Transcript
Transcript: Deputy Minister Leadership Reflections Series: The Honourable Jocelyne Bourgon
CSPS Descriptive: Leadership Reflections: Jocelyne Bourgon
[00:00:00 Video opens with a montage of views of the CSPS building, the Deputy Minister's Office, and the crew setting up their equipment for the interview. Jocelyne Bourgon takes a seat in an historic room. Text on screen: Deputy Minister Leadership Reflections, with Jocelyne Bourgon. Inspiring music plays while the questions are being asked.]
[00:00:21 Overlaid text on screen: The Hon. Jocelyne Bourgon, P.C., O.C. is the Founding President of Public Governance International, President Emeritus of the Canada School of Public Service, and Project Leader of the New Synthesis Initiative.]
[00:00:31 Overlaid text on screen: Madame Bourgon was Clerk of the Privy Council, Secretary to Cabinet, and Head of the Public Service from 1994 to 1999. She led the Public Service of Canada through some of its most important reforms since the 1940s.]
[00:00:45 Jocelyne Bourgon appears full screen. Overlaid text on screen: Where were you born? ]
Jocelyne Bourgon: I was born in Papineauville, I grew up in the Outaouais, I studied in Montréal, I lived in Québec and I moved to Ottawa.
[00:01:02 Overlaid text on screen: What did you want to be when you grew up? ]
Jocelyne Bourgon: I had no idea. And that was a problem when I had to decide, what am I going to study? And I went through a crazy process of elimination. I asked myself, what is it you would not learn by yourself? There are all kinds of things we can learn by ourselves. And I came to the conclusion that what I would be unable to learn by myself would be science, pure science. And that's why I decided to go in science.
[00:01:38 Overlaid text on screen: Did you have any heroes growing up? ]
Jocelyne Bourgon: My grandparents and parents, but I had a very special bond with my maternal grandparents. My grandmother was great. She was a remarkable, highly intelligent woman with great finesse. She knew how to do everything and was interested in everything. She would read everything. She had opinions. She had ideas. She was joyful. My grandfather was a craftsman. I would say perhaps an artist but above all a craftsman. He could make anything with his hands. And both were remarkably generous. I would look forward to the time when we'd spend the summer holidays with my maternal grandparents.
[00:02:28 Overlaid text on screen: Where did you go to university? ]
Jocelyne Bourgon: Well, my first degree is in science.
[00:02:36 Exterior image of Université de Montréal. Text on screen: She graduated from Université de Montréal with a bachelor's degree in science.]
Jocelyne Bourgon: So, my brilliant reasoning at the time was that physics had been the domain that had transformed science in the 40s – 30s, 40s –
[00:02:48 Jocelyne Bourgon appears full screen.]
Jocelyne Bourgon: the work of Einstein and many others. And my guess, at the time, was that the next scientific revolution was going to be biology – Genetics, molecular biology – that would transform not only the physical world, but what it means to be human, the blending of nature and humanity. So, I decided to go in biology, studying genetics and studying physiology and all these things. And I must admit I had a great time. And I was all lined up to do my master and PhD, and I was going to make great a discovery in bioengineering.
[00:03:30 Overlaid text on screen: What was Canada like when you were going to university? ]
Jocelyne Bourgon: I'm [of] the generation of people [that] the students association will take control of their campus in the 60s.
[00:03:43 Image of 1960s students protesting from a balcony in Montreal.]
Jocelyne Bourgon: And so, I'm from that generation.
[00:03:50 Jocelyne Bourgon appears full screen.]
Jocelyne Bourgon: The sit-ins of 1968. The major demonstrations. Canada and Quebec — because I'm from Quebec and I grew up there — were a fascinating area. It was a time of great change. Unlike their parents, people of that generation did not experience the effects of the two great world wars or the financial crash of the 1920s. And so this is a generation that feels freer and ultimately demands more freedom — rightly or not is another debate, but it's a fascinating period that was rich in political, sociological and economic changes and full of emerging opportunities. So it was joyful. There was a dynamic and joyful aspect to that period.
[00:04:38 Overlaid text on screen: Did you consider yourself a revolutionary? ]
Jocelyne Bourgon: There was a French poet who said that if you're not a revolutionary when you're 20, you have no heart, and if you're still one at 50, you have no brain. So human development is involved. Was I one of those asserters? Yes.
[00:05:01 Overlaid image of 1960s students protesting in the streets Montreal.]
Jocelyne Bourgon: Was I part of the CEGEP occupation in '68? Yes. Did I help my faculty to walk out on the Université de Montréal campus? Yes. Was I part of any student organizations? Yes. There were ideas and something absolutely fascinating came out of these rich debates. Is that revolutionary? No. Is that transformative? Yes and there is a huge difference.
[00:05:30 Overlaid text on screen: After your bachelor's degree, what did you do next? ]
Jocelyne Bourgon: Well, next is a series of events. The first one was that summer, that very summer. I have my degree, I finished my bachelor, I'm going to my master's in molecular biology. And that summer I worked exactly in my field. So, I could see in real life what it would be like if I was doing my master's and my PhD.
And through that summer, I kept watching the head of the lab. He was spending half of his time writing papers to get subsidies. He was spending a quarter of what was left managing the staff that was there. He was spending another fraction producing a paper because you have to. And he had basically no time, except at night, to do the research he wanted to do. And that was enlightening.
The second thing was that I discovered that it is lonely. And as much as I love the beauty of studying science – science is of great beauty, intellectually, esthetically – it is phenomenal, it's a world. Although I love the beauty of learning about it, it was not for me the solitude that comes with it in practice. Although science is a team sport, there's an aspect of solitude that was not for me.
[00:07:13 Overlaid text on screen: What did you study for your master's degree? ]
Jocelyne Bourgon: So, I took a master's degree in management,
[00:07:19 Overlaid exterior image of Ottawa University. Text on screen: She graduated from University of Ottawa with a master's degree in Management.]
Jocelyne Bourgon: because it was giving me time to see how I wanted to reorient my thinking and my studies and so on. So, I started a master's degree.
[00:07:32 Overlaid text on screen: What was your first job in the Government of Canada? ]
Jocelyne Bourgon: Luck struck for the second time. So, that summer, more than halfway through my master's, I was recruited as a student
[00:07:47 Overlaid text on screen: In 1973, Ms. Bourgon joined the Government of Canada as a summer student with the Department of Transport.]
Jocelyne Bourgon: by the Department of Transport of the Government of Canada. I knew nothing about the public sector. There has never been anybody in my family working in the private sector.
[00:07:57 Overlaid text on screen: Correction: No one in my family ever worked for the public sector.]
Jocelyne Bourgon: I had no views, either positive or negative. I needed a job to fund my studies come September. So, I came in and I was given a project and I was blown away. There are people who will spend their whole life searching for something they would feel passionate about. I found it by accident and to this day, am passionate about it. Passionate about governing, governance, public administration, the public service, the role of public sector leaders. It's my niche, it's my home.
[00:08:32 Overlaid text on screen: What was your first job as an executive in the Government of Canada? ]
[00:08:39 Overlaid text on screen: Fisheries and Oceans Canada 1975-1983 – she became Director General for the Quebec region in 1981.]
Jocelyne Bourgon: I was DG for Fisheries and Oceans for the Quebec region.
[00:08:44 Overlaid text on screen: When did you become an assistant deputy minister? ]
Jocelyne Bourgon: When I went to federal provincial relations office,
[00:08:52 Overlaid text on screen: Director General in the Department of Regional Industrial Expansion in 1983.]
Jocelyne Bourgon: at the time, Prime Minister Mulroney was there, and he had launched an annual cycle of first ministers meeting on the economy.
[00:09:01 Overlaid text on screen: And then Assistant Deputy Minister for the Federal-Provincial Relations Office in 1985.]
Jocelyne Bourgon: And FPRO needed to create a team to support the effort of the Prime Minister in that capacity. And at the same time, he decided to launch the Canada US negotiation, so that was added to my portfolio as well.
So, I was combining an economic portfolio, annual economic conferences of first ministers, and all the meetings of the first ministers on Canada US negotiations.
[00:09:29 Overlaid text on screen: Can you elaborate about the period under Prime Minister Mulroney? ]
Jocelyne Bourgon: The period under Prime Minister Mulroney was challenging in many ways and exciting in even more ways. So, you have to rewind the movie a bit. In the period preceding, Canada's fiscal situation had been consistently deteriorating. And of all the people in the country, those who knew most that that was unsustainable were the Canadian public servants. So, they knew, deeply, that course correction was needed.
Here comes a Prime Minister who had made a number of negative comments about the public service as an institution.
[00:10:15 Overlaid image of Prime Minister Mulroney. Text on screen: Brian Mulroney, when elected Prime Minister, distrusted the public service and promised to issue them "pink slips and running shoes".]
Jocelyne Bourgon: But he came in and started to work with the public service right away. Right away. And he was a transformative leader. He wanted to achieve things that people around him were telling him, it can't be done. Very risky. Be careful. He had a very ambitious agenda. So, the notion that he would call a meeting on the economy every year with all the premiers was breaking new ground.
My view of that small project that I had was that this Prime Minister single-handedly educated Canadians to the consequences of growing debt and deficit. And I have this vision of him in the first ministers meeting, with charts in his hand, and camera rolling, where he's educating Canadians about, this is undermining future generations. And it's not because there was any support to trying to tackle the deficit. It's because he had decided that he was going to educate everybody and move them so that it would become possible. And he did that.
[00:11:29 Overlaid text on screen: How did you become a Deputy Minister? ]
Jocelyne Bourgon: I left FPRO after doing a number of annual meetings on the economy and having the joy of following what was happening with the Canada US negotiation. And I decided to go to Energy, Mines, and Resources on a lateral.
[00:11:51 Overlaid text on screen: Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Policy and Communications, in Energy, Mines, and Resources in 1987.]
Jocelyne Bourgon: I was in no rush to get promotion. I wanted to learn more. And that was a domain that had shifting policies, a shifting geopolitical landscape, and one of the best Deputy Ministers in town. So, that was a really great school. So, that was my next move.
And it's after a number of years in that department that eventually the phone rang and Paul Tellier asked me, would you accept to be the Deputy Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs?
[00:12:26 Overlaid image of Jocelyne Bourgon. Text on screen: Deputy Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs in 1989.]
Jocelyne Bourgon: And I think I lost my voice for a few seconds, and I said, I would be honoured. Tellier said, I knew we would get you one day.
[00:12:41 Overlaid text on screen: What was your second assignment as Deputy Minister? ]
Jocelyne Bourgon: I was brought back from Consumer and Corporate Affairs to the centre.
[00:12:53 Overlaid text on screen: Associate Secretary and later Secretary to the Cabinet for Federal-Provincial Relations in 1991 and 1992.]
Jocelyne Bourgon: Prime Minister Mulroney was now in the aftermath of Meech.
[00:13:03 Overlaid image of a Daily News headline dated 26 June 1990. Text on screen: The Collapse of the Meech Lake Accord.]
Jocelyne Bourgon: Meech had not been successful, and the country was worse off than it was before. And something had to be done, so Tellier asked me to take over as Associate Secretary to the Cabinet now, the responsibility for the next chapter.
And, needless to say, I was not keen to leave my department. And I really thought that I was the wrong person to do that. So, I argued and did not convince anybody. So, I ended up being the Associate Secretary to the Cabinet.
[00:13:49 Overlaid text on screen: Could you expand on the events leading up to the Charlottetown Accord? ]
Jocelyne Bourgon: Patriation had divided the country. It gave something and destroyed something. Meech was narrowly focused. It was a strategy, which was, it's going to be successful. And therefore, it did not truly envisage, what are the consequences if it is not? And the consequences were severe.
So, from there you go into a different phase, where Premier Bourassa is basically trying to buy time and allow the temperature to calm down, and Prime Minister Mulroney is doing the same thing. And one day a statement is made by the Prime Minister in the House that at that time, at that date, Canada will table a proposal. And that triggered Charlottetown.
[00:14:51 Overlaid image of Prime Minister Mulroney and delegates at the Charlottetown Accord.]
Jocelyne Bourgon: So, it triggered a very intense process of negotiations. At the table, you have ten provinces, you have the territories, and four national Aboriginal associations. So, you're dealing with 17 delegations, looking for how to thread the needle; how to find the space where the water flows, where they could all be united. It is therefore quite broad in scope and extremely ambitious.
[00:15:31 Overlaid image of the Charlottetown Accord. Text on screen: Consensus Report on the Constitution, Charlottetown, August 28, 1992, Final Text.]
Jocelyne Bourgon: The main characteristic of the Charlottetown Accord is institutional.
It is redefining the role of the House of Commons to be very focused on representation by population. It is mind boggling that it confirms that Quebec should never have less than 25% of the seats, in recognition that it has to protect a population in a North American continent. It is re-defining the role of the Senate, which become elected and therefore powerful and equal, a true house of the provinces. And it's proposing a regime for self-government with the Aboriginal community that gives them a status which is intermediate between the provinces and municipalities.
So, the main achievement of Charlottetown, that we all have forgotten about, is institutional reform. At the end of it, was it reasonable to expect that Canadians could absorb the content of that, and come to a judgment in 30 days in a referendum campaign?
So, at the end of the day, Canadians, in their great wisdom, decided that without knowing enough, the status quo had a better taste. And that's basically what happened when you look. Everybody is saying mildly, no, but no one is rejected. So, you don't have the drama of Meech, but it's 52, 53, 50, in that ballpark across the country. No one is rejected. And that is significant as well, I think.
[00:17:13 Overlaid text on screen: What was your next assignment as Deputy Minister? ]
Jocelyne Bourgon: Prime Minister Mulroney did something which was quite unusual. After the negotiations of the Charlottetown Agreement, my job was to negotiate. Their job was to run a referendum. Once he came back home and it was lost, I remember I was tired, to be honest, and there's nothing I wanted more than to go home. I wanted to spend time with my family.
So, I said, I'm taking a leave. Thank you, everybody. I'm gone. I find jobs for my employees; downsized my team. When that was done, it was getting close to Christmas, I went home.
In the new year, the Prime Minister called me, and he said, what would you like to do when you grow up? And that's unusual. Prime Ministers do not normally ask Deputy Ministers, what do you want to do? And I said, well, I need more stability. I want to be at home at night. I want to see my son grow up, so I want a job that gives me more flexibility than being on the road all the time. I mentioned CIDA, and the next thing I heard was the Clerk moving me to CIDA. So, I felt a huge amount of gratitude because it was a gift. An exceptional gift.
Now, something he did not foresee, nor I, was that – well, he did foresee that he was leaving, he was stepping down, and he was working hard to prepare the way for his successor. His successor, Prime Minister Campbell, came in office, worked with a new Clerk until he had left, and they worked on a major reorganization that was launched in 1993. And as a result of that reorganization, I was moved out of CIDA, and I was appointed to Transport.
[00:19:17 Overlaid text on screen: Deputy Minister of Transport in 1993.]
Jocelyne Bourgon: Now, that was a very tough moment, because I thought it was disrespectful for the employees of CIDA. They had had a change of Minister; they had lost their senior VP, who had retired; they had just changed the Deputy Minister, and now, out you go.
There's a sense of loyalty that you owe to your team. There's loyalty to the institution, there's loyalty to the Government of Canada, but there's a form of loyalty to your team. They trust you. And I felt it was disrespectful of the employees of CIDA. Honestly, I fell in love with MoT, so I never regretted working there, far from that. But the way it was done to this day is something that I think could have been done better.
[00:20:09 Overlaid text on screen: Could you elaborate on your experience during your time at Transport Canada? ]
Jocelyne Bourgon: MoT was my last masterclass before becoming Clerk. I didn't know. I had no idea. But it was a master class.
MoT had too much of everything. The department was the owner, operator, regulator of all airports. Too much of a mandate, not enough capacity, and not enough resources. And the question that I kept asking is, what would happen if we were to reinvent the Department of Transport within the collective means of Canadians? What would it look like? What do we need to preserve from which we can build?
And I started to work with the management team, and my Minister was Minister Corbeil, the last year of the conservative government. At the end of the year, we had, collectively, my team, the management team, we had a view about what the department could be. But it was really bold. It was really bold and very different from what it was.
In came a new government and a new Minister.
[00:21:28 Overlaid image of Minister Young.]
Jocelyne Bourgon: Minister Young is brave, is courageous, he has political capital, and is keen to do things. And we start again, the same pieces, the same discussion, the same exploration, and we come to slightly similar conclusions. By and large the same conclusion, but each Minister reflects their own political judgment of what would be defensible, what would be supported by public opinion. And we ended up with the most profound transformation plan for that department.
[00:21:59 Overlaid text on screen: How did you become Clerk of the Privy Council? ]
Jocelyne Bourgon: Prime Minister Chretien asked me to go to 24 Sussex.
[00:22:10 Overlaid image Prime Minister Chretien and Jocelyne Bourgon. Text on screen: On March 28, 1994, Jocelyne Bourgon became Clerk of the Privy Council and Secretary to the Cabinet.]
Jocelyne Bourgon: So, that too, is unusual. So, you ask yourself, what could it be about?
[00:22:16 Overlaid text on screen: And then, President of the Canadian Centre for Management Development in 1999. Canada's Ambassador to the OECD, 2003-2007.]
Jocelyne Bourgon But, at the time we're negotiating, there was the Pearson issue that he wanted not to be privatized, and the previous government wanted to privatize. And I was in the middle of that. So, I thought, maybe I'm going to get a lecture about what I could have done better. But I thought we had done well, so I was not worried about that. Then I thought, maybe there's something else, so we'll find out.
So, he asked me questions about the public service; about the DM community; about the strength. And I gave him a remarkable overview of the strength of the DM community with special attention [to] the breadth of knowledge, and expertise, and deep savoir faire, and so on.
Then it became a bit more focused about who could be Clerk. And I came up with a long list of people who do a great job. And then he said, what about you? And I said, I think you can do much better. I'm not breaking confidence because he joked publicly about it, otherwise I would not bring that back.
[00:23:36 Overlaid text on screen: What is the difference between the Clerk of the Privy Council and the Secretary to the Cabinet? ]
Jocelyne Bourgon: The Clerk supports the Prime Minister as an institution.
[00:23:48 Overlaid image of Prime Minister Chretien, Jocelyne Bourgon, and another man sitting in the Prime Minister's Office.
Jocelyne Bourgon: And the Prime Minister has exclusive prerogative in some domain. But the primary role is to make sure that you're connecting with the Prime Minister as the head of the executives, to make sure that the agenda that is being shaped is fed and brought back to the public service so that you have alignment. You align a political leader in a governing system with the capacity of the professional public service in real time. And therefore, you're connecting these two every day.
The Secretary to the Cabinet is different. The real authority of the Prime Minister is to be the chair of a cabinet system, a cabinet system of government. And the authority is with Ministers. And therefore, the Secretary to the Cabinet helps the Prime Minister as chair. But is at the service of the cabinet as a whole.
And the key ingredient in a cabinet system of government is Ministers who understand what it is to be Ministers and are able and willing to exercise their authority to the fullest. So, there are days where you're defending Ministers in the relationship with the Prime Minister. There are days where you're defending the Chair of the Cabinet system in aligning the contribution of Ministers. You are the Secretary to a Cabinet system.
[00:25:20 Overlaid text on screen: Could you expand on the 1995 Canadian federal budget and how you approached it? ]
Jocelyne Bourgon: We knew that there was a need to eliminate the deficit, and we knew that it was going to be a profound transformation of the public sector. We had proposed an approach, the Prime Minister had agreed, that was allowing every department to bring their most courageous ideas. As we saw the package being shaped, we knew how profound it would be. That was going to affect tens of thousands of employees directly, and everybody else indirectly. And there was a danger that in the process you would undermine the institutional capacity.
So, I triggered at the same time the yin and the yang. We're going to look at how do we reposition the Government of Canada, and at the same time, how do we rethink the public service. So, that by bringing attention to how do we rethink the public service, I was trying to prevent damage to the core functions.
So, two of the task forces were about service delivery. At the end of the day, it's about serving Canadians. But Canadians were expecting a different way of serving than what had been the traditional approach. Horizontal service delivery; integrated service delivery; single window; technologically supported service delivery; service online; service on their terms, as opposed to the delivery agency.
Two groups looked at that. One or two groups looked at the policy capacity. One of the dangers of all the cuts that were taking place is that departments could be inclined to cut where it's easy. And it could be easy to cut your research capacity, which is your lifeline as a professional, non-partisan public organization.
So, one task force was looking at, how good are we? What is the state of our policy capacity? Are we falling behind? What do we need to build? And so on. And another one was looking at, what about horizontal policy making? So, we knew that an increasing number of complex issues could not be addressed by working in a silo in one department – you need to work through shared knowledge across a number of organizations to shape viable solutions. So, we triggered these two. So, two on service, and two on policy.
[00:27:54 Overlaid text on screen: You always had a strong focus on talent management and providing real options for advancement. Why was this so important to you? ]
Jocelyne Bourgon: Everybody in the public service, and people in senior positions, have a duty to leave behind better institutions than the one we've inherited. So, we inherit what we have, and we start from where we are. But the duty is to leave it better than it was.
I was acutely aware that I had benefitted as I grew through the ranks in the public service of a diversity of experience. I had been in staff positions and managing line operations. I had worked in headquarters and in the regions. I had done policy work, and service delivery, and central agencies. And the sum of that is rounding the experience of senior public sector leaders. And I thought it was an asset. And if we could help people acquire a diversity of experience as they grew, they would be better off as senior public sector leaders. That was one assumption.
Another assumption was that there had been so many years of downsizing, and cuts, and freeze, that some of the people moving up, growing up, had been deprived of the opportunity of competing for positions, getting to more senior levels, and getting the diversity of knowledge and experience I'm talking about.
So, on one hand, I was aware of the benefit of diversity. On the other hand, I was aware that we had deprived people of a number of opportunities for growth – personal growth.
[00:29:41 Overlaid text on screen: What does leadership mean to you? ]
Jocelyne Bourgon: I always find that there's a risk of confusion between management and leadership, and allow me to disentangle that, because it's hard to answer one if you've not positioned the other.
Managers have authority for a purpose. So, managers should be able to manage, they should know the extent of their authority, and they should be prepared to use it to its limit. So, management and the exercise of authority is one thing. Leadership is something else. Leadership gets you where authority cannot.
And leadership is not related to your seniority in the organization. Leadership is the power of ideas that mobilize others in moving with you, in tandem, in a converging way to achieve something that you judge to be better than what existed before. And therefore, it's a collective sport. It's not, I have authority. It's a collective sport that aligns knowledge; know how; capabilities to a purpose; and that can only be celebrated as a team effort. So, the distinction between the two is significant in my mind, because by confusing the two, we lose both.
You know, one of the most powerful questions public sector leaders can ask of their team is, how does it all fit together? The magic is not in the pieces. The magic is in the weaving, the knitting of many pieces that amount to a different way of thinking, a different view of the future, a different possibility, a different way forward. So, the coming together of the deep knowledge and the broad perspective is when you come up with an ambitious, transformative agenda.
[00:31:47 Overlaid text on screen: What has continuously captivated your interest in public service? ]
Jocelyne Bourgon: I've always been a student of public administration. Remember when I mentioned that I was recruited as a student, and what I discovered was not the precise job I was doing. I discovered public service. I discovered that government makes a difference. And, as my career progressed, what has always been so exciting for me is that deeper and deeper awareness that there are no well performing countries without a well performing state; without well performing government; without well performing public institutions. And therefore, I have always been a student of, what does it mean to govern? What does it mean to serve? What do we have to do so that Canada is going to be among the countries that will successfully navigate through an unprecedented period of change? That is exciting.
So, I've always been a student of public administration and governance, but the learning is in the doing. And when I left the public service, I had a concern of losing or missing the learning from the doing. And therefore, I invented a way to stay in touch with practitioners.
[00:33:18 Overlaid text on screen: The New Synthesis research network was launched in 2007. And the Public Governance International in 2009.]
Jocelyne Bourgon: And that's where I launched the New Synthesis Initiative, which is an international research network, by and large, of practitioners in a diversity of countries.
[00:33:24 Overlaid image of Jocelyne Bourgon's books. Text on screen: Ms. Bourgon is the author of two books on the New Synthesis of Public Administration, one published in 2011 and the other in 2017.]
Jocelyne Bourgon: And we meet and exchange and debate and work together for the same purpose, which is, what do I have to do in my respective country so that my country is going to be among the few that will successfully navigate through an unprecedented period of change. So, I'm a practitioner, and proud to be. I'm a learner of public administration, and proud to be.
[00:33:50 Overlaid text on screen: Can you tell us the difference between the federal public service that you joined and the one you left? ]
Jocelyne Bourgon: They are different. So, let me go to – taking a long view – what are some of the changes that I may consider striking or significant?
One, there is a transformation, and I would say the risk of erosion of the role of Ministers. In our system of cabinet government and parliamentary democracy, the authority rests with Ministers. Not the power maybe, but the authority. And anything that erodes the responsibility of Ministers undermines the system. In some ways, our democratic system. So, I think we have to think about what we can do to re-enable the role of Minister to the fullest. It makes for better democracy and more creativity.
A second trend that I find significant is that we have in Canada, in the making, are layers between elected official and the professional public servants. They are not necessarily partisan, but politically aligned. And that buffer, that zone in between, is operating in a space of unaccountability. They are neither elected, nor accountable, as a professional public servant is held to so many multiple checks and balances.
So, you have dangerous layers of unaccountability. It used to be very small and therefore probably not significant, but it is growing fast. And as it is growing, we have to ask ourselves, how does it fit in? And if it is going to continue to grow, then we need to design a system that builds the accountability for that tranche as well. If it is circumstantial, then we need to go to different conclusions.
But those are significant trends. There are others, but not of the same kind. Those two are institutional.
[00:36:02 Overlaid text on screen: What advice would you give to a junior public servant just starting out their career? ]
Jocelyne Bourgon: You join the public service today, and therefore you bring skills that were not there before. And you bring a view of the world that was not there before. And you will be the architect of a profound realignment.
You will have to think about, how do we bring together economic prosperity, social solidarity, and the capacity to preserve the life staying power of the planet? Not one or the other working in isolation. You will have to be the architect of how they come together in all aspects of the work of government in society.
You will have to invent ways of steering Canada through a profound technological transformation, without being naive and without pretending that you want to become the expert in any one of these techniques. You have to be the philosopher of technological changes, because each one will present phenomenal opportunity and phenomenal risk for humanity. Whether it is AI; whether it is bioengineering; or geoengineering, which is probably the next one that is going to hit the planet in very dangerous ways.
So, you have to be the philosopher of how a country benefits from the multiplying effect of multiple technological transformations in a way that optimizes your benefits and minimizes the management of your risk. It is not going to be in the micro of these techniques. It is about the thinking of their phenomenal transformational capacity.
So, you will be the generation that will lead to multiple recalibrations, and redefinition of the role of the state. This is a great time. This is a great time. You will have to reconnect freedom; liberties; humanities and prosperities in new ways. So, I'd love to be a student joining the public service today. And if I can be your partner, count me in.
[00:38:38 Video closes with the crew packing up their equipment from the interview.]
[00:38:44 The CSPS animated logo appears onscreen. Text on screen: canada.ca/school.]
[00:38:50 The Government of Canada wordmark appears, and fades to black.]
