How is the public policy sausage made? Jean Guy Forgeron, former Deputy minister and Chief of Staff to multiple Clerks of the Privy council shares his wisdom from his years at the top of Canada’s federal public service.

Civil servants are risk-averse, but will act decisively when given clear political signals. We discuss whether a clear green light on energy and resource projects, housing or defence are the signals being sent by the Carney government, or whether it is in fact mixed messaging – new agencies and a major project office would suggest the door is to be opened slightly, but not too much. I suggest the latter may be the case, which is not the certainty that bureaucrats need to act swiftly, nor the confidence business needs to invest in new initiatives.

Jean-Guy says it’s time for another Program Review, along the lines of the exercise undertaken in the 1990s under Prime Minister Chrétien. Unlike across-the-board spending targets, Program Reviews examine each area of government activity from first principles: whether it serves a clear public purpose, whether the federal government should be responsible for it, and whether it could be delivered more effectively by consolidating functions, devolving, commercializing or simply scrapping it altogether. The aim is to sharpen government’s focus by narrowing its priorities, remove duplication, and making government smaller and more effective. An exercise he calls ‘regulatory fat trimming.

To their credit , the Carney government has committed to a review that they’re calling a ‘Comprehensive Expenditure Review, but they’ve walled off the massive grants and contributions category of government spending from it’s scope. They say the overall combination of their expenditure review, attrition and earlier reductions should bring the public service down by about 40,000 from its peak, to roughly 330,000. This is still 80,000 higher than in 2015.

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