The Public Service and Elected Leaders: Partners at the Core of Government

Each minister has two pillars of support. One is a partisan political staff, coming from the party, that supports political roles: relations with the party caucus, with other ministries, political communication. A partisan perspective that is entirely appropriate in a democracy.

The other pillar is the support of the non-partisan public service, often headed by a deputy minister.

So, both sides need to be in balance, with constant communication between the deputy minister and the chief of staff.

Both perspectives are legitimate and relevant, but things work better when there’s ongoing dialogue. If you want to move something forward—a bill, a spending program, a regulation, or how to respond to an event—the political side often comes with a partisan messaging perspective: how to advance our team against the other team. And it’s not the role of the public service to think in terms of advancing the blue team or the red team. The public service is there to provide analysis, necessary checks in terms of cost, legal perspective, international relations, implementation—many perspectives that are very relevant.

And the role of a minister or the Prime Minister is to take the advice from both sides and decide what to do. If the politician decides to do or not do something because of a partisan perspective, that is entirely appropriate in a democracy. Accountability lies with the voters.

In every U.S. election, if there’s a change in the governing party, it’s followed by a turnover of about 50,000 employees. Almost all senior executives and even middle managers in the U.S. government are replaced. So, they lose at least a year of momentum. There is a very long transition period before they can really move files forward in the U.S. system.

I’ve always worked in Canada’s Westminster system. So, I see the advantages in terms of continuity: after an election, the democratic decision of Canadians is respected, and the new government can start working and moving files forward quite quickly. My experience, for example, is that we went from a fully functional Harper government to a fully functional Trudeau government in 16 days. One advantage of our system is having a permanent, non-partisan public service that is ready for political changes.

This can happen even within the same party’s mandate: a minister resigns, or a minister is moved to another role and replaced by someone new.

So, the system is always ready to receive a new minister.

It also happens in a wave of change when there’s an election and a change of government, and suddenly there are 25 or 30 ministers to onboard.

Real transitions of power happen about every ten years in Canada, when we switch from the blue team to the red team, or red to blue, or to orange. It doesn’t happen often, but there is always a period where trust needs to be built and working relationships established with the new government.

And because they’ve spent almost a decade in opposition, they always start off with a certain skepticism. And that’s really where deputy ministers and clerks earn their pay—by creating stable, respectful, and trusting relationships.

That doesn’t always happen—sometimes it’s difficult for a minister and a deputy minister to start working together.

And if one is truly opposed to a new direction, one resigns.

I’ve become very comfortable with the idea that it’s the voters who decide. They give a mandate to the red team, or the blue, or the orange. And having the possibility of a non-partisan and competent public service that can carry ideas forward is very important for a democracy.