the agenda chronicle all that ministers do in
the course of a week. There are always last-minute meetings to be arranged,
telephone calls to return (often in the evenings), correspondence to deal with,
documents to read, and so on. As two students of politics wrote over twenty-
five years ago, politicians 'miss meals, neglect children, and lose sleep for poli-
tics. For them, politics is a central, vibrant and continuing preoccupation. For-
mal statements of purpose cannot adequately account for their involvement.'
10
A former clerk of the Privy Council and secretary to the Cabinet, Gordon
Osbaldeston, once issued a warning to Cabinet ministers that 'having many
roles, you will be under constant and unremitting pressure to allocate some of
your time to this or that worthy endeavour. [Ministers] must establish priorities
and the time frame within which they want to accomplish them and allocate
their time accordingly. If they don't do this, and do it well, they will be lost.'
11
He added that ministers work between seventy and eighty hours a week, but
that 'surveys indicate that they often have only three hours a week to spend with
their Deputy Ministers.'
12
There are no hard and fast rules to determine if a minister is successful. To be
sure, winning one's own riding at election time is the unambiguous measure of
success for politicians, and ministers are, of course, no exception. As already
noted, longevity in politics is its own reward. But beyond that there are precious
few unambiguous signs of success other than having the confidence of the
prime minister.
Success for ministers is in the eye of the beholder. As many ministers, mem-
bers of Parliament, and senior public servants observed in the consultations, 'in
politics, perception is reality.'
13
 For example, a former minister of Agriculture
was praised by his Cabinet colleagues for his ability to 'connect' with Canada's
farming community. But the minister, it transpires, was not effective in Cabinet
or even in leading his own department. One former official from the Privy
Council Office confesses, 'I remember the very first Cabinet meeting I attended
as a note taker. The minister spoke at length about nothing. Frankly, he did not
make much sense. When I came back to my office, I reported this to a senior
PCO official, well versed in the ways of cabinet. He said, "Now you understand
why many important decisions are not taken in Cabinet.""
4
 Still, when Trudeau
Ministers: Knowing When to Land 243
wanted to promote his government and his party to Canada's farming commu-
nity, he would invariably turn to this minister. But when he wanted someone to
sort out a complex political problem, he would turn to Marc Lalonde or Allan
MacEachen. When he wanted someone to play political hardball with Quebec
sovereignists, he would turn to Jean Chretien. Chretien, in his own words,
became 'Trudeau's firefighter.'
15
Mulroney was much the same. When he wanted someone to fix a political
problem, he would turn to Don Mazankowski because he was particularly
adroit at finding a compromise or a solution. When he wanted someone to
tackle a difficult sectoral problem, like the crisis on the east coast ground fish-
ery, he would ask John Crosbie, a strong, articulate minister from Newfound-
land and Labrador, to handle it. When Chretien decided early in his mandate to
deal with the deficit problem, he turned to Paul Martin, a successful busi-
nessperson with a strong personality and strong ties to the Liberal Party. When
he wanted the Department of Transport to be overhauled, and later to introduce
far-reaching changes to the Department of Defence, the minister he called on
was Doug Young, a no-nonsense politician who, the consultations reveal, was
always ready to carry out any tough assignment on behalf of the prime minister.
But for every Marc Lalonde, Don Mazankowski, and Paul Martin, there are
other ministers who leave little or no trace of their accomplishments during
their stay in government. Think, for example, of Fred Mifflin, Lucienne Robil-
lard, Diane Marleau, and Lyle Vanclief in the Chretien government. Or of
Pierre Vincent, Shirley Martin, Robert Layton, and Gerry Weiner in the Mul-
roney government, and of Charles Lapointe, James Fleming, Patrick Mahoney,
and Joseph Philippe Guay in the Trudeau government. Even politically knowl-
edgeable people could be left scratching their heads trying to associate these
names to government departments or to political events.
16
In an earlier book we wrote that one could group federal Cabinet ministers
into 'four broad categories: status, mission, policy and process participants.'
17
The argument is that in the absence of political ideology to guide them, one
must look at what it is that motivates ministers.
The main preoccupation of status participants is visibility. Maurice Lamon-
tagne summed up it well when he observed, 'If a minister enjoys a good press,
he will be envied and respected by his colleagues. If he has no press, he has no
future.'
18
 Status participants, however, take public visibility to the extreme. At
the same time, they are the least troublesome ministers to the prime minister or
to their departments, rarely questioning ongoing policies and programs. If any-
thing, they are likely to encourage their departments to do more, if only to cap-
ture attention. Status participants and their staff are continually on the prowl in
search of new initiatives. If Treasury Board approval is required, they will hap-
244 The Play
pily take up the challenge and lobby their colleagues on the board. They will
volunteer to make announcements and give speeches.
Status-participant ministers also try to avoid confrontations with their own
staff, their Cabinet colleagues, or even their departments. They will not want to
jeopardize any opportunities to be cast in a favourable public light. A long-
running debate with the department over policies and programs (over which they
usually have only a limited interest in any event) could well divert attention from
initiatives involving the media and public relations. Examples of status partici-
pants include Sergio Marchi in the Chretien government, Tom MacMillan in the
Mulroney government, and Gerald Reagan in the Trudeau government.
Mission participants make quite different Cabinet ministers. They will cer-
tainly seek a favourable press, like all politicians, but that is not their all-
consuming purpose. They have strongly held views and usually do not avoid
confrontation. While their views are not always politically or ideologically
inspired, they do 'seek to serve a cause' which is brought to the Cabinet table.
Examples of mission participants include Eric Kierans and Monique Begin in
the Trudeau government, Jake Epp in Mulroney's government (if only because
of his strong religious convictions, which he brought to bear on a number of
public policy issues), and Lloyd Axworthy in the Chretien government.
Policy participants, meanwhile, are rarely numerous in Cabinet and they usu-
ally have limited success. One former deputy minister explained in a study on
management in the federal government, 'My experience as often as not was that
the minister had no view [on policy]."
9
 The few real policy participants in Cab-
inet, however, profess to be in politics precisely to influence and shape public
policies. These ministers usually welcome long policy debates with their offi-
cials. They often have a specific area of expertise and come to office equipped
with more than the generalities of their own party election platforms. These cre-
dentials, however, do not automatically ensure their making it to Cabinet, let
alone being appointed to the post for which they are best suited. Don Johnston,
one of Trudeau's ministers, for example, was a policy participant. He had some
definite policy views and is an expert in tax policy. He was never, however,
appointed minister of Finance or even of National Revenue. Other policy partic-
ipants would include Marcel Masse, a former senior deputy minister in the Chre-
tien government, and Rene-Robert De Cotret in the Mulroney government.
There is a tendency for Cabinet colleagues to dismiss policy participants as
politically naive and as 'policy wonks,' far too preoccupied with the finer
points of public policy. There are other reasons why policy participants have
limited success. Having an interest and even some expertise in public policy is
one thing. Knowing how the policy process works is quite another. Along with
the machinery of government, it is now a field of specialization in its own right.
Ministers: Knowing When to Land 245
It usually takes several years for permanent officials to understand the process
fully and to feel at ease working in it. The result is that most ministers must rely
on their own departmental officials to help them through the maze.
Those policy participants who have been Cabinet ministers and who have
later written about their experiences often speak of their disenchantment and the
deep frustration they felt over their inability to change policy.
20
 They point to
officials in the Prime Minister's Office, the Privy Council Office, Finance, and
elsewhere as inhibiting their efforts to introduce real change. Those who claim
some success report that they had to go to extraordinary lengths to bypass the
formal policy process.
The most successful and the most numerous Cabinet ministers are (for want
of a better term) the process participants. Ministers that linger on are mostly
found in this category. They rarely question policy or the policy process itself.
Their purpose is to make deals for a designated clientele. They usually under-
stand how Parliament works, enjoy parliamentary jostling, get along well with
most of their colleagues, and take particular delight in striking deals. They are
often politically partisan and willing to help out one of their own who might be
in some difficulty in his or her constituency.
Policy content, political ideology, government organization, management
issues - and even government programs themselves - are all of very limited
interest to the process participants. The notion that a government policy should
be overhauled may make for an interesting discussion, but it holds little real
appeal. Projects are what matter and the more the better. Process participants
will look to their own departments to come up with specific projects for their
own ridings or for the regions for which they are responsible. They generally
view their departmental officials as allies in getting their projects through the
approval process. They will have difficulty only if the officials are uncoopera-
tive in putting deals together. Process participants are generally easygoing
extroverts. Nothing pleases them more than having a project to announce at the
end of the week. Like mission participants, process participants will, when pos-
sible, collaborate with each other and seek to strike alliances among them-
selves. Such alliances, however, are never as solid as those between mission
participants, in part because they do not relate to a fundamental purpose, as do
those of mission participants. Examples of process participants include Diane
Marleau or Ralph Goodale in the Chretien government, Elmer McKay in the
Mulroney government, and Charles Lapointe in the Trudeau government.
The program review did make life difficult for most ministers. Process par-
ticipants, for example, had virtually no opportunity to identify new projects
throughout the exercise. In addition, ministers from all categories had no choice
but to challenge thei r departmental policies and programs. But as noted in chap-
246 The Play
ter 6, the consultations reveal that many sought to sidestep the program review.
At the risk of sounding repetitive, the atmosphere generated by the Mexican
currency crisis and the media, combined with Chretien's firm decision to stay
the course, forced the hand of all ministers to play by the rules. Unable to get a
sympathic hearing from Chretien, some ministers even organized leaks to let
their constituents or interest groups know that they were not comfortable with
the exercise. The Globe and Mail, for example, reported in a front page story at
the time of the program review that Ralph Goodale's struggle was straightfor-
ward. 'How much can he save now, how successfully can he slow the pace of
reform and what programs can he introduce in the meantime to smooth the tran-
sition?'
21
 A friend of Goodale was quoted as saying that he had always wanted
to be the federal minister of Agriculture, but that 'unfortunately he reached his
objective just when a fiscal crisis loomed.'
22
 Another suggested that Goodale
was trying to persuade Finance minister Paul Martin to ease up on the cuts, and
yet another insisted that Goodale 'might be perceived as the messenger who has
to deliver the bad news, rather than the bad guy.'
23
In addition, it is clear that a number of ministers temporarily became mission
participants during the program review exercise. Paul Martin did not avoid stat-
ing his case clearly, nor did he avoid confrontation with his Cabinet colleagues
in pushing for substantial spending cuts to reach the 3 per cent deficit to GDP
target. But he was not alone. Brian Tobin and Andre Ouellet, who in more nor-
mal times would fall squarely in the process participant category, became mis-
sion participants. Tobin, for example, went 'after the deficit with missionary
zeal.'
24
 One senior government official reports that Tobin in opposition when
the Mulroney government was trying to introduce spending cuts was a far cry
from Tobin as a member of the Cabinet committee on program review. It was
like night and day.'
25
 Tobin himself told his colleagues during the program
review exercise, 'I've become the right-wing fiscal conservative of this govern-
ment.' He also reported that he became a right-wing conservative while on a
trip to Japan which had impressed upon him Canada's vulnerability to the
'whims of foreign leaders.'
26
 Some consulted officials scoffed at this observa-
tion, saying that if Tobin could add, he would have known long before he went
to Japan that Ottawa was in serious fiscal difficulties. They argued that it was
simply convenient for him to oppose spending cuts when Mulroney was in gov-
ernment but to change his tune when Chretien was in power.
But no sooner was the deficit brought under control than ministers reverted to
their previous categories - albeit with only limited success. When Martin
declared in 1997 that the fiscal framework would provide for $300 million of
new spending money, they began to line up with spending proposals, just as in
the old days. Paul Martin summed up the difference in this fashion, 'Bringing
Ministers: Knowing When to Land 247
the deficit down to zero is tough - but there is a consensus on the need to do it.
It's what comes after that no one can agree on.'
27
Ministers came forward with projects, all of them, with the exception of the
prime minister and the minister of Finance (who, in any event, play by a set of
different rules), as soon as the centre gave them the green light to do so. By the
end of the exercise, some $298 million had been allocated. Senior government
officials report that the exercise was an 'extremely difficult one,' with some
ministers arguing 'very hard for their corners, whether it was their region or
their department.'
28
 One minister argues that 'the odds that we would somehow
reach agreement on how to spend $300 million were not high. In fact, we did it
because we knew that Martin and his officials were saying that the process
would never work. Well, we proved them wrong.'
29
 The process was managed
by the Privy Council Office, not the Department of Finance, and it became clear
to ministers that PMO was keeping a very close eye not only on the process but
also on the recommendations being made. One minister reports, 'We know that
PMO was directly involved and that the prime minister was keeping an eye on
things. Some of us got messages that we could not ignore.''
30
Few argue that the various projects, taken together, add up to a coherent or an
overarching government strategy. Ministers simply borrowed a page from the
past to find ways to promote their pet projects or their departmental agenda,
including timely leaks to the media. Some ministers even gave media inter-
views shortly before two Cabinet committees began allocating funding to make
a case for their own departments. John Manley, the Industry minister, for exam-
ple, told the Globe and Mail that his department wanted a share of the new
spending pie and pointed to the need to allocate new funding to a special pro-
gram, the Industrial Research Assistance Program, which had suffered substan-
tial spending cuts in the program review.
3
' His efforts proved successful. One
by one ministers got one or two spending projects approved and every single
project was assessed on its own merit. One senior PCO official observed that
'what we wanted was to avoid seeing ministers slowly reinstitute programs and
initiatives cut by the program review exercise. We really could not aim much
higher than that in terms of overall strategy. If you look carefully, you will see
that we were not completely successful in that some of the preprogram review
exercise activities have reappeared. But a good part of the $298 million also
went to new activities. We can only manage the process and then leave it up to
the politicians to make the decisions.'
32
Looking back, two things need to be stressed in any attempt to classify minis-
ters in set categories. First, though one can discern a dominant characteristic, a
good number of ministers can be found in two or more categories - for instance,
a mission participant can also be seen by departmental officials as a status par-
248 The Play
ticipant. Second, whatever category he may fall into, a minister will need the
strong support of his department to be successful at virtually anything he tries to
do. Accordingly, no matter however one defines success for ministers, they can
always use a helping hand from their departments.
Ministers and Their Departments
Ministers do not manage their departments. J.W. Pickersgill, a former Cabinet
minister and former clerk of the Privy Council and secretary to the Cabinet,
explains, 'No one with any experience expects a minister to manage his depart-
ment. That is the duty of the deputy minister.'
33
 He adds, 'Except in periods of
revolutionary upheaval - something never yet experienced in Canada - at least
ninety percent of the activity of government follows a relatively set pattern,
which tends to be highly repetitive ... In the normal course, ministers do not, and
should not, concern themselves with these large areas of day-to-day administra-
tion.'
34
 Pickersgill could have added that, in any event, there are many areas in
the running of the department in which the minister is virtually powerless.
The most obvious example is in the personnel field, which is beyond the
work or the mandate of any single minister. A minister does not have the
authority to hire, fire, promote, demote, or even transfer anyone in the depart-
ment. The only staff over which he has some control is his very small ministe-
rial staff.
There are also a host of other centrally prescribed or even departmental rules
and regulations which inhibit or in some instances prohibit ministers from get-
ting involved in certain financial and administrative issues. The Financial
Administration Act and government policies on public tendering, for example,
simply take decisions out of the hands of the minister. In addition, the minister,
as political head of the department, has precious little, if any, say on issues such
as salaries and bonuses paid to senior officials.
Accordingly, one can hardly describe the minister as the chief executive
officer of the department. Nor is he akin to the chairman of the board. No CEO
would agree to lead an organization unless he had a relatively free hand to man-
age the personnel field. Similarly, few would accept to serve as chairman of the
board of a large private firm without access to some levers of management
authority, including the capacity to appoint a new CEO when the position
becomes vacant and to establish the salary and bonuses of the CEO and other
senior members of the management team.
A former Trudeau Cabinet minister described the sensation of being
appointed minister and coming to terms with what it meant - or did not mean.
He observed, 'It's like I was suddenly landed on the top deck of an ocean liner
Ministers: Knowing When to Land 249
and told that the ship was my responsibility. When I turned to the captain [i.e.,
the deputy minister] I was told that he was appointed there by someone else and
any decision to remove him would be made elsewhere. When I turned to others
on the ship, I soon found out that they all report through the deputy minister,
owe their allegiance to him and their future promotions. When I asked for a
change in the ship's course, the ship just kept on going on the same course.'
35
To be sure, ministers have a relatively free hand to organize their own office.
They are free to employ a handful of politically partisan staff members who
serve the minister and retain their positions only so long as the minister retains
his.
36
 Ministers, however, have strict limits on the size of their exempt staff
budget and the salary they can pay to individual staff members.
It will be recalled, however, that Brian Mulroney decided to strengthen min-
isterial offices. As part of the transition planning exercise, key political and pol-
icy advisers convinced him to let ministers appoint a chief of staff in their
offices and to increase their exempt staff budgets. Salary levels for chiefs of
staff were established at the assistant deputy minister level, a level immediately
below deputy minister in the Canadian public service. Mulroney's decision to
establish a chief of staff in each ministerial office had one purpose - to check
the permanent officials' influence on policy. Government press releases even
described the position as an 'official in the American style.'
37
All ministers had a chief of staff within days of Mulroney's coming to power.
His transition team had put together a list of potential candidates for ministers
to pick from as they were appointed. The chiefs of staff, however, had a mixed
reception, often dependent on the quality of the incumbent. They introduced a
new level between ministers and permanent officials, which gave rise to a num-
ber of misunderstandings and complications. In some instances, the chief of
staff acted as a mediator between the minister and permanent officials, screen-
ing advice going up to the minister and issuing policy directives going down to
officials, much to the dismay and objections of deputy ministers. Many chiefs
of staff took a dim view of the competence of permanent officials, while senior
officials took an equally dim view of chiefs of staff. The arrangement, one
senior permanent official said, had 'on the whole hardly been a happy or a suc-
cessful one/
38
One of the first things Chretien did after assuming power in 1993 was to
abolish the chief of staff position in all ministerial offices except his own. Chre-
tien's objective was to promote a better working relationship between his min-
isters and the public service. Under the Chretien government, the senior official
in a minister's office is the executive assistant, as it-was under Trudeau. How-
ever, the executive assistant is a relatively junior position and enjoys neither the
salary nor the status that the chief of staff position enjoyed in the Mulroney
250 The Play
years. In the Prime Minister's Office, for example, there are about twenty staff
members who occupy more senior positions and more status than does the exec-
utive assistant in a minister's office.
Typically, executive assistants to ministers are young - anywhere between
twenty-seven and thirty-five. They are well educated but most have little gov-
ernment experience. Often, they have fought election battles, either on behalf of
a candidate for the party's leadership, for the party in the national election
campaign, or in provincial elections. In virtually all cases, they have well-
established track records as supporters of the party in power.
The Chretien government has, however, decided to carry on with at least one
practice established by the Mulroney government. Under Mulroney, the Prime
Minister's Office was directly involved in the selection process for a minister's
chief of staff. Indeed, PMO had a list for ministers to consult in selecting a chief
of staff, and in some instances more junior-level ministerial assistants.
39
 Chre-
tien's office is also involved in selecting executive assistants for ministerial
offices. This is not to suggest that all ministers must accept a candidate from
PMO. But some do, and PMO is always there to provide suggestions.
Looking to PMO for an executive assistant holds a number of advTj
ages. If
the incumbent doesn't work out, blame can be shared or even shifted to PMO.
In addition, consulting PMO for your closest political adviser means that you
are a team player.
Some ministers, however, have little option but to accept PMO's choice of an
executive assistant. If a minister is experiencing continuing political difficulties
(e.g., David Anderson in Chretien's first mandate or Fred Mifflin in his sec-
ond), then PMO will simply select the executive assistant, and for all practical
purposes the minister must accept PMO's candidate for the job.
In addition, PMO now arranges briefing sessions for new ministerial staff.
The sessions are said to be 'useful, particularly for those who did not have gov-
ernment experience.' They also provide an opportunity for new ministerial staff
to 'get to know each other' at an event organized at the centre of government.
40
An executive assistant to a minister in the Chretien government wrote about
her experience as she left her position. She broke down her responsibilities
under four broad headings: political adviser, office manager, time manager, and
crisis manager. As policy adviser, she reports that the executive assistant is
expected to bring a 'political perspective' to the minister's departmental
agenda, analyse Cabinet items to brief the minister on 'regional, provincial, and
constituency responsibilities,' and provide an 'appropriate spin' before the
media to 'reflect the minister's political interests ...' The executive assistant is
also expected to establish contacts with PMO, party members, provincial cau-
cus, and with the minister's constituency.
41
Ministers: Knowing When to Land 251
As manager of the minister's office, the executive assistant is responsible for
staffing, for the budget, for the minister's correspondence, and for organizing
and scheduling the work of the office 'to emphasize the minister's priorities.'
42
As time manager, the executive assistant organizes the minister's crowded
agenda. Question period, she writes, 'calls for lengthy preparation.' The minis-
ter may also need briefing material for 'full Cabinet meetings, and at least one
and usually two Cabinet committees... national, regional and provincial caucus
meetings ... House or senate committees when steering legislation through the
system ... departmental [meetings], preparing speeches.' She provides a long
list of possible weekly meetings and concludes that it is 'an environment where
the urgent always displaces the important.'
43
She also writes that every minister 'experiences crises' and that 'it is impor-
tant to predict which issues are one-day wonders and which will become full-
blown crises.'
44
 For all crises, she explains that 'a plan' must be 'drawn up' to
identify the 'actions required.' She concludes by arguing that 'it is of utmost
importance for the plan to be relayed to the PMO.'
45
The focus of ministerial offices, as the above makes clear, is clearly on the
minister, partisan politics, the media, and working closely with the Prime Min-
ister's Office. The focus is not on the minister's department or on departmental
matters. To be sure, executive assistants are in constant communication with the
deputy minister's office. Consultations reveal that relations between a minis-
ter's office and senior departmental officials are rarely easy, and in some
instances they are extremely difficult. This was particularly true under the Mul-
roney government, but it appears that 'things have only improved slightly, if at
all, under Chretien.'
46
 There is also evidence to suggest that relations between
ministerial staff and senior departmental officials were not much smoother
under Trudeau, particularly in his later years in office.
47
 The reasons for the
conflicts have remained fairly consistent from the Trudeau years to Chretien's
second mandate in office - a widely held perception among ministerial staff is
that senior departmental officials from the deputy minister down are not suffi-
ciently sensitive to their minister's objectives and his political interests.
There is no question, however, that the department's manager is the deputy
minister, or the permanent head of the department. His counterpart in Britain is
called the permanent secretary, a term which better describes the position, even
here in Canada. Someone unfamiliar with Canadian public administration may
well assume that, given his title, a deputy minister has a partisan political con-
nection to the minister. He does not.
As a rule, federal deputy ministers are nonpartisan, and the great majority of
them are products of the federal public service. In almost all cases, they intui-
tively shy away from partisan politics. As one former minister explained, 'It is a
252 The Play
cultural thing with the bureaucrats. You will never see them in a church base-
ment attending a party meeting. In fact, they would be, extremely uncomfort-
able if ever they would land there all of a sudden.'
48
 Senior career public
servants would not disagree with this observation, insisting that this is the way
it should be, and for valid reasons. A report prepared by senior federal public
servants on 'Values and Ethics in the Public Service' makes the point that it is
very important to 'reassert neutrality as one of the fundamental values of the
Canadian public service ... in our view the non-partisan character of the public
service is inextricably linked to other essential values such as loyalty, integrity,
impartiality, fairness, equity, professionalism, and merit.'
49
Though ministers do not as a rule have a say in the selection of their deputy
ministers, they must learn to work with them. As one senior Privy Council
Office official explained, There can be no competition, no interviews by minis-
ters to determine who can be a deputy minister. In addition, deputy minister
appointments are not a matter to be discussed in Cabinet. It simply does not
belong there. It never has, and as far as I am concerned it never will.' The offi-
cial also explained, 'We simply cannot let ministers appoint deputy ministers.
The reason is clear - a deputy minister's loyalty must be to the government,
never to a minister.'
 5
°
The above begs the question how do ministers work with their departments?
It is often taken for granted that somehow ministers will learn how to work well
with their deputy ministers. Yet there are no courses available to assist them in
working with a large organization, in particular with the organization's perma-
nent head. Still, it can be the determining factor in how well a minister will per-
form in government, however one may wish to define the criteria for success.
At the risk of sounding repetitive, more often than not ministers come to their
position from a law firm, a small business, or a teaching position. Thus, the
learning curve for a newly appointed minister obviously has to be steep. In
addition, as a minister learns to work with the public service, he must also at the
same time leam the ways of the centre of government and the Cabinet decision-
making process. If ministers are to make it 'their' government, they need to
gain an appreciation of what other ministers and other departments are doing or
proposing. Indeed, if Cabinet is to be truly a collective decision-making body,
these ministers, as Gordon Robertson explained, need to be aware of relevant
considerations and the proposed lines of solution at a relatively early stage.
At the first Cabinet meeting of his government, Jean Chretien told his minis-
ters that they needed to establish a strong working relationship with their deputy
ministers. In the same afternoon, he met with their deputy ministers and essen-
tially gave the same message - ministers and deputy ministers need to strike a
strong partnership.
51
 For Chretien, 'there is a community of interest between'
Ministers: Knowing When to Land 253
the minister and his deputy minister. He adds, 'If a minister doesn't trust his
officials, he won't get anywhere ... Many Ottawa bureaucrats are extremely
well-educated, well read, and nobody's fool. Knowledge is power, and in many
cases these people got to power because of their knowledge. The Canadian
bureaucracy has a tradition of great loyalty to the system and the institutions ...
[but] in my experience, if you tell the bureaucrats what you want with no ambi-
guity or confusion, there's no problem.'
52
 This is not to suggest that senior
government officials, notably deputy ministers, will run with every idea or sug-
gestion from their minister. If a minister states his ideas and preferences clearly
enough, however, his senior officials should either promote them or explain the
difficulties in doing so.
53
It is one thing for Chretien to stress that ministers and deputy ministers
should establish a strong working relationship. It is quite another to put it into
practice. In fact, central agency officials report that both Mulroney and Trudeau
made precisely the same pitch time and again at Cabinet meetings.
Public servants also have minds of their own and many do not hesitate to
voice their views. Ministers arriving in a department, and even those who have
been in a department for some time, should not expect that permanent officials
will accept their ideas on a particular subject without judging their merits.
Senior government officials pride themselves on being politically sensitive
rather than politically partisan.
54
 Being politically sensitive essentially means
having a sense of what is possible, and what is not.
Deputy ministers will assess what is possible by looking to the department's
capacity, including its financial resources, but especially by looking to the cen-
tre of government for guidance. They can begin by reading the mandate letters
from the prime minister to their ministers and from the clerk of the Privy Coun-
cil and secretary to the Cabinet to themselves. These are quite clear on whether
the department is expected to generate new ideas or policy and program propos-
als or whether simply to manage the status quo.
No deputy minister wants to be accused of 'going native' - that is, of pursu-
ing his own or his minister's agenda with little regard for what the centre thinks.
A deputy minister who does this runs a very high risk of seriously hurting his
career prospects.
One senior deputy minister explained, 'When a new minister is appointed, I
make it very clear that he should not ask me to do something which our legisla-
tion does not allow or to try something knowing that the prime minister is
against it. Other than that, I make it clear that I am open to suggestions.'
55
 Other
current and former deputy ministers were asked if they also made the same
points to their ministers. It is clear that they did, though some said there is no
need to spell it out, in particular to a minister who has served in Cabinet for any
254 The Play
length of time. One explained that 'it was simply understood that is the way
things work.'
56
In the pre-Trudeau days, strong ministers would strike an alliance with their
deputy minister and together decide if, when, and how departmental policies or
programs should be overhauled or adjusted. The minister would then bring the
matter to Cabinet to get a green light to proceed.
57
 Cabinet, Trudeau and his
advisers maintained, did not have the capacity to challenge the minister, to
identify and debate the various options. This is what Gordon Robertson was
getting at when he wrote in the early 19705 that ministers as a collective body
needed to be aware of problems and discussion of solutions at a stage early
enough that they could share in shaping the final decision. As already noted, a
simple yes or no, in his opinion, 'may be totally unsatisfactory.' In order for
ministers to make it their government, the argument went, they needed a capac-
ity and support at the centre of government and in Cabinet to discuss the 'lines
of solutions' and make policy. Michael Pitfield was even more explicit on this
point when he wrote that 'I think we should be very leery of casting our lot
towards a system of bureaucratic decision-making ... through the arbitrary
imperialism of a minister-spokesman who may but usually would not under-
stand his file, whose colleagues would never be given the chance [to understand
the file].'
58
 For Pitfield, ministers collectively would stand a better chance of
understanding a series of files from across government than an individual min-
ister working directly with the deputy minister on one or a few files.
The Trudeau changes, as already noted, had a considerable impact on gov-
ernment policy and decision making, which is still being felt today. Ministers
are now less likely to strike a partnership with their deputy ministers. For one
thing, deputy ministers are now more likely to look to the centre of government
for guidance than was the case in the pre-Trudeau days. Many of them now,
much more often than not, come to their position after working at the centre of
government. It was common up to the late 19605 for deputy ministers to rise
through the ranks of their department and stay in that position until retirement.
To be sure, these long-serving senior public servants had enormous clout.
59
Mitchell Sharp suggested that 'in many cases, they [had] a greater influence
upon the course of events than have ministers, particularly the weaker and less
competent ministers.'
60
Trudeau's decision to curb the power of the mandarins gave rise to a new
breed of deputy minister. Have-policy-will-travel became the new credential
that created deputy ministers capable of serving in virtually any department. It
is now not uncommon for deputy ministers to serve in several departments
before they retire. One former official I consulted, for example, served in four
departments in an eight-year period. Deputy ministers are no longer specialists
Ministers: Knowing When to Land 255
in one sector or in the policies and programs of a single department. They take
pride in being able to manage any department and any situation. They are what
one former senior public servant labelled 'careerists, and their careers are para-
mount.'
6
' Moreover, the single most important determining factor on career
prospects for current and aspiring deputy ministers is how well they are per-
ceived at the centre of government.
The Privy Council Office also attaches a great deal of importance on 'being
corporate' when it looks at the work of a deputy minister. One former deputy
minister reports that at one of his performance reviews a senior PCO official
observed, 'You are doing great, and everybody is saying so from your minister
to other deputy ministers. You are strong on both the policy and management
front. But you are not being corporate enough.'
62
 It is important to note that in
this case the individual became a senior deputy minister without having worked
in a central agency, a rare occurrence.
The Privy Council Office also stresses in print the importance of being 'cor-
porate.' In its document Responsibility in the Constitution, it states that 'Deputy
ministers are, of course, responsible to their respective ministers, but their
appointment by the Prime Minister reinforces their commitment to ensure the
successful functioning of ministerial government.' It then adds that 'the system
would be unstable without the collective responsibility necessary to Cabinet sol-
idarity, and the deputy must also play a role in and be affected by means that are
used to ensure the maintenance of collective responsibility among ministers.'
63
The centre also makes it clear that deputy ministers should not 'allow their
ministers to go off on a tangent or get too far ahead of the government with any
idea, however brilliant.'
64
 Ministers are well advised to look to their deputy
ministers for guidance on whether, when, and how they should broach an idea.
Ministers also spend less time with their deputy ministers or on departmental
matters than was the case thirty or forty years ago. Arthur Kroeger writes that
'whereas the commonest complaint of deputy ministers of my generation was
the difficulty of getting time with our ministers, with bilateral meetings once a
week being the best that most of us could manage, the normal practice in both
Mr. St. Laurent and Mr. Pearson's government was for ministers and their dep-
uties to meet at the beginning of every working day. Consequently, ministers
could be kept fully informed about work that was in progress, and were able to
provide guidance to their officials on a regular basis. I have yet to meet anyone
with first-hand experience of this period who is in any doubt that ministers,
such as Mitchell Sharp, Paul Martin Senior, Bud Drury, and Allan MacEachen
were fully in charge of what happened in their departments.'
65
My consultations reveal that most ministers now only meet their deputy min-
isters and other senior departmental staff on average for about three hours a
256 The Play
week. Some spend no more than an hour a week with their deputy ministers.
Both ministers and deputy ministers were quick to point out, however, that they
are often on the telephone with one another in the course of a week. The prob-
lem, they insist, is simply an overcrowded ministerial agenda.
I put a question to both ministers and deputy ministers - why is it that the
prime minister can find the time to meet with his deputy minister, the clerk of
the Privy Council, for at least half an hour most mornings when he is in Ottawa,
but that they cannot do the same? How is it, I asked, that the minister of Finance
can spend up to three or four hours a day, nearly every day, in briefing sessions
with his senior departmental officials, particularly in the months before he
tables his budget, but that they cannot do the same? After all, officials in PMO,
PCO, and Finance also reported that the prime minister and the minister of
Finance can be on the telephone on numerous occasions in the course of a
week.
The reaction to my question in many cases was a puzzled look. Some said,
'That is a very good question,' and essentially left it at that. Others argued that
line ministers probably have more interest groups to meet than either the prime
minister and the minister of Finance. However, if one takes the number of inter-
est groups the minister of Finance must deal with as an example, from the banks
to antipoverty groups, there clearly must be other reasons. In addition, we saw
in chapter 4 that the prime minister and his office are always in constant battle
to manage the prime minister's agenda.
It may be that both the prime minister and the minister of Finance consider
that the time spent with their deputy ministers is time well spent. Decisions are
made, things get done, major initiatives are planned and launched, and policy is
established. Both are prepared to sacrifice other important meetings to invest
the time where it truly matters. The same cannot be said for line ministers.
Many departmental decisions from personnel to financial matters simply do
not belong in meetings between the minister and deputy minister. Policy issues
can be discussed at such meetings, but only to bring the minister, or on some
occasions the deputy minister, up to date. Policy matters are rarely ever
resolved at these meetings.
I asked what was usually discussed at a typical weekly briefing session
between the minister and his deputy minister. The answer was that it varied and
it depended. It varied by department and it depended on personalities. Depart-
ments with a high policy content require a different agenda than, say, Revenue
Canada, which has only a limited number of possible policy issues to discuss
with the minister. Meanwhile, the deputy minister of a department like Fisher-
ies and Oceans, which often has to deal with various crises, will produce an
agenda for his weekly briefing meeting with the minister which focuses on hot
Ministers: Knowing When to Land 257
issues. Personalities matter in that deputy ministers who have an easy relation-
ship with their ministers will be much more willing to put everything on the
table than will those who don't. In fact, if tension between the two is strong,
both sides might find a reason to postpone a briefing session or a meeting unless
it is absolutely essential. However, the same is not true at the centre of govern-
ment. We saw earlier that if tension should exist between the prime minister
and the clerk of the Privy Council, or between the minister and deputy minister
of Finance, then changes will very likely be made.
In most instances, the deputy minister will prepare an agenda of issues he
wishes to discuss with his minister at a regularly scheduled weekly briefing ses-
sion, usually informing the minister or the executive assistant ahead of time of
the issues he wishes to raise. In most cases, the executive assistant attends the
session, and one, two, or at times, all assistant deputy ministers will also partic-
ipate. The minister will also at least from time to time raise issues he wants to
review with the department. These can be any number of issues involving the
department or may have very little to do with the department. The latter may
involve an issue discussed in Cabinet committee or elsewhere on which he
would like his officials to use their contacts to track down some information.
Deputy ministers will adjust briefing sessions to accommodate the minister's
personality. A minister who falls into the mission participant category will want
the department to explore new policy options with far more tenacity than, say, a
process participant. Similarly, a deputy minister will know that a status partici-
pant will always be on the lookout for the department to identify projects or
new initiatives for him to pursue. Process participants, meanwhile, will very
rarely focus on questions of policy, or the policy process. They will be quite
prepared to act as the department's ambassador before their colleagues or Cabi-
net committees and happily take up any message put forward by the depart-
ment. 'Going with what the department wants,' one minister explains, 'is the
road of least resistance. It also makes life easier for everyone.'
66
As noted earlier, most Cabinet ministers are process participants. If the
department can generate positive media visibility for its minister and deals for
him to strike with his Cabinet colleagues, the process participant will be happy,
as one minister observed, 'to sell the department's salad in the system.' He
added, 'It is very easy for ministers, especially new ones, to be captured by
arguments from his officials, such as, "We know that you have special access
with the prime minister and that you can promote this project or this funding for
the department." It happens. I have seen it more than once.'
67
 But selling a
department's salad is not likely to either surprise or upset the centre of govern-
ment.
The above is not to suggest that relations between ministers and their senior
258 The Play
officials have improved over the past thirty years. In fact, there is plenty of evi-
dence to suggest that they have deteriorated. Though many admitted that they
were in no position to say how ministers and deputy ministers worked together
in the 19408, 19508, and 19605, they did acknowledge that it is very likely that
the situation is much worse today. A number reported that, for the most part,
relations between senior public servants and ministers during the Mulroney
years were difficult, and that things were not much better during the Trudeau
years, particularly from 1975 onward. Moreover, the great majority of senior
public servants consulted claimed that things have not improved or have only
improved slightly under the Chretien government.
Without insisting that there is a firm link between the time ministers and dep-
uty ministers spend together on the one hand, and how well they get along on
the other, it is clear that the atmosphere has changed a great deal. Reading the
political memoirs of ministers from Walter Gordon to Paul Martin, one is struck
by the positive things they had to say about the great majority of senior public
servants who worked with them.
68
 While former prime ministers and the cur-
rent prime minister, Jean Chretien, at least from time to time, sing the praises
of senior public servants, we no longer find ministers, even senior ministers,
doing so.
69
The British television satire Yes Minister became highly popular with some
politicians and public servants in Canada. Sandford Borins writes that it became
'something of a cult program, exceedingly popular with a small following that
is intensely interested in public affairs.'
70
 Some of the things said in the pro-
gram rang true, at least with some politicians. The not-so-subtle message of Yes
Minister was that public servants were actually running the country, their defer-
ence to politicians was pure pretence, and that the Sir Humphreys of the bureau-
cratic world yielded considerable power. The series did serve to give evidence
of bureaucrat-bashing. There is now a veritable who's who of former and cur-
rent senior ministers from all sides of the Canadian political spectrum who have
publicly questioned the work of their own public servants. The list includes,
among many others, Allan J. MacEachen, Lloyd Axworthy, and Andre Ouellet
from the Liberal Party and Bernard Valcourt, Sinclair Stevens, and Otto Jelinek
from the Progressive Cpnservative Party. This list is certainly not complete.
Though the phenomenon is not limited to Canada, we have seen in recent
years the rise of macho ministers. Though macho ministers are very rarely
effective, they do not make for easy, productive relations with their departmen-
tal officials. Macho ministers will decide, at least on occasion, not to rely on
their deputy ministers for advice. Under Mulroney, ministers had chiefs of staff
and a growing cadre of highly paid and often politically partisan lobbyists
always at the ready to offer advice. Though the chief of staff position no longer
Ministers: Knowing When to Land 259
exists, the lobbying industry in Ottawa is still alive and well. Macho ministers
take delight in challenging or even overturning departmental positions or
decisions.
7
'
Macho ministers, by definition, also suspect their senior departmental offi-
cials of not only having too much influence but of being too close to the centre
of government. In the consultations, a number of deputy ministers reported that
they have been in the past instructed by their ministers not to discuss a particu-
lar issue with PCO or to keep PCO officials in the dark over a specific matter.
One deputy minister reported, 'My minister was about to say something in a
speech that could annoy PMO. She knew it and I knew it. She instructed me not
to discuss the matter with PCO. I really had no choice but to alert PCO. The
next time I saw her, I could sense that she knew that I had done so. Nothing fur-
ther was said, though.'
72
Sergio Marchi, minister in the Chretien government, boasted that he had
more influence in Ottawa than his deputy minister because of his own connec-
tions to the centre of government. He observed, 'My deputy minister is all right,
but he knows that in any showdown, I can get to the prime minister a lot faster
than he can.'
73
 One can hardly imagine a minister making a similar observation
thirty or forty years ago at a time when he met with his deputy minister every
morning. If there was a showdown to be had, it was more likely to involve him
and his deputy minister working as a team.
Though a macho minister may well take delight in challenging his deputy
minister over a program decision after lobbyists get to him, there is a price to
pay. When all is said and done, a minister's main policy adviser is his deputy
minister. This is true not only on departmental matters, but also on broad gov-
ernment policy issues. If anyone in the system is able to brief a minister on pol-
icy issues coming before Cabinet and Cabinet committees, it is the deputy
minister. Without his strong support, a minister will find it extremely difficult
to be an effective participant in Cabinet. In short, there is nowhere else in the
system that a minister can turn for help. Wise ministers will come to term with
this and do what they can to ensure a smooth working relationship with their
deputy ministers, but others never do and they pay the price.
The Minister in Cabinet
In Canada, a fundamental theory of government is that ministers decide. The
Privy Council Office tabled a major statement, 'Responsibility in the Constitu-
tion,' in 1977 and reissued it in June 1993. The then clerk, Glen Shortliffe,
explained in the preface to the 1993 edition that the document 'has been used as
a basic reference work within and around the Privy Council Office ever since
260 The Play
[
r
977]-' He added that it deals directly with the 'foundations of our system of
responsible government and of the principles and conventions that underlie it.'
74
The document makes it clear that the Privy Council Office 'must respect the
confederal nature of the system in which power flows from ministers.'
75
 It adds
that the Privy Council Office, 'like its master [the prime minister] exists prima-
rily to promote consensus by maintaining the equilibrium among ministers, and
this raison d'etre remains valid so long as neither the secretariat nor depart-
ments lose sight of the essential differences in their respective roles, the one co-
ordinating and the others initiating.'
76
 The document sums up the role of central
agencies as one of enabling 'the confederacy to work.'
77
The Privy Council Office also explains in some detail how our theory of gov-
ernment should work. It states that 'the tone of the government may be set by
the Prime Minister and the cabinet, but most of the policies of the government
flow from the exercise of the individual responsibilities of ministers. With rare
exceptions, these policies are initiated by ministers and their deputies, co-
ordinated at the official level through a network of interdepartmental commit-
tees, and by other means, discussed by ministers and deputies in committees of
the cabinet, finally resolved by ministers themselves in the cabinet, and given
effect through the exercise of the individual responsibilities of the minister and
ministers involved.'
78
How does this square with the findings of my consultations? Boldly stated, it
does not. For the most part, ministers, starting with those who served under
Trudeau, and continuing with those who served under Mulroney and now under
Chretien, say that Cabinet is no longer where the important decisions are made,
and that, in any event, decision making in the federal government can hardly be
described as Cabinet operating in a 'confederal nature.' They also say that it is
no longer the case that 'power flows from ministers.' Very early in interviews
for this book, a Chretien Cabinet minister observed that 'Cabinet is not a deci-
sion-making body. Rather, it is a kind of focus group for the prime minister.'
79
Shortly after this interview, a former minister in the Mulroney Cabinet
observed that 'Cabinet was more like an advisory committee to Mulroney than
an effective decision-making committee.'
80
I then decided to start every other interview with current and former minis-
ters and some senior PCO officials with the question: 'A Cabinet minister has
described Cabinet as a kind of focus group for the prime minister rather than a
decision-making body. Do you agree with this observation?' The responses var-
ied, but no one suggested that the observation was wrong. One said, 'I don't
agree completely but I know where he is coming from.' Another, 'There is
some truth to it, but it is not the whole truth.' Yet another, 'While one can make
the case, the problem is that there are too many large egos at the Cabinet table
Ministers: Knowing When to Land 261
to think that we were only there as members of a focus group. Not many of us
will care to admit that we are a kind of a collective focus group.'
8
'
Ministers, however, dismissed virtually out of hand the theory of a 'confed-
eral nature' of decision making or that 'power flows from ministers.' Power,
they believed, flows from the prime minister to ministers - unevenly at that -
and is always subject to change, depending on circumstances. It also flows to a
handful of his or her most senior advisers in his office and in the public service.
I asked present and former Cabinet ministers and officials who attend Cabi-
net meetings what goes on in Cabinet. One of those I put the question to was a
senior minister who served in both the Trudeau and Chretien Cabinets. He had
also served in a minister's office during the Pearson years. I wanted to see if
things had changed a great deal over the years. Based on discussions with his
then minister, he was able to compare the workings of Cabinet under Pearson,
Trudeau, and Chretien, with the caveat that his information on the Pearson Cab-
inet was secondhand.
He reported that by all accounts Cabinet operated quite differently under
Pearson than under Trudeau or Chretien. The Pearson Cabinet, he revealed, was
more 'free wheeling, more chaotic, and more open. Strong ministers got their
way unless Pearson and other senior ministers were dead against it, but even
then it did not happen often.' The Trudeau changes, he adds, 'completely turned
things around. Cabinet became a highly structured process and frankly quite
bureaucratic. We would spend hours and hours in Cabinet committee, pretend-
ing that we had all read these lengthy documents. Chretien got rid of most com-
mittees, leaving only two [the actual number is four, but no doubt he was
referring to the Economic and Social Policy Committees].' But leaving aside
the number of Cabinet committees, he reported that Cabinet today operates
much as it did under Trudeau. He pointed out, however, that Trudeau and Chre-
tien have very different personalities - and this came out in Cabinet. Trudeau,
he claims, liked to read long Cabinet documents; Chretien does not.
82
Ministers, senior PMO staff members in the Mulroney government, and
senior public servants report that during Mulroney's leadership Cabinet oper-
ated essentially as it did under Trudeau and as it does under Chretien. To be
sure, Mulroney's personality also had an impact on the Cabinet. He, like Chre-
tien, was not as willing to read Cabinet documents and briefing material to the
extent Trudeau was, and unlike Trudeau, but like Chretien, he also enjoyed tell-
ing stories and anecdotes about his meetings with world leaders and past politi-
cal experiences. Chretien, unlike Trudeau and Mulroney, 'does not like to waste
time in Cabinet, and if you want to say something to Cabinet it better be brief
and not something that has already been said. Chretien will not hesitate to cut
you off if he senses that time is being wasted.'
83
 PCO officials reveal that the
262 The Play
nature of Cabinet deliberations and even decisions has changed a great deal
from the pre-Trudeau days. One former PCO official reports that she decided to
go to the archives and read all Cabinet minutes and decisions to prepare herself
shortly after she was asked to attend Cabinet meetings to take notes and prepare
Records of Decisions. She reports, 'I was struck by how Cabinet dealt with the
important issues back then compared to now.'
84
So what actually goes on in Cabinet meetings? By all accounts, the Cabinet
agenda has changed very little since the early Trudeau years. The first item on
the agenda is 'General Discussion,' which the prime minister opens and leads.
He can raise any matter he chooses, ranging from a letter he may have received
from a premier to a purely partisan matter to diplomacy. The Privy Council
Office prepares a briefing note of possible talking points for the prime minister
to speak from. But prime ministers can, of course, completely ignore it.
Trudeau relied on PCO briefing material to lead the 'General Discussion,'
Mulroney somewhat less so, and Chretien even less than Mulroney. 'With
Chretien,' one senior PCO official reports, 'we have no idea what he can come
up with. Often it is as much a surprise to us as it is to ministers what he will
raise.'
85
There are a few issues, it appears, that come up time and again, whether it is
Trudeau, Mulroney or Chretien in the chair. The prime minister will invariably
remind Cabinet ministers every month or so that they have to pay attention
to caucus and backbenchers. One senior PCO official reports, 'I heard the
"pay-attention-to-backbenchers-because-they-are-the-reason-why-we-are-here-
speech" perhaps a hundred times.'
86
Federal-provincial issues often appear on Cabinet's weekly agenda under the
General Discussion. The prime minister will present his views on the state of
federal-provincial relations, on Quebec, or on a specific file which has received
media attention. Ministers can then offer their opinions, and here, according
to a senior PCO official, 'there is no doubt that it has a kind of focus group
characteristic to the process. The prime minister will listen and he will then do
whatever he pleases with the views being offered.'
87
Ministers who have served under Trudeau, Mulroney, and Chretien all report
that the prime minister is always de facto the minister of Intergovernmental
Affairs and the minister responsible for the Constitution. Ministers can voice
their concerns at Cabinet meetings, but even those who do, and by all accounts
they are not numerous, know full well that the prime minister will 'call the
shots pretty well as he sees it.'
88
One or two ministers, however, will on some occasions dare to offer a differ-
ent view to the prime minister's on federal-provincial relations. One former and
long-serving PCO official reports that the prime minister always has 'a kind of
Ministers: Knowing When to Land 263
burr in the saddle. There is always one or maybe two ministers that will raise
awkward questions, or make points that, however softly, will question the
prime minister's position on federal-provincial matters or other important
issues. In the end, they usually have no impact other than being annoying to the
prime minister. I am thinking of Jean-Luc Pepin and Trudeau, John Crosbie and
Mulroney, and in the case of Chretien, perhaps David Dingwall.'
89
The second item on the Cabinet agenda is called 'Presentations.' Ministers
accompanied by their deputy ministers are on occasions invited to make presen-
tations or briefing sessions on various issues. The minister of Finance and his
deputy minister might present a 'deck' on the government's fiscal position. Or
the minister of Industry and his deputy minister might make a presentation on
Canada's productivity or competitiveness in relation to the United States. At the
end of the presentation, ministers are free to raise any question or to ask for fur-
ther classification or explanation.
The third item is 'Nominations.' Government appointments, ranging from a
Supreme Court judge, to a senator, to a deputy minister, to a member of the
board of a crown corporation require an order-in-council. There is always a list
of appointments to be confirmed at every Cabinet meeting. However, the nomi-
nations have all been sorted out well before the Cabinet meeting is actually
held.
The Prime Minister's Office and the Privy Council Office manage the
appointment process. For non-public service appointments (deputy ministers
and ambassadors), the Prime Minister's Office will consult regional Cabinet
ministers and others in the party. The extent to which individual ministers are
consulted varies according to the prime minister's wishes. In his early years in
office, Trudeau was guided by the wishes of his regional ministers. Later, he
started to look to his own counsel and to the advice of senior PMO officials for
certain appointments, particularly Senate appointments.
90
 Mulroney had a
trusted assistant with deep roots in the party, Marjorie LeBreton, who looked
after appointments. She would consult a fairly elaborate party machinery at the
provincial level to secure advice on virtually all political appointments. Mul-
roney, however, would reserve the right to appoint his own person, particularly
when it came to the Senate, or high-profile board appointments.
9
'
Chretien keeps a tight control on appointments, and it appears that ministers
now have less influence than was the case under Mulroney, and certainly under
Trudeau. For one thing, Chretien spends more time on reviewing appointments
than either Mulroney and Trudeau did. For another, certain appointments are
pretty well declared off limits to ministers, notably Supreme Court judges and
senators. One minister who served in both the Trudeau and Chretien Cabinets
points out that 'Trudeau, especially in his early years, did not want to decide
264 The Play
who should get what in terms of appointments. That was patronage, and it was
better left to regional ministers. In time, however, he began to get directly
involved in certain appointments. Chretien runs it very tight and he and his
office decide many appointments. If regional ministers had full say in our first
mandate, I can tell you that we would have seen different kinds of appoint-
ments.'
92
To be sure, prime ministers do not seek a Cabinet consensus when appointing
either Supreme Court judges or senators. They, and they alone, decide, and
everyone else is on the outside looking in, whether it is Cabinet, caucus, first
ministers, or Parliament. Individuals may be consulted, including the minister
of Justice and individual premiers, in the case of Supreme Court judges, but
there is no pretence - the decision belongs to the prime minister. The Ottawa
Citizen had it right when it wrote that 'Mulroney's Supreme Court may soon
become Jean Chretien's court' because of 'an unusual confluence of expected
retirements.'
93
The fourth item is Cabinet committee decisions presented as appendices on
the agenda. In overhauling the Cabinet decision-making process, Trudeau made
it clear that all decisions taken in Cabinet committee could be reopened for dis-
cussion in Cabinet. A former Trudeau Cabinet minister reports that in his early
years in office Trudeau would quite willingly let ministers reopen a Cabinet
committee decision in full Cabinet. In time, however, he became annoyed with
the practice, and he did not hesitate to show his displeasure whenever a minister
sought to review an appendix item. Cabinet simply did not have time available
to discuss Cabinet committee decisions. In any event, by the late 19708 and the
early 19808, Trudeau would automatically send a Cabinet committee decision
back to the committees for review whenever a minister would raise questions
about it in full Cabinet.
94
 Mulroney did much the same or relied on the Opera-
tions Committee of Cabinet, chaired by Don Mazankowski, to sort out prob-
lems with Cabinet committee decisions. Chretien, as already noted, does not
react well whenever a Cabinet committee decision is challenged, and like
Trudeau in his later years, he automatically refers the decision back to the Cab-
inet committee without any discussion in full Cabinet. For Chretien, challeng-
ing a Cabinet committee decision simply indicates that the committee did not
do its job right the first time and it should try again. The result is that Cabinet
committee decisions are very rarely challenged in full Cabinet (it only hap-
pened three times between 1993 and 1997). Mulroney had little patience for the
Cabinet process and at one point said that he 'favoured any decision-making
system that minimized the time he spent in cabinet.'
95
 He preferred to deal with
the big issues outside of Cabinet, preferring to operate outside the constraints
imposed by the system. The telephone and face-to-face conversations 'were his
Ministers: Knowing When to Land 265
stock in trade.'
96
 Indeed, we are now informed that 'under Mulroney important
matters such as energy mega-projects were often decided without benefit of any
Cabinet documents at all.'
97
 The point is that Mulroney, like Chretien and
Trudeau, did not easily tolerate ministers querying Cabinet committee deci-
sions, consequently it was rarely done.
What Goes on in Cabinet Committee?
Cabinet committee meetings in the Trudeau and Mulroney years took up a great
deal of ministerial time. One former minister reports that they dominated his
agenda from Tuesday morning to Thursday evening.
98
 Things are different
under Chretien, with only five Cabinet committees, including the Treasury
Board, in operation.
The prime minister appoints all Cabinet committee chairs. Prime ministers
themselves chaired the key Priorities and Planning Cabinet committee when it
existed, largely because it performed a kind of 'inner cabinet' role. Chretien,
however, does not chair any of the five Cabinet committees, nor does he partic-
ipate in their discussions. Still, he does, as we saw in earlier chapters, keep a
close watch on their work and their decisions. In addition, while he does not
appreciate ministers challenging Cabinet committee recommendations in Cabi-
net, he does not hesitate to do so himself when he sees one that he does not like.
In addition, he may well ask that a particular Cabinet committee decision not be
included as an appendix item because he may disagree with it or because he is
not comfortable with it and wants to think about it before letting it go forward.
Officials in the Prime Minister's Office argue that the prime minister has every
right to review any Cabinet committee recommendation or hold them up since
he is not a member of any Cabinet committee.
The prime minister can also direct the work of Cabinet committees in various
ways. The Privy Council Office will prepare briefing notes to the prime minis-
ter on virtually all proposals well before they are submitted to Cabinet commit-
tee. The clerk of the Privy Council Office can also raise any Cabinet committee
proposals in his daily morning meetings with the prime minister.
Prime ministers appoint all Cabinet committee chairs, a task that they do not
take lightly. From Trudeau to Chretien, they invariably, in the words of a senior
PCO official, turn to a personne de confiance, someone they can trust, with
good judgment and a capacity to look at more than one side of an issue, to
appoint as chair of a Cabinet committee.
99
 Strong-headed, highly opinionated,
and independently minded ministers such as Jean-Luc Pepin, John Crosbie, and
David Dingwall, by all accounts, do not make good chairs, and consequently,
they are seldom chosen.
266 The Play
Put differently, prime ministers do not want mission participants to chair
Cabinet committees. Process participants are much better suited to the job.
Chretien, for example, in his second mandate, appointed Ralph Goodale, he
who knows when to land, as chair of the Cabinet committee on the economic
union.
What is discussed in Cabinet committees? In an earlier chapter, we reviewed
the work of the Treasury Board and Treasury Board secretariat. The Special
Committee of Council performs essentially a housekeeping role and ensures
that all the 't's are crossed and i's are dotted and reviews in considerable detail
proposed legislation and regulations."
00
The Economic and Social Union committees review proposals from depart-
ments in their respective sectors, including program changes and virtually any
matter a minister and hjs deputy minister consider appropriate to bring before
Cabinet.
101
 In addition, PCO will ask ministers and their departments to come
forward with proposals or even issues which cut across the policies and pro-
grams of more than one department.
The above could mean that most, if not all, of the new measures a department
is contemplating should be submitted to a Cabinet committee. When asked to
present his department's policy agenda to his colleagues at a regular deputy
minister breakfast meeting, a deputy minister writes that his department did
'not have an agenda. I only had my department's manifestation of the govern-
ment's agenda, and I put down each of the policy files that we were working on
and beside that I put down the other departments that I needed as partners.
There was not one issue I could take forward - either to ministers, to the public
interest groups that we were dealing with, or to my minister alone - without
bringing along another department. I don't think there are very many of those
issues left where you can say "I am sorry, it's none of your business! I've got
this one.'"
102
 In addition, departments somehow want the cachet of a Cabinet
decision even for things over which they already hold full authority. 'One can
only assume,' one central agency official suggested, 'that writing or working on
Cabinet documents gives midlevel officials a certain amount of credibility or
prestige.' He adds that some highly technical issues which no Cabinet or Cabi-
net minister would ever want to understand, let alone challenge, should be dealt
with elsewhere than Cabinet, but that somehow they make it on the agenda.
103
The point here is that a number of Cabinet committee decisions are noncon-
troversial and.fairly straightforward. This is true for highly technical issues
such as specific trade or tax agreements with another country. It is also true for
some program revisions which are quite straightforward and for which it is not
difficult to secure a consensus for its approval.
An example will make this clear. In late 1997 the Central Mortgage and
Ministers: Knowing "When to Land 267
Housing Corporation (CMHC) decided that it could find the necessary funding
within its own budget to extend for five years three programs to improve hous-
ing conditions. The programs were designed to assist low-income Canadians, as
well as those living in rural and remote areas, to improve their homes.
The Residential Rehabilitation Assistance Program provides loans to low-
income homeowners and landlords of properties targeted to low-income Cana-
dians to bring homes up to health and safety standards. The program can also be
used to make homes accessible for disabled residents, enabling them to live
independently. The Emergency Repair Program provides nonrepayable contri-
butions to homeowners in rural and remote areas of Canada to undertake the
emergency repairs required for the continued safe occupancy of their homes.
The Home Adaptations for Seniors' Independence assists low-income elderly
Canadians whose difficulties in daily living can be addressed by certain adapta-
tions to their homes. These programs also benefit many aboriginal house-
holds.
104
The total funding for the three programs amounts to $250 million over five
years. However, in discussions with central agencies, CMHC, made it clear that
it would not seek new funding to finance the program extensions. It prepared a
Cabinet memorandum for the minister responsible for CMHC, and officials
accompanied the minister to Cabinet committee to answer any questions.
The minister had little difficulty in securing Cabinet committee approval.
CMHC officials had done plenty of background work with PCO and even PMO
officials to explain the proposal and its political appeal, and to insist that it
would entail no new cost to the Treasury. It was described as a win-win pro-
posal. No minister and no department would oppose the proposal since any
impact it had on their own programs was positive. PMO officials and ministers
also saw that their own backbenchers would applaud the initiative since it
would give them something to promote to their constituents. When the Cabinet
committee decision went to full Cabinet on an appendix item, no one raised any
questions, and CMHC officials were then free to prepare a press release and
promote the program extension to its clientele. There are a number of similar
proposals that go to Cabinet committees, including the Treasury Board, in the
course of a year.
At the risk of stating the obvious, not all Cabinet committee decisions are this
easy. PCO officials report that the more difficult ones surface when ministers
and departments have fundamentally different views on a proposal, whenever
new funding is made available and when a minister gets ahead of the process by
announcing a measure before it has been considered by Cabinet committee.
PCO's role in the Cabinet committee process is to sort out issues that are
potentially difficult to manage, to settle the conflicts, seek out the compromise
268 The Play
solution, and essentially 'fall on the hand grenades.' If PCO officials have a
measure of their own success, it is how well they manage conflicts between
ministers and departments, and more importantly, how successful they are in
ensuring that they never get any play in the media.
For many of them, not surprisingly, process rather than the substance of the
issue is key. They make sure that the prime minister is always fully informed of
potential conflicts and may well seek guidance from him on what to do. On
occasion, the prime minister may decide to bring the issue to his own office and
settle the matter himself. Trudeau, Mulroney, and Chretien have all done this.
105
At times, the prime minister may simply decide to go against the wishes of
one of his senior ministers, and this happens probably more often than is gener-
ally assumed. A case in point: in the early 19808, Trudeau instructed his then
minister of Transport, Jean-Luc Pepin, to reverse his decision to transfer subsi-
dies under the Crow's Nest program from transportation firms to the producers
in Western Canada.
106
 Pepin had secured Cabinet committee and even Cabinet
approval for his decision, but when it became public there was fierce opposition
from farmers in other regions of the country. Producers in Ontario and Quebec
feared that Western producers would simply apply the subsidies to create new
capacity rather than putting them to transportation costs. Pepin wanted to stand
firm. Trudeau, however, simply informed Cabinet that Pepin would have to
reverse his decision and, in the words of a former Cabinet minister, 'That was
that.'
107
Mulroney and Chretien have both turned to key ministers or advisers to man-
age potentially difficult situations. Mulroney used his deputy prime minister,
Don Mazankowski, to manage conflicts and issues in which he had only limited
interest. Chretien has established ad hoc committees of Cabinet to review polit-
ically difficult issues. In the course of a single year, Chretien can set up 'six,
seven, or more' such committees.
108
He established a five-member ad hoc Cabinet committee, for example, to
review recommendations from his minister of Defence on the purchase of new
rescue helicopters in early 1998. Art Eggleton and the Defence Department
made it clear that they wanted the EIX-ioi helicopter. Chretien, however, had
made highly publicized commitments during the 1993 election campaign to
cancel the purchase of a similar helicopter produced by the same manufactur-
ers. On establishing an ad hoc Cabinet committee to review Eggleton's recom-
mendation, Chretien, in the words of one of Eggleton's colleagues, 'left his
Minister of Defence out to dry.'
109
 Chretien finally accepted the recommenda-
tion from his minister of Defence only after the ad hoc committee told him that
the government could well face serious legal challenges from the winning bid if
it were turned down in favour of another manufacturer or that the bidding pro-
Ministers: Knowing When to Land 269
cess might even have to be reopened. In addition, the Department of Defence
forcefully made the case that the competing bids were offering helicopters that
were too small to do rescue work in Canada and that they would only be able to
serve a limited purpose. The controversy, the delay, and the establishment of an
ad hoc Cabinet committee to review the work of the Defence minister, accord-
ing to observers, had as their source the Prime Minister's Office. The Globe and
Mail quoted a government official, insisting that 'all the PMO is worried about
is the Prime Minister's political capital and credibility."
10
 It is important to
note that ad hoc committees of Cabinet only meet a few times - sometimes only
once - before they are dismantled, and that they report directly to the prime
minister, not Cabinet.
However, in most cases when there is disagreement between ministers, the
prime minister will let PCO officials manage the situation, and he will intervene
personally only when PCO, his advisers, and he himself conclude that it is nec-
essary for him to do so. PCO's objective is to identify a common ground when
there is sharp disagreement between some ministers and to promote a consen-
sus. Strong ministers, in particular the mission-participant-type, find this diffi-
cult to accept. Paul Martin explained his own frustration with the PCO process
when he observed, The bureaucracy is very process-oriented and I'm not.
Nobody who has been in business is. I basically want to get a job done. I don't
give a goddamn about the process. For the bureaucracy, what's interesting is
that as long as the process is working, everybody is happy ... You know, as long
as the meeting breaks up with nobody throwing a punch, everybody in the sys-
tem is happy. And my view is you're a lot better off to have the meeting end
with somebody throwing a punch because at least something gets decided.'
l
"
Martin's views are close to Chretien's. Chretien explains, 'The PCO gains
power from using its information-gathering system for real influence. Coordi-
nation becomes more important than the action. Compromise, the way to pro-
tect everyone's interest, becomes more important than a good solution; and the
quickness, the responsiveness and the freshness of departments are lost to
empire building. Even important ministers came to fear the PCO.'
112
 The only
one in government, it appears, allowed to throw a punch is the prime minister,
and when he does not, PCO is left to find common ground among competing
ministers and departments.
The above explains why mission participants do not make good chairs of
Cabinet committee and why they are rarely appointed. Chairs of committees
have a special relationship to the prime minister and the Privy Council Office.
PCO officials prepare briefing material for the chair and are always available to
advise or assist them. Committee chairs are also in a better position to influence
the process and even tilt some decisions to their way of thinking or to pursue
270 The Play
their own goals. When he was president (and chair) of the Treasury Board,
Chretien reports that he 'made it a point not to cut the arts or foreign aid. I knew
that pleased Trudeau, and it also pleased me. At one point, Trudeau mentioned
to me that the National Gallery wanted to buy a masterpiece by the great Italian
painter, Lotto, and it needed a million dollars from the Treasury Board. I got the
message and the National Gallery got the painting.'
113
 One would assume that
Chretien, as prime minister, would expect no less from his Treasury Board pres-
ident or other chairs of Cabinet committee.
I asked a former chair of Cabinet committee whether he shared briefing
material from PCO with his Cabinet colleagues. The answer was no. I asked
present and former PCO officials whether they would be willing to share their
briefing material and advice with all Cabinet ministers, given the collective
nature, or even the confederal nature of Cabinet decision making. They
responded that though it is not done, they would have no objection to sharing
'some' briefing material. Some of the material and recommendations, they
explain, are only for the prime minister, and cannot even be shared with the
chairs of Cabinet committee. This material contains information on where cer-
tain ministers stand, where precisely are the points of disagreement between
two or more ministers, where a consensus may lie, and recommendations to
resolve the matter."
4
A former chair of the Cabinet committee on economic development reports
that neither PCO nor the prime minister would ever agree to share briefing
material and recommendations. He explains, 'The question you are raising goes
to the heart of the art of governing. Information is power and information
shared is power lost. I knew all along that I only got from PCO part of the infor-
mation and advice the prime minister was receiving. But there was no way I
was going to share the bit I got with members of the committee.'
115
 I also asked
what kind of briefing material and advice he received from PCO. He reports, 'It
was a brief summary of the issues and it usually led you to one possible deci-
sion, one possible consensus, not two.'
116
The above begs the question of where ministers get the information and
advice that enables them to participate fully in the Cabinet process. One former
PCO official explains, 'Ministers can read the Cabinet document and look to
their deputy ministers for advice.'
117
 For their part, ministers report that they
simply do not have the time, and some even the inclination, to read Cabinet
documents. Indeed, the consultations suggest that only a handful of ministers,
such as Pierre Trudeau, Otto Lang, Jean-Luc Pepin, Marc Lalonde, John Cros-
bie, Michael Wilson, and Paul Martin, were or are prepared to commit the time
to read the documents.
This may explain in part why ministers who have served on the Treasury
Ministers: Knowing When to Land 271
Board and other Cabinet committees report that, looking back, they rate their
Treasury Board experience better than that of other Cabinet committees. They
point out that members of the Treasury Board have access to briefing material
prepared by secretariat staff. The discussions at Treasury Board meetings are
also somewhat more free-wheeling than in the other Cabinet committees in that
ministers can engage Treasury Board staff in a discussion about any proposal
under review.
Ministers also report that they feel much more in control at Treasury Board
meetings than in other Cabinet committee meetings. To be sure, the fact that
membership on the board is considerably smaller than is the case of other Cabi-
net committees (about one-third), is a factor. But ministers argue that the most
important factor is that Treasury Board actually makes decisions about specific
cases. 'Other Cabinet committees,' one former minister insists, 'are into long
intellectual discussions about a number of subjects. They are never quite sure if
a decision is being made or had been made. At Treasury Board meetings, things
were to the point and decisions were made and we knew it."
18
Whose Government Is It?
In the introductory paragraphs to this chapter, I asked how do ministers make it
'their' government? In an earlier chapter, we noted that a prime minister will
want to make the government 'his' or 'hers.' Can both simultaneously make it
their government?
The prime minister has all the instruments to make the government 'his' or
'hers' while ministers have very limited capacity to do the same. The prime
minister is the only minister with full knowledge of what goes on in the Cabinet
decision-making process and who knows through briefings from PCO where
ministers sit on a particular issue. It is he or she who appoints not only the min-
isters but also their deputy ministers, who controls the Cabinet, and whenever
necessary, Cabinet committee agenda.
Decisions taken by Cabinet committee are submitted to Cabinet as an appen-
dix item for ratification. But, again, prime ministers, from Trudeau to Mulroney
and now Chretien, do not react well when Cabinet committee decisions are
challenged in Cabinet, and as we have already noted, it is very rarely done. But
there is another perhaps more important problem with the Cabinet committee
process. Ministers do not sit on all Cabinet committees. In the case of the Chre-
tien Cabinet, about half of the Cabinet sit on the Economic Union Committee
and the other half on the Social Union Committee. Accordingly, half of the
Cabinet has to accept what has been decided by a Cabinet committee of which
they are not members and based on discussions in which they did not take part.
272 The Play
Moreover, ministers have very limited means of securing advice on matters
discussed in the Cabinet decision-making process other than from their own
departments. It is asking a great deal for, say, the minister of Heritage Canada
to request briefing from her senior departmental official on a proposal put for-
ward by the minister of Fisheries and Oceans. Briefing material from the centre,
whether it is produced by PCO or the Department of Finance, is off limits to
ministers. Ministers are, of course, free to read Cabinet documents, but we
know that very few actually do. Even if they did, they would be reading a docu-
ment prepared by a department pursuing a particular policy, program, or fund-
ing objective, hardly representing all viewpoints.
The machinery of government is such that ministers are still encouraged to
fight for their corner. The view from the centre or from the top is limited to the
prime minister, and to some extent to the Finance minister and the president of
the Treasury Board. Cabinet committees exist more to take the pressure off the
Cabinet than to promote a horizontal perspective for ministers. In any event,
committees react to specific proposals that come to them from individual
departments. They still do not, as a rule, request that department X come for-
ward with one proposal and department Y with another. PCO manages the
process on behalf of the prime minister, not the Cabinet, to ensure that interde-
partmental conflicts do not get out of hand and to identify a consensus among
competing ministers and departments.
The Trudeau Cabinet reforms, which have in essence lasted to this day, were
designed to remove power from the hands of strong ministers and their manda-
rins and bring it to the centre to strengthen the hand of Cabinet ministers as a
collectivity, but have fallen far short of the mark. In explaining the Trudeau
reforms, Gordon Robertson wrote that 'ministers now, in many cases, have to
give up some share of their authority and control to other ministers if the totality
of policies is to be coordinated ... ministers have less chance to appear in roles
of clear and firm decision.'
1
'
9
 There is no doubt that beginning with Trudeau,
and continuing to this day, strong ministers and their mandarins have lost
power. But as this and previous chapters point out, the power has not shifted to
Cabinet. Rather, the reforms have strengthened the hand of the prime minister
and central agencies, notably PCO.
The focus group analogy which one Chretien minister employed to describe
Cabinet may not be too much of an overstatement. In fact, Chretien himself
wrote before he became prime minister that a minister 'may have great author-
ity within his department, but within Cabinet he is merely part of a collectivity,
just another adviser to the prime minister. He can be told what to do and on
important matters his only choice is to do or resign.'
120
 It is ironic to note that
participants in focus group exercises are also 'just advisers.' This is not to sug-
Ministers: Knowing When to Land 273
gest for a moment that ministers in Ottawa are without influence. Advisers to
prime ministers can have a great deal of influence. In addition, ministers like
Marc Lalonde, John Crosbie, and Paul Martin, among others, through their
force of personality alone, can take charge of a government department and
give it direction.
Chretien is not the only one to argue that if ministers disagree with the prime
minister they can always resign. It will be recalled that when I asked a former
senior PCO official to explain how the prime minister could possibly be in a
position to sign mandate letters to his ministers to outline priorities and what is
expected of them before Cabinet has even met once, his response was, 'Minis-
ters can always resign.' The fact is that very few ministers are prepared to put
their jobs on the line because they are not happy with a government policy. It is
simply too much to expect that at least a status, policy, or process participant
will resign over a specific policy issue, and prime ministers and their senior
advisers know this better than anyone else.
Sharon Sutherland looked at the causes of ministerial resignations from con-
federation to 1990. She reports that 'solidarity' problems caused only 19 per
cent (or twenty-eight cases) of all resignations. By 'solidarity' problem she
means ministers unable or unwilling to agree with Cabinet colleagues or 'with
the Prime Minister in particular.'
121
 In more recent years, she documents the
resignations from the Diefenbaker government: Douglas Harkness, Pierre
Sevigny, and George Hees (1963); Judy LaMarsh (1968); Eric Kierans (1971);
Jean Marchand (1976); and James Richardson (1976). From the Mulroney gov-
ernment: Suzanne Blais-Grenier (1985 - here, however, former senior PMO
officials report that she jumped just before she was going to be dropped from
Cabinet); and Lucien Bouchard (1990). There have been no resignations for
reasons of solidarity since Bouchard left. It is interesting to note that, in con-
trast, 41 per cent of ministers who left Cabinet did so to accept a political
appointment offered by the prime minister.
122
What this chapter suggests is that the idea of Cabinet as a collective, confed-
eral-type decision-making body no longer applies. The notion was invented at
the time the prime minister was primus inter pares and both concepts now
belong only to our history books. Only the prime minister and, to a lesser
degree, the minister of Finance, through the budget, can decide when and how
to land on a policy issue or even on a new spending commitment. Other minis-
ters must know either not to land or, if they strongly want to do so, they have to
look to the prime minister, not Cabinet, for permission to land and guidance on
when and how to go about it.
Departments: Running on the Track
On the face of it, central agencies should be no match for line departments,
which, after all, are in daily contact with citizens and which ultimately manage
government programs. They also employ a large number of policy specialists
who have direct access to information from the front line employees who actu-
ally deliver the programs and services. Central agency officials, meanwhile,
must cover the waterfront and, by definition, become policy generalists. They
also often have to rely on the policy specialists in line departments for their
information. In contrast, departmental policy workers can focus exclusively on
their own sectors and become experts in their areas of responsibility.
Line department officials maintain, however, that things are not as simple as
they may appear, although the centre, in particular the Treasury Board, has
given them more authority to manage their own financial resources. But, they
explain, one must recognize two distinct categories of activity in any effort to
assess the balance of influence between central agencies and line departments.
Line departments are on the whole left to their own devices when managing
ongoing programs and maintaining the. status quo. All in all, it is not too much
of an exaggeration to suggest that, as far as central agencies are concerned, line
departments are at their best when they are at rest. But the moment they want to
introduce change or when the minister or the department become embroiled in
any controversy, interdepartmental conflict, or disagreement - especially if the
media gets wind of it - then we are looking at a very different picture. They add
that since there is hardly an issue left which can any longer be neatly compart-
mentalized in a single government department, the centre can always find a rea-
son to intervene should a department decide to introduce change or challenge
the policies or activities of another department.
They also claim that relations between the centre and line departments have
changed in more recent years. Jocelyne Bourgon, at the time deputy minister of
9
Departments: Running on the Track 275
Transport, shortly before she became clerk of the Privy Council Office and sec-
retary to the Cabinet, wrote in 1993 that it was time to 'rethink the relationships
between the centre ... and departments.' She pointed out that the expression the
'centre' of government did not even exist as recently as ten years before.
Rather, she claims 'we had a concept of central agencies with different man-
dates bringing different checks and balances to the decision-making process.'
1
The purpose of this chapter is to look at the centre of government from the
perspective of line departments. It seeks to answer a number of questions. How
do departments regard the centre of government? How do they work with the
centre? What forces are at play shaping relations between the two?
What Matters to Departments
The Canadian Centre for Management Development (CCMD) offers a variety
of courses and management development seminars to federal government man-
agers, and in some instances to aspiring managers. The centre decided in 1997
to retain a highly reputable American firm to carry out a survey of managers for
the purpose of assessing the 'organization's culture, as seen by individuals and
groups within it.'
2
 By organization, CCMD meant the federal public service,
not its own institution.
The survey reported on the 'major elements of the current Public Service cul-
ture as perceived by managers,' and revealed that they include 'obedience to
chain of command, dedication and loyalty to the organization, reinforcement of
authority, rules and regulations, restraining individual desires for organizational
goods, self protection and self interest.'
3
 My consultations confirmed the sur-
vey's findings, and indeed much of the literature on Canadian public adminis-
tration has for quite some time focused on these very characteristics in defining
the organizational culture of the federal public service.
4
To be sure, deputy ministers attach a great deal of importance to protecting
the interests of their department. In this respect, for example, the deputy minis-
ter of Finance was no different than, say, the deputy minister of Industry in the
program review exercise in urging that his department be excluded from the
proposed spending cuts. The fact that all departments suffered significant cuts
made it easier for deputy ministers to explain to their departments that they had
fought the good battle on behalf of the department before the committees of
deputy ministers chaired by the clerk, and before the committee of ministers.
While one can speak of a public service culture in Ottawa, it also became
clear in consultations with line department officials that there are some differ-
ences, even some sharp ones, in the way public servants regard their department
and their role as one goes up the organizational chart or if one occupies a line
2j6 The Play
versus a staff position. Discussions with present and former line deputy minis-
ters pointed to different preoccupations, and to some extent to different values,
than those expressed by public servants at the EXi to EX3 levels, or at the
director to the director general levels. As could be expected, assistant deputy
ministers (i.e., EX4 and EX5 levels) did bridge the two groups and spoke to the
preoccupations of both. Similarly, public servants in line positions viewed their
work in a different light than those occupying staff positions.
I am not alone in sensing this division. The Task Force on Values and Ethics
in the federal public service also reported that its 'dialogue with public servants
revealed to us a certain divide between levels in the public service, perhaps
especially where public service values are concerned. Many at the middle and
lower levels of the public service to whom we spoke or from whom we heard do
not feel connected to the senior levels, and they are not sure whether they nec-
essarily share the same values as those at higher levels.'
5
There are also important differences in how deputy and assistant deputy min-
isters and other managers view accountability. The more senior managers
believe they are accountable to the prime minister, Cabinet, their ministers, and
the Privy Council Office. As one goes down the hierarchy, however, this view
is much less apparent. Program managers are more likely to look to the public,
their 'clients,' and their immediate superiors for a sense of how well they are
performing.
6
Some observers, including the Task Force on Values and Ethics, speak about
a fault line in the accountability structure.
7
 Deputy ministers, it appears, are
much more willing to accept the traditional view of accountability. That is,
since the public service has no constitutional personality or authority in its own
right, they are there to serve the government of the day and to support its mem-
bers in performing all the functions for which they are liable to answer to Par-
liament.
8
 The same is not true for program managers, who, as already noted,
tend to look more to their 'clients.' When asked to explain why such a fault line
exists, a senior government official pointed to the New Public Management,
'You tell them [the program and front line managers] that the way ahead is
empowerment and to focus on clients, and you repeat that message over and
over again, as we have during the past several years. You also explain that the
inside of government operations is not very healthy. It is full of red tape, rules,
and controls. Now we wonder why our people are looking mostly out to clients
and less and less to within government. '
9
The Treasury Board secretariat commissioned a study in 1997 to determine
why managers were leaving the federal public service at a higher rate than in
the past. The study 'clearly showed' that pay was not the main problem. Rather,
140 current and former managers consulted in a focus group explained that their
Departments: Running on the Track 277
work was being constantly 'distorted' for political reasons. The more senior
officials (deputy ministers and assistant deputy ministers) stood accused of
turning the public service into a 'ministerial service' and of being overly preoc-
cupied with the political interests of the government, not in a partisan sense, but
rather in making every effort to make the government look good.
10
The study also reported that the concern was more 'acute' among managers
in Ottawa, 'especially among those who have already quit.'
11
 It adds that in the
regions where many of the programs and service are actually delivered, manag-
ers were less concerned. It should be noted that though close to 70 per cent of
all federal public servants work in regional offices, about 65 per cent of all
executives or senior managers are located in the National Capital Region.
Deputy ministers now constitute a club in Ottawa circles and, to be sure, peer
pressure matters. Deputy ministers do not wish to lose face before their peers,
and this factor alone promotes close collaboration among club members. How
does one lose credibility in the club? Certainly, all deputy ministers prefer
walking into their breakfast or luncheon meetings knowing that their minister is
in no political controversy or difficulties. All pride themselves on being able to
keep their minister out of political trouble. This has become a key criteria
within the club to measure success, as indeed it is to the centre of government.
To be sure, deputy ministers cannot always deflect a potential crisis, but
depending on the circumstances, the centre and members of the club may won-
der if the deputy minister could have done so. On the other hand, when it is
apparent that he has been able to keep his minister from embarrassment in the
media or in question period, the club's praise is unstinting.
Deputy ministers operate under a different set of rules than do other senior
public servants. Other public servants are appointed by the Public Service Com-
mission, while deputy ministers are appointed, as we have seen, by the prime
minister on the advice of the clerk of the Privy Council, and they can be
removed by the prime minister at the stroke of the pen. Officials revealed in the
consultations that both Prime Ministers Mulroney and Chretien reminded them
of these terms of their appointment from time to time, pointedly mentioning
that deputy ministers work for the prime minister. I asked two current and two
former senior officials from the Privy Council Office why it was that Jean Chre-
tien, as minister of Justice or of Finance, could not be fully trusted to appoint
his own deputy minister but that Jean Chretien as prime minister could be
trusted to appoint all deputy ministers in the government. One said because 'he
is the boss'; another said because 'he is the prime minister'; and, interestingly,
two said because 'he is king.' One claimed that the monarch holds the right of
appointment because he is 'king and not for any other reason.'
12
 Yet another
explained, 'You have to understand that the prime minister is the government.
278 The Play
Ministers and deputy ministers serve at pleasure, and if the prime minister falls,
or leaves, the government falls and a new government takes over. That is why
the prime minister can say to deputy ministers that they work for him.'
13
Deputy ministers enjoy a number of administrative perks not available to other
public servants. They have access to a chauffeured departmental automobile.
They also enjoy a special pension plan which can pay up to 90 per cent of their
salary based on their six best salary years; the plan is indexed and tied to the
country's inflation rate. They have much larger offices than other public servants
and a great deal more administrative support than do officials down the line.
The club now meets regularly over breakfast, luncheon, and at special
retreats, all chaired by the head of the public service, the clerk of the Privy
Council Office. It has its own rules - deputy ministers may have sharp differ-
ences with one another but there is an unwritten understanding that you do not
voice that difference outside of the club or, in some instances, even inside. A
recently retired deputy minister explains, The department produced a letter for
me to sign to the deputy minister of Public Works, which was very testy, if not
harsh. I turned it back. I simply could not send that kind of letter to my col-
league, although my people had every reason to be upset at Public Works.'
14
 As
is the case for most other clubs, members are also expected to remain loyal to
the club itself. Indeed, a deputy minister may not always support her minister in
a disagreement with another minister or another department. They know full
well that they will have to live with other members of the club for as long as
they are deputy ministers, but that the minister's tenure in the department can
be short-lived. In any event, the clerk will intervene if the differences between
ministers or departments get too sharp, and deputy ministers will usually take
the wise decision and walk to the beat of the clerk. As one deputy minister
observed, 'You pay attention to your dealings with the clerk of the Privy Coun-
cil unless you are about to retire or leave government for the private sector, and
even then you should still pay attention."
5
Deputy ministers must look in several directions at once in their day-to-day
work. They have to be flexible and to learn to deal with various forces. They must
operate 'like a hinge between the political and bureaucratic world.'
16
 Again,
although they are appointed to the job by the prime minister, their main respon-
sibility is to support their ministers.
17
 The Privy Council Office has in more
recent years provided in print the reasons why it is the prime minister, not min-
isters, who appoints deputy ministers. Quoting the Glassco commission, PCO
maintains that the appointment of deputies by the prime minister provides 'a
reminder to them [deputy ministers] of their need for a perspective encompassing
the whole range of government' and 'emphasizes the collective interest of the
Prime Minister in the effectiveness of management in the public service.'
18
Departments: Running on the Track 279
But what if a conflict should surface in the department between the minister
and the deputy minister? On this issue, the Privy Council Office maintains that
'conflict between the deputy's loyalty to the minister and his or her responsibil-
ity to the prime minister will be symptomatic of a failure of the confederal prin-
ciple [of Cabinet government]. If it occurs, the clear line of responsibility
passing between the minister and the deputy minister may be destroyed and in
the extreme will only be restored through the resignation of one or other, in
which event who goes will depend on the particular circumstances.'
19
But all this aside, the deputy minister 'is, in reality if not in principle,
accountable to the Secretary to the Cabinet.'
20
 The Privy Council Office makes
it clear in its guide that if a disagreement between a minister and a deputy min-
ister cannot be resolved between them and that 'it appears to affect the opera-
tions of the department, the deputy may wish to discuss the matter with the
Secretary to the Cabinet. One of the accepted roles of the Secretary to the Cabi-
net has been to discuss with a deputy matters related to a department and the
deputy's relationship with his minister, when the deputy is uncertain of the
proper course of action. Similarly, a minister might prefer to discuss a concern
with the Secretary to the Cabinet first before seeking the consideration of the
Prime Minister.'
21
 Thus, deputy ministers are expected to manage as best they
can a kind of menage a trois, which, if nothing else, explains the need for them
to be flexible. This makes them as much a part of the centre as the administra-
tive head of their departments.
But there is more. A deputy minister must also take account of the Treasury
Board secretariat, the Public Service Commission, the commissioner of Official
Languages, the Office of the Auditor General, and parliamentary committees,
including the Public Accounts Committee, in her day-to-day work. All govern-
ment managers, notwithstanding the rhetoric of the New Public Management
and the repeated calls to let the manager manage, are still confronted by a myr-
iad of complex procedures and regulations which make it extremely difficult for
them to manage. Some insist that, by definition, the government cannot let
managers manage, and that in the end only the process, not true management
authority, can be delegated to managers. Accordingly, management account-
abi'ity can only be based on how well the process is respected, rather than on
results.
It is important to recognize that a good number of the procedures and regula-
tions are beyond the immediate hand of the government to fix. The government
can only change the mandate and the work of the Offices of the Commissioner
of Official Languages and the Auditor General, the Access to Information Act,
and the Public Service Commission
22
 by going to Parliament with new legisla-
tion, and it is very likely that this could only be achieved at a political cost. In
any event, those procedures and regulations also serve an important purpose for
the prime minister. They protect ministers, especially those whose political
judgment is suspect, from the media and question period in the House.
For deputy ministers, however, the various procedures and regulations hardly
provide for quick, decisive, imaginative, or flexible management decisions. But
quite apart from the restrictions of centrally prescribed procedures and regula-
tions, deputy ministers must also always keep a watchful eye on the media, spe-
cial interest groups, and provincial governments. Finally, they should be in
constant contact with the department's client groups. In brief, anyone who
wants a clear mandate should not accept an appointment as a federal deputy
minister.
Though their mandate is not always clear, deputy ministers are very busy
people. A detailed study of their workload published in 1997 reveals that on
average they work eleven hours and twenty-eight minutes a day, or fifty-seven
hours a week. The study also reveals that on average they spend one hour out of
every three on interdepartmental issues. It is interesting to note that typically a
deputy minister allocates nearly twice as much time to meetings with his peers
than on matters involving his own minister.
23
 With respect to issues, deputy
ministers on average allocate more of their time to crisis management (16 per
cent) than to human resources management (15 per cent). The study also
reveals that the deputy minister is at the very centre of departmental activities
and that he is always trying as best he can to accommodate 'the urgent,' the
'important,' and the 'unforeseen in his daily agenda.' 'Planning,' the author
argues, 'is always left wanting.'
24
It may well be that deputy ministers in Ottawa allocate more of their time to
meetings with other deputy ministers and on interdepartmental issues because
that is the way ministers prefer it. Indeed, a comparative study of the satisfac-
tion of ministers towards their deputy ministers in Ottawa and Quebec reveal
that federal ministers attach a great deal of importance, certainly a great deal
more than their Quebec counterparts, on the ability of their deputies to influ-
ence the interdepartmental decision-making process.
25
 My consultations with
current and former federal Cabinet ministers also suggest that the 'ability to
play the interdepartmental game,' as one former minister called it, ranks very
high, if not at the very top of what ministers expect from their deputy minis-
ters.
26
 In fact, when discussing what they expect from their departments and
deputy ministers, every minister consulted made at least one reference to their
ability to influence the interdepartmental process, in particular PCO and the
Department of Finance. Lewis Mackenzie insists that one's ability to work the
Ottawa system has now become an important factor for promotion, even within
the military. He writes, 'Regrettably, the mastery of the Ottawa games became
280 The Play
Departments: Running on the Track 281
one of the criteria, if not the key criterion, for selection as the Chief of Defence
Staff. This reinforced the opinion of field soldiers that senior field command
was not the route to follow if one aspired to be CDS - a most unfortunate and
uniquely Canadian development.'
27
To be able to work well with the centre of government and other depart-
ments, one must learn, as one deputy minister explained, 'to roll with the
punches, learn to take things in stride, learn to be a bit detached and not too
dogmatic about things.'
28
 While carrying out an interview with a deputy minis-
ter for this book, we were interrupted by an urgent telephone call. By coinci-
dence, the call came from someone in PCO. As he hung up the telephone, he
turned to me and said, 'Boy, things can sure turn on a dime around here.' With-
out letting me in on the issue raised by PCO, he did observe that his understand-
ing of the matter 'had been turned on its head.' But, he explained, one should
'not be surprised by this. That is the nature of our work. We walk on quicksand
most of the time. No one is particularly at fault for this. This is just the way
things work in government.'
29
As federal deputy ministers juggle with forces from above, they must also
manage departmental operations and activities from below. The Privy Council
Office has produced a document designed to outline the 'duties and responsibil-
ities of a deputy minister.'
30
 They fall into three main categories: managing the
internal operations of the department on behalf of the minister; supporting the
collective management responsibilities of the government; and providing policy
advice to the 'minister and the government.'
31
Much of the responsibility for managing the internal operations of the depart-
ment which can be delegated by government is delegated directly to the deputy
minister, not to the minister. Each departmental act generally includes a stan-
dard declaration that the governor-in-council may appoint a deputy minister and
explicitly delegate power to her for the independent exercise of her authority in
specified areas, not just in management issues, but also, in some instances, in
managing programs. This is particularly true in the case of departments that
have regulatory functions in such areas as customs, excise, and immigration.
But while the authority gives deputy ministers a certain independence from
their ministers, it is never absolute. All deputy ministers, regardless of the
departments, must abide by the requirements outlined in the Financial Adminis-
tration Act, Public Service Employment Act, the Official Languages Act, and so
on.
3:
Audrey Doerr, a former PCO official in the machinery of government direc-
torate, writes that 'in many respects the changes and reforms of the Trudeau
administration had the most dramatic impact at the departmental level efforts as
top-down coordination activated a number of different developments and pro-
282 The Play
cesses within departments. Departmental mandates were pushed outward as the
range of activities increased. Lines of responsibility and hence accountability
for senior officials often became blurred. From the perspective of the deputy
minister, in particular, the job environment became both more complex and
more constrained.'
33
 A sure sign that departmental mandates were indeed
pushed out in the Trudeau years was the phenomenal growth in the number of
'coordination,' 'liaison,' or 'integration' units in government departments.
Comparing the government telephone directory from the early 19608 to the
19905 is revealing. In the early to mid-1960s, there were no units within depart-
ments called liaison and coordination and very few called policy. By the late
19608 and early 19705, we saw the birth of coordination or liaison units whose
very purpose was to monitor and participate in the interdepartmental consulta-
tion process. By 1987 the Department of Industry alone had twenty-five organi-
zational units devoted to policy, liaison, coordination, or evaluation, or to a
combination of them.
34
 By 1996 and notwithstanding the program review exer-
cise, the number stood at thirty-five. Nor does this figure include units contain-
ing the words planning or economic analysis, of which there are several. It
should be noted, however, that because of the 1993 government reorganization,
the Department of Industry in 1996 was a great deal larger, encompassing far
more activities than was the case in 1987.
What do interdepartmental coordination and liaison units actually do? I put
the question directly to many line department officials, but did not get a stan-
dard response. Such units, I was told, perform a variety of tasks. They seek
information from other departments and central agencies which can be of inter-
est to their own department and senior managers. They also represent the inter-
est of their departments at interdepartmental meetings called either by a central
agency or another department to review a proposal. At the risk of oversimplifi-
cation, they can be said to perform a kind of lobbying function. People who
work in these units readily admit, however, that they are rarely, if ever, present
at meetings where policy issues actually get sorted out. That is left to others
much higher in the organization. In any event, it is virtually impossible to hold
coordination, liaison, or integration units accountable for their performance.
How one could possibly determine, for example, if a coordination unit was suc-
cessful in influencing another department or a central agency? Was it a specific
meeting, a memo, a letter, or a development completely outside the department
which shaped a particular interdepartmental position on a given issue? No one
is in a position to know for certain.
Coordination and liaison units are now found not only in large departments
like Industry or Human Resources Development, but in relatively small depart-
ments as well. Beyond the deputy and associate deputy ministers, the interde-
Departments: Running on the Track 283
partmental coordinating units, and policy shops, not many other officials look
to other departments or to the interdepartmental consultation process in their
day-to-day work, at least with much enthusiasm. Concerns over turf and the
'stovepipe' mentality are usually directed at other units, mostly those actually
delivering programs and services.
The great majority of government employees down the line identify first and
foremost with the interest of their department. Gordon Osbaldeston explains
why, 'First, many of those who work in government organizations are first
attracted to a particular department because it promises an opportunity to work
in a field — regional development, the environment, health care - for which they
have strong personal feelings and in which they have a special expertise. Their
primary attraction is not to government per se, it is the policy field. Second,
each organization's leaders will normally try to instil values and attitudes in
their staff that are consistent with the mission of the organization. Conse-
quently, even those who do not share these values and attitudes when they
arrive may adopt them over time.'
35
A government department, as J.E. Hodgetts explained, is an administrative
body 'comprising one or more organizational components.'
36
 Hodgetts sought
to group departments based on general policy fields or functions carried out by
the department. Bruce Doern, on the other hand, suggested that we should
group departments by developing a system based on such things as the size of
budgets, the responsibility for coordination, and the research capacity.
37
Regardless of how we might group or classify them, most government
departments are organized along the same lines. They are hierarchical, they
have units responsible for policy, planning and coordination, others for specific
functions in the areas of human and financial resources, and still others for actu-
ally delivering programs and services. In many instances, regional offices
deliver the programs. This standard structure is found in both large and small
departments.
J.R. Mallory maintains that government departments 'are carved out of no
coherent principle of organization.'
38
 Still, we do know that some are organized
according to the classes of person to be served (e.g., Veterans Affairs), func-
tions (e.g., Health), and regions (e.g., Western Development or the Atlantic
Canada Opportunities Agency). Whatever the basis for organization, units and
officials in the department are organized hierarchically with a 'clear chain of
command running from the Minister through the deputy head to the lowest level
of official.'
39
The Department of Citizenship and Immigration is a case in point. Though
all departments have their distinct organizational features, Citizenship and
Immigration (see Chart 6 below) is somewhat typical of the departmental form
284 The Play
Chart 6
CIC Management Structure
Assistant Deputy Minister
Policy and Program
Development
Director General
Enforcement
Director General
Integration
Director General
Refugees
Director General
Selection
Director General
Strategic Policy,
Planning &' Research
Deputy Minister
Associate Deputy Minister
Assistant Deputy Minister
Operations
Director
Atlantic
I
Director General
Quebec
• Director General
Ontario
Director
Prairies & Northwest
Territories
Director General
British Columbia
and Yukon
Director General
International Region
Director General
Case Management
Director General
Departmental Delivery
Network
Assistant Deputy Minister
Corporate Services
Director General
Executive Services
Director General
Finance & Administration
Director General
Human Resources
Director General
Information Management &
Technologies
Director General
Public Affairs
Assistant Deputy
Attorney General
Legal Services
in the federal government, despite its being much smaller than perhaps Human
Resources or Industry.
The Department of Citizenship and Immigration was significantly reorga-
nized in October 1997. The purpose was not to change its responsibilities, to
define new functions, or redefine its mandate - in any event, as we have seen,
only the Privy Council Office can redefine a departmental mandate. Rather, its
purpose was to regroup the existing responsibilities into new units, and its
major objective, according to the deputy minister, was to promote 'horizontal
integration in policy development and program management.'
40
 The depart-
ment has a deputy minister, an associate deputy minister, and four assistant dep-
uty ministers, and the responsibilities are grouped under 'policy,' 'programs or
operations,' and 'corporate services, including financial, administrative, and
Departments: Running on the Track 285
human resources.' All units report up the organizational chart through various
management levels to the deputy minister.
The internal functions of government departments can be broadly defined as
line and staff. Richard Van Loon and Michael S. Whittington summed up the
difference between the two very well. They wrote, The goal of the Department
of Revenue is tax collection. Those branches involved directly in collecting tax
revenues are said to be performing line functions ... there are branches involved
in matters such as personnel administration, finance and legal advice, none of
which directly involves the performance of the line function. These branches
are said to perform a staff function, and they exist to assist line managers in an
advisory capacity or through the performance of a service.'
4
' A good number of
line managers continually question to what extent people who perform staff
functions are being truly helpful to them. They also maintain that it is only what
they themselves do that constitutes the department's true raison d'etre.
In the consultations, I was not surprised to hear line managers, including
some deputy ministers, insisting that there are still far too many people in gov-
ernment performing a staff function. They also argued that 'staff people' tend to
complicate things unduly and slow down decision making. The charge is, of
course, not new, and the New Public Management is designed, at least in part,
to strengthen the position of line management.
42
 As is well known, the public
service culture.and traditions have not favoured strong line management. As the
preceding pages have made clear, the federal government has, over the years
and for a variety of reasons, decided to fragmentize responsibility for various
functions, including personnel, finances, and policy.
Managers in staff functions tend to look to the centre of government while
line managers look mostly to their clients, their own operations, their own staff,
and to line managers up the organization line to the deputy minister. There was
a tendency among line managers consulted to lump many of the staff functions
together with the work of central agencies and to make the case that the contri-
bution of staff personnel did not compensate for their costs.
It is beyond the scope of this study to determine how many individuals in
government occupy staff versus line jobs. In any event, a senior Treasury Board
secretariat official suggested that a 'detailed and accurate count' may not be
possible, even within government.
43
Still, this much we know. In the late 19805, a comprehensive review was car-
ried out to identify all positions that were involved in providing services to the
public. Some 221,434 positions were surveyed in an attempt to identify all jobs
that had at least some responsibility to deal with the general public, even if that
'some' amounted to only 10 per cent of the total work. It found a total of 92,488
such positions.
44
 I asked a Treasury Board secretariat official if, in his opinion,
286 The Play
I would be wrong if I were to write that well over half of EX positions (EX i to
EX5, or all managers below the deputy minister and the associate deputy minis-
ter level) were in staff positions. His response was, 'It is very difficult to always
know when a position is truly staff or line, but I would say that you would not be
wrong to say that over half of the EX positions are staff.'
45
 In any event, we
know that the great majority of EXs in the regions are line managers but that a
high number of those in Ottawa occupy staff positions. Indeed, as already noted,
about 65 per cent of all EXs are located in Ottawa. Though he did not provide a
breakdown of staff versus line positions in his study of the structure of the Cana-
dian government, J.R. Mallory did observe that 'only a small fraction of the total
strength of the public service is directly engaged in carrying out administrative
decisions. The rest of the public service is engaged in staff functions.'
46
Some line managers believe that there are in reality two governments in one:
they and their staff who actually deliver programs and services, and everybody
else. They argue, for example, that the decision to establish new special operat-
ing agencies and other agencies such as the Food Inspection Agency was
simply to give them more management autonomy. 'Someone in Ottawa,' one
regional manager claimed, 'decided that there was something very wrong with
how government was organized. We can no longer play at the margins, and new
agencies were established to free line operations from a lot of the nonsense. We
have known this for years.'
47
The fact that the SOA concept has not been successful has more to do with the
central agencies, the deputy ministers, and their staff people in line departments
than the agencies themselves. There is evidence to suggest that, while central
agencies have delegated some management authority to enable SOAs to operate
more in the private business mode, line departments have not in turn done the
same. In fact, line departments have simply retained in head office some of the
management authority'delegated by the Treasury Board secretariat. It is clear
that, as a former secretary to the Treasury Board observed, 'Deputy ministers are
concerned about accountability and what might be called the balkanization of a
department.'
48
 This, in turn, has led to tension between the agency head and the
parent department, with agencies pushing for more authority while departments
resist. Deputy ministers readily acknowledge that they have added a new set of
rules and controls in the name of accountability. One deputy minister explains,
'I would like to delegate more authority, but I do not like bad surprises. After all,
I am the one who has to live with the consequences.'
49
I consulted line managers in regional offices in the departments of Human
Resources, Corrections Canada, Indian and Northern Development, Fisheries
and Oceans, Industry, and the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, and I was
struck by the similarities in how they regard the work of Ottawa-based staff peo-
Departments: Running on the Track 287
pie and central agencies. Much like ministers, line managers have also come to
rely on staff people in the departments to get things done in the system. Indeed,
knowing how the system operates and how to navigate in it has become a much
valued competence even inside the federal public service. One line manager
explains why, 'I simply do not have the time to deal with all the nonsense central
agencies keep throwing at us. That is what our staff people in Ottawa are paid to
do. When there is a problem with the Treasury Board secretariat, Finance, or
PCO, they take over. I attend some of the meetings when I have to or when I am
in Ottawa. Frankly, it is just another world. It is so far removed from what I do,
it is unbelievable. Sometimes I think that they speak in tongues.' But, he adds,
'You need these people sometimes if you want to get things done.'
50
 Another
reported that he 'tries to avoid involving head office or central agencies' as
much as possible. He explains that it is important in a line operation to 'keep
your head down, keep things under control here, and don't involve Ottawa peo-
ple unless you absolutely have to. They will leave you alone if you don't give
them a reason to call you. My measure of success is how often that phone rings
and someone in Ottawa is on the line. If it rings often, we are doing something
wrong. If it doesn't ring, we are doing fine. From time to time, you get head
office people introducing a new approach. You know they have to keep busy so
that they come around with a new Treasury Board approach in this or that area.
We just go along filling their forms while we deliver the programs.'
51
For line managers, it appears that there is yet another club in Ottawa - staff
people in line departments working with central agencies. This club also has its
own rules. Integrity of the system and due process often matter more than the
substance of what is being proposed. That is, what is done in one situation
often dictates what ought to be done in another similar situation. If you dele-
gate authority to one region, you do the same for another, whether or not cir-
cumstances differ. Put differently, if the head of human resources, finance, or
even policy in department X decides on an issue in consultation with the Trea-
sury Board secretariat, the Public Service Commission, or the Privy Council
Office, then either that decision or a similar approach will be applied to other
issues in other regions or elsewhere in the department. In brief, line managers
insist that most staff people will try to apply the central agencies view to their
problems or circumstances rather than try to adjust it to fit the program or front
line perspective.
I asked respondents in senior staff positions in line departments whether line
managers had painted an accurate picture of how things work in their depart-
ments. The majority of them thought not. 'It is much too simplistic,' an assis-
tant deputy minister in a staff position argued, 'and it does not take into account
the many occasions when we do everything we can to accommodate the special
288 The Play
circumstances of our program people.'
52
 She added, 'It may come as a surprise
to some of them, but we also have many problems and disagreements with
central agencies and what we often do here is fight on behalf of our program
managers. We win some, we lose some. But on the whole, we are no more
impressed with central agencies than they are, I can assure you of that. The fact
is, that is the system and we all have to learn to live with it.'
53
 Another assistant
deputy minister (Policy) suggested that regional and front line officials often
forget that they operate in a political context and 'what they do, especially if
they go off on an tangent, can have important consequences for my deputy and
my minister.'
54
 Yet another pointed out that 'we would love to let our people go
free and do their things. In most instances, it would make a great deal of sense
from where they sit. It may not, however, make much sense from where our
minister or deputy sit.'
55
Essentially, staff people in Ottawa insist that their preoccupations have more
to do with protecting their minister and deputy minister than with promoting
central agency prescriptions in managing human or finance resources or even
policy. We saw earlier that deputy ministers spend an average of 16 per cent of
their time managing crises. The assistant deputy ministers (Policy) I consulted
believed that 16 per cent appears low and that the figure probably does not
include managing potential crises that never become full blown. One explained,
'A lot of what we do here is managing crises, putting out fires, or preventing
fires.'
56
Staff people also say that a crisis can surface from anywhere in the depart-
ment, but that it is usually from the program side. Line officials deal directly
with Canadians and citizens unhappy with the service can always appeal to their
members of Parliament. In any event, programs are in the public eye, and there
is a greater potential for problems in this area to become visible than is the case
for staff people working on a position paper. Closing down an office in the
regions, for example, is much more difficult than closing one in Ottawa. Not
only can Ottawa more easily absorb the closing down of one government unit,
but closing an office in the region also usually means that the level of services
to people in that community will be affected. In any event, closing a govern-
ment office in, say, Corner Brook, will be widely reported in the local and
provincial media while shutting down a staff unit in Ottawa will hardly be men-
tioned, if at all.
A crisis can take various forms, and it is hardly possible for a deputy minister
to predict where the next one will come from. Examples will make this clearer.
On 11 February 1998, officials at Heritage Canada knew that they would be in
for a rough day when they read a front page article in the Globe and Mail titled
'Ottawa flunks own quiz history.' The opening paragraph began, 'They're sing-
Departments: Running on the Track 289
ing "Don't Know Much About History" at the Department of Citizenship and
Immigration and Canadian Heritage.' A glossy brochure distributed to Cana-
dian schools stated that 'The Act of Union' rather than the 'British North Amer-
ica Act,' had created Confederation in 1867. An official with Heritage Canada
explained to the media that it was too late to correct the 90,000 copies of the
brochures, but that the Web site was being corrected.
57
 One can hardly describe
this error as a major policy issue, but it made the front page of the Globe and
Mail and left senior officials from two departments and officials in the Commu-
nications directorate at the Privy Council Office scrambling to manage the
political fallout.
The deputy minister of Fisheries and Oceans also knew that he would be
walking in a minefield all day when on 5 March 1998 he .read on the front page
of the Globe and Mail that the House of Commons' fisheries committee
reported that it wanted 'bureaucrats removed' because of the collapse of the
ground fishery in Atlantic Canada.
58
 The deputy minister of Defence no doubt
had the same feeling when he read, a few weeks earlier, that an opposition MP
had scored political points in question period by suggesting that the government
was putting military personnel at risk by not providing inoculations before
sending them to serve in the Middle East. The troops were being sent to the
region in support of possible military intervention against Iraq, given Saddam
Hussein's unwillingness to let UN inspectors visit sites where it was believed
that Iraq was producing and storing chemical and biological weapons. This
story also made the front page of the Globe and Mail.
59
The three incidents described above all happened in a three-week period. The
list goes on, and hardly a week goes by without the national media reporting on
a screw-up somewhere in a government department. Rarely, if ever, is it in a
central agency, not least because they do not deliver programs. Again, even
within departments, screw-ups are more often than not found in line operations
than on the staff side. It goes without saying that there is less interest in a posi-
tion paper being prepared by policy specialists at Corrections Canada than in
someone with a dangerous criminal record escaping from a correction facility.
But even policy papers can prove to be an embarrassment if they make contro-
versial statements that are leaked to the media.
No deputy minister looks forward to the day when the auditor general tables
his annual report. It always commands media attention, highlighting, as it does,
administrative breakdowns, program overspending, the construction of a road
to nowhere, or irregularities in the expense accounts of senior officials.
60
 Again,
the auditor general's report focuses on programs, government operations, and
line managers rather than on the work of people occupying staff positions.
The Access to Information legislation has also generated a demand for good
290 The Play
political firefighters in Ottawa and has made policy people cautious. Giles
Gherson, former policy adviser in the Human Resources Development,
explains, 'To address the access to information issue ... I saw it myself that offi-
cials are extremely leery of putting things on paper that they wouldn't like to
see made public or find its way to the media, several months later, that could be
embarrassing to the minister.'
61
 Conrad Winn, a pollster, argues that access to
information has seriously inhibited the ability of government departments to
ask the right question when commissioning a survey. He explains, 'The bottom
line for the average public servant is don't embarrass the minister, that is the
surest way to have your career stopped or slowed down. If you have polls that
ask all kinds of questions that would reveal the truthful complexity of what peo-
ple think ... then [the polls] will inevitably show the public doesn't like some-
thing the government does.'
62
 Hugh Winsor, a Globe and Mail journalist,
readily admits that the media often takes advantage of access to information to
get at a story. But, he argues, it does that 'not so much to find out what the peo-
ple dislike about the government... but to try to get an advance look at what the
government's agenda might be ... [and get an early look] at the next budget or
the next Speech from the Throne by making an access to information request
about a public opinion survey which is being commissioned.'
63
For their part, government officials in both central agencies and line depart-
ments report that Access to Information legislation has made them reluctant to
commit their views and their recommendations to paper. The fear is that these
could well appear in the media and force them to either support or defend them
in public. This, in turn, flies in the face of public service traditions in Ottawa.
The point, as Herman Finer explained in his classic essay, is that the views and
advice of civil servants are to be private and their actions anonymous, so that
'only the Minister has views and takes actions. If this convention is not obeyed,
then civil servants may be publicly attacked by one party and praised by another
and that must lead to a weakening of the principle of impartiality.'
64
Senior staff officials in Ottawa in the areas of policy, personnel, and finance
may not view themselves in the same light as line managers do, but they admit
that there is a kind of club with its own code of behaviour and even its own lan-
guage which differs from that found in line operations. In government, they
argue, 'you stand where you sit,' and if you sit in a senior staff position, your
concerns will be different than if you manage a program in a region. You moni-
tor new developments closely, not only in terms of your department's clients,
but also at the centre of government, at the political level, and in the media. It is
very much in your interest to have close ties with officials in central agencies, if
only because if there is a crisis to manage, they will be involved, whether you
desire it or not. One assistant deputy minister policy in a line department
Departments: Running on the Track 291
summed up well the view of many officials I consulted in line departments.
There are Occasions when things get off the rail and you are forced to operate
in a crisis atmosphere. Central agencies, particularly PCO, can be with you or
against you in getting things back on track. It is much better if they are with
you.'
65
Though senior staff officials in line departments will want close working
relations with their counterparts in central agencies, this is not to suggest that
they will always applaud the work of central agencies. By and large, they do
not. Indeed, the great majority of them made the point that officials in their
regional offices do not appreciate the extent to which they, too, have some diffi-
culties with the work of central agencies.
The View from Departments
In many instances, when meeting with line department officials I began the
interviews with the question, 'How do you regard the work of central agen-
cies?' On several occasions, respondents started their reply with the comment,
'Central agencies are a necessary evil,' which made me think that there is a kind
of mot d'ordre among line departments when discussing the work of central
agencies. In any event, I heard very little praise of the work of central agencies
without important reservations.
But there were exceptions. Every deputy minister I consulted observed, at
least once in the interview, that the clerk of the Privy Council has a very diffi-
cult job and that it is much easier to criticize the incumbent than point to suc-
cess stories. One deputy minister said, 'What people outside government and
even a number of public servants often fail to appreciate is that it is not easy to
work for the prime minister. This is as true in the case of Chretien as it was for
Mulroney. The clerk can be blamed for things that are simply not her doing. She
does not control the agenda. The prime minister does.'
66
A number of line department officials from director to assistant deputy min-
ister levels also argued that central agencies, like line departments, have to
operate in a highly charged political environment. Priorities can change very
quickly, they report, and central agencies have to respond. They expressed
some understanding, if not sympathy, for those in central agencies trying to
make sense of continually changing political priorities. Lastly, I could easily
tell in the interviews if a line department official had central agency experience.
Those who did were not as critical of the agencies' work as those who had
never worked in a central agency.
However, the criticism, even from those with central agency experience, far
outweighed positive comments. The criticism was varied, but there was an
292 The Play
underlying theme: central agencies are still far too preoccupied with individual
'transactions,' with day-to-day issues, with interdepartmental disagreements,
and with 'micromanaging' specific files whenever a crisis flares up.
67
But here again there were exceptions. Senior line department officials report
that the presence of an intergovernmental affairs group in the day-to-day work
is never steady. At times, it can be heavily involved in transactions or specific
files, as it was in the months leading up to the Charlottetown Accord; at other
times, one would hardly know that it exists. At the time of my consultations for
this study, the latter situation prevailed. One deputy minister observed that it 'is
not visible on my radar screen. I have no idea what they are up to.'
68
 Another
made a similar observation, but said that it was 'unfortunate.' He added, 'We
need somebody at the centre to paint a broad picture of federal-provincial rela-
tions and draw out some implications for us. I can tell you that provincial
governments do it.'
69
Some line department officials also report that there is strong evidence that
the Treasury Board secretariat is changing its role away from transactions, and
that there is some confusion about the board's future role. They sense a great
deal of tension even within the secretariat itself between those who would like
to turn back the clock and those, including senior management, who would like
to shift even further away from transactions and towards a business planning
approach. There are also a number of line department officials who believe that
it is still too early to say that the new approach will stick. One senior depart-
mental official observed, 'Come back to see me in five years to see if there have
been real changes. I have been in this business a long time, and when someone
tells me that he has introduced change, I tell him - right, wait five years to see if
any of it has survived.'
70
To be sure, the Treasury Board has changed some of its ways, and one only
has to consult the appendix at the end of this chapter to see that important
changes have already been introduced and implemented. From the perspective
of line departments, some changes have already survived, and there is no need
to wait five years to see their impact. The Treasury Board Circular 1995-3 out-
lines a series of specific initiatives designed to reduce the number of transac-
tions between the board and line departments. However, when reforming the
mandate of the Treasury Board secretariat, it is much easier to detail what the
board should stop doing than to define and agree on what it should continue or
start to do. Line departments approve of the board's many decisions designed to
reduce transactions, but for the most part they are holding back judgment on the
board's new role.
In discussing the emerging role of the Treasury Board secretariat with line
department officials, one very quickly understands why Treasury officials
Departments: Running on the Track 293
would like, as we reported in chapter 7, to make the transition from 'business
plans to business planning.' Departments regard the preparation of business
plans as just more 'bureaucracy' under a different name, and 'much of it is
paperwork and process like it was the case in previous approaches.'
71
 Indeed,
business plans are viewed more as hurdles to be jumped over than as strategic
documents designed to help plan or even to assist central agencies in gaining a
better understanding of what departments do and what their major challenges
are. The preparation of business plans is delegated down the line, and senior
officials allocate no more of their time to their preparation and review than they
did for documents required under past approaches.
The most frequently heard criticism of central agencies from line depart-
ments is that they do not do what they ought to be doing, and they do things that
they ought not be doing. The role of the centre of government, it is argued,
should be to help ministers manage the government-wide policy-making pro-
cess and resource allocation systems, to set standards, and to hold line depart-
ments accountable for their decisions and activities. They should paint the
'broad picture' and 'bring coherence to what departments do' by 'defining a
strategy for the government.'
72
 Accordingly, many line department officials
argue that central agencies should be small, outward-looking, and more strate-
gic than they have been in the past and are at the moment. Instead, they insist,
central agencies tend to look inside the government, and more specifically to
line departments, and to focus on specific issues, in an attempt to manage con-
flicts between departments that may otherwise turn into political crises played
out in the media.
Central agencies, despite the rise of cross-cutting problems and issues,
remain too oriented towards the activities of line departments, to the detriment
of issues that require broader attention. All in all, their role has changed very lit-
tle during the past thirty years. The 'goalkeeper' analogy used to explain their
work still applies. Pierre Gravelle, a deputy minister from the late 19805 up to
the mid-1990s, and a former associate secretary to the Treasury Board, wrote
that 'it is after all the task of central agency officials to ensure that ministers are
not caught by surprise with a new policy or a new initiative ... [it explains why]
central agency officials are great goalkeepers, that is, they are excellent at stop-
ping things, but are rarely themselves capable of successfully launching new
initiatives.'
73
Line department officials believe that central agencies are at their best when
they sit in judgment of what line departments do or propose. Their track record,
meanwhile, is not impressive when they take the lead on a major initiative. Line
officials offer the examples of PS 2000 and La Releve as cases in point. Both
were conceived at the centre and neither can be described as a success. Paul
294 The Play
Tellier, former clerk of the Privy Council and architect of PS 2000, wrote, as we
have seen, about the shortcomings of PS 2000. But he has not been alone.
74
La Releve has also come under strong criticism, not least from line depart-
ments, whose officials point to 'turf wars' between the Treasury Board secretar-
iat and the Public Service Commission, wars that have been as intense as any
between two line departments. In addition, human resources officials in line
departments argue that the selection process in La Releve had serious shortcom-
ings. For one thing, it had no game plan in place to deal with those who did not
qualify, which made an already serious morale problem in the public service
even worse. For another, they report, one of the questions asked of those applying
for a promotion under the initiative was to describe their 'track record,' some-
thing no large private firm would ever ask of its executives in a competition.
'Track records,' it was argued, 'would be obvious to everyone in the firm.'
75
Line departments are also critical of the centre for its role in the program
review. They claim that the centre simply sat in judgment of what they were
proposing to cut and that it offered very little in the way of ideas on where cuts
should be made. Worse still, the centre, as we have already seen, failed very
badly in defining, let alone promoting, a horizontal or multidepartment per-
spective to the exercise. That, line officials argue, is precisely what the centre
ought to have done because it could only be done by the centre. Moreover, line
departments accuse the centre of not even getting its act together over fairly
straightforward issues, recalling the sharp disagreement between the Finance
department and the Treasury Board secretariat over the exact budget figures for
departments, expenditure budgets for ongoing programs. That dispute almost
compromised the program review exercise.
Departments insist that these shortcomings at the centre are not due to a lack
of staff. The centre employs more EXs (from director, director general, assis-
tant deputy minister level) than several line departments combined. Indeed,
there are more EXs in the four central agencies (278) than there are in the
departments of Justice, Defence, Agriculture and Agri-Food, Citizenship and
Immigration, and Western Economic Diversification (252).
?6
 As well, some of
the assistant deputy minister positions in the Privy Council Office are classified
at the deputy minister i level and so are not counted as EXs. The highest classi-
fication of the EX group is EX5, and there are thirteen positions classified at
this level in the four central agencies. The departments of Agriculture and Agri-
Food, Communications, Environment, Natural Resources, Solicitor General,
Public Works and Government Services, and Fisheries and Oceans combined
only have twelve EX5 positions. It is also important to bear in mind that the
above line departments deliver programs and services directly to Canadians
while central agencies do not. They also have regional operations (with the
Departments: Running on the Track 295
exception of the Public Service Commission, which has some small regional
offices), while central agencies do not.
More importantly, the centre of government was left virtually intact in the
massive 1993 government restructuring. Yet the number of departments was
reduced from thirty-two to twenty-three. The number of line deputy ministers
was also cut from thirty-two to twenty-three and, the number of assistant deputy
ministers in line departments was cut from 319 to 266.
77
 There were no compa-
rable cuts at the centre.
Assistant deputy ministers in line departments report that the restructuring
has had a profound impact on their work and on the work of line departments.
One observed, 'I am now occupying a position whose responsibilities were han-
dled by 2.5 assistant deputy ministers before the restructuring. I now only have
time to move things along. I certainly don't have time to sit back and think
about the more important issues. In fact, I came in over Christmas holidays,
knowing that it would be quiet around here and I would have time to think.'
78
 It
also means that staff assistant deputy ministers cannot encourage strong com-
munication with interest or client groups. In fact, a typical government depart-
ment must now deal with several interest or client groups. The old Department
of Secretary of State, for example, had only a handful of client groups. Heritage
Canada, its successor since the restructuring, must deal with three- or fourfold
the earlier number. Thus, not only do line deputy and assistant deputy ministers
have less time to spend with client and interest groups, there are now more
groups with whom they should be meeting. At the same time, the centre of gov-
ernment has not shrunk nearly as much, given the establishment and expansion
of the intergovernmental group in PCO. And, by all accounts, demands on line
departments to feed it information have not lessened.
Departments always have to be ready to respond to requests from the centre
for briefing material for the prime minister. But that is as it has always been.
What is different is the information required by the Treasury Board secretariat
for departmental business plans. The plans cover not only financial and human
resources, but also outline how departments intend to strengthen their ability to
deliver services in both official languages, to promote employment equity, and
to deliver initiatives for minority language groups. The list goes on.
More importantly, however, there has been an explosive growth in the evalu-
ation industry in Ottawa, fuelled in large part by the Office of the Auditor Gen-
eral and the Treasury Board secretariat. Program evaluation, as we have already
seen, came into fashion in Ottawa in the 19705. To this day, its record has been
dismal. Indeed, a recent review of the government's evaluation efforts reports
that in 1992-3, $28.5 million was spent on program evaluations carried out by
both departmental staff and external consultants. Out of 168 evaluations, only
296 The Play
i per cent resulted in program termination, 9 per cent in reform, and 20 per cent
in modification.
79
Departments have simply learned to cope with program evaluations and a
stream of outside consultants, appreciating that one does not bite the hand that
feeds one without consequences. Not a single deputy minister I consulted
believed that program evaluation is of much assistance to them. Departments
still regard evaluation more as a kind of 'gotcha' tool for the benefit of the audi-
tor general and, albeit to a lesser extent, the Treasury Board secretariat, than as
a management tool for departmental managers. The auditor general himself
acknowledged this when he wrote in his annual report that 'it is too often as
though departmental managers are saying - if central agencies want us to pro-
vide financial and program information and measurements of our efficiency and
effectiveness, we will of course provide them. But we don't see that informa-
tion as being at all relevant to the day-to-day job we are being asked to do. So,
providing it is a tiresome task that we will perform in a desultory manner.'
80
 In
short, many government managers regard program evaluation as a means to
generate information for someone outside the department to come back and
point out where they have failed.
Departments must also deal with a number of other oversight bodies. The
commissioner of official languages, for example, annually passes judgment on
how well departments are doing. The Treasury Board secretariat plays the lead
role at the centre on official languages matters and constantly monitors the per-
formance of departments. A line deputy gave me a copy of a letter the secretary
to the Treasury Board had recently circulated to all departments. The letter is
accessible under Access to Information, and the deputy minister assured me
that I could quote from it. It is worth quoting at some length:
... the preliminary conclusions of a survey of points of service by the Commissioner of
Official Languages, and observations by the Treasury Board Secretariat, cast doubt on
the data provided by federal institutions. This issue has already been discussed at the
Deputy Ministers' breakfast on December 10, 1997. These contradictory results suggest
that not all federal institutions are monitoring compliance with the official languages
requirements with equal effectiveness. Under these circumstances, I am sure you will
appreciate the potential for embarrassment of the government. Therefore, I would ask
you to undertake a rigorous and ongoing review of all your designated offices and points
of service so as to establish the availability and quality of services in both official lan-
guages. I would also request that you make all your managers responsible for those
offices aware of the official languages obligations. In your future annual reports on offi-
cial languages, I would be obliged if you would include the results of your monitoring
and awareness-raising activities as well as an action plan to correct the situation in those
Departments: Running on the Track 297
locations where problems have not yet been resolved ... I also want to inform you that
the Treasury Board Secretariat will be visiting a number of offices to confirm the avail-
ability of services in both official languages.
8
'
A good number of line department officials I consulted, spoke about a double
standard, one for themselves and another for the centre. One official explained,
'I admit that market forces do not discipline line departments, or provide a
check on our power or size. Central agencies do. But who checks the power and
size of central agencies? As far as I can see, no one.'
82
 He has a point, as we
saw in the 1993 restructuring exercise. But there are many other examples.
In the early 19905, the government announced that all government depart-
ments were to de-layer their management levels so that there would only be
four levels of manager between the working level and the deputy minister. The
Department of Finance has long had several levels, ranging from the deputy
minister to associate deputy minister, senior assistant deputy minister, assistant
deputy minister, general director, director, and managers. To de-layer, Finance
simply declared that, henceforth, three of the levels would be considered staff
positions and would no longer constitute management levels.
83
 Everybody
stayed in their positions doing precisely the same things as before. Line depart-
ments, meanwhile, had to play by a different set of rules and actually de-layer
management levels to the desired objective.
Deputy secretaries in the Privy Council Office are now classified at the dep-
uty minister (i ) level. They are virtually the only assistant deputy minister level
officials who enjoy this classification. When I asked why this was so, I was told
that it resulted from 'classification creep'; that is, from positions in the Privy
Council Office being 'slowly but surely reclassified up.'
84
 When asked why this
was allowed in PCO, but not in line departments, I was told, 'It also happens in
line departments, though not as badly. I suppose that it is a lot easier for the sec-
retary of the Treasury Board to say no to a deputy minister than to the clerk of
the Privy Council.'
85
One can easily make the case that central agencies operate in a similar fash-
ion to the prime minister and the minister of Finance. They, too, operate from a
different set of rules when they wish to get things through the decision-making
process (see, for example, the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation fund
and the Foundation for Innovation).
A former deputy minister maintains that a significant part of the problem in
government now is that 'the centre of government is both too big and employs
too many bright young people.' He explains, 'I could have worked a lot better
with the centre had it employed incompetent people. But it does not. It employs
bright, young, highly educated and ambitious people. That is the problem. They
298 The Play
want to be seen to make a difference. How do they do that? By getting in the way,
by finding problems with what departments do or propose to do. It is much easier
for them to find problems with what we do than come up with new solutions.'
86
Another recently retired line deputy minister spoke about the size of central
agencies as a key part of the problem. He commented, 'You are doing research
on central agencies. Why don't you do this? Senior central agency people take
great pride in saying that the size of the public service is back to what it was in
the late 19605. Why don't you compare the current size of the central agencies
to what they were then?'
87
 The size of the federal government is actually
smaller than it was in the late 19605, given that several major crown corpora-
tions like Air Canada and Canadian National Railways have been privatized.
Still, it is indeed revealing to compare the size of central agencies over several
dates. In 1997 the Privy Council Office employed 662 people; the Department
of Finance, 584; the Treasury Board secretariat, 837; the Public Service Com-
mission, yet another 1,344. ^
n J
993 (
me
 Y
ear me
 government announced its
restructuring plans and before program review), the Privy Council Office and
Federal-Provincial Relations Office employed 446 people; Finance, 729; the
Public Service Commission, 2,226; the Treasury Board secretariat, 979; in all, a
total of 4,380 people.
88
 In 1969 the Privy Council Office employed 209 people;
Finance, 372; the Treasury Board secretariat, 414; and the Public Service Com-
mission, i,O48.
89
Certainly, from the perspective of line departments, the centre's workload
has decreased substantially in recent years. Line officials also insist that if the
shoe were on the other foot the centre would have imposed cuts in their bud-
gets. In any event, departments point out that PCO has far fewer Cabinet com-
mittees to service than was the case in the 19703 and 19805. The number, as we
have seen, is down to five from a high of fifteen. We saw in an earlier chapter
that the number of Treasury Board submissions had dropped from 6,000 in
1983 to 1,284 in 1996. In addition, partly because the government had essen-
tially shut down the spending tap until recently, the Cabinet system is much less
busy today than was the case in 1983, as Table 4 below shows.
Still other line department officials argue that the problem is not just size. They
point out that the centre controls 'all the levers' to change things and that depart-
ments are at its mercy with no right of appeal. One official, until recently a direc-
tor general official in the Department of Industry, argues that central agencies
hold all the cards to control the agenda and what departments do. They hold the key on
who gets to the top. They also control very tightly the decision-making process. Here is
how. In the late 19805, my associate deputy minister asked that I accompany her to a
Cabinet committee meeting. We had an important proposal before the committee and
Departments: Running on the Track 299
Source: Privy Council Office, November 1997
she asked that I attend to take notes on the discussion. After about ten minutes, a senior
PCO official came over and asked what I was doing. I said 'taking notes.' He said that I
was not allowed and that only he could take detailed notes of the discussions. I looked
over to my associate deputy minister and she just rolled her eyes. I left the meeting. The
point here is that only the Record of Decision of Cabinet matters. What is said in Cabinet
committees is just talk, and only PCO officials can have a formal and, for that matter,
practical say about what has been discussed and decided.
90
But the ability of the centre to control the Cabinet agenda, to decide who
becomes a deputy minister or a high flyer, and the size of central agencies still
only tell part of the story. There have been some important changes to line
departments that have served to weaken them in relation to the centre.
The changes are most visible at the deputy minister level. A detailed study,
'Changing Profile of Federal Deputy Ministers, 1867 to 1988,' is very reveal-
ing. It reports that deputy ministers' prior experiences in the department of
appointment has declined to three years from twelve years in the early period of
confederation. In addition, deputy ministers now spend about four years at that
rank and on average change departments once during that period. Unlike their
predecessors, deputy ministers no longer stay with and retire in their depart-
ment, and as one study of the profile of modern day deputy ministers argues,
'They can no longer head the same department for many years.'
91
 When com-
pared with other national public services, it is clear that federal deputy ministers
have less seniority in government on average than, say, British permanent sec-
retaries. Moreover, in Ottawa, recruitment of deputy ministers easily crosses
the boundaries between departments, while countries such as France and Ger-
many have remained loyal to the tradition that the permanent head of the
department is chosen from its senior ranks.
92
Former federal public servants, the only ones allowed to speak out on this
issue, are now arguing that the government would be better served if the
TABLE 4
Annual Throughput of the Cabinet System (Approximate)
Meetings of Cabinet and of committees
Memoranda to cabinet examined
Records of decision produced
Orders-in-council passed
1983
300
900
750
4,000
1996
107
176
216
2,087
300 The Play
appointment of deputy minister took more into account the 'knowledge of the
business.'
93
 Gordon Osbaldeston maintains that knowledge of the department
should be an important criteria in the selection process and explains, 'under
such a policy, every effort would be made to appoint qualified Deputy Minis-
ters to a department where they had previous administrative experience.'
94
Frank Swift, a former senior federal public servant, carried out a study of the
background and work experience of deputy ministers. His conclusion reveals
that 'experience in a central agency, most notably in the Privy Council Office,
is now a virtual prerequisite for deputy-level appointment. Almost two out of
three deputies have no previous experience in program management in a line
department. Although there is evidence that more deputies have management
experience outside of central agencies, this increase is more typically in policy
and process management positions. Previous experience in the department is
not usual for deputy appointees. It has been considered less important in line
departments delivering services to the public and more important in central
agencies providing policy advice. Most deputies have no federal public service
experience in Canada outside the National Capital Region.'
95
The above is not without implications for the government and the public ser-
vice. The 'Have-Policy' and the 'Have-Central-Agency-Experience' will-travel
types have a different perspective than someone who has come up through the
ranks of the department to become its deputy minister. For one thing, the former
will be preoccupied with 'managing up' - that is, looking up to their ministers
and to the centre of government rather than down the organization to establish
priorities and a sense of direction. A federal task force recently argued that
'many senior public servants have made their careers because of their skills in
managing up. They have been valued and promoted because they were adept at
providing superiors with what they needed ... But if they [i.e., skills of manag-
ing up] are nourished in excess, to the exclusion of other important values, they
can obscure the importance of managing down.'
96
A well-honed capacity to manage up is much valued at the centre of govern-
ment, particularly in the Privy Council Office. The office, as we have already
seen, has a unique relationship with the prime minister. The office has several
roles that it plays on behalf of the prime minister, and an important one, partic-
ularly since Trudeau came to power, is to operate an early warning system to
alert the prime minister and his staff of any political danger ahead. The system
is designed to highlight departmental issues which are or may become politi-
cally 'sensitive or controversial because of their political ramifications.'
97
 A
deputy minister known for his ability to manage up will know not only when to
alert the centre, but also how to work with it to bring any potentially controver-
sial issue back on track.
98
Departments: Running on the Track 301
Those who have limited capacity to manage up do not usually survive. If they
do survive, it will be only in the department from which they were appointed,
and PCO will invariably appoint an associate deputy minister with a strong cen-
tral agency background to provide a helping hand. A case in point is Art May,
appointed deputy minister of Fisheries and Oceans in 1982. Mr May had come
up through the ranks of the department, where he had gained the respect of his
colleagues as someone who knew the fishery sector well. But the sector went
through a painful adjustment in the early 19808 - one of several it has gone
through in recent years, given that there are always too many fishers and not
enough fish. The situation gained a great deal of visibility in the media in the
early 19808, and PCO became convinced that the department was stumbling
from one political crisis into another. The centre appointed an associate deputy
minister who had a great deal of central agency experience to assist May. Art
May was later transferred to head the Natural Sciences and Engineering
Research Council and was thus moved outside the deputy minister club.
It is interesting to note, however, that Art May had a very strong relationship
with the full confidence of his then minister, Romeo Leblanc." But that would
not come as a surprise to those familiar with federal government operations in
the 19608. In the pre-Trudeau days, this situation was common, in part because
ministers and their deputies spent a great deal more time together every week
than has since become the case, but also because deputy ministers then looked
more to their ministers and less to the centre of the government in their work.
Jake Warren, appointed deputy minister in 1964, explains that back in those
days 'you were allowed to feel that you had the confidence of the minister.'
100
Ministers have come to appreciate the advantages of having some of their
senior officials possess an intimate knowledge of how the system works and an
ability to pilot department initiatives through the approval process. The system
has become so complicated and the centre so omnipresent that having such a
capacity in their departments is important for both the minister and the depart-
ment to get things done.
But ministers, if they could, would happily turn back the clock to the days of
Jake Warren and to the time when senior departmental officials had an intimate
knowledge of their sectors and the policies and programs of their departments.
Romeo LeBlanc, reflecting on his days as minister of Fisheries and Oceans,
observed, 'I shared with many Ministers a somewhat jaundiced view of the
idea that you can be a good ADM in anything, the moment you're transferred
there by the system ... I still think that being able to talk with fishermen on the
wharf or with farmers in their bams is important... It is essential to have direct
experience."
01
I was told during the course of my research for this book by both present and
302 The Play
former senior public servants that Mitchell Sharp had said that he had had more
influence as deputy minister in the St Laurent government than as minister in
the Trudeau government. In an interview with Mr Sharp, I asked him whether
this was in fact true. His response, 'I do not know if I actually said that, but I
probably came very close. You see, back then [in the St Laurent and the Pear-
son governments], deputy ministers were clearly responsible for policy and for
working with the minister to define policy in youi* area of responsibility. Your
minister would of course challenge your ideas, but then he would agree on a
position with you and take the ideas to Cabinet and have it out with his col-
leagues. Things did not work quite like that under Trudeau. It was different."
02
He added that 'you have to understand that the art of governing was different
then (i.e., pre-Trudeau days). Ministers had a strong base and had strong per-
sonalities. They would go to Cabinet and take on even the prime minister. Some
ministers would threaten to resign over policy, and some actually did. So it was
different then for a deputy minister working with a minister. I am not sure that
we bothered too much with PCO. Putting aside Pickersgill, secretaries to the
Cabinet were rather low-profile people and they didn't much bother you.'
103
A retired deputy minister discussed the changes at the centre of government
from the time he became a public servant in 1958 to when he retired in the early
19908. Much like Mitchell Sharp, he reports that during the 19605 the clerk of
the Privy Council and secretary of Cabinet did not dominate things in Ottawa
until Michael Pitfield's appointment. When my respondent became deputy min-
ister in the early 19708, he claims that he 'would not have recognized one-third
of my colleagues had I come across them on the street.' He adds, 'It was very
rare that you had dealings with the clerk perhaps a couple of times a year. You
had a job to do with your minister and you went and did it.' There was no such
thing, for example, as a mandate letter from the clerk. But things began to
change in the 19705, particularly when the clerk started to chair monthly lun-
cheon meetings with deputy ministers. Things changed again in 1985, when the
clerk added weekly breakfast meetings and again later when deputy ministers'
retreats were organized.
104
Deputy ministers, in many ways, have thus become as much a part of the cen-
tre of government as they are the administrative heads of their departments. It
should.be expected that if they are selected for their knowledge of how the sys-
tem works rather than for their sectoral expertise or their knowledge of a depart-
ment and its policy history, then their value will be confined to an ability to
manage the policy process and the system. However, the importance attached to
their 'knowing their way around the system' to their ability to avoid 'surprises'
and to manage real or potential political crises, have led some former and even
present senior public servants to doubt whether senior officials can now 'speak
Departments: Running on the Track 303
truth to power.'
105
 One former deputy minister, for example, wrote that 'the
honest public servant is in danger of being superseded by the courtier.'
106
Anxiety, Blame, and Risk Avoidance
Line department officials argue that if the federal government is to have a stra-
tegic vision, it can only be constructed at the centre of government. Similarly, if
coherence and coordination are important concerns to the government, then the
centre should be held responsible for their promotion and their success or fail-
ure. They argue, as this chapter makes clear, that the centre has failed on both
fronts. In brief, they suggest that the centre may be able to corral bouncing min-
isters and their departments, but when it comes to taking the lead on a file, in
establishing a strategic vision for the government, or even in providing a sense
of coherence and coordination, it fails.
107
Departments, meanwhile, are left to manage their programs and operations,
all the while trying to keep their ministers out of trouble, coping with oversight
bodies of one kind or another, and constantly feeding requests for information
from the centre. The purpose of these oversight bodies, most notably the Office
of the Auditor General, can hardly be described as being helpful to departments.
Rather, their purpose is to find fault.
James Q. Wilson's observation on public service culture is as valid in Canada
as it is in the United States. He writes, 'When a culture of forbearance and for-
giveness descends on Washington, please alert the FBI at once, for it will be
evidence that somebody had kidnapped or anaesthetized the entire legislative
and judicial branches of government.'
108
 If nothing else, this suggests that polit-
ical institutions need to be reformed before politicians can truly set out to
reform national civil services.
Line departments generally do not believe the centre of government, particu-
larly the Treasury Board secretariat, when it argues that they are encouraged to
take risks. One line official explains that 'risks are tolerated so long as nothing
goes wrong. Should our minister be asked a question in the House, or should the
media get on to something that has gone wrong, then all bets are off for getting
any kind of support."
09
 On this point, the Treasury Board secretariat commis-
sioned a study to understand why managers are leaving the federal public ser-
vice. It reports that 'there's a new emphasis in the federal government to
encourage risk-taking among its employees. But the reality remains that when
mistakes are made the individual is hoisted up the flag pole.'
110
A good number of line department officials singled out the Al-Mashat affair
as an example of the hollowness of the talk of empowering autonomous risk-
taking managers. Here, it was the Privy Council Office itself which hoisted a
304 The Play
public servant up the flagpole. Sharon Sutherland makes the point that Ray-
mond Chretien - at the time associate deputy minister - was without minimal
rights throughout the incident. She writes,
It is interesting to reflect upon how the episode began for him. He was called to the Privy
Council Office in the evening to meet with a senior PCO official with the responsibility
for personnel management, Mr. Glen Shortliffe. In the presence of two other PCO offic-
ers [but no witness or counsel for Mr Chretien], he was told to read a document which
contained a report of an apology to Mr. Clark [Joe Clark, the then minister]. In Mr. Chre-
tien's case, the chain of command from Marchand [the deputy minister] to Chretien was
apparently disregarded, and here was the Privy Council Office doing what its code of
behaviour says it never does: telling other officials what to do. Mr. Chretien's words
describe the impact on him: 'My reaction was one of astonishment. I could not believe
what I was witnessing... there I was... presented with a chronology that I had never seen
... to have to react in a matter of 15 minutes or half an hour.' A common sense view
might suggest that an apology from Mr. Chretien would constitute an admission of pro-
fessional negligence. Yet Mr. Shortliffe explicitly stated that he was personally 'very
comfortable' in what amounts to imposing a statement on Mr. Chretien: 'at one point in
the exchange, as I recall it, I said to Mr. Chretien, "Yes, you are being asked to apolo-
gize. The apology is being given to me. I will convey it, and you don't need to discuss it
any further."'
111
Such incidents do not occur daily. But for many officials in line departments,
the Al-Mashat case was a defining moment. Though the incident took place in
1991, public servants still raised it in my consultations in 1997 and 1998. It
demonstrated that when a political crisis flares up in a department, it is the cen-
tre, in particular the Privy Council Office, which intervenes to bring things back
on track. In most cases, the PCO is not as heavy handed as it was in the Al-
Mashat instance. A simple phone call from the clerk to a deputy minister, a
word from the clerk to the deputy minister club at the weekly breakfast meet-
ing, or an appointment of an associate deputy minister with a strong central
agency background to a problem-prone department will suffice.
Appendix
Appendix to Circular 1995-3, Treasury Board Secretariat, 13 July 1995
i. Policy Amendments
The board approved the following nine policy amendments.
Departments: Running on the Track 305
(i) It raised contracting thresholds in three departments, the Canadian International
Development Agency (CIDA), National Film Board (NFB), and Revenue
Canada, to signal that the government supports more open competition.
(a) CIDA: for competitive aid contracts: 'entry into' from $4 million to
$10 million, and 'amendments to' from $2 million to $5 million.
(b) NFB: for contracts for producer services in making films from $100,000 for
'entry into' and $25,000 for 'amendments to' to $250,000 for 'entry into
and amendments to' combined.
(c) Revenue Canada: for competitive contracts for printing using the Open
Bidding Service for 'printing': 'entry into' from $400,000 to $i million,
and 'amendments to' from $200,000 to $500,000.
(ii) It increased departmental approval authorities for capital projects below an
appropriate limit.
This removes the requirement for departments to seek Treasury Board author-
ity, except when the board specifically requests them to do so, for capital
projects below an appropriate limit. For departments with separate capital
votes, this should generally be around $20 million or 10 percent of their capital
budget, whichever is smaller. For departments that do not have separate capital
votes, the threshold would be $3 million.
The board will examine authorities department by department at the first oppor-
tunity with a view to approving a long-term capital plan or reviewing a business
plan.
To give the Treasury Board the opportunity to request submissions below these
levels, departments must briefly describe prospective capital projects costing
above an appropriate floor [i.e., generally $2 to 5 million for departments with
capital votes and $i million for others] in an appendix to their business plans.
Based on this information, the secretariat will recommend to the board which,
if any, projects require a submission seeking preliminary, or some other form,
of approval. The following criteria will have major influences on the secretar-
iat's recommendations: whether a department has a sufficiently viable and
accurate long-term capital plan; whether it has an appropriate internal approval
process; and whether the project entails significant government-wide risks or
touched on the interests of other departments .
306 The Play
If a department did not identify a prospective project in its business plan and
the project cannot wait until the next plan, it must ask the secretariat to deter-
mine whether a submission is required.
(iii) It has delegated authority to the appropriate ministers to approve certain techni-
cal changes and exceptions to the terms and conditions governing grants, con-
tributions, and other transfer payments.
(a) Authority to amend terms and conditions previously approved by the Trea-
sury Board except for:
- the program objectives of the grant(s) or contribution(s);
- the identification of the recipient or definition of the class of eligible
recipients;
- basic financial parameters (e.g., the total amount payable under a class of
contributions, if applicable, or the total amount payable annually, if
applicable);
- the maximum amount payable to any recipient;
- all conditions under which a contribution is repayable; and
- any conditions that the Treasury Board specifies may not be changed
without its approval.
(b) Authority to extend the applicability of terms and conditions for up to one
year as long as the fiscal consequences stay within the department (i.e., no
adjustments to reference levels required).
(c) All amendments to terms and conditions made under authorities delegated
to the appropriate ministers must be consistent with government and Trea-
sury Board policies.
(d) Authority to approve exceptions to the maximum amount payable to any
recipient up to 25 percent in excess of the maximum amount approved by
the Treasury Board as long as any such exceptions are consistent with gov-
ernment policies and cabinet policy decisions and the fiscal implications
stay within the department.
(e) Departments must: consult the secretariat about whether Treasury Board
approval is needed before implementing changes under these delegations;
and inform the secretariat in writing of any amendments or exceptions
approved under these provisions within one month after the appropriate
minister has approved them.
Departments: Running on the Track 307
(iv) Departments may seek approval for Vote 5 paylist shortfalls by a letter from
their senior financial officer to the director of the Estimates Division of the
Treasury Board secretariat, which would then seek approval annually from the
Treasury Board through an aide-memoire.
(v) Departments may include non-controversial technical items (e.g., year-end vote
transfers, increases in appropriations required solely to comply with the policy
on accounting for non-monetary transactions) in a Supplementary Estimates
submission without the board's prior authorization if a secretariat official at the
director level or above has agreed to it beforehand.
(vi) The Treasury Board secretariat must ensure that current procedures in the Trea-
sury Board Submissions Guide (part of the Treasury Board Manual) for han-
dling orders in council authorizing federal-provincial agreements are carried out
in order to limit the board's involvement to substantive issues or to where it has
to make recommendations before the order may go to the Privy Council Office.
(vii) The board amended its Material Management Policy as follows:
(a) It amended the policy statement to include the following: 'Departments
provide employees with material required to carry out their work in an effi-
cient, economic, productive, and safe manner.'
(b) It amended the policy requirements to include the following: 'Automated
information systems and supporting technology must be used to manage
material resources and material management functions when investments
are cost-effective and can improve the material management function. The
full cost of inventories (purchasing and holding costs) must be visible and
distributed to the end-user. Furniture, material, and equipment must be pro-
vided to employees in an equitable manner consistent with the services
being provided.'
(viii) It directed the Treasury Board secretariat to ensure, as specified in the policy,
that progress reports on major crown projects are submitted only at key events
or milestones .
(ix) The annual submission of the cash management report by Treasury Board sec-
retariat is discontinued, and correspondingly, departments are no longer
required to submit cash management information annually to Treasury Board
for that purpose.
308 The Play
2. Legislative and Regulatory Amendments
The Treasury Board invites the appropriate ministers, if the opportunity presents
itself, to put forward the following legislative and regulatory amendments.
(i) Change sections 23(1) and 23(2) of the Financial Administration Act (FAA)
dealing with the remission of taxes and penalties as follows:
(a) Amend section 23, as appropriate, to remove the requirement for the Trea-
sury Board to recommend the approval of orders in council authorizing the
remission of premium payments into the Unemployment Insurance Account,
the Canada Pension Plan, or any similar government program; and
(b) Introduce, pending an opportunity to amend the Act, streamlined proce-
dures for seeking the board's approval of these orders in councils - specifi-
cally, to process these submissions in the routine way (i.e., only the front
page of the submission and the order itself would be included in ministers'
books; there would be no precis) and that departments use a very brief form
for these submissions.
(ii) Change the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act to remove anachronistic require-
ments for the board's approval of threshold limits as follows:
(a) Amend section 9 to remove the requirement for the Treasury Board to
approve any project or scheme under the Act involving an expenditure of
more than $15,000 in any fiscal year by deleting the sub-section that reads
'No single project or scheme under sub-section (i) involving an expendi-
ture in excess of fifteen thousand dollars in any fiscal year shall be under-
taken without the consent of the Treasury Board.'
(iii) Amend the National Capital Act and Government Contracts Regulations to
give the NCC comparable flexibility to other crown corporations.
Alternative i: Introduce legislative change and a consequential amendment to
the Government Contracts Regulations as follows: eliminate sub-section 15(3)
of the National Capital Act (NCA) and make a consequential amendment to the
Regulations (i.e., remove the NCC from the definition of 'contracting author-
ity' on page 6-3). As a result the NCC would no longer be subject to the Regu-
lations and would not have to seek the board's approval to enter into, or amend,
any of its contracts.
Departments: Running on the Track 309
Alternative 2: Introduce new regulations under the NCA and FAA and a conse-
quential amendment to the Government Contracts Regulations as follows:
introduce regulations under sub-sections 15(3) of the National Capital Act and
41(1) of the FAA with a consequential amendment to the Regulations (i.e.,
remove the NCC from the definition of 'contracting authority')- As a result, the
NCC would be subject to its own contracts regulations.
(iv) Amend the National Capital Act (Real Property) to give the NCC the latitude to
enter into real property transactions without the approval of the governor-in-
council as follows: amend section 15 to eliminate the requirement for governor
in council approval of real property transactions and to delegate to the Treasury
Board the power to establish thresholds beyond which transactions would
require the board's approval.
(v) Amend section 46 of the Public Service Employment Act (PSEA) to allow the
Public Service Commission to authorize persons to administer oaths and to take
and receive affidavits, declarations, and solemn affirmations for any purposes
of the PSEA or regulations made under it:
(vi) Amend the Harbours Commissions Act (Real Property) to give the minister of
Transport the authority to approve all land leases as follows: amend section
15(2) to remove the requirement to seek governor in council authority to lease
land for a term of more than 25 years. An amended section 15 would delete
sub-section (2)(b) and amend sub-section (a) to provide the minister of Trans-
port with the authority to approve all leases.
(vii) Amend section 27 (i) of the Public Harbours and Ports Facilities Act (Real
Property) to remove the requirement for the department to seek the authority of
the governor in council to lease land for a term of more than 25 years.
3. Blanket Authorities for Approving Pension Benefits
The board has granted the following blanket approvals under the Public Service
Superannuation Act:
(i) Payment of pension benefits in misconduct cases;
(ii) Validating elections for prior pensionable service; and
(iii) Authorizing the president of the Treasury Board to enter into reciprocal pension
transfer agreements.
310 The Play
Contentious or unusual situations will continue to be referred to the board to prevent
an individual's rights from being prejudiced.
4. Policy Rationalization
The board has approved the continuation of the review of its policy instruments to
ensure that they focus on results, give departments more flexibility, and clarify the
scope of the board's accountability.
The initial review has resulted in the cancellation of the following:
(i) The Furniture and Furnishings Policy;
(ii) The Works of Art Policy; and
(iii) The directive on Increased Ministerial Authority and Accountability (IMAA).
5. The Treasury Board Secretariat's Strategic Policy and Program Monitoring
System
The board approved the following three elements of the system:
(i) A proactive risk-based monitoring capacity in individual policy areas to ascer-
tain whether the policy is the most cost-effective instrument for achieving
favourable results, and to determine the extent to which those results are
achieved.
(ii) An evaluation, audit, and review function that analyses the effectiveness of
high-risk, strategically important programs and that ascertains the effectiveness
of existing monitoring systems; and
(iii) government-wide studies, when necessary, to examine urgent government
priorities such as the issue of year-end spending.
PAR T III
TH E DENOUEMENT
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10
Governing by Bolts of Electricity
Jean Chretien maintains that 'the art of politics is learning to walk with your
back to the wall, your elbows high, and a smile on your face. It's a survival
game played under the glare of light. If you don't learn that, you're quickly
finished. The press wants to get you. The opposition wants to get you. Even
some of the bureaucrats want to get you. They all may have an interest in mak-
ing you look bad.'' Mulroney had to learn the hard way as prime minister what
Chretien had learned as minister - when in power, a politician is constantly
walking in a minefield.
Mulroney stumbled on his first mine within months of coming to office. His
government had announced a partial deindexation of the old age pension.
Shortly after the announcement, Mulroney ran into a group of seniors on Parlia-
ment Hill holding a vigil to protest the decision. Mulroney decided to engage
the group in a 'relatively harmless banter for a few moments,' but Solange
Denis shot back at him, 'You lied to us.' She added, 'You made us vote for you,
then Goodbye Charlie Brown.' The words 'you lied to us' and 'Goodbye Char-
lie Brown,' according to two journalists, became some of the 'most famous
television clips in Canadian politics.' Mulroney sought to recover some of the
lost ground by saying, 'I'm listening to you, Madame.'
2
 And barely a week had
gone by when the then Finance minister, Michael Wilson, announced after a
private lunch with Mulroney at 24 Sussex that the government was reversing
course. But the damage had been done, and in the words of a former Mulroney
minister, 'It became a kind of defining moment tor us.'
3
 In brief, the best-laid
plans by the 6oo-person-year strong Department of Finance, including hun-
dreds of senior economists, came crashing down all because of a fifteen-second
sound bite. It is also interesting to note that, when Paul Martin also wanted to
change the old age pension early in Chretien's first mandate, he decided to pay
Solange Denis a visit to her home to outline the proposed changes.
4
314 The Denouement
Reading the memoirs of former federal Cabinet ministers or listening to
interviews with them reflecting on their years in office, one is struck 6y the
number of references to what they consider relatively minor issues which came
to receive a great deal of media attention and to dominate the government
agenda, if only for brief periods of time. Erik Nielsen writes about 'tunagate'
and John Crosbie about his 'Pass the tequila, Sheila' comment, which, he
claims, gave Sheila Copps prime air time on national television two nights run-
ning. Crosbie insists that had he given a major 'speech of substance dealing
with intricate policy issues' at the conference where he had said, 'Pass the
tequila,' the media would have completely ignored it.
5
Reading Don Johnston's book Up the Hill, one quickly senses his deeply felt
desire to speak to a broad political agenda and to offer specific policy prescrip-
tions. Yet reflecting on his experience as a minister in the Trudeau Cabinet, he
maintains that 'politics,' 'political institutions,' and the 'centre of government'
let him down in his efforts to influence public policy. He writes, Television
exposure of the posturing of MPs during Question Period has not helped; nor
have the annual reports of the Auditor General. Government management has
improved, but the media naturally highlight those juicy parts of the Auditor
General's report which sell newspapers and stop viewers from switching chan-
nels. It will be ever thus.'
6
 As for the centre of government, he claims that the
Privy Council Office played havoc with his proposals for change. He cites, as
an example, his proposal to improve the accountability and management of
crown corporations. This, he reveals, was 'intercepted and unceremoniously
disembowelled by PCO ... on its way to Cabinet.'
7
All ministers, whether they are status, mission, policy, or process partici-
pants, it seems, are convinced that politics is not about substance and intricate
policy issues, but about sound bites and perceptions shaped by the media and by
politicians trying to score points in question period, all hoping that they will
make it on the national TV evening news. Virtually every current or former
Cabinet minister I consulted made at least one reference to the fact that govern-
ments are defeated by sound bites, not by major policy issues. Former ministers
in the Conservative Mulroney government took pleasure in the consultations in
reporting that the Chretien Liberal government has continued to pursue the
Conservatives' policy agenda, from NAFTA and fiscal restraint to regional eco-
nomic development. The point they were making was that it was not the big
policy issues that defeated the Mulroney government, but the small issues and
the sound bites.
Public servants, particularly deputy ministers, either become well versed in
the survival game or they lose their membership in the deputy ministers' club.
A former deputy minister reported on his deep sense of relief the day he left
Governing by Bolts of Electricity 315
government, saying, 'From the first day I became a deputy minister, I could
never walk into my office in the morning without a knot in my stomach, always
thinking what could possibly blow up in my face today.'
8
 Deputy ministers,
unlike ministers, do not get dumped in the glare of publicity, but some do get
dumped. This exchange between Senator John Stewart and John Edwards, the
head of PS 2000, is revealing:
Senator Stewart:
John Edwards:
Senator Stewart:
John Edwards:
Senator Stewart:
John Edwards:
What will happen to the deputy minister who goofs up?
They ... quietly move on.
How many deputy ministers have been fired in the last six years?
The firing of deputy ministers happens in the same way as the firing of
many vice-presidents in the private sector. It happens reasonably
quietly. People get moved into early retirement or go off to other chal-
lenges in the private sector ...
Do you have a record?
No, I certainly do not. The Clerk of the Privy Council may have, and I
doubt that he would share it. These things are best done quietly as
opposed to having a roaring battle in public.
9
The above begs the question of what goofing up means. In the deputy minis-
ters' club, it means not being able to manage an accident-prone minister or turn
around an error-prone department. The centre of government, in particular the
Prime Minister's Office and the Privy Council Office, will always keep a
watchful eye on ministers and departments, and if they should stumble too
often, then changes will be made. Put differently, if a minister and his deputy
are associated with several visible problems that are highlighted in the media
and raised in question period, then one of them will go. If it's a minister, then
the firing (e.g., Michel Dupuy) or the demotion to a more junior portfolio (e.g.,
Sheila Copps and Diane Marleau) will be done in full public view. If it's a dep-
uty minister, it will be done quietly (see, for example, John Edwards himself at
Corrections Canada over a report suggesting that Corrections officials had mis-
handled an incident at the women's penitentiary in Kingston).
Tom Axworthy, former principal secretary to Pierre Trudeau, argues that the
political leadership is not only concerned about implementing a policy agenda;
it also wishes to 'master events."
0
 He adds that as principal secretary to
Trudeau he spent a great deal of time dealing with crises. He explains, 'Only
crises came to the PMO - the easier problems got solved elsewhere."
1
 Daily
morning meetings in PMO 'often dissolved into tactical fire-fighting sessions,'
and he writes that 'the only compensation was knowing that the ability to dif-
fuse a crisis ... is among the most important characteristics of a central policy
316 The Denouement
staff.' He concludes, 'Mistakes avoided are just as important as bills passed.'
12
How did he go about ensuring that the government would avoid mistakes? 'My
foremost objective,' he explains, 'not often reached, was to avoid surprises.'
13
The highly charged political environment ministers and their deputies oper-
ate in, the Trudeau reforms of the centre of government implemented in the
19705, developments in federal-provincial relations, and at the international
level, weekly, monthly, and special retreat meetings of deputy ministers con-
vened by the clerk of the Privy Council and secretary to the Cabinet have all
served to strengthen considerably the centre of government. But the hand of the
centre has been strengthened not just in dealing with crises but also on major
policy issues. Don Johnston summed up the view of many former and present
ministers I consulted when he wrote, after he heard for the first time about a
major initiative in a telephone conversation with a PCO official, 'I thought "Are
my views irrelevant? Does cabinet no longer count?"'
14
 Johnston had every
right to ask that question as a member of the Trudeau Cabinet. Ministers in the
Mulroney and Chretien governments could also ask the same question and get
the same answer. The role of Cabinet in the federal government has been mar-
ginalized considerably over the years, as has that of ministers as the political
heads of their departments.
The New Public Management, which by most accounts has had substantial
impact on government operations in Britain, Australia, and New Zealand, has
been much talked about in Ottawa, but its actual presence has, thus far at least,
hardly been felt.
15
 To be sure, when government assets and activities are turned
over to the private sector, obviously things change. The federal government has
done this on numerous occasions since the mid-19808, and if all of it was done
under the New Public Management banner, then it has made a difference. But
the sale of government assets and the contracting out of activities by the federal
government, at least in Canada, have had more to do with the need to raise cash
and reduce spending than a desire to pursue the New Pubic Management
agenda.
16
 But when activities remain inside government, things change very
little, if at all.
In this chapter, we look at how major policy initiatives are decided and how
the centre goes about managing potential or real crises. There are two types of
major policy decisions in government - the ones that are made at the centre
with little or no adjustment and those made by the formal decision-making pro-
cess which inevitably are shaped to accommodate a consensus. The fundamen-
tal problem here is that the federal government must continually contend with
an overload problem. Accordingly, for a prime minister to succeed in promot-
ing an agenda for change, he must pick and choose a handful of major initia-
tives and put aside most of the other policy issues for the system to cope with.
Governing by B olts of Electricity 317
While he is busy pursuing his own carefully selected priorities, others reporting
to him will keep a careful watch on the policy process and government opera-
tions. Policy initiatives born out of this process are adjusted to accommodate
interdepartmental concerns. This, in turn, explains why government measures
are rarely bold. In brief, only when the prime minister is directly involved or in
moments of crisis is the government capable of bold action and decisions.
When either of these two circumstances exist, the overload problem is held in
check. We saw in earlier chapters that the federal government was capable of
bold decisions and even great things in planning the war effort or in managing
the program review exercise.
The overload problem is not limited to various policy issues. It also involves
coping with government operations which have in recent years become more
transparent and better understood by outsiders, notably the media.
Prime-Ministerial Priorities
In earlier chapters we saw that whenever the prime minister wishes to focus on
an issue, he or she will get their way. In addition, it is clear that he and his min-
ister of Finance have a free hand to establish their own priority projects. The
prime minister's priorities will always see the light of day pretty well as they
were first envisaged. As for the rest, the centre of government monitors,
decides, and lays all the groundwork for a consensus to emerge to resolve out-
standing issues or to decide on a course of action. One minister in the Chretien
government explained, The prime minister and Martin [minister of Finance!
are allowed to have their projects approved with the bark still on. The rest of us
will see the bark taken off before we can announce anything, assuming that we
can get something through the system."
7
 What he meant was that any proposal
from a line minister must go through the interdepartmental consultation process
and the PCO and Finance review and adjustment requirements. What comes out
at the other end doesn't always look anything like what went in. It will be
recalled that this is precisely the reason Prime Minister Chretien decided to
bypass the Cabinet process in launching his Canada Millennium Scholarship
Foundation. He feared that his idea would look different by the time it reached
the other end if it had to go through the formal decision-making process. If a
prime minister can have such fears, one can only imagine what must go through
the mind of a typical line minister as he gets ready to bring forward a proposal.
At the risk of stating the obvious, the prime minister and his handful of advis-
ers are only able to focus on a few priority issues. As already noted, there are
countless decisions taken every day inside the federal government The chal-
lenge for the centre, then, is to keep a lid on things that do not enjoy the prime
318 The Denouement
minister's attention, to corral bouncing ministers and departments, and in the
words of a senior Privy Council Office, to fall on hand grenades before they
explode. The centre has a full arsenal of instruments to deal with these needs.
I put this question to a former senior adviser to Brian Mulroney: 'Where is the
centre of power in the federal government?' His answer, 'On issues we cared
about, or on the big issues, the prime minister had all the power he needed. On
the other issues, it was the Privy Council Office.'
18
 The issues they 'cared about'
included the Constitution, national unity, the Canada-United States Free Trade
Agreement, relations with the United States and several other countries, and spe-
cific initiatives for the prime minister's riding. To be sure, some issues came on
and off Prime Minister Mulroney's radar screen and included special economic
problems at the regional level, including the establishment of regional develop-
ment agencies, ministerial resignations, and the budget deficit. The adviser
added that when Mulroney focused on an issue, 'no one stood in the way inside
the government and we always got what he wanted."
9
Mulroney was no exception. Trudeau also focused his attention on a select
number of issues, and when he did, we are told that success followed.
20
Trudeau's priorities, as is well known, were the constitution, the Quebec refer-
endum, energy policy, inflation, official languages, and foreign affairs - includ-
ing his peace initiative in the final months of his last mandate. Nor would
Trudeau hesitate to employ levers of power that were available to him, though
not to his ministers, in pursuing his agenda. The power of appointment is a case
in point. Trudeau explains why he appointed Michael Kirby to head federal-
provincial relations in his last mandate in office. Trudeau had decided to con-
centrate aggressively on constitutional reform, and 'I knew that he [Kirby] had
no feel for the subject, but that he would know what pieces to cover, which tac-
tics were needed with the premiers, the other Cabinet ministers, and so on. He
was a very good Executive Assistant on this subject.'
21
Don Johnston provides a scenario of Trudeau's tactics. He writes, The NEP
[National Energy Program] was developed by Marc Lalonde and a small coterie
of officials. It was accepted by Trudeau and [Allan] MacEachen and imposed
upon the country as the centerpiece of Allan's first budget rather than as a Bill
introduced by the Energy minister. Through this technique, much of the content
was hidden from Cabinet until it was a fait accompli. Certainly, the tax implica-
tions belonged in the budget but hardly the entire program ... no one was willing
to come down from the ivory tower to find out what was going on in the world
below. They had not even bothered to consult with the oil and gas industry, nor
the provinces.'
22
 He concluded that during the Trudeau years the 'combined
power of PMO and PCO had grown far beyond anything reasonable in a parlia-
mentary democracy.'
23
 Things have not changed under Mulroney and Chretien.
Governing by Bolts of Electricity 319
Prime ministers do not need the cover of the budget to get their pet initiatives
going. Trudeau, for example; decided to establish a Royal Commission on Can-
ada's Economic Prospects without consulting anyone in his Cabinet. When
word of this leaked to the media, Trudeau responded to a question in the House
by admitting that he had 'not even consulted my colleagues in Cabinet... on this
project.' But he added, 'I think this Royal Commission will be extremely
important in terms of the change in thinking regarding the future of the country.
I hope it will play a role as important as that played by the Rowell-Sirois Royal
Commission.'
24
 Don Johnston writes that, as the minister for Economic and
Regional Development, hearing Trudeau's statement, and especially that the
commission may be as important as the Rowell-Sirois Commission, 'the Prime
Minister's announcement struck me with the force of a lightning bolt.'
25
Trudeau had many other lightning bolts in store for his ministers. Former
ministers revealed in the consultations that they learned about such things as the
National Art Gallery, the international peace initiative, and many government
appointments, including the nominations of their own deputy ministers, either
'at the same time as any other Canadians did,' or as 'a fait accompli.'' Both
Mulroney and Chretien also have their own catalogues of specific projects or
lightning bolts.
26
 Apart from specific projects, Prime Ministers Trudeau, Mul-
roney, and Chretien all pretty well decided on their own and on the advice of
their senior advisers at the centre of government what needed to be done in for-
eign affairs and federal-provincial relations.
Prime ministers, at least since Trudeau and likely before, have had to deal
with a political overload problem. James Douglas described the problem:
' Modern democratic governments are overwhelmed by the load of responsibili-
ties they are called upon ... to shoulder.'
27
 The term 'political overload' speaks
to a sense of urgency in government matters and of being overwhelmed by both
events and things to do.
The overload problem is at least as serious today, if not more so, than it was
in the Trudeau years. To be sure, the program review exercise, privatization,
and contracting out have all contributed to a smaller government. But this does
not tell the whole story. For one thing, the federal government remains a large
institution to manage. In contrast to the present situation, in 1873 Prime Minis-
ter Alexander Mackenzie functioned without a secretary, answering all corre-
spondence himself.
28
 In 1909 the newly created Department of External Affairs
was entirely housed above a barber shop in Ottawa.
29
Moreover, the Prime Minister's Office and central agencies do not only deal
with new policy issues. Their work also involves keeping tabs on government
operations, monitoring federal-provincial relations, meeting with provincial
premiers and international trade representatives, participating in a growing
320 The Denouement
number of international conferences, and meeting with visiting foreign heads of
government. Governments themselves have now become an important source
of what governments do. This is particularly true in a federal system. Federal,
provincial, or intergovernmental coordinating groups do not manage programs
but they generate a great deal of work, as well as expectations that solutions can
be found to any number of federal-provincial disagreements.
30
 The centre of
government must now also cope with different issues that require a great deal of
attention. For example, the Access to Information legislation requires time to
monitor and to plan strategies for, especially if a particular request can give rise
to a political crisis.
The machinery of government at the centre also requires the attention of the
prime minister, and it too generates a great deal of work. Arnold Heeney reports
that he had ten officers working with him in the Privy Council Office in 1945.
Gordon Robertson writes that he had, in 1971, fifty-five officers engaged in
work relating to the secretariat and another thirteen processing Cabinet docu-
ments and orders-in-council. Today the number of officers in the PCO is more
than five times that of 1971. Robertson, however, warned of the dangers of
increasing the size of PCO. He explained that, given its role at the centre of
government and the potential for 'misunderstanding and bruised feelings,' PCO
should operate on the basis of a few important principles. One such principle is
that the office should be kept deliberately small. He writes, 'By recruiting ver-
satile officers who work hard not to be encumbered by program responsibility,
a large staff is avoided. I have indicated their present number. To expand
beyond a certain critical size would be to deny the other principles that help
control the Privy Council Office.'
31
 Among the 'other principles' Robertson
cites is 'staying off the field' by always remembering that 'it is the minister who
is responsible and his department that acts.'
32
For his part, John L. Manion, a former associate clerk of the Privy Council
under Mulroney and secretary to the Treasury Board under Trudeau, argues that
we now need to strip central agencies 'of their operational responsibilities or
those which duplicate the functions of departments.'
33
 He writes, 'In most other
countries-, central agencies are small and strategically-oriented. In Canada, cen-
tral agencies employ a large number of people, and yet, there is little evidence
of long-term strategic and outward-looking thought in these agencies. They
have also largely escaped the impact of restraint.'
34
Looking back, Robertson's caution was fully justified. Line ministers and
departments certainly made clear in the consultations and, at least in the case of
ministers, through their writings and public comments after they left office, that
the centre no longer stays off the field.
35
 Playing on the field requires political
direction, and there is always a constant flow of memoranda and reports going
Governing by Bolts of Electricity 321
to the prime minister from PCO officials. To be sure, there is a high degree of
satisfaction if you are a PCO official to see the prime minister responding with
comments in the margin to a memorandum you drafted. After all, their 'boss' is
the prime minister. But every memorandum, every report sent by PCO officials
obviously takes up prime ministerial time. It also often means that departments
must spend time preparing briefing material for the Privy Council Office.
In chapter 4, we saw the never-ending demands on the prime minister's time.
The question, then, is how does the prime minister successfully pursue his
agenda? Tom Axworthy offers this advice: 'Only with maximum prime minis-
terial involvement could the host of obstacles that stand in the way of reform be
overcome.' A strategic prime ministership, he writes, 'must choose relatively
few central themes, not only because of the time demands on the prime minis-
ter, but also because it takes a herculean effort to coordinate the government
machine.'
36
The government machinery became part of the problem on the road to
Trudeau's trying to get things done. As Christina McCall and Stephen Clarkson
point out, all of the major policy initiatives in Trudeau's last mandate, including
the National Energy Program, the Constitution, the 'Six and Five' wage
restraint, and the peace initiative, had to be organized outside of the formal
decision-making process.
37
 Trudeau practised the art of adhockery in policy-
making better than any powerful minister from C.D. Howe to J. Gardiner ever
did under either the Pearson and St Laurent government. If a line department
did not cooperate fully, Trudeau simply established an 'ad hoc group of offi-
cials' at the centre to advise him. He did precisely this, for example, in the case
of his 1983 peace initiative 'largely because of the skepticism of the Depart-
ment of External Affairs about the enterprise.'
38
Both Mulroney and Chretien followed in Trudeau's footsteps. In their
attempts to establish a strategic prime ministership, they too focused their
efforts on a handful of policy issues. The need for a prime minister to do this
has now become accepted wisdom in Ottawa, even among line department offi-
cials. When the Privy Council Office asked a senior Human Resources Devel-
opment official what was needed to launch a successful social security review,
he answered that having a 'strong minister would be necessary, but not suffi-
cient condition for success. The prime minister ... would have to be willing to
give the effort his or her full backup ... [and] limit the policy clutter in order to
concentrate all [of the government's] firepower on such a major undertaking.'
39
It is not sufficient for the prime minister simply to declare that a given initia-
tive enjoys his highest priority. He must also give it his time and energy. Mul-
roney's decision to establish a new Expenditure Review Committee of Cabinet
in 1989 is a case in point. Both Mulroney and his Finance minister, Michael
322 The Denouement
Wilson, had served notice shortly after securing a second mandate in 1988 that
deficit reduction would rank high on the government's agenda. The media
picked up the cue and both print and electronic journalists ran story after story
about Ottawa's precarious fiscal position. Typical headlines reported on the
'Crushing deficit,' 'Getting to the root of the federal deficit,' 'The debt: Where
does all the money go?' 'Are we sinking or just swimming in debt?' and so
on.
40
Initially at least, Mulroney made much of his new Cabinet committee on
expenditure review and its prospects for success. There was a consensus within
the government that deficit reduction could only be possible by attacking the
expenditure budget. Wilson argued, for example, that 80 per cent of any deficit
reduction 'should come from spending cuts, not taxes.'
4
" It was widely reported
inside government and in the media that Mulroney borrowed from Britain's
Margaret Thatcher and Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke in 'centralizing
absolute power for spending cuts into a new committee.'
42
 Government offi-
cials at the centre explained that the new committee would 'wage preemptive
strikes against ministers [and departments who are believed] to be spending too
much.'
43
 The Montreal Gazette ran the headline 'Mulroney to crack down on
government spending.'
44
To be sure, the new committee was quick off the mark. With Mulroney in the
chair, it held its first meeting within a few days after it was established and it
initiated a thorough review of the government's expenditure budget. The per-
ception inside government was that the new committee would not hesitate to
make tough decisions. When asked whether committee members were 'biting
the bullet,' a senior Privy Council official who attended the meeting responded
that 'they are not only biting the bullet, they are chewing it.'
45
 The major differ-
ence between the work of this committee and earlier efforts to cut spending was
that the prime minister himself had decided to chair the committee. At no time
before, or at least since the days of R.B. Bennett, had a prime minister person-
ally taken the lead in reviewing the expenditure budget.
The 1989 Wilson budget did contain some spending cuts, but nowhere near
the level that was first envisaged when the committee was set up. In addition,
contrary to Michael Wilson's wishes, the bulk of the measures introduced to
deal with the annual deficit were on the revenue side. The budget brought a
series of tax increases, including raising the federal surtax by 2 percentage
points, an additional 3 per cent on high-income individuals, an increase in the
federal sales tax, as well as an increase in excise levies on tobacco and a one-
cent-per-litre tax hike on gasoline. Total tax increases amounted to $3.3 billion
for 1989-90 and over $5 billion for 1990-1.
46
 The budget also moved the full
cost of the unemployment insurance program to employee-employer premiums.
Governing by Bolts of Electricity 323
What about the expenditure budget? Wilson reported spending cuts of
$1.5 billion for 1989-90 and $2 billion for 1990-1. The cuts were spread over
several departments, agencies, and crown corporations. However, a close look
at some of the cuts reveal that they scarcely constituted expenditure reduc-
tions.
47
 For example, a cut of $215 million for 1990-1 is identified as repay-
ment of social transfers. In fact, however, this had no impact whatsoever on the
government's expenditure budget, thus hardly qualifying it as a spending cut.
Other cuts were in reality only delayed expenditures. For example, the con-
struction of a new prison for Newfoundland was simply delayed, not cancelled.
The call for tenders to build a new headquarters for Transport Canada was can-
celled. However, employees continued to be housed in leased buildings; cancel-
ling the contract could hardly be described as a true spending cut.
48
It is now widely accepted in Ottawa that the Expenditure Review Committee
fell far short of the mark. Indeed, this became quite obvious within months of
its establishment.
49
 What went wrong? The answer is that Mulroney scarcely
attended another meeting after the first and delegated the chairmanship to the
deputy prime minister. His interest in cutting spending waned as he began to
devote more and more of his energy to resolving the country's national unity
and constitutional woes. With the prime minister essentially out of the picture,
spending decisions, according to a senior central agency official, were 'taken all
over the place, depending on the individuals and the circumstances involved.'
50
With Mulroney no longer attending, there were in fact 'very few meetings of
the Expenditure Review Committee ever held.'
5
'
Contrast this with Chretien's program review exercise. Chretien did not sit
on the ministerial review committee, but he controlled its work by remote con-
trol and focused a great deal of his time and energy in ensuring its success. He
carefully selected its members and 'signed off on all spending cuts recom-
mended by the committee. He rebuffed all ministers - in some instances in no
uncertain terms - who appealed a proposed cut, and forcefully brought into line
those trying to sidestep the program review. He had two senior advisers from
his own office, Eddie Goldenberg and Chaviva Hosek, attend all committee
meetings. Chretien also made sure that no light would appear between him and
his minister of Finance in reaching the targets. At a crucial moment in the pro-
gram review, Chretien and Martin were helped immensely by a bolt of electric-
ity from outside of Canada - the Mexican currency crisis and an editorial in the
Wall Street Journal.
Chretien and Martin agreed on the expenditure reduction targets and Chretien
asked Marcel Masse to chair the ministerial committee. Masse, a former clerk
of the Privy Council and long-serving deputy minister, as already noted, was
ideal for the task, given his intimate knowledge of government operations.
324 The Denouement
Masse put forward a list of potential committee members to Chretien. The list
included ministers well known for their views on the need to cut government
spending. Chretien turned down Masse's suggestions. He instead appointed
Brian Tobin, Sheila Copps, and Sergio Marchi to the committee, all well known
for their support of a strong government presence in society. Chretien knew
exactly what he was doing. He did not need ministers of like mind to simply
argue the obvious. He wanted significant spending cuts and a specific list of
actual cuts to be implemented. He knew that if there were to be any resistance,
it would be from ministers like Tobin, Copps, and Marchi and concluded it was
best 'to have them in the tent at the outset.'
52
As noted in chapter 6, the program review exercise did produce substantial
spending cuts in every area of government activity. The great majority of the
ministers and permanent officials I consulted and who participated directly in
the program review singled out Chretien's role as one of the most important
reasons for the review's success. Another reason, in their opinion, was
that there was an enemy in their sights and that the prime minister made it clear
that he expected everyone to contribute to its defeat. Chretien also made sure
that those who sought to avoid fighting the enemy, like John Manley, ended up
losing more than those who enlisted in the battle.
53
If, as Tom Axworthy claims, 'it takes a herculean effort [for the prime minis-
ter] to coordinate the government machine,' what must it be like for a minister?
If prime ministers, with all the levers of power at their fingertips, must still pro-
duce a Herculean effort to coordinate the government machine, then things
must be downright impossible for individual ministers. For the most part, it is.
Managing the Rest
From a comparative perspective, the Canadian House of Commons has a partic-
ularly high turnover rate in its membership. Perhaps for this reason Canadian
prime ministers have a limited talent pool from which to pick ministers.
54
 As
well, the need to have regional, linguistic, and gender balance in Cabinet also
means that some strong members of Parliament will be overlooked in favour of
weaker ones who can fill a political or regional need. Advisers to Prime Minis-
ters Trudeau, Mulroney, and Chretien all made the point that some ministers
have to operate under a kind of receivership in that they can hardly be trusted to
lead an important policy review or even an internal review of departmental pro-
grams. Since the 19705 prime ministers now have in their hands an important
instrument to keep the policy ambitions of ministers in check - notably, the
mandate letters from the centre as ministers assume their new responsibility, as
well as those to their deputy ministers.
Governing by Bolts of Electricity 325
But what about the rest? What about strong ministers wishing to pursue pol-
icy initiatives? Other than the minister of Finance, can strong ministers produce
bolts of lightning on their own? The answer is no, even in their own areas of
responsibilities, unless, of course, they are requested to do so by the centre.
As preceding chapters make clear, the days of the 'departmental Cabinet,'
when individual ministers 'were very much in charge of government decision
making' as it applied to their departments are clearly over, and have been since
the 1970s.
55
 To be sure, line ministers to this day would prefer to revert back to
the former model. Arthur Kroeger, for example, writes that 'my own assess-
ment would be that Mr. Pearson's approach, which was characterized by strong
relations between ministers and their departments, corresponded best to the
ways in which ministers like to function.'
56
Chretien, in abolishing most Cabinet committees on coming to power, said
that he wanted to return decision making to ministers and their departments.
And, indeed, there are now fewer Cabinet committee meetings to attend (and
they now, for the most part, end on schedule) and there are markedly fewer
Cabinet documents presented to read. But very little else has actually changed.
One minister who served under both Trudeau and Chretien denies that line min-
isters have more decision-making authority under Chretien than was the case
under Trudeau. He acknowledges that there 'are less committee meetings and
less paper,' but he argues 'that is not where power lies or does not lie. Issues are
brought to Cabinet committee whether there are twelve or only three, and they
are all resolved in the same way. '
57
 I met with present and former ministers who
have chaired Cabinet committees under Trudeau, Mulroney, and Chretien.
They all revealed that major or extremely controversial issues are often
resolved by the prime minister, a few key advisers, and a few senior ministers
outside the Cabinet committee system. Chretien, for example, will often estab-
lish an ad hoc Cabinet committee to resolve a delicate matter. As for the rest,
one former committee chair summed up the situation well when he said that by
the time something comes to Cabinet committee, 'it is pretty clear which way
the decision is going. PCO will have done its homework and the consensus will
already have been set.'
58
 Chretien, he adds, has retained 'far more power in his
office over appointments than Trudeau ever did.'
59
 In any event, Chretien, like
Trudeau and Mulroney, does not like surprises and will take steps to avoid
them. As Greenspon and Wilson-Smith argue, Chretien 'wants the game under
control,' and subscribes fully to the view that the 'secret of political success is
not what you do right, but what you avoid doing wrong.'
60
 After several years
in office, Chretien has left the machinery of government at the centre intact and
as large and as powerful as it was under Trudeau and Mulroney. If anything, he
has enlarged its scope by establishing a new agency at the centre, The Leader-
326 The Denouement
ship Network, to support the collective management of the assistant deputy
minister community.
Leaving aside the prime ministerial priorities, the centre of government has
no stomach for bold tries and bold failures. As Colin Campbell writes, 'Larger
staffs can increase the capacity of the chief executive to influence operational
departments.' But this comes at a price. Campbell echoes Gordon Robertson
when he argues that 'a law of diminishing returns sets in' when the staff
becomes very large. A large staff at the centre of government can, he claims,
'cut down on the amount of diversity and criticism in the system. They make
for a relatively harmonious, but unimaginative administration in which a chief
executive accepts non-creativity in most policy actors.'
61
 This is not unique to
the Canadian government, as Campbell makes clear in his comparative study of
central agencies.
Central agency officials have demonstrated deftness at diverting ministers
from bold measures, unless of course this is what the prime minister has made
clear that he wishes. Paul Thomas writes that the 'job of central agencies is to
make a mush of things.'
62
 At the risk of overgeneralizing, when it comes to pol-
icy issues outside the prime minister's immediate interest, central agencies per-
form two major functions. They play a coordinator role by ensuring that an
initiative of a minister and his department does not conflict with the interest of
another or other ministers and their departments. If it does, which is very often
the case, they will outline a compromise, or solution. This speaks to their sec-
ond role — their arbitrator role. They will not only sort out the cause of the dis-
pute but will also make a recommendation to the chair of the Cabinet committee
as to its resolution. Meanwhile, the prime minister and his office will always be
kept informed of significant developments.
Central agency officials in Ottawa attach a great deal of importance to their
coordinator and arbitrator roles and to their capacity to iron out the wrinkles in
proposed initiatives. A student of government from Australia visiting Canada
compared decision making in both countries and recorded his views. He wrote,
'Canadian bureaucratic and political culture places great emphasis on consulta-
tions to avoid conflict between ministers. In Australia, there is a greater toler-
ance for robust debate and perhaps a greater unwillingness to allow officials to
decide the details of policy. A consequence is that the nature of bureaucratic
consultation differs - in Canada, it is typically an attempt to secure agreement
and in Australia it is more about defining the outstanding issues.'
63
 It will also
be recalled that Paul Martin expressed his impatience with the 'process-ori-
ented' nature of government policy making, saying that 'everybody in the sys-
tem is happy ... as long as the meeting breaks up with nobody throwing a
punch.'
Governing by Bolts of Electricity 327
Still, as noted in earlier chapters, the majority of Cabinet proposals are quite
straightforward and do not require much work on the part of the PCO officials.
Earlier, for example, we reported on a Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corpo-
ration proposal to extend ongoing programs by finding the necessary funding
from its own budget.
But what happens when a proposal is not straightforward, when it holds the
potential to generate controversy, or when it can lead to regional tensions? In
such cases, the Privy Council Office will again make sure that the prime minis-
ter is kept fully briefed as the proposal works its way through the Cabinet com-
mittee process. If the proposal is particularly controversial, the prime minister
may establish an ad hoc committee to manage the issue. Ad hoc committees of
Cabinet have the added advantage of reporting only to the prime minister, not to
Cabinet or another Cabinet committee. Chretien has often used ad hoc commit-
tees to sort out politically difficult issues ranging from the purchase of helicop-
ters to revisions to the drug patent regulations.
The Mulroney government, it will be recalled, had secured parliamentary
approval in 1993 to delay the introduction of cheaper generic versions of pat-
ented prescription drugs. The Chretien government began a review of the drug
patent law and regulations in late 1996. The proposal to change the regulations
would pit brand name multinational drug companies against generic drug com-
panies. The Department of Industry favoured the brand name firms because of
their research and development activities, while the Department of Health
favoured lower-cost drugs for consumers. Finally, Ontario, home to most of
Canada's generic drug firms, was pitted against Quebec, home to most of the
multinational brand name copies.
The dispute also pitted Alan Rock, a strong minister, and his Department of
Health (which is not regarded in Ottawa circles as particularly strong, given that
it has no presence in any debate on Canada's economic performance or plans),
against John Manley, a relatively weak minister, at least to some Ottawa insid-
ers (known for his willingness to embrace whatever his department officials put
forward during the program review exercise), and a relatively strong Depart-
ment of Industry, which is always present in economic issues. It also pitted
Ontario Cabinet ministers and the large Ontario government caucus against a
much smaller Quebec caucus. In addition, given the regional factor, ministers
from Herb Gray to Marcel Masse began to voice their views in 'stronger than
usual terms in Cabinet committee meetings.'
64
The debate between the two camps was clear. Rock wanted sweeping
changes favouring generic drug manufacture while Manley favoured only rela-
tively minor adjustments. The prime minister agreed with Manley, but it
became clear that Rock was winning the debate against Manley and also that he
328 The Denouement
had the numbers in Cabinet and caucus needed for his views to prevail.
65
 The
prime minister decided to establish an ad hoc committee to review the case. He
appointed ministers who had clear views on the issue, including Herb Gray (the
senior minister from Ontario), Rock, Manley, and Marcel Masse (the senior
minister from Quebec).
When the matter came to Cabinet, John Manley won the day. The outcome,
as a Privy Council official explained, was a 'modified version' of the status
quo. A decision was also struck on how the regulations would be adjusted. The
final question was when to make the decision public. Some Ontario ministers
argued that it should be put off until after the Liberal Party policy conference,
scheduled for the weekend of 20 March 1998. They feared that making the
decision public before then could give rise to regional tensions at the confer-
ence. The prime minister told Cabinet, as prime ministers very often do, that he
was reserving the right to decide when to make the decision public. He finally
decided it would be done before the party conference took place.
One minister said that 'the prime minister got his way on the substance, on
how the regulations would be revised, and on timing in terms of the announce-
ment.'
66
 I asked if this did not confirm the point that one of his colleagues had
made in an interview with me that Cabinet was not a decision-making body but
rather a focus group for the prime minister. His response, 'No, the focus group
argument is a bit too simplistic. We were more than a focus group in this case.
We were advisers to the prime minister.'
67
 In discussing the case with another
minister, I mentioned that Cabinet decisions are supposed to be reached by con-
sensus, and that, by all accounts, if there were a Cabinet consensus, it would
have been with Rock. His answer, 'Consensus in Cabinet does not mean a
majority. You must understand that consensus means any group of ministers
that includes the prime minister.'
68
 In light of this and other developments out-
lined in preceding chapters, the Privy Council Office should review its claim
that 'power flows from ministers.'
Privy Council Office officials report that they did not have a strong view on
the drug dispute and that in any event it is in their tradition not to have strong
views on a particular issue. If they did, they insist, it would seriously inhibit their
capacity to serve the system and to assist the prime minister. As always, how-
ever, they supported the prime minister. They were also anxious that the debate
and the division in Cabinet not be played out in the media. They were encour-
aged to see a 'modified version of the status quo' emerge, so that Rock and his
colleagues from Ontario could claim that they were able to secure at least some
movement away from the status quo. Still, they were anxious that the 'protago-
nists did not come to believe that they were taking sides.' Health Canada offi-
cials, however, report that they 'never doubted where PCO stood on the issue.'
69
Governing by Bolts of Electricity 329
The above describes very well what the Privy Council Office does in files
that are not straightforward. It keeps a lid on things, it puts out fires, it defuses
crises. Often it manages equivocally. The office will ask questions about pro-
posals rather than developing them from scratch. PCO explains that its perspec-
tive is geared to the 'overview,' and its 'criteria are previous decisions,
precedents, continuity, priorities and related activities.'
70
 By its own admission,
it is often 'sought by departments as a broker,' and it becomes 'involved in
firefighting on important issues.'
71
A long-serving Privy Council Office official observed that 'personalities
change, and it does make a difference in how we operate, but some things do
not change. The prime minister has his priorities, and some ministers think that
they have a bright idea which the government should run with. Our job is to
cope with all of this.'
72
 The federal government task force of senior officials on
strengthening policy capacity spoke to this observation when it reported that
'real policy making is characterized by complexity and often confusion. We do
not live in a textbook world in which Ministers have fully articulated objectives
and officials always prepare rigorous analyses of costs and benefits of alterna-
tives. While this is an ideal to strive for, a great deal of policy making must be
made on short notice, with limited information. Decisions are frequently incre-
mental. The policy capacity in the public service should strive to be as profes-
sional as possible, but that requires flexibility and the ability to serve Ministers
in different ways and in what are often less than ideal circumstances.'
73
We saw in earlier chapters that comprehensive planning exercises, notably
Trudeau's priorities exercise in the mid-1970s, which sought to involve all min-
isters and their departments, failed badly.' Trudeau learned from that failure.
Returned to office with a majority mandate in 1980, he determined that he,
together with his key advisers, would establish the government's priorities and
decide which major initiatives to pursue. The system would take care of the rest
by taking the edge off things. Again, Mulroney and Chretien have both adopted
a similar approach.
To decide on the government's major initiatives offers a number of advan-
tages for prime ministers. It is of course quicker and more decisive. However, it
well may also be the only way to give the government a sense of direction and
purpose. In the absence of political ideology, perhaps all that can be expected
from Cabinet is that it will have some ministers with a bright idea. The regional
factor, which always lurks close to the surface of any public policy issue, also
inhibits the federal Cabinet's capacity to provide a sense of coherence and to
point the way to a consensus on the priorities to be pursued. Meanwhile, public
servants operating at the centre cannot fill a political vacuum.
In the absence of Cabinet being able to establish a coherent set of priorities,
330 The Denouement
central agency officials spend a great deal of their time firefighting on behalf of
the prime minister. Firefighting, however, can be an important source of influ-
ence for PCO officials, particularly the more junior officials. They will also
assist the prime minister in launching his initiatives, his bolts of electricity, as
he pursues his handful of priorities.
The prime minister will turn to his most trusted ministers to assist in develop-
ing and implementing his initiatives, leaving the other ministers to protest if
they dare. As for the other policy issues, it appears things have simply been
allowed to shift from analysis to process and from policy to positioning.
74
Meanwhile, the growth at the centre of government, the centre's unwillingness
to shed large numbers of staff members as line departments have done, and the
development of new processes of coordination (e.g., regularly weekly and
monthly meetings of deputy ministers) have all provided new sources of intelli-
gence and a capacity at the centre to enable the prime minister to control better
the large bureaucratic machine.
Managing the Managers
Several officials I consulted referred to Paul Tellier's dictum at a deputy minis-
ters' meeting that he wanted 'error-free administration.' This rattled deputy
ministers, coming, as it did, on the heels of PS 2000 and all its accompanying
talk about empowerment. A former deputy minister recalls that at their weekly
meetings Tellier would 'give us a bolt of electricity about one thing or another.
I remember one occasion when Tellier expressed his deep annoyance over a
leak out of Veterans Affairs. What did he expect us to do, sit in the mailroom to
make sure that no one would leak things?'
75
 Close associates of Tellier insist,
however, that he meant not that he expected the federal public service to go
about its work with the overriding objective of making no mistakes but that he
should be alerted if someone in a department had committed an error that could
blow up in the media. Tellier did not like surprises,' one of his former associ-
ates explains, at least in part 'because Mulroney did not like surprises.' He adds
the reason Tellier was 'so annoyed with the Al-Mashat thing was because no
one had warned him that the file was about to blow up in the media. As a result,
he could not alert the prime minister of what was coming.'
76
The Privy Council Office believes that 'the possibility [of a blow-up] lurks
behind every question put to a minister and the quality of the answers could
weaken the minister's or the government's position.'
77
 To be sure, neither the
Privy Council Office nor the Prime Minister's Office can ensure that every
question put to a minister in the House of Commons will be handled with dex-
terity. But the centre thinks that it can avoid surprises if deputy ministers call
Governing by Bolts of Electricity 331
the clerk the moment they sense that a potential problem or embarrassment to
the government lurks within their departments.
Central agencies sit at the centre of what C.E.S. Franks has labelled 'multiple
accountability processes and instruments'
78
 under which all government depart-
ments must operate. Accordingly, they actively seek out information and there
is a constant flow of intelligence from departments to the centre. In fairness to
central agencies, however, they are not always the ones responsible for request-
ing information from departments. Parliament must also share some of the
responsibility. The president of the Treasury Board, for example, must still
answer to Parliament and be responsive to the concerns of the auditor general
and the commissioner of official languages.
79
Members of Parliament also try to use central agencies to tame departments
or demand that they employ their clout to push departments to act. Parliament's
Public Accounts Committee, for example, took the secretary of the Treasury
Board, Peter Harder, to task for taking too long to implement standards of ser-
vice to the public. Members of the committee were reacting to a survey pro-
duced by the Office of the Auditor General reporting, among other things, that
when citizens telephone a department, 'six of the federal government's busiest
services have a worse than 50-50 chance of [their] getting an answer. At Reve-
nue Canada, 19 out of 20 callers got a busy signal.' Michel Guimond, the then
committee chair, urged Harder to 'put his foot down,' calling him 'the most
important mandarin' with power to 'terrorize departments into compliance.'
80
The media has also become much more aware of how government works. It
has also learned to use Access to Information legislation to secure information.
When it uncovers problems or controversial issues, it is often the centre of gov-
ernment that is left scrambling to prepare a communication strategy. An exam-
ple will make this point clearer. The Globe and Mail reported on 29 June 1994
that documents disclosed under Access to Information show that the 'monthly
charge [to the government] for cellular phones and services was $874,000 the
previous December which translates to at least $10.4 million a year.' It added
that the document also reveals that 'approximately 280 cell phones were
assigned to the Privy Council Office.' The article remarked that this was the
case 'despite a change of government and promises of cost-cutting.'
81
 The
Access to Information request was made after a minister had told an opposition
member that it was 'too expensive to find out what cell phones were costing.'
82
In this instance the Access to Information request was intended to secure infor-
mation about the government as a whole, not a single government department.
The Globe and Mail, the Ottawa Citizen, and Montreal's La Presse, among
others, report regularly on administrative foul-ups in government departments.
In a front page article, for example, the Globe and Mail reported that empower-
332 The Denouement
ment had been taken a bit too far. Officials in the Department of Health came
up with a scheme to turn their $500,000 travel budget into $630,000 worth of
travel. They had been granted the travel budget after they were asked to carry
out an ambitious computer project to redesign income-security programs. They
prepaid the entire travel budget to American Express to enable it to invest the
fund to buy more air tickets. No one benefitted personally, and the only inten-
tion had been to stretch the department's travel budget. It meant, however,
spending for services to be delivered at a later date, and it certainly did not
square with standard federal government accounting practices. Auditors argued
that the 'cheque issuing provided an opportunity for misuse and was not pru-
dent.' For its part, the Globe and Mail reported that the incident served 'as a
reminder that where public money is concerned, there is value in safeguards,
watchdogs, and even red tape.'
83
Alasdair Roberts writes about a 'control lobby' in his review of the PS 2000
reforms. Roberts points to controversies involving public servants purportedly
'running amok' which captured media attention. One such controversy was the
Canada Communications group, which he describes as 'a child of the PS 2000
exercise.' The group had been granted Special Operating Agency status and
given a mandate to 'be more businesslike' and 'entrepreneurial' in its opera-
tions. It soon became the target of complaints from businesses against which it
was competing. Five industry associations presented a brief to the government
on the matter, and David Dingwall, the minister responsible, responded by ask-
ing an outside group to undertake an audit. The media, including the Citizen,
the Globe and Mail, and the Financial Post got into the act with 'abuse of gov-
ernmental power' storylines.'
84
 Even government members of Parliament
started to voice their concerns, one suggesting that the group was 'scaring the
hell out of private business.'
85
Things took a turn for the worse when it was revealed that the group had
accepted a payment of $2.5 million from the Department of Industry for work
that had not been completed. The purpose, it appears, was to 'park' a part of the
department's appropriations in the group's revolving fund. The media had a
field day, with the Citizen running a front page story suggesting that the inci-
dent 'might have been predictable when a public institution was ordered to
operate like a private business.'
86
 David Dingwall was urged in question period
to punish the public servants responsible. The head of the agency was removed
from his position, and a few months later the government declared its intention
to sell off the agency.
87
Roberts insists that the 'control lobby did more than influence the character
of talk about public service reform. It also constrained the path of reform
itself.'
88
 He even suggests that the lobby inhibited attempts by central agencies
Governing by Bolts of Electricity 333
to achieve a cultural change in the federal public service. He defines members
of the control lobby as the Office of the Auditor General, the media, legislators,
in particular those on the opposition benches, and public service unions.
It is hardly possible to overstate the point that public servants operate in a
highly politicized world. Government managers do not enjoy the same kind of
privacy that their private sector counterparts do. Any decision a government
manager makes can become the subject of a public debate, a question in Parlia-
ment, or give rise to a ten-second clip on the nightly news. The government
managers who decided, for example, to replace windows at the Department of
External Affairs never expected that their decision would become the subject of
intense media coverage, give rise to questions in Parliament, and move the min-
ister of Government Services to declare that the decision was 'stupid' and that
he 'wanted a full explanation' since he had never been made aware of the file.
89
Such developments matter a great deal to the centre of government. A con-
siderable amount of time is spent on them at daily morning meetings in the
Prime Minister's Office and the Privy Council Office. They also matter a great
deal to the prime minister and senior ministers simply because they are con-
vinced that there is a limit to how many times the media or the opposition can
uncover administrative foul-ups before the media begins to accuse the govern-
ment of no longer being in control.
As already noted, the clerk of the Privy Council, as head of the public ser-
vice, meets with the prime minister most mornings when he is in Ottawa.
Consultations for this book make it clear that discussions at these meetings do
not always centre on major policy issues. Indeed, they invariably turn to the
media. It may well be that what Paul Tellier meant by 'error-free administra-
tion' was that he wanted no surprises reaching the media before he got a proper
briefing from the relevant deputy minister.
90
 The point remains, however, that
the centre attaches a lot of importance to how management issues are handled in
departments.
Empowerment in government has important limits, not so much because the
centre of government opposes the concept, but because a code of behaviour is
expected of government managers that is not found anywhere else. Little won-
der that there is a 'disbelief culture' in the federal public service whenever yet
another attempt to 'empower managers' or to 'import' better business manage-
ment practices is unveiled.
91
 Big answers to management constraints in govern-
ment departments will not be possible until Parliament and the control lobby
first change their ways. Senior public servants intuitively know that their great-
est risk is not whether their draft of a Cabinet document will be found lacking or
if a program will perform poorly, but if a scandal or embarrassment erupts in
full view of the media. They have, however, earned the right to tell members of
334 The Denouement
the control lobby, notably Parliament, to 'heal thyself before they embark on
yet another attempt to empower front line managers, telling them to earn rather
than spend. Until the control lobby changes its ways, line managers would be
well advised to greet any reform measure by battening down the hatches and
waiting out the passing storm. If history is a guide, it will come around again,
sporting a new set of initials.
Is the Centre Malfunctioning?
The federal government, at least from the mid-1970s to today, has given up pur-
suing a systematic approach to coordination, not only across the whole gambit
of government activities, but also within general policy fields.
92
 There is no
longer even any pretence. The elaborate decision-making process and the
growth of the centre of government serve another purpose. This is to serve the
centre of government, in particular the prime minister, by keeping a lid on
things.
Policy coordination has had some success when the prime minister takes
charge, identifies his three or four key priorities, and remains focused on them.
When the prime minister's hand is not visible, policy becomes muddled.
Regional economic development policy is an excellent case in point. When
Trudeau first came to office, he declared that regional development was as
important to Canadian unity as the language issue.
93
 He established a new
department, appointed his close friend and Quebec lieutenant Jean Marchand as
its minister, and Tom Kent, a powerful presence in his own right in Ottawa, as
the first deputy minister. Though the new Department of Regional Economic
Expansion (DREE) was also given a large budget, the department decided to
limit its programming to selected areas. It also established a clear policy (e.g.,
the growth pole concept) and successfully resisted powerful forces to change
course. Trudeau, however, gradually lost interest in regional development pol-
icy. In time, its programming was pushed and pulled to cover every region of
the country and virtually every conceivable form of economic activity. One is
reminded of Arthur Schlesinger's observation that it was Roosevelt himself, not
his newly implemented machinery of government at the centre, who promoted
coordination. As we saw in chapter 2, Schlesinger wrote that 'proof of his con-
trol was the way, once the reins fell from his hands, the horses plunged wildly
in all directions.'
Trudeau appointed Pierre De Bane as DREE minister in 1980 and, as already
noted, De Bane asked for a fundamental review of federal regional development
policy, including a review of his department's mandate. Trudeau agreed and
asked the Privy Council Office to lead the review, but by all accounts he only
Governing by Bolts of Electricity 335
took a passing interest in the exercise, deciding rather to focus his energy on the
Constitution, energy policy, inflation, and an international peace initiative.
The Privy Council Office review led to the abolition of DREE and to the
establishment of a new department and a new approach. That approach, how-
ever, was done away within a few years. In time Mulroney decided once again
to overhaul federal regional development policy and, in the process, established
new regional economic development agencies. Things went well in the early
months, but then the agencies began to lose their focus. There are precious few
people, outside of those who actually work in these agencies, who are happy
with the current policy. Mulroney, like Trudeau, lost interest in the policy he
had introduced when he turned his attention to national unity and his attempt to
amend the Constitution. Chretien has not made regional development policy
one of his priorities. The field remains muddled.
Prime ministers since Trudeau have recognized that the overload problem in
government is now such that effective coordination and policy success can only
be achieved in a handful of policy fields and with their own active participation.
In short, they and their advisers need to play on the field. As for the rest, depart-
ments operate in a kind of policy vacuum. The centre of government, notably
the Privy Council Office, will man the lookouts to steer the ship of state away
from icebergs. The purpose of coordination then becomes more one of protect-
ing the government than of bringing coherence to policy fields. This, in turn,
explains the findings of a recent federal government task force report on ways
to strengthen the government's policy capacity. As we saw in chapter 3, the task
force concluded that 'the most notable weaknesses at present relate to long term
strategic and horizontal issues. Resources are disproportionally consumed by
short term demands.'
Accordingly, policies still emerge from 'stovepipes' that link functional
experts to other levels of government and to interest groups.
94
 However, policy
issues are increasingly difficult to contain with the boundaries of the conven-
tional departmental structure. This explains in part the 1993 restructuring initia-
tive and also various task forces established by the clerk of the Privy Council in
recent years not only to strengthen the government's policy capacity, but also to
promote more horizontal thinking in government. These efforts have thus far
had limited impact.
One way to resolve horizontal policy issues is, of course, to press for their
resolution at the centre of government. As earlier chapters make clear, there has
been a tendency for line departments to lose some of their policy and analytic
capacity while the centre has been able to retain its capacity. But the centre
itself is coming under attack for its failure to provide strategic leadership. Peter
Aucoin writes that 'strategic leadership constitutes the value-added by public
336 The Denouement
service central agencies to the management of the state of government.' He also
argues that the centre is failing on this front at least in part because it is failing
to distance itself from the political leadership. He explains, 'There has recently
developed a "politicization" of the central agencies of government (and thus the
public service leadership generally) that has diminished the understanding of
the need for the public service to be distanced from the political leadership.'
95
The problem is not just partisan; it also involves the growth of personal loyalty
to the prime minister. Either way central agencies tend to become an extension
of the political leadership. This can only serve to shift their focus away from
strategic policy and corporate management functions towards the partisan and
personal interests of the political leadership which happens to be in office. Yet
it is expected that central agencies should be role models for line departments,
given that the clerk of the Privy Council is also head of the public service.
The day after Solange Denis told Brian Mulroney 'Goodbye, Charlie
Brown,' officials of the Privy Council Office were scrambling to manage the
political fallout.
96
 They looked at various options, including having the minister
of Finance back down from his commitment to reduce spending on old age pen-
sions. The measure of success was not how pension reform can be best imple-
mented, but rather on how the head of the government could be protected. The
objective was clear: get the issue out of the media and out of question period.
To sum up, for the centre of government, coordination now means operating
an early warning system for the prime minister, anticipating and managing
political crises, and pursuing prime ministerial priorities. The emphasis is less
on policy coherence and more on keeping the lid on, so that the prime minister
and the centre can get things done in areas that matter a great deal to the prime
minister. Governing by bolts of electricity describes well how things actually
work at the centre of government.
11
Incentives, Constraints, and Behaviour
In the summer of 1989, Doug Young, sitting in opposition as member of Parlia-
ment for Acadie-Bathurst, declared his firm intention to fight the Mulroney
government's plan to reduce Via Rail services in Atlantic Canada and to intro-
duce cuts to the Unemployment Insurance program. He urged New Brunswick-
ers to help him stop the government dead in its tracks, on the grounds that both
measures would have a very harmful impact on the provincial economy.
1
 He
even offered to organize public hearings to enable all New Brunswickers to
demonstrate their opposition to the plans.
Now, fast forward to Chretien's first mandate, where that same Mr Young
turned all his energy to fiscal concerns. He took to the program review exercise
with gusto and promoted a policy to sell the country's air navigation system,
privatize CN Rail, reduce still further subsidies to Via Rail, and do away com-
pletely with freight rate subsidies for Atlantic manufacturers.
2
 Moreover, he
came out in favour of substantial cuts to the Unemployment Insurance program.
What explains Young's remarkable about-face?
The answer lies in the incentives and constraints that motivate politicians
when in opposition, as opposed to those that motivate them once their party is
in power. But that is not all. Incentives and constraints within the government
itself vary considerably, depending on where one sits, and the differences are
..ubstamial. Indeed, they are such that we now have several cultures warring in
ht bosom of the federal government's political and public service institutions.
The differences are sharp, and they even exist within the centre of government
n^'lf. !n brief, organizational culture within the federal government itself is plu-
rai , not singular. Expressed in its most basic form, culture consists of shared
meanings and common understandings, which provide the basis for conceited
auion.
:
This uiapici , \ploics (he dynamics that make the federal government 
338 The Denouement
and argues that la culture des metiers matters a great deal more than has been
assumed. The various incentives and constraints shaping behaviour in govern-
ment are so powerful that they have prohibited the development of comprehen-
sive policy agenda. Trudeau believed that he could marshal or, failing that,
control these and other forces by fundamentally restructuring the centre of gov-
ernment. A substantially expanded centre, he concluded, would provide the
necessary countervailing forces to check the influence of strong ministers and
their long-serving permanent officials in line departments. It would also pro-
vide the capacity he felt was lacking to formulate at the centre of government
itself a comprehensive policy agenda.
To be sure, Trudeau did considerably strengthen the centre of government,
and no prime minister since has been willing to do more than play at the mar-
gins of his reform at the centre. In 1993, when she was deputy minister of
Transport, Jocelyne Bourgon wrote that 'the policy machinery in place is basi-
cally the same as it was twenty years ago.'
4
 This observation remains valid
today. The same cannot be said about line departments, as the massive 1993
government reorganization made clear.
It is important to stress that much of the centre of government belongs to the
prime minister and not to ministers, either collectively or as individuals - with
the exception, of course, of the minister of Finance and the president of the Trea-
sury Board, who lead their own central agencies. The strengthening of the centre
of government has not, as was initially envisaged, strengthened the collective
decision-making capacity of Cabinet by acting as a counterweight to line minis-
ters and powerful mandarins in line departments. Rather, it has weakened both
Cabinet and line ministers and their departments. On the other hand, the power
and influence of the prime minister and his advisers - both partisan and perma-
nent officials in central agencies - has in turn been considerably strengthened.
When the modern centre was born, it will be recalled, central agency officials
were careful not to favour a particular departmental position - or to be seen to
favour a particular position - on the grounds that it would compromise their
ability to run the Cabinet decision-making process. They considered their job to
be to manage the process on behalf of Cabinet, as a collective decision-making
process. This is no longer the case. The interviews revealed case after case
where central agencies clearly took sides and favoured a position - positions
that would eventually prevail.
However, the strengthening of the centre has not meant that the federal gov-
ernment is now better able to articulate a comprehensive policy agenda. Indeed,
the only time it is able to do so is when a powerful outside element comes into
play which forces it to act. When this occurs, the various organizational cultures
and even outside forces are held in check by a consensus that something must
Incentives, Constraints, and Behaviour 339
be done. The other necessary ingredient is for the prime minister to remain
focused, firm, and tenacious. These circumstances, when they are all in sync,
enable the centre to pursue successfully a new policy agenda - again, the war
effort and the program review are two rare examples. But at no other time is a
concerted and comprehensive policy agenda possible. Having abandoned any
hope of defining an overarching policy agenda, the centre of government now
seeks simply to control the various forces, if only to keep a lid on things, to
enable a handful of overriding priorities as defined by the prime minister to see
the light of day and to protect the government's political interests in the media
and before the country's political institutions.
Why does this state of affairs exist? Put differently, why is it that the centre
of government, notably the prime minister, has come to dominate so thoroughly
the policy and decision-making process? Put differently again, why have all
prime ministers since Trudeau chosen to pursue only a handful of key objec-
tives, managing the rest by bolts of electricity, and essentially give up on pro-
ducing a comprehensive policy agenda?
The answer is that we are witnessing institutional change, if not failure, on a
very large scale. The power, influence, and even relevance of Parliament are
under threat. This is serious, because Parliament is increasingly failing to hold
the government to account.
But that is not all. The role of the media has also changed substantially. For
the most part, it is no longer just a narrator or an independent observer reporting
and commenting on political events. It has become an important political actor
in its own right. Television and its tendency to turn to a thirty-second clip on the
evening news to sum up major policy issues or, much more often, to report on
something gone awry in government, have had a profound impact on govern-
ment operations. The centre, broadly defined, has become extremely sensitive
to potential media-inspired developments it cannot control and to surprises
which can give rise to political problems and embarrassments.
Few inside the federal government still believe that Cabinet is a collective
decision-making body setting policy and deciding on the key issues of the day. I
put this question to a senior minister towards the end of my research: 'Do you
believe that the Cabinet has become a focus group for the prime minister, as it
has been suggested by another minister?' As already noted, his response was:
There is some truth to it, but it is not the whole truth. There are too many large
egos at the Cabinet table to think that we are a kind of a collective focus
group.'
5
 The power and influence of Cabinet itself are now under threat. This is
serious, because it concentrates political power in the hands of one individual,
the prime minister, and in those of his immediate advisers.
Another institution, the federal public service, under accusations that it had
340 The Denouement
become too powerful, has in some respects lost its way. In its desire to become
politically responsive, it has looked to the prime minister for direction: one of
its most important priorities now is to protect his political interests, though not
necessarily his partisan political interests, against the media and others who
decide to challenge the government. The result of this, combined with the over-
load problem, has led the Canadian prime minister to pick only a few priority
initiatives to pursue and to employ the machinery of government at the centre as
leverage to control the rest and to keep a lid on things.
Politicians in the Waiting Room
Doug Young, in 1989, acted much like any other opposition member of Parlia-
ment. His purpose was clear enough - tcr exploit any opportunity to make the
government look bad. He also had the luxury of ignoring the constraints that
knowledge places on viable policy options, and there was not much of a centre
to keep a watchful eye on him to ensure that he caused no embarrassment.
There is not much need for an opposition centre since everyone in the party
intuitively knows to shoot in the same direction - and that is at the government.
The media reported on Young's activities, not to hold him accountable for his
actions, but rather simply to report on his activities. The reason - he had no
power. In some ways, the media's purpose was also his purpose, and that was to
expose the government's weaknesses. More importantly, only the local media
reported on his activities so that he could tailor his message to correspond to
local circumstances.
It is important to recognize that when sitting in opposition politicians have
limited access to substantial policy advice. Opposition parties are largely off-
limits for senior public servants, and they will avoid contact with them to the
extent possible. Certainly, few senior public servants would want to provide
information on the finer points of a public policy issue to an opposition party
member, fearing that it could well come back to haunt them in question period,
in parliamentary committees, or in the media. Opposition parties, and in partic-
ular the leader of the Opposition, have resources to hire staff. However, the
staff, much like assistants in ministerial offices, are partisan, young, and only in
exceptional cases do they have experience in government. Their grasp of policy
issues is superficial, and their purpose is less one of understanding the details of
policy than to promote the partisan interests and electoral chances of their party
or the member of Parliament they work for. They know that Parliament is about
partisan politics and not about the policy process. They also know that Parlia-
ment and the media will pay more attention to triviality and bombast than to a
finely crafted speech on a public policy issue. A former senior Privy Council
Incentives, Constraints, and Behaviour 341
Office official summed up the role of Parliament well, at least as viewed from
the public service perspective, when he observed, 'Parliament is about assign-
ing blame and not much else.'
6
 If Parliament is about assigning blame, then
government must be about avoiding blame. These, then, are the forces that
shape the work of an opposition political party. The incentives for embarrassing
the government of the day are many and the constraints are few. The rewards
for embarrassing the government is a step closer to political power, and there is
no penalty if you fail.
Leaders of opposition parties do not have the clout to keep their members in
line on most policy issues anywhere near the extent the prime minister does. In
fact, they have very little to offer them other than the hope that things might be
different in future. Any power, including the power of appointment, is, of
course, conditional on the party winning office. This also explains why the
interests of an opposition leader and his members of Parliament are the same.
Nobody is fighting for his departmental corner or his region, and in most
instances no one has to worry much about the consequences of what they say.
There are no hard policy choices to announce, no tough decisions to make, and
no elaborate machinery of government to manage. The objective is straightfor-
ward - to embarrass the government and position your party as best you can to
win the next general election. There is no need to concern yourself with nega-
tive political consequences if you should misstep on a policy issue.
Opposition members of Parliament, perhaps because they have such limited
access to policy advice, are free to walk in the unconstrained world of make-
believe. Hubert Humphrey, in running for political office, declared, 'We need a
new, fresh, buoyant, forward-looking economics to replace the tired, old eco-
nomics telling us we can't do the things we want to do - the things we have to
do.'
7
 Any opposition member of Parliament in Canada could easily make a sim-
ilar statement, and some would even see merit in it. In the absence of both
knowledge and the kind of discipline political power imposes, one can make
virtually any kind of grandiose statement about a better tomorrow, if only the
right party were elected to power.
Ned Franks, one of Canada's leading students of Parliament, recently argued
that 'unquestionably Parliament has become a less prominent place for major
political announcements and debates, and the decline is continuing.' In report-
ing on the reasons for this decline, he in particular points to the media. He
reveals that parliamentary committees do not enjoy much media attention and
that the 'problems with the reportage of Parliament comes from the pack jour-
nalism reaction reporting, and other unattractive attributes of journalism in
Canada.'
8
 He quotes approvingly former Saturday Night editor John Fraser,
who wrote that the problem begins with journalism schools 'which don't just
342 The Denouement
feed into the post-Watergate cynicism and distrust anything or anyone worthy
of an investigative report or in-depth profile, they positively foster institutional
rancour and disbelieving zealotry with a righteousness no longer to be found
even in a fundamentist divinity school.'
9
 It is not an exaggeration to suggest
that media interest in Parliament is now largely limited to sleaze, potential splits
in the government caucus, ministers on the defensive, and prime minister's
questions.
Though one can debate whether the media today is serving Canadians better
than it did thirty years ago, there is no denying that its role has changed greatly.
We saw in earlier chapters that former Cabinet ministers in both Liberal and
Progressive Conservative governments have commented, in some cases in the
strongest of terms, on the changing role of the media.
The media is far more aggressive and less deferential to political power than
it was thirty years ago. Some suggest that Watergate was a defining moment for
the media, not just in the United States, but in Canada as well. In an earlier
chapter w& saw that journalists will make full use of access to information to get
information from government departments. John Crosbie writes that access to
information legislation has added to the 'woes of politicians ... on the govern-
ment side. [It] gives the media and other mischief-makers the ability to ferret
out snippets of information with which to embarrass political leaders and to tit-
illate the public. In the vast majority of instances, embarrassment and titillation
are the only objects of access to information requests.'
10
The role of the media began to change (post-Watergate) at about the same
time the centre of government was expanding in size and broadening its scope
of activities. The centre, no doubt in response to the wishes of prime ministers,
decided to hunker down to anticipate and manage political and bureaucratic
gaffes. Departments which caught the centre off guard with surprises of one
kind or another or could not manage politically sensitive files would lose points
in the system. Ministers and deputy ministers began to receive mandate letters
from the centre so that they knew what was expected from them. No longer
could a minister, working in close cooperation with the deputy minister, set out
to redefine departmental policies. Given the modem media, national unity con-
cerns, and the prime minister's own priority issues, this would be much too
risky. In a sense, the centre of government fears ministerial and line department
independence more than they do line department paralysis.
The work of the media by all accounts dominates the agenda of morning
meetings between the prime minister and the clerk of the Privy Council. What
the evening news on national television reported the night before and what the
headlines in morning newspaper say have a profound impact on question
period, and by extension, on government operations.
Incentives, Constraints, and Behaviour 343
Politicians in the Room
To sit in the Cabinet room for the first time is, in the words of one Cabinet min-
ister, 'quite a charge."
1
 For the majority of ministers, this is what they have
worked towards. They have finally achieved their greatest political ambition.
Once there, however, the purpose is not to rock the boat, to survive in Cabinet,
get re-elected and make the government look good, or at least not to create
problems or embarrassments. The life of Cabinet ministers is now essentially
one of surviving and staying in Cabinet. As we saw in this study, very few min-
isters have resigned on matters of policy or principle during the past thirty
years. One survives in Cabinet by avoiding political embarrassments and thus
ensuring the prime minister's continued support. With political ideology not
much of a factor in the two parties which have held power in Ottawa, and party
manifestos hardly a force in Canadian politics, there are probably few policy
issues which would warrant a Cabinet resignation.
To be sure, some ministers are more ambitious than that. Indeed, some can
easily see themselves sitting in the prime minister's chair. Others, notably the
mission participants, for example, will want to have an impact on public policy
and lead their departments into new areas, or even to a new beginning. They are
the ones senior officials in the Privy Council Office would disparagingly clas-
sify as 'ministers' with 'bright ideas.'
Putting aside their ambitions, a member of Parliament's move from opposition
benches to the Cabinet room is dramatic. The rules of the game and group dynam-
ics are suddenly completely different. Overnight, a member of Parliament, in the
words of Pierre Trudeau, goes from being a 'nobody' to being a somebody.
Suddenly, they are surrounded by senior government officials explaining the
finer points of public policy and presenting them with voluminous briefing
books, not only outlining the country's economic circumstances and the impor-
tant challenges in every policy area, but also a list of dos and don'ts, albeit mostly
don'ts. No longer can one make bold statements about virtually anything. All, as
we have seen, now receive mandate letters on the day of their appointment,
suggesting what they should or should not try to reform in their department. The
most ambitious may try to push the envelope and go beyond the mandate outlined
in the letter. But this is not without risk. Indeed, there is no assurance that his
deputy minister will espouse the minister's agenda with much enthusiasm if it
differs from that outlined in the prime minister's letter. The deputy minister will ,
of course, be well aware of the content of the mandate letter, and more than likely
he was consulted in its preparation. It is in this sense and in how they are
appointed that one can now make the case that deputy ministers are as much a part
of the centre as they are the administrative heads of their departments.
344 The Denouement
New Cabinets in Canada are for the most part ill-prepared to govern. The
large turnover in the House of Commons means that very few newly appointed
ministers will have had previous experience in government. Their work in
opposition does not prepare them well for their role in Cabinet. They come to
their first Cabinet meeting with a very limited sense of purpose and direction, in
part because, as already noted on several occasions, political parties which have
held power in Canada have no firm political ideology, but also because they are
ill-prepared from a policy perspective to assume office.
Political parties in Canada are essentially election-day organizations, more
geared to raising funds and to supplying party workers than to articulating a
plan of action for the party, should it come to power. Lowell Murray, a senior
minister in the Mulroney Cabinet and a long-time political strategist for the Pro-
gressive Conservative Party, explains, 'In the Leader's speeches, spokesman's
speeches, policy documents ... what do we have? Most of them are nothing but
campaign literature which is written by campaign people for campaign pur-
poses. We need a far better policy structure. The party needs a policy develop-
ment staff that can prepare position papers ... Only if we put more meat on the
bones of our policy positions will they mean something to the Minister or Dep-
uty Minister who has to implement them when we take office.'
12
 The 'Red
Book' enjoyed a high profile in Chretien's first mandate, but as already noted, it
still did not qualify as a party manifesto in the British tradition. With no deep
ideological roots and no shared policy interests, ministers do not walk into an
established culture as they meet for the first time to assume power. If a culture
is to emerge, it will take shape over time.
What, then, guides a new Cabinet in Ottawa? About the only common under-
standing found in the Cabinet room will be the need to govern without getting
into political trouble. The prime minister will, once again, go over a list of dos
and don'ts. He will also outline the broad agenda he wants to pursue, and minis-
ters will quickly understand that he, not Cabinet, will take over the most diffi-
cult issues, such as national unity. Ministers will also soon learn that the prime
minister will be pursuing a handful of priority initiatives and that they and their
departments are not to get in the way. They will also come to terms, if they have
not already done so, with the fact that the prime minister can appoint, dismiss,
promote, and demote not just them, but also their deputy ministers. He can
make all these decisions with whatever advice he chooses to seek and accept.
Moreover, ministers will also come to see that concerns over performance are
channelled to the prime minister so that they and their deputy ministers will
have a particularly strong accountability relationship to him. This, for obvious
reasons, has a profound impact on Cabinet and how individual ministers go
about their work.
Incentives, Constraints, and Behaviour 345
The interviews made it clear that the great majority of ministers develop a
strong capacity to sense what the prime minister wants or where he stands on a
given issue: they then become advocates of that position. The interviews also
revealed that Doug Young was better than most in this. There was probably no
minister better or more effective than Young in delivering the goods once he
was certain of the prime minister's wishes. Officials who worked with him in
transport report that Young was always careful not to push the envelope beyond
what the prime minister wanted. When it became clear that Chretien was four
squares beyond Martin in the program review exercise, Young would simply
not be deterred from reinventing the department and cutting several of its pro-
grams and subsidies. In any event, as we saw earlier, the prime minister
retained the right to sign off on all program review decisions, effectively giving
him a right of veto.Young's behaviour in government was vastly different from
what it had been in opposition. The incentives and constraints at play were
markedly different and in government there was a centre telling him what was
expected of him.
Government ministers are always on the alert to see who is gaining influence
with the prime minister. Some will want to test the water to see if they are in the
ascendency. There are a number of signs, including who is being asked to take
on a special assignment, to sit on an ad hoc committee of Cabinet, or to attend
special meetings to advise the prime minister on any number of issues.
13
The centre of government, notably the Privy Council Office, certainly start-
ing with Pitfield, sees its role more as one of supporting the prime minister than
Cabinet. As we have seen, briefing notes and policy advice from the centre on
all policy issues are channelled to the prime minister and, to some extent, to the
chair of Cabinet committees. Ministers are left to fend for themselves or to
draw from whatever expertise may be available in their own departments
to marshal! their arguments to participate in Cabinet and Cabinet committee
deliberations.
Little wonder, then , that past and present Cabinet ministers I consulted do not
rank their participation in Cabinet and Cabinet committee meetings very high in
terms of their most effective or productive activities. They do welcome oppor-
tunities to engage in general policy discussion which , many insist, are precisely
what Cabinet and - albeit to a lesser extent, Cabinet committee meetings — ar e
mostly about. But it is the specific initiatives ihey may be able to secure for
their ridings or their piuvincc ui their uefMnrnuas thai fhey consider their most
productive and rewarding activities
To be sure, the prime minister is to be obeyed and always gets his way on vir-
tually any matter he cares deeply about or is willing to invest the time to secure
its implementation But he hardly has the time to police the wants of all minis-
346 The Denouement
ters and decide on every single spending proposal, some of which are clearly
modest in scope. In the fall of 1997, the minister of Finance and the prime min-
ister informed Cabinet committees that they could spend up to $300 million of
new money. The Privy Council Office established a process to manage the new
spending proposals and asked departments for suggestions. Within weeks, 'bil-
lions of dollars of new spending plans had been identified.'
14
There is no need to go into detail of either the process or the proposals which
were finally accepted.
15
 Suffice to note that, in the words of one line minister,
'No one was happy with that process.'
16
 The Ottawa Citizen ran an article
describing the process with the headline 'Liberals back-biting over extra cash,'
and quoted ministers' deep disappointment with it.
17
 Some ministers even felt
that the centre had set up the process deliberately to fail so that it could control
all new spending, 'even the crumbs."
8
Thus, little has changed over the years, despite Trudeau's major reform of the
centre of government, the deficit and debt crisis, and a successful program
review exercise. Spending decisions still emerge from a struggle between
departmental push and Finance, Treasury Board, and Privy Council shove.
Considerations for a coherent whole, a fundamental rethink of some policy
fields, or a new strategic direction for the whole government barely enter the
debate. Planning at the centre still means trying as best it can to marry uncoor-
dinated proposals coming up from the bottom.
Indeed, there are now signs that the centre has completely thrown up its
hands on this front. It now reserves the right not only to establish the govern-
ment's fiscal framework, but also to make decisions on all new major spending
proposals - again, examples here include the $2.5 billion Canada Millennium
Scholarship Foundation and the $850 million Foundation for Innovation, both
taken with no prior consultation in Cabinet.
The centre has become convinced that ministers are not very capable of
establishing priorities, that they lack the ability to look at spending proposals
from a perspective broader than their respective department or region. Accord-
ingly, it has also taken to deciding, on its own, a number of less costly deci-
sions. An example will make this clear. The 1998 budget contains a $400
million provision to enable the government to deal with the year 2000 computer
problem. The decision to allocate this amount was taken in private by the presi-
dent of the Treasury Board, the minister of Finance, and the prime minister.
When asked why the proposal was not taken to a Cabinet committee and then
Cabinet, a senior minister responded, 'Who knows what ministers might have
done with it. They could well have said, "This is not our most important prior-
ity," and spent the money on something else. We had no choice. We have to
provide for the year 2K problem.'
19
Incentives, Constraints, and Behaviour 347
It is also important to remember that the media and, by extension, constitu-
ents and party members, will not judge the success of a minister by his contri-
bution to the centre of government. In any event, discussions and developments
there are not readily accessible to anyone other than the prime minister and the
people employed at the centre. The media will, however, assess the perfor-
mance of ministers by how well they do in question period and by their ability
to lead their departments and keep them out of trouble. Ministers understand
this and govern themselves accordingly. When Art Eggleton was asked about
his tenure at National Defence, he responded that 'other than the flurry about
helicopters, we have turned the page on Somalia,' and as proof that he was
doing well, he observed that he doesn't 'get many questions in the House of
Commons.'
20
Departments always have on their shelves a whole series of projects at the
ready, waiting for funding. All ministers are expected to promote departmental
projects in the government's decision-making process, or when it comes to
securing funding for a departmental initiative, to participate, in the words of a
former Cabinet minister, in the '6/49 lottery game.'
21
 The objective, according
to a veteran Cabinet minister, is 'to break from the pack and get a breakaway to
score one for your department.'
22
 Comprehensive planning, strategic direction,
or a coherent policy package are unlikely to emerge from a lottery game or
breakaways. However, since ministers are not able to participate fully in the
shaping of the government's strategic direction either because they are blocked
from doing so or because the regional or departmental factor invariably gets in
the way, then all that is left for them is to promote departmental projects,
whether they square with overall government priorities or not. It is certainly
rare to see a minister in Ottawa actually want to reduce his department's bud-
get. Winning a bigger slice of the pie becomes the only true sign of a minister's
political virility.
Ministers also quickly learn the full significance of the overload problem in
modern governance. The machinery of government itself has now become a
complex field to master, even for long-serving ministers. In addition, the
machinery has to cope with a high number of diverse issues, ranging from a tax
treaty with a foreign country to approving a proposal to support a particular
industrial sector, a firm, or community. Ministers, most with past experience
quite irrelevant to understanding how the federal government operates, must
learn to position themselves and their departments to pursue a proposed initia-
tive or express a point of view opposing a proposal coming from another
department.
What about the prime minister? What motivates him? Consultations with
present and former senior PMO staff members and Cabinet ministers reveal that
348 The Denouement
history books matter much more to prime ministers than is generally assumed.
The phrase 'under the prime minister's watch' was on numerous occasions used
to describe what motivates Canadian prime ministers. One former senior PMO
adviser remarked that 'a prime minister has reached the top of the mountain and
there are no more peaks to climb. The challenge becomes keeping power, not
winning it, and that's a different ball game. In other words, the question
becomes 'what do you do with the power?'
23
Former and present prime ministerial advisers say that prime ministers lead
very lonely lives. One explained, 'As the old saying goes, it is lonely at the top
in that you do not have any peer to compare notes with.'
24
 As chapter 3 points
out, even relations prime ministers had with colleagues while in opposition are
deeply affected. While it is true that first ministers do meet and do share com-
mon concerns, they do not meet as equals. Though the relationships between
first ministers is much closer to the primus inter pares model than is the case
with the federal Cabinet, it remains that when the premiers' club meets with the
prime minister the premiers invariably take advantage of the opportunity to pro-
mote projects for their respective provinces.
Prime ministers, certainly since Trudeau, but even more so under Mulroney
and Chretien, have often brought delicate federal-provincial issues, even bilat-
eral issues, into their own offices for resolution. Premiers, on issues that matter
a great deal to them, will also insist on bypassing the relevant ministers and deal
directly with the prime minister. It is also less risky for the prime minister to
offend or rebuke one of his ministers than a premier. The prime minister can
always count on the continued support of his ministers, but not on that of the
premiers. In addition, a prime minister knows full well that he may need the
support of a premier who comes calling at some point in a future federal-
provincial conference or constitutional initiative. The same is not true of a min-
ister, who is clearly a subordinate.
If prime ministers have peers in Canada, they are found among former prime
ministers. Mulroney took great pride in winning back-to-back majority man-
dates, something that no modern Progressive Conservative leader had been able
to do. Similarly, Chretien could boast that Liberals had to go back to St Laurent
to see one of their leaders accomplish a similar feat.
There is one issue, national unity, that has dominated the prime minister's
agenda at least since Trudeau. Given that no prime minister would want to see
the country break up under his watch, they give the issue all the time needed.
Trudeau, Mulroney, and Chretien have all brought the issue to the centre of
government to be managed directly. The issue can expand to cover all policy
issues or concerns, depending on the circumstances, on public opinion surveys,
and on the timing of a future Quebec referendum.
Incentives, Constraints, and Behaviour 349
The election of the separatist Parti Quebecois to power in Quebec in 1976
was a seminal event in Canada's political life. It continues to reverberate within
the machinery of government in Ottawa. Indeed, the 1976 Parti Quebecois elec-
tion has probably had as much impact on how policy is made in Ottawa as
Trudeau's decision to overhaul the centre of government in the late 19605 and
early 19705. No other issue can ever be its equal. It has remained in the prime
minister's pending basket ever since. Most policy issues and new proposals are
now assessed against its backdrop. The prime minister and his most immediate
advisers, including senior career public servants at the centre, believe that they
alone can see the broad picture and square all new proposals and assess political
and bureaucratic gaffes against the national unity file. This explains in part why
prime ministers and the various clerks of the Privy Council do not tolerate sur-
prises from ministers and departments.
This study also reveals that national unity concerns have often pushed aside
other important initiatives. The efforts of Mulroney's Expenditure Review
Committee produced very little in the way of concrete results, essentially
because he turned his attention to national unity concerns. It will also b&
recalled that in his exchange with Paul Tellier, the former clerk of the Privy
Council Office, Ian Clark, the former secretary to the Treasury Board, sug-
gested that the government's focus on a proposed constitutional initiative may
well explain the limited success New Public Management measures, in particu-
lar PS 2000, had in the federal government.
Prime ministers also belong to an international club of heads of government.
It is clear that Trudeau, Mulroney, and Chretien committed a great deal of their
agenda to international relations. One can easily appreciate why they would
want to leave difficult domestic issues behind from time to time to play on the
world stage. In addition, it is clear that heads of government can relate to each
other's problems and compare notes on how to handle particular challenges.
25
We know that strong and lasting bonds of friendships were established between
Trudeau and Helmut Schmidt and Jimmy Carter; between Mulroney and
George Bush and Margaret Thatcher; and between Chretien and Bill Clinton.
Meanwhile, keeping rather than winning power requires, as previous chap-
ters have made clear, a capacity to avoid or at least to manage political and
administrative mistakes. If there is one theme that emerges from the political
memoirs of former Canadian politicians, it is that 'small mistakes will do you
in, not large policy issues.'
26
 As Chretien observed, The art of politics is learn-
ing to walk with your back to the wall, your elbows high, and a smile on your
face. It's a survival game ,..'
27
Still, sidestepping and managing 'small mistakes' have become much more
difficult in recent years. Intense media scrutiny and access to information legis-
35O The Denouement
lation have had a crucial impact on the dynamics of governing. Prime ministers
since Trudeau have turned to a safe pair of hands at the centre, in particular in
the Privy Council Office, to manage political or administrative crises, both
those visible to the media and the public and those visible only inside govern-
ment. Safe pairs of hands have become highly valued in government, which
explains why newly appointed deputy ministers are drawn mostly from PCO,
Finance, and the Treasury Board secretariat. In March 1998 the deputy minis-
ters of Transport, Fisheries and Oceans, Agriculture, Heritage Canada, Indus-
try, Human Resources Development, National Defence, Finance, Environment,
and Revenue were appointed directly from positions they were occupying at the
centre of government. When combined, the resources of these departments
account for the bulk of Ottawa's expenditure budget and government activities.
The centre of government is where one can best hone horizontal rather than
vertical thinking skills, manage up, learn to sense a political crisis in the mak-
ing, and develop a capacity to manage it if it should blow up. People at the cen-
tre do not manage programs and rarely deal directly with citizens. Their 'client'
is the political process, and their measure of success is if the political leadership
is happy with their performance. This, however, has had a profound impact on
the federal public service and on policy making.
The Public Service
Among other things, the role of the public service traditionally has been to
introduce a reality check to a newly elected government. One of its most impor-
tant purposes is to tell Hubert Humphrey—like politicians that there are actually
things that they ought not to attempt; that it is one thing to plea for a replace-
ment of the 'tired old economies' with a 'new, fresh, buoyant, forward-looking
economics,' but that to define the new economics is quite a different matter. In
their seminal work on the relationship between politicians and public servants,
Aberbach, Putnam, and Rockman wrote, 'In a well-ordered polity, politicians
and bureaucrats each can do what they are best able to do: politicians articulate
society's dreams and bureaucrats help them gingerly to earth.'
28
 The public ser-
vice is best able to do this as an institution with shared values and beliefs.
Hugh Heclo and Aaron Wildavsky used the phrase 'village life' to describe
the world of the British civil service. They argued that the British civil service
had its own distinct culture, its own peculiar way of arriving at decisions. Mem-
bers of the village lived in relative harmony, mainly because they saw them-
selves as part of the same team, sharing the same values and basic goals. Heclo
and Wildvasky concluded that village life tended to muffle 'sensible insiders'
and keep 'helpful outside critics in the dark.'
29
 Later, B. Guy Peters extended
Incentives, Constraints, and Behaviour 351
the metaphor of village life to explain the relationship between public servants
and their political masters in government.
30
 The Canadian public service also
operated much like a village in the immediate aftermath of the Second World
War, up to and including the Pearson years.
3
'
But it is no longer the case. Indeed, there are now several distinct villages, all
working from different perspectives with their inhabitants motivated by differ-
ent forces. The differences are deep and became readily apparent after only a
handful of interviews. Indeed, the centre itself no longer constitutes a village
with shared meanings and common understandings.
Three major developments have given shape to a different public service -
the Trudeau reform, a consensus that the public service had become too power-
ful, and a deeply felt desire on the part of outside observers, some politicians,
and some senior public servants to see the public service emulate the private
sector.
A few years after Trudeau overhauled the centre of government, ostensibly to
give his ministers more policy-making power, ministers began to voice publicly
their concerns over the growing influence of public servants. Allan MacEachen,
a veteran politician who, better than most, knew his way around the Ottawa sys-
tem, declared that if the Liberals had learned anything during their brief stay in
opposition in 1979, it was that his party would no longer rely as much as it had
on the advice of public servants. Other senior Liberals soon joined in.
32
 No
sooner had the Progressive Conservatives lost power after only a few months in
office than former senior ministers such as Flora MacDonald went on the lec-
ture circuit to denounce 'the bureaucrats.'
33
 But that is not all. The British satire
Yes Minister, as already noted, had a significant impact on how the public ser-
vice was perceived in Canada, not just in Britain.
The Mulroney government left little doubt as to where it stood on the public
service - its power over policy had to be cut down to size. It introduced specific
measures to strengthen the hand of politicians in their dealings with public ser-
vants. Although, in fact, the measures had precious little impact, they did not
take away from the key message: the public service could not be fully trusted on
policy.
All the while, there were few voices speaking on behalf of the public service.
Individual public servants could hardly do so. The media ran few positive sto-
ries about the work of the public service. In fact, it gave a great deal of coverage
to Flora MacDonald and other politicians of like mind. The academic commu-
nity, by and large, also became increasingly critical of bureaucracy. One
scholar wrote that 'bureaucracy is a word with a bad reputation.' Herbert Kauf-
man concluded by the early 19805 that 'antibureaucratic sentiment had taken
hold like an epidemic.'
34
352 The Denouement
To be sure, this bureaucratic bashing had an impact in Ottawa, as elsewhere,
and there is evidence to suggest that senior public servants began to lose confi-
dence in their institutions, if not in themselves.
35
 Well aware of the criticism in
the media and in learned journals, particularly from the public choice school,
they began to doubt their policy advisory role. In some cases, they simply
looked up to politicians and said, 'Okay, now you drive.' Many decided, at least
in the early years of the Mulroney government, to step aside and to let politi-
cians and their partisan advisers define the policy agenda. Gordon Osbaldeston,
clerk of the Privy Council Office, 'insisted' when preparing the briefing mate-
rial for the 1984 transition on a 'strict separation of background briefing from
advice or, stated differently, the separation of administration from politics.'
36
His central purpose was to protect the public service from significant cuts or
from being buffeted about by the new government rather than to identify and
promote certain policy options.
All this is to say that senior public servants were clearly on the defensive, at
least when it came to policy. But the new approach of letting the politicians
drive was also running into problems. The political leadership soon discovered
that driving without the full support of the public service was problematic. It
will be recalled that the Mulroney government stumbled badly in its first years
in office, plagued by ministerial resignations and an apparent inability to con-
trol the political and even its own policy agenda.
37
 The exempt staff, including
chiefs of staff, were no more likely to have government experience than the
ministers they were serving, and a series of gaffes were committed.
38
 But the
damage was done, and the political leadership was to discover that the confi-
dence of the public service could not be turned on and off at will.
In any event, by the mid-1980s, the public service as an institution was once
again being told that it did not measure up. The evidence was sketchy at best,
but bureaucratic bashing had clearly taken its toll. The solution to the problem
of the public service came under the NPM heading, but the prescriptions came
in the form of evocative phrases such as 'steering rather than rowing' and 'mov-
ing from covering your back to covering your costs.' If only senior public ser-
vants could learn to manage like their private sector counterparts, then all
would be well. The objective then was to introduce a managerial culture in the
public service. Some public servants responded by embracing each NPM fash-
ion of the month, from Total Quality Management to the empowerment theme,
others by showing that they were in fact much more businesslike than was
assumed, and still others by going along with the rhetoric but not taking it too
seriously, certain that it too would past.
No matter how sceptical public servants may have been about the new man-
agement culture, the centre of government did not let up in promoting its merit.
Incentives, Constraints, and Behaviour 353
Certainly, PS 2000 had as its fundamental objective the need to change the cul-
ture of the public service to one that would embrace business methods. We pre-
sented in an earlier chapter a table detailing the shift from the 'old culture' to
the 'new,' which had as its key words 'empowering' and 'managerial.' The
government did not stop with PS 2000. There have been other attempts to intro-
duce business methods since Mulroney left office, such as Chretien's desire to
see the Treasury Board shift to a Management Board concept. In addition, the
centre of government is now asking departments to prepare business plans
rather than, say, departmental or public plans.
The initial push to promote a business or managerial culture in the public ser-
vice may well have come from politicians like Margaret Thatcher and Brian
Mulroney. But it appears that at least some senior public servants are now
happy to be doing the pushing themselves. The idea to introduce the business
plans came as much from senior public servants operating at the centre of gov-
ernment as from politicians. But business plans can only be successful and have
any kind of lasting impact if they are tied to rewards and sanctions, which are in
turn tied to resource allocation. It is not at all clear, however, if political institu-
tions are willing to buy into this development.
All of the above measures, like earlier efforts before them, conveniently
overlooked the simple fact that governing in a parliamentary democracy and
running a business are vastly different enterprises. Example after example and
case after case in this book show that working in government is 'fundamentally
different in all important ways.'
39
 For one thing, no major firm would be
expected to survive a potential takeover every four years or so, especially a hos-
tile one (circa 1984). Professionals in large private firms are not ruled by ama-
teurs, with most of the levers of power concentrated in the hands of one person
who is responsible for appointing both the top amateurs and the top profession-
als. One can sum up the differences simply by saying that in government you
manage publicly and in the private sector you manage privately.
Al Johnson wrote thirty years ago that 'it must never be forgotten that depart-
ments of government are in a monopoly position. They have no competitors.'
40
The implications of this simple fact have been overlooked by those who believe
that a business culture can take root in government. Canadian society, for exam-
ple, can readily accept that business activities will be dropped if it makes busi-
ness sense to do so, but the same yardstick does not apply if it is the government
that wants to drop activities which no longer make business sense to continue
delivering.
A classic example here concerns the Canadian National Railways (CNR)
repair and maintenance shops in Moncton, New Brunswick. As a crown corpo-
ration, CNR sought to close the shops because they were no longer required.
354 The Denouement
Romeo LeBlanc, the New Brunswick representative in the Trudeau Cabinet,
made it clear to CN that closing 'the Moncton shops would not be acceptable -
period.' When the Mulroney government came to office, CNR sought once
again to close its Moncton shops. The reaction in Moncton was swift and highly
vocal. A 'Save our Shops' committee was struck and it organized several high-
profile demonstrations. They made the argument that Moncton was being
treated unfairly and the federal government subsequently announced a delay in
implementing the shop closure. In time, the government did close the shops, but
not before it unveiled a special fund to attract new jobs to Moncton.
Subsequently, the federal government privatized the CNR. Shortly after CNR
became a private firm, it announced significant job losses to Moncton. The
news made the front page of the local newspaper but no public demonstration
was organized and no one demanded that the company introduce a special fund
to create new jobs for Moncton. CNR was a private firm, and it was accepted
that if it made business sense to shut down some of its activities in Moncton,
then so be it. All this is to make the point once again that the public and private
sectors operate under vastly different rules. To suggest that business methods
can be successfully introduced to government is ignoring the lessons of history.
This, perhaps more than anything else, explains why students of public admin-
istration compared to the economists have shown little theoretical interest in the
NPM.
41
The lessons of history have been ignored many times throughout the 19805
and 19905. Paul Tellier no doubt startled public servants when, a few years after
he left government, he subscribed fully to the notion that private sector manage-
ment practices were superior to what he found in government. In the private
sector, he had seen the light, and saw that it was much better at making deci-
sions. Tellier, it will be recalled, in his exchange with Ian Clark, then secretary
to the Treasury Board, said, 'I introduced and implemented more change in the
last 12 months at CN than I was able to do in my seven years in the public ser-
vice,' and added, 'Had I known what I know now, I would have introduced
more radical change.'
42
 If nothing else, such comments served still more to sap
the confidence of senior public servants. Paul Tellier had become the first clerk
of the Privy Council to be formally designated 'head of the public service under
the PS 2000 legislation which he had promoted.' Long-serving federal public
servants could hardly imagine Arnold Heeny, Bob Bryce, or Gordon Robertson
making similar comments about their institution.
To be sure, the federal government was not alone in trying to introduce a
managerial culture in the public service. As already noted, Britain had pursued
a similar objective in a much more aggressive manner. British politicians, how-
ever, were much more committed than their Canadian counterparts and went
Incentives, Constraints, and Behaviour 355
further in introducing and implementing change. British politicians made
reform their priority and stayed the course. Canadian politicians, meanwhile,
have had an on-again, off-again interest in reforming the public service.
But a tentative approach to reform is not without important implications for
the public service and government operations. When you combine this with the
kind of bureaucratic bashing we have seen over the past twenty years, you run
the risk of seeing an institution lose its way. Promoting cultural change in an
organization as large and as complex as the federal public service is not for the
faint of heart. In addition, some may be tempted to promote cultural change
because it represents an easy solution and frees the political leadership to focus
on more pressing and immediate political problems. B. Guy Peters, for exam-
ple, writes that cultural change holds strong appeal because it represents 'a rela-
tively easy way to correct malfunctions.' But, he adds, advocates of cultural
change 'often trade on a simplistic understanding of both organizations and cul-
ture.' He concludes that 'culture can be changed, but it. usuall y requires a very
long time to produce any large-scale change.'
43
 No one has bothered to answer
the questions of whether you can promote cultural change in the federal public
service in complete isolation of the country's political culture, the requirements
of Parliament, and the work of members of the 'control lobby,' notably the
Office of the Auditor General and the media.
Recent developments have not led to completely different organizational cul-
tures in all government departments. Some, particularly the few left intact in the
1993 restructuring, have long had their own shared understandings and culture.
The restructuring, however, did mix and match activities and merge different
cultures into one department. To appreciate this, one only has to look at the
Department of Human Resources, which has under one roof the old Department
of Labour, responsibilities for promoting job creation, for identifying new train-
ing measures, and for policing the Employment Insurance program, as well as
federal-provincial income support programs. The restructuring did bring some
major issues more clearly into a single portfolio. However, the new, larger
departments may well be more inward looking than their predecessors, given
that they can bring more issues into one department. But in the process, they
may well have created thicker walls.
44
 The result is that it has made it more dif-
ficult for the centre to establish clear government priorities or even to define an
issue as priority and then to force adjustment in affected policy areas and in the
policies and programs of relevant government departments.
In January 1998 Lawrence Strong tabled the findings of his committee on
Senior Level Retention and Compensation in the federal public service. He con-
cluded that 'good people are leaving at a time when government needs the best
and the brightest. In short, the Public Service is no longer able to retain the peo-
356 The Denouement
pie it needs and frustration among those who stay could eventually impact pro-
ductivity negatively.' The solution: introduce new pay raises and create 'a new
vision and Public Service culture.'
45
 The Strong committee was quite specific
about the level of pay raises, but had precious little to say about what kind of
'vision' and 'culture' the public service should pursue. No sooner had he tabled
his report than present and former public servants began to voice their opinions
in letters to the editor. One wrote, 'Its [i.e., public service] leadership is all too
often noted for [its] partisan compliance rather than, as it was within memory,
for competence and integrity ... Rebuilding the ethical and professional stan-
dards of the PS is the thing required, especially at the top.'
46
All this is to say that there is every reason to doubt now whether the public
service still consists of a 'village' of common interests. Indeed, there are now
several villages, each with its own field of common interests and shared under-
standing. Jocelyne Bourgon suggested as much in her 1998 report on the public
service to the prime minister when she called for it to become a 'borderless
institution.' By this, she means an institution 'committed to reducing the barri-
ers to the flow of ideas and information.' She explained that 'some of the bar-
riers are physical, others are built into our information systems, but most are
cultural. The cultural barriers are the most difficult to overcome.'
47
 The impor-
tant challenge, she added, was for the federal public service to focus 'on the big
picture and [develop] a culture oriented to attaining collective goals, not just
individual objectives.'
48
In this study, we reported on a fault line dividing senior level officials in
Ottawa from those actually delivering programs. The former tend to manage up,
to attach a great deal of importance to their ability to deal with political issues
and crises. Front line and regionally based officials, meanwhile, tend to manage
down and out - that is, they look to their employees and client groups to estab-
lish priorities and to secure feedback. For officials at the centre, the most impor-
tant challenge is one of 'horizontality,' or creating a borderless institution. For
officials in line departments, the main challenge is vertical, on how to deliver
better services to Canadians.
49
Line department officials claim that they can easily detect more than one cul-
ture, more than one set of values and understanding at the centre of government
itself.
50
 Some senior officials in the Treasury Board secretariat speak the lan-
guage of managerialism and business plans, while others clearly have strong
reservations about such developments. Senior officials in the Public Service
Commission will, from time to time, applaud such managerial themes as
empowerment, but resist efforts to marry their delegation or transfer of author-
ity to departments to match those from the Treasury Board secretariat. More-
over, the commission insists that it must have its hand in government operations
Incentives, Constraints, and Behaviour 357
most everywhere to protect the 'merit principle.' Empowerment, it appears, is
one thing, but trusting departments to protect the merit principle is quite
another.
What the above suggests is that the centre of government has, since the early
19805, sought to both empower individuals in government and, willingly or not,
disempower the public service as an institution.
51
 If one looks at a specific
reform initiative in isolation from other developments, including other reform
measures, it does not reveal a complete and true picture of the changes that have
actually occurred over the years. Put differently, it is important to look carefully
at the ways in which one change interacts with the others and how they relate to
pre-existing institutions of government.
The empowerment theme is a case in point. The idea was not the child of the
New Public Management school born in the early 19805. One can trace it back
to the Glassco Commission and to Trudeau's decision to overhaul the centre of
government. Glassco's objective was to empower government managers, while
Trudeau's was to empower ministers as a collective group.
But by the mid-1980s, it became clear that the empowerment theme was tak-
ing on a life of its own and that virtually everyone, both inside and outside gov-
ernment, was to be empowered. To be sure, program managers and front line
employees needed to be empowered. But they were not the only ones. It became
conventional wisdom that politicians and their advisers also needed to be
empowered if they were to regain control over policy and the policy levers.
52
And then there were the 'clients' of government programs. They too needed to
be empowered, and numerous attempts were made to transfer the concept of cit-
izen into that of client and customer.
53
 Even the Office of the Auditor General
was being empowered with the introduction of comprehensive audits. Simi-
larly, Parliament and parliamentary committees were to be empowered, and
some measures were introduced to do just that in the aftermath of the McGrath
report.
54
One is tempted to ask the question can everyone be empowered? Put differ-
ently, is it possible to empower managers, front line government employees,
politicians, and their advisers, clients, and parliamentary committees without
disempowering someone or some institutions?
Many senior civil servants still consider the providing of policy advice to be
one of their most important tasks. However, they, at least those in line depart-
ments, are finding that they have become much less influential on policy issues
which have any kind of profile outside or even inside government. It also
appears that public servants are no longer able to tell politicians that their pet
schemes are not terribly practical, that they have been tried in the past and that
they have failed. The career stability of public servants is not as strong as it
358 The Denouement
once was, and the restructuring of government departments has meant that the
institutional memory is less comprehensive. In brief, the federal public service
is now less capable of bringing politicians back 'gingerly to earth.'
The public service as an institution may well have assumed a great deal of
influence in the 19508 and 19605. Mitchel Sharp tells us that it was understood
and accepted when he was a public servant that policy was made by deputy
ministers, while the ministers decided what was politically saleable and what
was not. Writing in the early 19705, I.E. Hodgetts pointed out that 'bureaucracy
abhors a power vacuum' and explained that 'the aggrandizement of the powers
of the public service may well be viewed as a reflection of the superior ability
of that institution to make the adaptations or develop the innovations which
have led to the bypassing of other public institutions, like parties, parliaments,
or courts.'
55
 Rather than recognizing the failings of their own institutions, polit-
ical leaders set out to disempower the public service.
Still, it is clear that the political leadership looked, and continues to look, to
individual public servants to advise on specific policy issues and to carry out a
number of tasks, some more political than administrative. The pervasive role of
the media has made error prevention a more central role in the public sector,
and individuals working in central agencies often have had a major role to play
in protecting Cabinet ministers from themselves, and if that is not possible, then
to protect the prime minister. Politicians, at least starting with Mulroney, may
well have suspected the public service of enjoying too much power or influ-
ence, but they have come to rely on some senior officials to manage their polit-
ical agenda and on senior public servants to operate the bureaucratic system to
secure compliance and minimize error. As we repeatedly showed in this study,
a major political crisis will just as often flow from administrative matters or
government operations as from major policy issues. The capacity of senior offi-
cials at the centre to prevent the damaging thirty-second clip on the evening
news has come to be highly appreciated. No one in government is better suited
to defuse emerging problems. Thus, when the Mulroney government was
plagued by one crisis after another and when his own office was in disarray,
Mulroney reached out to Derek Burney, a career public servant, to be his chief
of staff.
Prime ministers are trained to think short term. They have their own projects
to promote and priorities to pursue and have little patience for due process.
They will turn to individuals at the centre to give them a helping hand and to
keep other matters under control.
But this requires special skills, political skills. These, rather than an intimate
knowledge of a sector or a policy field, have become of prime importance. In the
process, however, we may have lost sight of something that was crystal clear
Incentives, Constraints, and Behaviour 359
thirty years ago. Hodgetts insisted then that we had 'long grasped the theoretical
answer to the question' of what belongs to the centre and what belongs to line
departments. He wrote, 'Decisions affecting policy and coordination should be
made at the centre; decisions relating to implementation or operations are best
left to the organization manning the front line.'
56
 In the rush to micromanage
files or issues that can cause political problems and to focus on the prime minis-
ter's key priorities, we are losing sight of what properly belongs at the centre and
what belongs in line departments. We also appear to have given up on promoting
policy coordination at the centre of government. In addition, pursuing initiatives
on behalf of the prime minister cannot be done in a vacuum, nor can the manage-
ment of politically difficult situations. One needs to be able to 'stick handle' his
or her way through the system to make sure that relevant ministers and depart-
ments are on side.
57
 While it is true that institutions, notably the public service,
are not particularly adroit as political fixers, individuals are. However, the
empowerment of individuals will not give rise to a 'culture oriented to attaining
collective goals.' Rather, it is much better suited to pursuing individual objec-
tives for the centre of government, notably the prime minister.
The prime minister is the key player in selecting which people will be
empowered. The clerk of the Privy Council and secretary to the Cabinet, key
staff members in the Prime Minister's Office, the minister and deputy minister
of Finance, two or three ministers, and some deputy ministers are extremely
powerful in Ottawa circles because the prime minister prefers it that way. If one
of these should lose the confidence of the prime minister, and word of this
should get out, then he or she would be well advised to leave. Bob Bryce, Gor-
don Robertson, and Simon Riesman became powerful figures in the federal
government because of their work, their accomplishments, and knowledge of a
particular policy field. This situation is now less often the case. Prime ministers
now provide the basis for an official's influence. Michael Pitfield, Derek Bur-
ney, Paul Tellier, and Eddie Goldenberg, for example, became powerful figures
in Ottawa, not least because of their special ties to the prime minister.
Having the centre micromanage selected files, make certain that the prime
minister's priorities are fully implemented, fix specific cases for the prime
minister, and manage political crises for the government can, of course, be
extremely valuable for prime ministers. In some ways, prime ministers could
not ask for better. It enables them and the centre to govern by 'bolts of electric-
ity. ' If one wants quick action in a few key areas and to avoid bold decisions or
actions elsewhere, then there is no better way to govern.
But the approach comes at a price. The public service's ability to 'speak truth
to power' and to promote a culture oriented to collective goals is affected.
Senior public servants will be much more willing to speak truth to power if they
360 The Denouement
are part of an institution that will protect them rather than if they are individuals
flying solo.
When the sense of collectivity is lost, then the capacity to deal with the
increasingly cross-cutting nature of public policy issues is significantly dimin-
ished.
58
 With the emphasis being on an individual's ability to fix things, there is
no longer an unambiguous career ladder to motivate members of the public ser-
vice as a collectivity. In addition, there is less likelihood that a village built on
shared understanding will emerge. This ironically comes at a time when the
government stresses the importance of a horizontal approach to public policy
issues which can no longer be contained within the federal government, let
alone in one department.
But more importantly, the loss of a sense of collectivity in the public service
comes on the heels of a loss of a sense of collectivity in Cabinet. The prime
minister can roam throughout the federal government, pick and choose what he
wants, and get most senior public servants to pursue his priorities and to man-
age specific cases or problems on his behalf. He never has to hit any barriers,
whether they are constitutional or, as now, institutional.
Indeed, prime ministers since Trudeau have used central agencies as leverage
to pursue their agenda to master events, to keep things under control, to corral
bouncing ministers, and to get done what they want. The bias of central agen-
cies now clearly favours the power of the prime minister and others operating at
the centre of government. The study reveals, for example, that central agency
officials define their work as 'falling on hand grenades' to stop problems from
leaking out. It also reveals, among other things, that the centre was left essen-
tially untouched by the massive 1993 government reorganization, only because
the centre itself decided that this would be so.
Meanwhile, the minister and the Department of Finance can only pursue their
agenda if the prime minister supports them. The moment light appears between
the prime minister and Finance on a major issue, they lose. Michael Wilson and
the Department of Finance were not as successful as they had hoped in intro-
ducing fiscal restraint measures because Mulroney turned his interest to other
issues. Paul Martin and the Department of Finance officials were much more
successful, and they credit Chretien's support and his uncompromising desire to
stay the course as a key factor.
The Treasury Board secretariat has sought to pursue a NPM agenda, but with
only modest success. For example, as we saw in an earlier chapter, the SOAs
concept has never taken flight in Ottawa largely because of a lack of coordina-
tion and coherence among central agencies. Prime ministers Mulroney and
Chretien have never put NPM initiatives high on their priority list, often being
contented with simply issuing a press release announcing yet another measure.
Incentives, Constraints, and Behaviour 361
Contrast this with Britain, Australia, and New Zealand, where NPM has had a
more significant impact. It is no coincidence that prime ministers in these coun-
tries took a strong interest in pursuing an NPM agenda.
59
The intergovernmental affairs group under its various guises since it was
formally introduced under Trudeau has always been closely identified with the
prime minister. Trudeau, it will be recalled, showed little interest in the tradi-
tions of the public service when he appointed Michael Kirby as secretary to the
Cabinet responsible for federal-provincial relations. Kirby had worked in
Trudeau's office in the 19705, so his talents were well known. Trudeau
explained that though Kirby 'had no feel for the subject ... he would know
what pieces to cover, which tactics to cover, which tactics were needed with
the premiers, the other Cabinet ministers, and so on. He was a very good exec-
utive assistant on this subject.'
60
 Kirby also knew that his success in securing a
constitutional agreement was directly linked to Trudeau, not Cabinet. The
same can be said about Norman Spector, who held the same job under Brian
Mulroney. He later became his chief of staff. The difference was that Kirby left
PMO to go to the public service, while Spector left the public service to go to
PMO. For Trudeau or Mulroney, the institution of the public service was not
the issue. The issue was getting who they considered to be the right individual
to do the job.
The Privy Council Office oversees due process in the government's policy
and decision making. This study makes clear that there are now two due pro-
cesses, one for the centre, notably for the prime minister's priorities, and one
for line departments. Prime ministers have come to accept that they can only
successfully pursue their priorities if they keep their number small and if they
can keep a lid on everything else. PCO has developed a well-honed capacity to
do just this.
This study also shows that the role of the clerk of the Privy Council and sec-
retary to the Cabinet has evolved a great deal since Mackenzie King and Arnold
Heeney established it in 1940. Heeney, it will be recalled, subsequently wrote
that he successfully resisted King's desire to turn the position into a 'kind of
deputy to the Prime Minister.'
61
 Those who have occupied the position since
Michael Pitfield have been much less successful. Clerks of the Privy Council
now speak and write about wearing three hats - deputy minister to the prime
minister, head of the public service, and secretary to the Cabinet. This study
makes clear the implications for Cabinet government.
The power of appointment in government, much like the expenditure budget,
steals the stage. It clearly lays down who wins and who loses. It also helps the
centre to keep a lid on things. In the federal government, the power of appoint-
ment is firmly in the hands of the prime minister and the clerk of the Privy
362 The Denouement
Council, notwithstanding COSO's advisory role. This gives the centre enor-
mous power and influence. In most Western countries, this power is shared.
The Public Service Commission is both a central agency and a parliamentary
agency. This study reveals that the Public Service Commission has inhibited the
implementation of several NPM initiatives and that, given its independence
from the executive, it is extremely difficult for the centre to bring it to heel. This
study also reveals, however, that the centre of government has slowly but surely
stripped some of the commission's responsibilities. The recent establishment of
a new agency, the Leadership Network, reporting to the clerk of the Privy
Council Office and COSO for the collective management of the assistant dep-
uty ministers' community is a case in point.. The network may well be better
suited than the commission to 'meet the ongoing challenges of renewal' in the
federal public service, as the clerk described its principal task when she estab-
lished it.
62
 It also, however, serves to strengthen the Privy Council Office and,
consequently, the prime minister.
Cabinet has now joined Parliament as an institution being bypassed. Real
political debate and decision making are increasingly elsewhere - in federal-
provincial meetings of first ministers, on Team Canada flights, where first min-
isters can hold informal meetings, in the Prime Minister's -Office, in the Privy
Council Office, in the Department of Finance, and in international organizations
and international summits. There is no indication that the one person who holds
all the cards, the prime minister, and the central agencies which enable him to
bring effective political authority to the centre, are about to change things. The
Canadian prime minister has little in the way of institutional check, at least inside
government, to inhibit his ability to have his way. Prime Ministers Margaret
Thatcher of Britain and Bob Hawke of Australia were tossed out of their offices
before their mandates were finished. Their own caucuses showed them the door.
This would be unthinkable in Canada. Even in the depths of Mulroney's unpop-
ularity, there was no indication that his caucus was about to boot him out of
office. In any event, in Canada the caucus holds no such power. In Britain prime
ministers must deal with powerful ministers who have deep roots in their party
and well-established party policies and positions on many issues. In Australia the
prime minister must contend with an elected and independently minded Senate.
In Canada national unity concerns and the nature of federal-provincial relations
tend, in a perverse fashion, to favour the centre of government in Ottawa. They
dominate our policy agenda and permeate government decision making to such
an extent that the centre of government is only willing to trust itself to oversee
their overall management.
Notes
Introduction
1 Consultation with a senior government official, Ottawa, February 1998.
2 Arthur Kroeger, 'The Central Agencies and Program Review,' in Peter Aucoin and
Donald J. Savoie, eds., Managing Strategic Change: Learning From Program
Review (Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Management Development, 1998), 11.
3 Consultations with a senior official in the Treasury Board secretariat, Ottawa,
February 1993.
4 See, for example, Donald J. Savoie, Thatcher, Reagan, Mulroney: In Search of a
New Bureaucracy (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1994).
5 Colin Campbell and George J. Szablowski, The Superbureaucrats: Structure and
Behaviour in Central Agencies (Toronto: Gage, 1979), chapters 4 and 5.
6 Ibid.
7 Consultation with an official with the Privy Council Office, Ottawa, March 1993.
8 Thomas T. Mackie and Brian W. Hogwood, eds., Unlocking the Cabinet: Cabinet
Structures in Comparative Perspective (London: Sage Publications, 1985), I.
9 Campbell and Szablowski, The Superbureaucrats.
jo Peter Hennessy, Cabinet (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986), 163.
11 See, for example, Donald J. Savoie, The Politics of Public Spending in Canada
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990).
12 See, for example, Campbell and Szablowski, The Superbureaucrats, 11, and Colin
Campbell, 'The Search for Coordination and Control: When and How Are Central
Agencies the Answer?' in Colin Campbell and B. Guy Peters, eds., Organizing
Governance, Governing Organizations (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press,
1988X55.
13 See, among others, Savoie, The Politics of Public Spending in Canada.
14 Peter Aucoin, 'Introduction: Restructuring in the Canadian Government,' in a study
364 Notes to pages 6-15
on the 1993 reorganization prepared for the Canadian Centre for Management
Development, Ottawa, 1996.
15 Robert B. Denhardt, Theories of Public Organization (Monterey, Calif.: Brooks/
Cole Publishing, 1984), 186.
16 See, among many others, Donald J. Savoie, 'What is Wrong with the New Public
Management?' Canadian Public Administration 38, no. i (Spring 1995): 112-21.
17 See, for example, B. Guy Peters and Donald J. Savoie, eds., Reforming the Public
Sector: Taking Stock (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1998).
18 Consultation with a former senior central agency official, Ottawa, February 1998.
19 Colin Campbell, Governments Under Stress: Political Executives and Key Bureau-
crats in Washington, London, and Ottawa (Toronto: University of Toronto Press,
1983), 22.
20 See, among many others, Savoie, Thatcher, Reagan, Mulroney.
21 Quoted in Hennessy, Cabinet (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986), 34.
22 Ibid., 180.
23 Sharon L. Sutherland, 'The Evolution of Program Budget Ideas in Canada: Does
Parliament Benefit from Estimate Reform?' Canadian Public Administration 33,
no. 2 (Summer 1990): 138.
24 Robert F. Adie and Paul G. Thomas, Canadian Public Administration: Problemati-
cal Perspectives (Scarborough, Ont.: Prentice-Hall, 1987), 141.
25 G. Bruce Doern, 'From Sectoral to Macro Green Governance: The Canadian Depart-
ment of the Environment as an Aspiring Central Agency,' Governance 6, no. 2
(April 1993): 179.
26 Woodrow Wilson, The State: Elements of Historical and Practical Politics (London:
Isbister & Co., 1899), xxxiv.
27 Consultation with a senior official with the Privy Council Office, Ottawa, October
1997.
28 In Canada, unfortunately, one must rely on interviews with government policy and
decision makers to a greater extent than their counterparts in, say, Britain and
France. There is a tradition in those two countries for retired politicians and senior
public servants not only to provide a written account of their work, but also of their
experience with the policy and decision-making processes. In Canada we have a
handful of ghost-written and self-serving books from former government officials
reporting on their accomplishments, but precious few substantial contributions from
former government officials. There are some exceptions and, as the reader will see,
I make full use of them. Still, we certainly do not have any equal in intellectual
rigour to Richard Grossman's three volumes, The Diaries of a Cabinet Minister.
Others in Britain and France have also written books that give us a better under-
standing of how government works. In the absence of such comparable work in
Canada, one-on-one interviews are necessary if we are to gain an appreciation of
Notes to pages 19-24 365
what goes on in government offices and an understanding of how government
actually works.
2: The Centre Is Born
1 See, for example, J.E. Hodgetts, The Canadian Public Service: A Physiology of Gov-
ernment, 1867-1970 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1973).
2 Paul Van Riper, History of the United States Civil Service (White Plains, N.Y.: Row,
Peterson and Company, 1958), 312.
3 Quoted in Stephen Hess, Organizing the Presidency (Washington, D.C.: The Brook-
ings Institution, 1976), I.
4 See, for example, Simon James, British Cabinet Government (London: Routledge,
1992), 2.
5 Robert B. Bryce, Maturing in Hard Times: Canada's Department of Finance
through the Great Depression (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press,
1986X4.
6 Canada, Order in Council P.C.3, 1867.
7 Bryce, Maturing in Hard Times, 5.
8 Ibid., i.
9 Canada, Department of Finance and the Treasury Board secretariat, 799*5-97 Esti-
mates, Part III, Expenditure Plan, 1997, and 7998-99 Estimates, Part HI, Report on
Plans and Priorities, 1998.
10 Bryce, Maturing in Hard Times, 3.
11 Canada, Office of the Auditor General, 7996-97 Estimates, Part III, Expenditure
Plan, 1997.
12 Bryce, Maturing in Hard Times, 4.
13 Donald J. Savoie, Thatcher, Reagan, Mulroney: In Search of a New Bureaucracy
(Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1994), 45.
14 J.A. Corry and J.E. Hodgetts, Democratic Government and Politics (Toronto: Uni-
versity of Toronto Press, 1946), 501.
15 R. MacGregor Dawson, The Government of Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto
Press, 1970), 251.
16 O.D. Skelton , Life and Letters of Sir Wilfred Laurier (Toronto: Oxford University
Press, 1921), 270.
17 Dawson, Government of Canada, 252.
18 Hodgetts, The Canadian Public Service, 265.
19 Skelton, Sir Wilfred Laurier, 503.
20 Hodgetts, The Canadian Public Service, 268.
21 Peter Hennessy, Whitehall (London: Fontana Press, 1989), 56.
22 S.S. Wilson , The Cabinet Office to 1945 (London: HMSO, 1975), 2.
366 Notes to pages 24-30
23 Herbert Morrison, Government and Parliament: A Survey From the Inside (London:
Oxford University Press, 1954), 12.
24 Wilson, The Cabinet Office to 1945, 3.
25 'A broad outline of Conservative and Unionist policy - dated 16 October 1922,'
quoted in Wilson, The Cabinet Office to 1945, 46.
26 Ibid.
27 Ibid.
28 Ibid., 50.
29 James, British Cabinet Government, 3.
30 Morrison, Government and Parliament, 16.
31 Wilson, The Cabinet Office to 1945,113.
32 See, for example, Hennessy, Whitehall, chapter 3.
33 Alex Cairncross, Years of Recovery: British Economic Policy, 1945-51 (London:
Methuen, 1985).
34 See, among others, Hennessy, Whitehall, 110.
35 Ibid., 88.
36 A.D.P. Heeney, 'Mackenzie King and the Cabinet Secretariat,' Canadian Public
Administration 10 (September 1967): 367.
37 J.R. Mallory, The Structure of Canadian Government (Toronto: Macmillan of
Canada, 1971): 98-9.
38 Lester B. Pearson, Mike: The Memoirs of the Right Honourable Lester B. Pearson,
vol. 3, 1957-68, John A. Munro and Alex I. Inglis, eds. (Toronto: University of
Toronto Press, 1975), 92-3.
39 See J.L. Granatstein, The Ottawa Men: The Civil Service Mandarins, 1935-1957
(Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1982), 189.
40 Quoted in ibid., 195.
41 Ibid., 193.
42 Quoted in ibid., 197.
43 Ibid., 203-4.
44 Ibid., 206.
45 Ibid.
46 A.D.P. Heeney, 'Mackenzie King and the Cabinet Secretariat,' Canadian Public
Administration 10 (September 1967), 367.
47 Ibid., 373
48 Ibid.
49 Lester B. Pearson, Mike 2,1973, chapter 7.
50 C.G. Power, 'Career Politicians: The Changing Role of the M.P.,' Queen's Quarterly
LXIII, no. 4 (Winter 1956): 488-9.
51 J.R. Mallory, 'Delegated Legislation in Canada,' in Canadian Journal of Economics
and Political Science XIX, no. 4 (November 1953): 1681.
Notes to pages 30-5 367
52 Ottawa, PC 1121 of 20 March 1940.
53 Power, 'Career Politicians,' 489.
54 Quoted in David C. Whitney, The American Presidents (New York: Doubleday &
Co., 1969), 288.
55 Ibid., 289.
56 See William T. Gormley, Taming the Bureaucracy: Muscles, Prayers and Other
Strategies (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1989), 9.
57 John Hart, The Presidential Branch (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1987), I.
58 Richard Nathan, The Administrative Presidency,' in Francis E. Rourke, ed.,
Bureaucratic Power in National Policy Making, 4th ed. (Boston: Little, Brown and
Co., 1986), 209.
59 Gerald J. Garvey and John J. Dilulio, Jr., 'Sources of Public Service Overregulation,'
in John J. Dilulio, Jr., ed., Deregulating the Public Service: Can Government Be
Improved? (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1994), 17.
60 Report of the President's Committee on Administrative Management (Washington,
D.C.: U.S. Government, Januar y 1937), 53.
61 See, for example, Hess, Organizing the Presidency, 172.
62 Report of the President's Committee on Administrative Management, 3.
63 Ibid., 5.
64 Memorandum for the Director of the Bureau of the Budget, 20 July 1939.
65 Ed Flynn, quoted in Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Coming of the New Deal: The
Age of Roosevelt (Boston: Houghton, Miflin Co., 1959), 532.
66 Quoted in ibid., 546.
67 See D. Owen Carrigan, Canadian Party Platforms, 1867-1968 (Toronto: Copp
Clark Publishing, 1968), 81-2.
68 Quoted in Robert M. Campbell, Grand Illusions: The Politics of the Keynesian
Experience in Canada (Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview Press, 1987).
69 Canada, Department of Reconstruction and Supply, Employment and Income with
special reference to the Initial Period of Reconstruction (Ottawa: King's Printer,
1945), 21.
70 A.W. Johnson, Social Policy in Canada: The Past as It Conditions the Present
(Halifax: Institute for Research on Public Policy, 1987).
71 Quoted in Aaron Wildavsky, How to Limit Government Spending, or How a consti-
tutional amendment tying public spending to economic growth will decrease taxes
and lessen inflation ... (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979), 169.
72 Ibid., 173.
73 Ibid.
74 Quoted in R.F. Harrod, The Life of John Maynard Keynes (New York: Harcourt,
Brace, 1951), 447.
75 Ibid., 241.
368 Notes to pages 35-42
76 Bryce, Maturing in Hard Times, 228.
77 Ibid., 121.
78 Ibid., 233.
79 Sir Ian Bancroft, quoted in Hennessy, Whitehall, 150.
80 Canada, The Royal Commission on Government Organization, vol. i (Ottawa:
Queen's Printer, 1962).
81 United States, The Budget of the United States Government -1968 (Washington:
Government Printing Office, 1968), 36.
82 Edgar Benson, 'The New Budget Process,' Canadian Tax Journal (May 1968): 161.
83 Al Johnson, 'PPBS and Decision Making in the Government of Canada,' Cost and
Management (March-April 1971), 16.
84 Hugh Heclo and Aaron Wildavsky, The Private Government of Public Money
(London: Macmillan Press, 1981), 268.
85 Robert F. Adie and Paul G. Thomas, Canadian Public Administration: Problemati-
cal Perspectives (Scarborough, Ont.: Prentice-Hall, 1987), 141.
86 Aaron Wildavsky, The Politics of the Budgetary Process (Boston: Little, Brown,
1984), 184.
87 Quoted in Savoie, The Politics of Public Spending in Canada (Toronto: University
of Toronto Press, 1990), 60.
88 Ibid.,6i.
89 Ibid.
90 Quoted in ibid., 62.
91 R. Van Loon, 'Stop the Music: The Current Policy and Expenditure Management
System in Ottawa,' Canadian Public Administration 24, no. 2 (1981): 189.
92 See, among others, Savoie, The Politics of Public Spending in Canada.
93 Ian Clark, 'PEMS and the Central Agencies: Notes for a Presentation to a Seminar
on Making Government Planning Work,' North American Society for Corporate
Planning, 27 October 1983,16.
94 See 'Trudeau-Pitfield Bureaucracy First Item on Turner's Overhaul,' Globe and
Mail, 2 July 1984, AS; see also Canada, Office of the Prime Minister, 'Government
Organization Measures,' News Release, 30 June 1984.
95 See Granatstein, The Ottawa Men, 183.
96 Schlesinger, The Coming of the New Deal, 544.
97 See Ian Clark, 'Ottawa's Principal Decision-Making and Advisory Committees'
(Ottawa: Privy Council Office i December 1983), 12-13. Mr Clark adds that the
requirement that a decision be made 'in Council' (i.e., with the queen's privy coun-
cillors) can be satisfied by a quorum of four ministers making a recommendation,
which the governor general then signs separately. Orders-in-council requiring policy
decisions are normally passed in Cabinet, and in those cases - as well as for orders
passed in the Special Committee of Council - only the chairman's signature is
Notes to pages 43-8 369
required, and the assistant clerk of the Privy Council attests to the fact that at least
four ministers were present. Where the order-in-council involves a significant policy
decision, the policy discussion and agreement will have been obtained in advance
through the normal Cabinet committee process. On rare occasions when an order-in-
council is required on an urgent basis between meetings, it can be secured by obtain-
ing the individual signatures of four ministers (usually including the prime minister
or a senior minister). The Special Committee of Council usually meets weekly. The
supporting documentation consists of a list of orders and explanatory material which
is circulated to all the members a day before the meeting.
98 Mulroney had Cabinet committees for the public service, communications, legisla-
tion and house planning, government operations, economic and regional develop-
ment, social development, Priorities and Planning, Treasury Board, Special
Committee of Council and Security and Intelligence. It should be noted that Chretien
has also retained Special Committee of Council (ratification of decisions) and the
Security and Intelligence Committee, which now meet only once a year. See also Ian
Clark, 'Recent Changes in the Cabinet Decision-Making System' (Ottawa: Privy
Council Office, 3 December 1984), 8.
99 Peter Aucoin, 'Organizational Change in the Machinery of Canadian Government:
From Rational Management to Brokerage Politics,' Canadian Journal of Political
Science XIX, no. I (March 1986): 3.
3: Render Unto the Centre
1 Denis Smith, 'President and Parliament: The Transformation of Parliamentary Gov-
ernment in Canada,' Thomas A. Hockin, ed., Apex of Power: The prime minister and
political leadership in Canada, 2d ed. (Scarborough, Ont.: Prentice-Hall, 1977), 114.
2 J. Aberbach et al., Bureaucrats and Politicians in Western Democracies (Cam-
bridge: Harvard University Press, 1981), 16-17.
3 See Responsibility in the Constitution (Ottawa: Privy Council Office 1993), 23. See
also Nevil Johnson, In Search of the Constitution: Reflections on State and Society in
Britain (London: Methuen, 1977) and Geoffrey Marshall and Graeme C. Moodie,
Some Problems of the Constitution, 5th ed. (London: Hutchinson University Library
1971).
4 Responsibility in the Constitution, 23-5.
5 Marshall and Moodie, Some Problems of the Constitution, 5.
6 R. MacGregor Dawson, The Government of Canada, 5th ed., revised by Norman
Ward (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1970), 179.
7 R.G. Robertson, 'The Canadian Parliament and Cabinet in the Face of Modem
Demands," paper presented to the Institute of Public Administration of Canada,
1967, 18.
370 Notes to pages 48-53
8 R.G. Robertson, 'The Changing Role of the Privy Council Office,' Canadian Public
Administration 14, no. 4 (Winter 1971): 487.
9 John Mackintosh, The British Cabinet (London: Methuen, 1962; University Paper-
back, 1968), 51.
10 See, among many others, Peter Hennessy, Cabinet (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986).
11 Consultation with a Cabinet minister, Ottawa, i November 1994.
12 See Hennessy, Cabinet. The author reproduces the British Cabinet Procedure in
8-13-
13 Ibid., 190.
14 W.A. Matheson, The Prime Minister and the Cabinet (Agincourt: Methuen, 1975),
3
1
-
15 Peter Aucoin, 'Accountability: The Key to Restoring Public Confidence in Govern-
ment,' The Timlin Lecture, University of Saskatchewan, undated, 10.
16 Johnson, In Search of the Constitution, 74.
17 This point was made by Sharon Sutherland at a seminar sponsored by the Canadian
Centre for Management Development, Ottawa, May 1990.
18 Edward S. Corwin, The President, Office and Powers, 1787-1957,4th ed. (New
York: New York University Press, 1957), 82.
19 Ibid., 209.
20 John Hart, The Presidential Branch (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1987), 126.
21 Quoted in Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., The Coming of the New Deal: The Age of
Roosevelt (Boston: Houghton, Miflin Co., 1959), 518.
22 Ibid., 520.
23 Quoted in Richard F. Fenno Jr., The President's Cabinet: An Analysis in the Period
from Wilson to Eisenhower (New York: Vintage Books, 1959), 138.
24 A. Grossman quoted in Patrick Weller, First Among Equals: Prime Ministers in
Westminster Systems (Sydney: George Allan & Unwin, 1985), 132.
25 Schlesinger, The Coming of the New Deal, 520.
26 Hart, The Presidential Branch, 121.
27 Thomas E. Cronin, The State of the Presidency (Boston: Little, Brown, 1975), 177.
28 See, for example, Joseph Califano, Governing America (New York: Simon and
Schuster, 1981): 402-48.
29 Hurl, The Presidential Branch, 120.
30 Ibid.
31 Ibid., 123.
32 Lou Canon, President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime (New York: Simon and
Schuster, 1991), 70.
33 See, among others, Charles O. Jones, The Presidency in a Separated System (Wash-
ington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1994), 100.
34 There are many excellent studies which compare the British Cabinet system and the
Notes to pages 53-9 371
American presidential system. A classic is H.J. Laski, The American Presidency: An
Interpretation (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1940).
35 Aberbach et al., Bureaucrats and Politicians in Western Democracies, 16-17.
36 The quotation is drawn from Marshall and Moodie, Some Problems of the Constitu-
tion, 55.
37 Herman Finer, The British Civil Service (London: Allen and Unwin, 1937), 196.
38 Ibid.
39 The Al-Mashat case in Canada jumps to mind. For an excellent account of the case,
see Sharon Sutherland, 'The Al-Mashat Affair: Administrative Responsibility in Par-
liamentary Institutions,' Canadian Public Administration 34, no. 2 (Winter 1991):
573-604.
40 Robin Butler, 'Reinventing British Government,' Public Administration 72, no. 3
(Summer 1994): 270.
41 Schlesinger Jr., The Coming of the New Deal, 521-2.
42 Gerald Kaufman, How To Be a Minister (London: Sidgwide and Jackson, 1980), 30.
43 James Q. Wilson, Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do and Why They Do It
(New York: Basic Books, 1989), i, n.
44 Paul H. Appleby, Policy and Administration (University, Ala.: University of Ala-
bama Press, 1949), 13.
45 'Foggy windows become $3M for taxpayers,' Citizen (Ottawa), n January 1995,
Ai.
46 'Public Works issuing more window dressing,' Citizen (Ottawa), 13 January 1995,
A2.
47 'Foreign Affairs window deal cancelled,' Globe and Mail (Toronto), 20 January
1995, A4.
48 Consultations wit h government officials, Ottawa, various dates between September
1997 and January 1998.
49 Alfred Diamant, The Bureaucratic Model: Max Weber Rejected, Rediscovered,
Reformed,' in Ferrel Heady and Sybil L. Stokes, eds., Papers in Comparative Public
Administration (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, Institute of Public Administra-
tion, 1963), 85.
50 See, for example, Donald J. Savoie, Regional Economic Development: Canada's
Search for Solutions (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992).
51 William Rodgers, 'Westminster and Whitehall: Adapting to Change,' in Policy and
Practice: The Experience of Government (London: Royal Institute of Public Admin-
istration, 1980), 13.
52 See Savoie, Regional Economic Development.
53 G. Bruce Doern, 'From Sectoral to Macro Green Governance: The Canadian Depart-
ment of the Environment As An Aspiring Central Agency,' Governance 6, no. 2
(April 1993): 179.
372 Notes to pages 60-74
54 See Savoie, 'Globalization and Governance' (Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Manage-
ment Development, 1993).
55 See Aaron Wildavsky, 'A Budget for All Seasons? Why the Traditional Budget
Lasts,' Public Administration Review 38 (November/December 1978): 501-9.
56 Canada, Task Force on Managing Horizontal Policy Issues, Ottawa, 15 October
1996, 21.
57 Ibid., 25.
58 Ibid.
59 Ibid., 29-37.
60 Canada, Strengthening Our Policy Capacity, Report of the task force to the Coordi-
nating Committee of Deputy Ministers (Policy), Privy Council Office, 3 April 1995,
34-
61 Ibid.
62 Ibid., 35.
63 Ian Clark, 'Recent Changes in the Cabinet Decision-making System' (Ottawa: Privy
Council Office, 3 December 1984), 5-8.
64 Consultations with a senior official with the Privy Council Office, Ottawa, Novem-
ber 1997. See also ibid.
65 Peter Aucoin, 'Prime Minister and Cabinet,' in James Bickerton and Alain G.
Gagnon, eds., Canadian Politics: An Introduction to the Discipline (Toronto: Broad-
view Press, 1994), 275.
66 See, among many others, Savoie, Thatcher, Reagan, Mulroney: In Search of a New
Bureaucracy (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1994).
67 Ibid.
68 Donald J. Savoie, 'What Is Wrong with the New Public Management?' Canadian
Public Administration 38, no. i (Spring 1995).
69 Quoted in Pierre Gravelle, Deputy Minister of Revenue, Government of Canada,
'Management: A Central Agency and Line Department Perspective,' Ottawa, Notes
for a Speech, 3 March 1989.
4: Primus: There Is No Longer Any Inter or Pares
1 G.W. Jones, 'The Prime Minister's Secretaries: Politicians or Administrators?' in J.
Griffith, ed., From Policy to Administration: Essays in Honour of William A. Robson
(London: George Allen & Unwin, 1976), 36.
2 Quoted in Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., The Coming of the New Deal: The Age of
Roosevelt (Boston: Houghton, MiflinCo., 1959), 518.
3 See John C. Crosbie, No Holds Barred: My Life in Politics (Toronto: McClelland
and Stewart, 1997), 301.
4 Consultation with a former Cabinet minister in the Trudeau government, Ottawa,
Notes to pages 74-9 373
February 1993.
5 Consultation wit h a former Cabinet minister in the Mulroney government, Ottawa,
March 1993.
6 See, among others, 'Eastern fishermen to get help,' Globe and Mail (Toronto), 4 May
1998, Ai, and 'Liberals keep up fish deal,' Citizen (Ottawa), 19 June 1998, Ai, A2.
7 'Ottawa sweetens aid for fisheries,' Globe and Mail (Toronto), 19 June 1998, Ai,
A
5
.
8 Consultation with an official with Western Diversification Department, Ottawa,
December 1997.
9 Based on information provided by Senator Lowell Murray, a former Mulroney
Cabinet minister, Ottawa, July 1998.
10 Patrick Weller, 'Administering the Summit: Australia,' paper presented to the ESRC
Conference, Nuffield College, Oxford, 20-1 June 1997, i.
11 'A Burning Issue,' The Economist (London), 25 January 1997, 54.
12 Peter Aucoin, 'Prime Minister and Cabinet,' in James Bickerton and Alain G.
Gagnon, eds., Canadian Politics: An Introduction to the Discipline (Toronto: Broad-
view Press, 1994), 268.
13 Quoted in Sharon L. Sutherland, 'Does Westminster Government Have a Future?'
(Ottawa: Institute of Gov