Reconciling Personal Values with Public Service Ethics (FON1-V46)

Transcript: Reconciling Personal Values with Public Service Ethics

[00:00:00 Animated CSPS logo.]

[00:00:05 Gaveen Cadotte appears full screen. Text on screen: Gaveen Cadotte, Privy Council Office.]

Gaveen Cadotte: Hello, and welcome everyone. My name is Gaveen Cadotte, and I am the Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet for Public Service Renewal Secretariat at the Privy Council Office. It is my distinct pleasure to be your session moderator today.

Before we begin, I would like to recognize that I'm speaking to you from the traditional, unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabe people. I want to express my gratitude to generations of Algonquin people, past and present, as the original caretakers of this space I occupy. I'm very grateful to be here. I recognize that our participants are from various parts of the country and therefore you may be working on a different Indigenous territory. I encourage you to take a moment to think about the territory that you occupy.

Our guest today, Dr. Ian Stedman, is an Associate professor of Canadian Public Law and Governance and Graduate Program Director at York University's School of Public Policy and Administration.

[00:01:09 Split screen: Dr. Ian Stedman and title slide: "Reconciling Personal Values with Public Service Ethics", and his credentials, as described.]

[00:01:11 Split screen: Dr. Ian Stedman and Gaveen Cadotte appear in video chat panels.]

Gaveen Cadotte: With a rich academic background in philosophy, ethics, and law, Ian's career spans roles as a lawyer, a researcher, and an advisor in public sector ethics, including time at Ontario's Office of the Integrity Commissioner. His work focuses on advancing public understanding of ethics, accountability, and the challenges of governance in a digital age. Currently serving as the Jocelyne Bourgon Visiting Scholar at the Canada School of Public Service, Ian brings invaluable expertise in bridging theory and practice. His academic and policy contributions further extend to healthcare law and policy, where he's driven by his personal experience of living with a rare genetic condition. His research on AI governance in healthcare underscores his commitment to ethical innovation.

Ian is here with us today to take part in the evolving dialogue on workplace values and ethics, and to discuss how public servants can navigate emerging tensions and reconcile personal views with professional expectations, particularly around core principles like neutrality and loyalty.

Without further ado, let's give a warm welcome to Dr. Stedman. Ian, the floor is yours.

[00:02:31 Dr. Ian Stedman appears full screen. Text on screen: Dr. Ian Stedman, School of Public Policy and Administration, York University.]

Dr. Ian Stedman: Thank you, Gaveen, and good day everyone. Thank you all for being online and spending some time with us today. I have to say that I wasn't sure what to expect when we decided to host a session on this topic after the fall symposium on values and ethics, but I couldn't be more delighted to see the interest and the turnout. This is, and I think you'll all agree, a pretty important topic. One that can have a pretty big impact on your day-to-day, and on your job satisfaction.

That said, I want to just quickly reiterate something that Gavin said about my background. I spent five years working as an advisor in the Office of the Integrity Commissioner of Ontario, so my job was to give ethics advice to help administer Ontario's government ethics legislation and to give assistance to politicians and to public servants. I wasn't in charge of investigating, but I certainly know how important investigation is and how important both advice and enforcement are. So, I don't come to today's topic purely as an academic and I hope that I'm able to bring that across a little bit.

[00:03:40 Split screen: Dr. Ian Stedman and title slide: "Reconciling Personal Values with Public Service Ethics".]

Dr. Ian Stedman: But our time is limited, so let me get started with a quick overview of what we're going to talk about. Sorry. Slide. And then the next one, please.

[00:03:48 Split screen: Dr. Ian Stedman and slide titled Today's Agenda; Presentation, Then Discussion], as described.]

Dr. Ian Stedman: So, because I'm an academic now, we do need to situate our discussion a little bit. I don't want to spend too much time in the past and not enough time in the present, though, so I'm going to breeze through a very quick history of the values and ethics conversation so that you can see that we're not inventing a new field of inquiry here.

Dr. Ian Stedman: That being said, we are having a pretty new conversation about some relatively new challenges. Any of you who have read the Deputy Minister's report to the Clerk on values and ethics, you would have gotten the same impression, so we'll make sure that we have some of the highlights of that report in front of us to talk about as well. And slide.

[00:04:31 Split screen: Dr. Ian Stedman and slide: A Brief History; The Ethics Era in Canadian Public Administration, by Kenneth Kernaghan; The Tait Report: A Strong Foundation, Report of the Task Force on Public Service Values and Ethics, December 1996]

Dr. Ian Stedman: I'm told that about 1400 people registered for this session, so I think it's important that I don't assume you're all coming from the same starting place.

Dr. Ian Stedman: That will annoy some of you who are coming from a very robust and well-informed starting place. And it will probably be helpful for others, but it is what it is. Let's pick up on that report. One of the most important things I want to do today is to acknowledge that we're hearing some new voices. Some were always there and were falling on deaf ears. But there are also a larger number of important advocacy and support groups in the federal public service that are becoming more visible, and I want to commend those of you who are pushing in those spaces. I want to commend you for standing up and for engaging in this discussion.

What you're all saying, I think, is not that this whole exercise is hopeless, but that what you really need is greater transparency about how things work so that we can all build and hopefully maintain a high level of trust in one another and in our institutions. So, we need to be open and honest about what is happening, because values and ethics are important, and we want them to be useful to us. We don't want them to be performative or to be harmfully weaponized.

Finally, today – actually, can you go back up to the page where I'm going through what's on the agenda?

[00:06:02 Split screen: Dr. Ian Stedman and slide titled Today's Agenda; Presentation, Then Discussion as described.]

Dr. Ian Stedman: There you go, yes – Finally today, I want to speak to you a bit about what I heard directly from you. This isn't an open mic for complaints or "gotcha" anecdotes. That's not what the session is. But it's a quick opportunity for me to tell you what the common themes are that I've heard about, and what I think is causing people to feel like this topic is a real pressure point for them. Before we move on, though, I want to just take a second to remind you that I don't have a magic wand that I can wave as a visiting scholar,

Dr. Ian Stedman: and make the challenges that you're all identifying just go away. What I can do is tell you what I think is happening, from an outsider's perspective to some extent, and hopefully help advance the dialogue about where all these things are going and where they could go next.

So, after our 20-minute presentation, we'll take the rest of the hour to talk a bit less formally, Gaveen and I, and to try to address some of the questions that many of you will have submitted.

[00:06:55 Split screen: Dr. Ian Stedman and slide: A Brief History; The Ethics Era in Canadian Public Administration, by Kenneth Kernaghan; A Strong Foundation, Report of the Task Force on Public Service Values and Ethics, December 1996]

Dr. Ian Stedman: Okay, so let's talk a bit of history now. Not because I think the answers for our future lie in our past or anything like that – maybe, but that's not where I'm going – but because I think that one of the more valuable things the Deputy Minister's Task Force team report did was to actually amplify voices of dissent and disagreement. They did not just bury all the negative feedback.

Dr. Ian Stedman: Governments aren't always the best at giving oxygen to those who want to criticize them. So, the fact that this report was made public, and I think was pretty honest, sends what I see as a signal of good faith on the part of the effort that's being made. But I want to show you these two reports, so that you know that even though I think it's nice to have these conversations in the open now, they're not new conversations. The Tait report, which is the one on the right here, is from late 1996, and it actually references the Kernaghan Report, which is from mid-1996. And the Kernaghan Report is not a government sponsored report.

[00:08:10 Split screen: Dr. Ian Stedman and slide: The Ethics Era in Canadian Public Administration, by Kenneth Kernaghan; highlighted excerpt, as described.]

Dr. Ian Stedman: The Kernaghan report says in it, and I've highlighted it, you won't be able to read it, but I'll read it out loud. Quote: "Most public organizations do not have a coherent, comprehensive and easily comprehensible ethics regime designed to enhance the reality and perception of ethical behaviour". Pretty bold, pretty straightforward. And that was 1996.

So, what was the Tait Report doing? It was, in part, slide,

Dr. Ian Stedman: responding to criticisms that came from people like Kenneth Kernaghan, who was an academic.

[00:08:51 Split screen: Dr. Ian Stedman and slide: The Tait Report: A Strong Foundation, Report of the Task Force on Public Service Values and Ethics; excerpt, as described.]

Dr. Ian Stedman: But the Tait Report was also kind of admitting that, yes, that's right. We do need to figure this out. So, this quote here will probably resonate as being a little more timeless.

Quote: "One of the growing challenges for public servants is to balance upward accountability to the political process with downward or outward "accountability" to citizens, "customers" and stakeholders".

Dr. Ian Stedman: We'll get to it later, but I think some of you will read this and wonder where the public servant themselves is situated. Are they merely a vessel for service, or does their own humanity matter, too, within the calculus of what it means to uphold public service values? We'll come back to that.

[00:09:44 Split screen: Dr. Ian Stedman and slide titled: Nearly a Decade Later...; Acting on values: An ethical dead end for public servants, by John W. Langford, 2004; 2005 Treasury Board Report to Parliament:  Meeting Expectations of Canadians, Review of the Responsibilities and Accountabilities of Ministers and Senior Officials. As described.]

Dr. Ian Stedman: Nearly a decade later, after the Tait Report, we see the same challenges being confronted yet again. What does it mean for public servants to act according to some values framework? And you'll see, you probably can't read it, but from the abstract on this paper, there's this idea that core public service values are still a little bit confusing. And the author of the paper wonders if maybe there might be a different way to approach the messy topic of public service values.

Dr. Ian Stedman: So, the Treasury Board responds – this is the report on the right – pretty soon thereafter, and says, well, maybe we need to look at the role of ministers and other senior officials as well, not just public servants, in another report. So, that's good.

[00:10:31 Split screen: Dr. Ian Stedman and slide titled A Decade After Tait: Public-service values and ethics: Dead end or strong foundation? by Ralph Heintzman, 2007; A Special Calling: Values, Ethics, and Professional Public Service, by Kenneth Kernaghan, 2007. As described.]

Dr. Ian Stedman: Maybe the constant reminders to live up to core public service values can be spread around the office a little bit and go up the chain, too. So, the onus is on everyone now. This is 10 years after Tait almost. In 2007,

Dr. Ian Stedman: which is fully a decade after the Tait Report, there's still a debate among academics about whether the core values discussion is helpful in the way that everyone had hoped it might be.

And so, Ralph Heintzman suggests that we maybe need to do some reframing, which sends a signal to the public service agency and that now it's time for them to remind you it's a special calling, being a public servant. And that being a public servant is different. Of course, it is. Of course, it is. You all know that. But every few years, we need to have a conversation. We need to talk about it, because what's special about it can sometimes get lost in what's difficult about it.

So, as an aside, this report on the right was written by Kenneth Kernaghan, and he later worked with John Langford from the previous slides. The first report that was not government. And they wrote a book called the Responsible Public Servant. For those of you online watching, if you haven't heard of the Responsible Public Servant, it's almost 10 years old now. It's probably the most recent comprehensive treatise on what it means to act in the public interest and be a public servant. If you want a link to it, please just fire me an email and I'll send you a link and you can look it up.

[00:12:07 Split screen: Dr. Ian Stedman and slide titled Annex A: From Tait to Today. Timeline, as follows:

1996: Report of the Deputy Ministers' Task Force on Public Service Values and Ethics.

1999: The First Public Service Employee Survey. 

• Creation of the Office of Public Service Values and Ethics.

2000: Results for Canadians: A Management Framework for the Government of Canada.

• Auditor General's Report on the Values and Ethics in the Public Sector.

2001: Prevention and Resolution of Harassment in the Workplace.

• Internal Disclosure of Information Concerning Wrongdoing in the Workplace.

2002: A guide for Ministers and Secretaries of State.

2003: Guidance for Deputy Ministers.

• Management Accountability Framework.
• Public service Modernization Act.
• Values and Ethics Code for the Public Service.

2004: Auditor General's Report on Accountability and Ethics in Government.

• Creation of the Office of the Ethics Commissioner for the House of Commons and of the Senate Ethics Officer.
• Report of the Working Group on the Disclosure of Wrongdoing.

2004-06: The (Gomery) Commission of Inquiry into the Sponsorship Program and Advertising Activities.

2005: Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act (Bill C-11).]

• Proposed Charter of Public Service Values and Code of Conduct.

2006: Prime Minister Harper's Letter to Ministers on Accountable Government.

• Federal Accountability Act, including the creation of the Parliamentary Budget Officer function.
• Conflict of Interest Act.

2007: Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act.

2008: Accountable Government: A Guide for Ministers and Ministers of State.

• Lobbying Act.

2012: Values and Ethics Code for the Public Sector.

2015: Open and Accountable Government.

• Ministers' mandate letters made public.2020: Directive on Employment Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion.
• Directive on Duty to Accommodate.
• Directive on Telework (amended in 2023).
• 2021: Policy on People Management.

2023: The Report of the Public Inquiry into the 2022 Public Order Emergency.]

Dr. Ian Stedman: So, the point of this slide here is just to show you that the history of values and ethics goes back and forth. There's confusion, there's debate, there's disagreement, there's reframing, there's an updated dialogue. There are deputy ministers filing reports and doing reports. There's new and updated legislative regimes, and so on, and so on. So, you'll see from this timeline that the conversation about public service ethics has an active history in this country. And there is, again, no magic wand. There have been lots of mistakes, and there will always be lots of questions, especially if you're doing the job of pushing the world to change and open up new opportunities and new possibilities for each other.

[00:12:53 Split screen: Dr. Ian Stedman and slide titled Deputy Ministers' Task Team on Values and Ethics Report to the Clerk of the Privy Council.]

Dr. Ian Stedman: But we're at one of those moments, again, where we need to make sense of some of these things. They're complicated things, and we need to sit together in sometimes uncomfortable spaces in order to do this.

Dr. Ian Stedman: And that's okay. And I'd like to think that's what the Clerk hoped for, and that's what the Clerk had hoped this report would give us permission to do.

[00:13:20 Split screen: Dr. Ian Stedman and slide, as described.]

Dr. Ian Stedman: The report tells us that there are three big challenges ahead of us that have been identified.

The first is technology. I said this briefly at the fall symposium, but it bears repeating here, too. We absolutely cannot get so excited about the shiny new machines that can crunch numbers for us that we lose sight of what is in that data that we are asking it to analyze. The artificial intelligence. The public service has a duty to act in the public interest and to act according to its values.

Dr. Ian Stedman: And however complicated of a concept those are, it absolutely must mean that we do not indiscriminately use biased retrospective data to tell us how to make prospective or forward-looking decisions. The public service needs a clear, responsible AI mandate, so we're not making it up as we go and doing more harm than good.

The second thing we heard from that report was very clear that many of you see a double standard at play when it comes to who is being held accountable for following the values and ethics framework. So, we need to keep talking about accountability. And like I mentioned earlier, we need to talk about how the code is meant to be used by you. As long as you are acting in good faith in your job, you should not be worried that the code might be used as a weapon for discipline.

And finally, something that I see as the big one is that this is a more diverse public service than it has ever been. And, despite the Call to Action, many of you are noting that entrenched structures, processes, and ways of thinking and interacting still need to be challenged. The pathway to progress is often filled with friction. And for many of you making progress on the Call to Action, this has been no different.

[00:15:13 Split screen: Dr. Ian Stedman and slide titled What's Next: a quote from Clerk John Hannaford, as follows:

"Finally, I call on deputy heads to continue building on this momentum by concentrating efforts in their respective departments on:

• updating their organizational codes of conduct;
• producing departmental disclosure of wrongdoing and misconduct reports;
• requiring employees to annually resubmit conflict of interest attestations; and
• embedding consequential accountability for progress in advancing the Call to Action."]

Dr. Ian Stedman: So, what does Clerk Hannaford want to see next? He has asked for four things, and I want to drill down into two, in particular. Let's look at the first bullet and the fourth one. The first one is updating organizational codes of conduct, and the fourth one is embedding consequential accountability for making progress on a Call to Action. Those are big, important goals.

Dr. Ian Stedman:

[00:15:45 Split screen: Dr. Ian Stedman and slide titled There's Definitely Work to Do!]

Dr. Ian Stedman: But let me stop there and remind everyone that the Deputy Minister's report isn't the only place we should be looking to figure out what public servants are saying the real challenges are. It is good, and it is helpful, but it is one slice of the pie. And before we can make progress, we have to be open and honest about what the work is that we need to do.

[00:16:11 Split screen: Dr. Ian Stedman and slide: A Study on the Black Executive Community in the Federal Public Service, Dr. Rachel Zellars, MA, JD, PhD; 73 Total number of participants interviewed in the study. Of the total number of participants interviewed, 63 were current Black Executives; Public Servants Are Raising Important Concerns.]

Dr. Ian Stedman: Many of you will have seen, if not already read, Dr. Rachel Zellar's report by now. I'm not here to express an opinion on any of its content, but I do commend those of you who shared, and I think this report can teach us something about what it means to sit in that uncomfortable space together, and to be honest. We need to have similar discussions with public servants who live with disability, for example, those who are South Asian, East Asian, Indigenous, LGBTQIA+. We need to ask ourselves how to situate their stories in our work to advance equity in the public service.

[00:16:55 Split screen: Dr. Ian Stedman and slide: Audit of Employment Equity: Main Findings.

We found that employment equity groups did not remain proportionately represented throughout the recruitment process. Our audit results showed that:

• women were the only group to experience an overall increase in representation from job application to the appointment stage.
• Indigenous candidates experienced a reduction in representation at the assessment stage.
• Persons with disabilities experienced the largest drop in representation of any of the employment equity groups, with decreases in representation at the assessment and appointment stages.
• Visible minority groups experienced reductions in representation at the organizational screening and assessment stages.
• Of the visible minority sub-groups examined by our audit, Black candidates experienced a larger drop in representation than other members of visible minorities, both at the organizational screening and assessment stages. ]

Dr. Ian Stedman: Let's go back to those two bullets. How do we update codes? What I'm hearing from many of you is not that the codes don't work, but that we need to sit down and apply them to the contexts of the new public service reality. We need to do the work to really put our finger on what the challenges are, and that we should, again, be consulting on specific topics. And we need to figure out what supports are in place so that we can hit the nail on the head when we try to find solutions.

But for me, as a visiting scholar coming into this role and spending time talking to many of you and looking back on the history of public sector ethics, I think we have to quit saying we live in a rapidly changing time. I think that line has been overstated in this space, in this dialogue. I think we have to finally admit that this means our ethics and values can't be static. There's something to learn from the fact that we keep saying things are changing. We can't just update our ethics and values statements and then come back every 10 years. The infrastructure in place needs to be wraparound, dynamic, self-critical, progressive, and well resourced. You are all being asked to do more with less and productivity demands go up and resourcing doesn't.

Balancing values and ethics in your work isn't going to get easier just because we point a finger at how hard it is every few years. You need ongoing support.

Dr. Ian Stedman: When it comes to accountability for advancing the Call to Action, I wonder how many of you have had time to read the reports that your departments filed a few months ago.

[00:19:10 Split screen: Dr. Ian Stedman and slide: Accountability for Progress in Advancing Call to Action: Responses to the self-assessment on the forward direction of the Call to Action on Anti-Racism, Equity, and Inclusion in the Federal Public Service, August 2024. Message from Clerk Hannaford and Deputy Clerk Fox to all public servants:

In April 2024, deputy ministers and agency heads submitted summaries of their progress in implementing the Call to Action on Anti-Racism, Equity, and Inclusion AND their efforts to broaden the conversation on Values and Ethics.

Public servants should read these and ask:

• Who was consulted?
• Can we give feedback?
• What is expected moving forward and of whom?
• How, when and with whom will the next reports be prepared and shared?

What might this look like?]

Dr. Ian Stedman: Okay. Advancing Call to Action. So, my call to deputy ministers and agency heads would be to make sure that they're finding ways to engage on reports and plans, and to receive feedback. This isn't a checkbox exercise, and if you make it one, it will most certainly have a negative effect on public service morale and retention. But the point on this slide is to say that those reports are available, and I would encourage everyone to have a look at them and I would encourage deputy ministers to make sure that they're consulting on them.

[00:19:49 Split screen: Dr. Ian Stedman and slide: It is not enough to simply do good. A public servant must also be seen to be doing good]

Dr. Ian Stedman: Even if your report says the right thing, though, you also have to gain those insights the right way and bring them to life so that they are meaningful.

[00:20:05 Split screen: Dr. Ian Stedman and slide: I asked you to reach out to me. Here's what I heard.

The Challenges:

• Taking V&E seriously means slowing down and being thoughtful – not always easy to do when productivity demands are (unrealistically) high.
• Discussion around Return to Occupancy isn't nuanced enough to inspire broad buy-in.
• Loyalty is still important, but new social contexts & discussion needed.
• Is Code better understood as a tool to encourage "right-doing" or an instrument to prevent wrongdoing?
• V&E too easily weaponized – more clarity needed.
• Attrition high for some equity-seeking groups. Can't ignore.
• How do we call attention to ongoing systemic discrimination without being disloyal?
• Greater guidance needed on social media (e.g., Global Affairs).
• V&E needs to be better integrated into incentive structures.]

Dr. Ian Stedman: I spoke for two minutes at the fall symposium, and I asked you all to reach out to me, and you did. Many of you right away. My inbox was filled. And some of you are still on Twitter, which is interesting. A lot of us are still on Twitter, Institutional Twitter, and some of you found me there, too. And I appreciate you all reaching out. Of course, those who reached out to me were self-selecting. So, I had some really good critical discussions and I want to thank everyone who took the time to do that with me.

There are a few things I heard that I do want to repeat. I heard that you were under a lot of pressure to be productive and that that doesn't leave as much room as you need to have deeply nuanced discussions about public service values and ethics.

Another thing I heard, but I don't know what to do with it, but I do want to repeat it, is that the return to occupancy is a big sticking point for many. And you all know that I can't do anything about that. But I wanted to take this opportunity to just send a signal to those in charge that the nuance of the discussion probably needs to ramp up so that people can understand what's going on and not affect their morale.

Many of you wanted to talk about loyalty and trying to understand how you can be loyal to a government that does things you deeply disagree with. So, we'll come back to that. And I know you aren't the first generation of public servants to ask these kinds of questions, but the reasons for which you're asking them are new ones and they do deserve our attention.

I'll skip some of these bullets, but many of you did comment on the Call to Action. Your sense that it isn't getting us to where we need to go, and that there's attrition in certain equity seeking groups that is still unacceptably high. So, many of you are looking for quicker progress, particularly for people with disabilities, the attrition rates are very high still.

Dr. Ian Stedman:  To end on a more positive note, maybe, most of you agree with many of the things that have come out today that I've said that all hope is not lost, but it is time to have real conversations. Most of you want to help make things better because you know the public service matters, and that's why you're here today.

So, let's do that now. Let's have a bit of a conversation. No more slides. Let's talk a bit about identity, about values, about what it means to work in this public service, because I think that's an important thing for many people, that this public service doesn't look like the public service of 30 years ago.

[00:22:36 Split screen: Dr. Ian Stedman and slide titled Discussion. A colourful question mark fills the slide.]

Dr. Ian Stedman: This is a different public service and there are different conversations that we need to have, and so I will end there.

[00:22:36 Split screen: Gaveen Cadotte and Dr. Ian Stedman appear in video chat panels.]

Gaveen Cadotte: That's great. Thanks, Ian, for your presentation. And there's a few things I know in our questions, we're going to dive into this idea of how do we keep it dynamic? This idea of, yes, what's special about being a public servant, but also what's difficult about it from a values and ethics frame. So, we'll get into those questions now and we're going to discuss more about what you presented. But before I start, I'd like to remind everyone that there are no live questions for this event.

[00:23:20 Gaveen Cadotte appears full screen. Text on screen: Gaveen Cadotte, Privy Council Office]

Gaveen Cadotte: But what the Canada School has done is that they've taken into account the questions that were submitted in advance by our participants, so that will inform the discussion that Ian and I will have right now.

So, let's go to the first question. We probably say it too often, but the fact is that we're living in an era of –

[00:23:43 Split screen: Gaveen Cadotte and Dr. Ian Stedman appear in video chat panels.]

Gaveen Cadotte: I shouldn't say it – rapid societal change. Some days it feels like everything is shifting beneath our feet. So, how can public servants adapt their approach to neutrality and loyalty while staying true to the evolving expectations of their roles?

Dr. Ian Stedman: Yes. Thank you for that. So, let me first say thank you to everyone who's submitted their questions.

[00:24:13 Dr. Ian Stedman appears full screen. Text on screen: Dr. Ian Stedman, School of Public Policy and Administration, York University.]

Dr. Ian Stedman: To be clear, some of you submitted questions that were probably too personal and specific for us to be able to integrate into a forum like this. But that's not to say we didn't appreciate you taking the time and putting the effort in. What we tried to do was extract some of the recurring themes and to stay as true to some of the questions as we possibly could. But with respect to living in a world that is constantly shifting beneath your feet, that is a real challenge. I tried to get at this a little bit before, but it seems to me that this is the new reality. This is not a thing. It's not a blip on the radar. This is the new reality. We're advancing so quick in some spaces that it's hard one day to the next to know what's beneath you and what's ahead of you.

Public servants are going to keep being confronted with, I think, morally and technically complex problems.  And they will not always have the luxury of time or adequate resources to be happy with the position they find themselves in. I mean, we have to admit that. We can't pretend that that's not the case. But we do know questions about neutrality and loyalty. And I think it's important to remember that these are terms of art.

I think the public service is a unique space. We all know it's a unique space, but it's a space where these words have taken on very specific meaning. We sometimes forget that because the job is so demanding and, at times, I want to say morally stressful. But we're not using neutrality and loyalty in the everyday sense of the word. They have a couched meaning within the context of what it means to be in the public service. Neutrality doesn't mean that you shut up and have no opinion about anything. That's not what it means. It means that if your job is to give advice up the chain, then you do it free from personal bias. You do the research, you collect the data, you present the findings, and you speak the quote, unquote, truth to the degree that truth is knowable, of course. You acknowledge the limits of your knowledge of your advice, and you don't fill in the blanks with what you want to see, or what you think your boss wants to see or hear.

A good example is like in data science, we're going to have this conversation over and over again, I think, in the years coming. Imagine you're asked to advance an analysis for some policy idea. And so, you comb through the data, you piece together what it tells you, and you put together a brief to send it up the ladder. A good analysis is also going to point out what the data doesn't say or help you understand. A good policy analysis calls attention to the unknowns.

So, I don't think what we're talking about is a need to adapt our approach to neutrality. That's the language that was used in the question. I think we need to remember what neutrality asks of us, but also what it permits of us. And speaking truth to power is part of the job when you're doing your job. And we just have to make sure that we continue to have those conversations, so we don't think that giving true advice up the ladder is the wrong thing to do.

You also asked about loyalty, though. Sorry, I could go on all day. But I think loyalty also means something very specific. It doesn't mean that you have to agree with policy decisions that are being made. In fact, I would imagine everyone on the call right now, there's no way you could possibly agree with every policy decision all the time. It's not happening. But where I think people get hung up on the duty of loyalty, however you want to call it or coin it, is what happens when a policy decision being made does not align with the data you provided, or that you know or think you know, policymakers were provided. And that's where I think most public servants lose sleep at night. How can I support this when I know it isn't the best policy?

Those are tough conversations. You could fill in any example there of something that those of you who are online have personally experienced, where you've probably sat up at night wondering, how do I grapple with this? And this is where I think we need to do a better job supporting public servants so that they don't feel like they need to adapt, so to speak, to some new reality in order to be able to sleep at night.

I think we need a bit of – and I'll end here – a bit of a paradigm shift in how we support values and ethics, not just now, but on an ongoing basis.

[00:28:50 Split screen: Gaveen Cadotte and Dr. Ian Stedman appear in video chat panels.]

Gaveen Cadotte: That's really interesting. I'll comment a little bit and go to the next question. But it occurs to me as you're talking that, on the neutrality piece, that part of it is us to know and understand our own personal bias. And that's a self-conversation that I think, when you talk about supports to public servants, is another area. So, it's both sort of understanding self and then also, when there is that sort of friction, what kind of support can we provide?

Let's go to another question. So, strategies. What strategies can help public servants use to reconcile their personal ethics with the expectations that are outlined in the values and ethics code?

Dr. Ian Stedman: Yes, it's a great question, whoever submitted this. It's definitely one of those questions that begs for 20 different answers. But I think, important here in the absence of an institutional paradigm shift, this is definitely a question we need to be asking. I think the code is written in such a way that most people who pick it up – and look, it's not that big. It's a very quick read – most of you who pick up and look at it, it makes sense, and most of you can see how your personal values are mirrored in there.

The challenge isn't, I think, what the code is but in the consistency of its application and I think the degree to which you are all supported in trying to apply it to new situations and new challenges. I don't want to put this on public servants per se, but I do think that we need to create new spaces for open and productive dialogue with one another about values and ethics. Not once every 10 years. I think it's easy to blame – I'm going to open up the Pandora's box here – it's easy to blame working from home, or the fact that there's no water cooler chat. But that's not the problem.

The problem is that we need to systematically adjust and find new ways to do the things that we need to do. And it's not good or bad, but working remotely is different in some ways, and we need to treat it like that. And we need to bring in new tools when we need them, for the things we need them for, of course. But something I like to tell my students, and I'll bring it back around here in a second, is that, taking a course in ethics is different. In most classes, you go to the class, and you write the exam, and there's an answer that someone's taught you in class.

What I'm looking for here – ethics is hard. Ethics is not easy work. It's about the grey and not about the black and the white. Ethical or normative reasoning is not a checkbox exercise. It's a reflex that gets strengthened and supported with dialogue. So, if you're confronted with something and you haven't thought about it or talked about it before, how are you going to know how to handle it when you're right in the thick of it, out of nowhere.

So, whether you're working remotely, or sitting in the office that no one else is in sometimes, the shift we need to make is to treat dialogue about values and ethics as though it's part of the job. Not separate from, not complementary to. Having a conversation on every file about the values and ethics has to become as close to part of the job of doing that file and doing that work as it possibly can. It's not a secondary afterthought. It's built into the work. And you need to carve out the time, assign the time during a project for these discussions.

Gaveen Cadotte: That makes a lot of sense. And as you were talking, it made me think about – just even as a manager myself – when we're explaining, when I'm explaining, how decisions were made, trying to be transparent in decision making, often it's about the data, or the strategy that was put in place. But to what extent is there a conversation around how values and ethics were factored into decision making actually is another part of the conversation, I think that needs to be more consistent. How we're using them day to day. So, we talked about what people can do individually, and now I would like to discuss what can be done at the management level. So, what steps can be taken to foster this workplace culture that supports ethical decision making and values-driven leadership.

Dr. Ian Stedman: Yes, that's good. I think I may have to double down on what I was saying. I don't want to come across like I'm blaming public servants and saying it's their responsibility to find the space. There are a lot of pressures on their time.

I definitely think management needs to hear in a very direct way, and from above, that thinking about values is part of the work of being a public servant. This is not an outside problem-solving tool that you bring in when you're stuck. You need to actually create space for uncomfortable conversations all the time.

And the code? It cannot be treated like a weapon. It is something that we use as a point of departure to help us have nuanced and meaningful discussions so that we can be better, more thoughtful stewards of public trust.

Managers need to create that space, or else what we're going to see is people will continue to be afraid to say things out loud. And they won't have an opportunity to work through things until they're absolutely confronted with them, and they have no other way to go but to feel abandoned. And I think that's part of the sentiment that many people are feeling is that they haven't had the space, the safe space, to have tough conversations about the things that are popping up in their day to day. So, I think it's on managers to be much more deliberate about carving out space and time for these tough conversations.

Gaveen Cadotte: So, you just talked about dialogue, and how it can be used to address tensions around workplace values and ethics. You started to go into about how we can do a better job of encouraging more of it. What more would you say that we could do to encourage this conversation day to day?

Dr. Ian Stedman: Yes. You know, something that's been a takeaway for me as I've been here for just a couple of months, trying to figure out what's going on in the values and ethics space from the inside a little bit. A big takeaway for me is that the code can't be treated anymore as though it's some static statement of five distinct values.

I think that when we look back on it, I think this dialogue from 2023, 2024, this thing that we're doing right now, I think it has to be the dialogue in the arc of ethics dialogues, where we realize that the world is swirling around us and that we are a more diverse set of people with different backgrounds, different worldviews, different religions, different cultural and social understandings, and that we need to somehow bring all that together to help us create a more inclusive public service, and public policy incubator, for that matter.

So, I think we're at a point now where we're looking, I think, for some courage from leadership. And we need to remember that we have to – when I say courage, I mean we have to carve out space for failure and growth.

It's one of the things that is hard about being vulnerable when we're thinking about the values that we have that may conflict with the values at work. The vulnerability is hard to situate in an environment that demands productivity and punishes failure. And that's not unique to the public service. I don't want to mix it up that way, but it's an important part of – there's something that's deeply moral about the public service that other spaces might not have.

And so, we need to be conscious of that as we create the space for these moral agents acting in the public trust, public servants, to try to understand what's happening around them is to try and fail. And there has to be space for that to be okay if we're going to see growth.

Gaveen Cadotte: Yes, absolutely. I completely agree with that. That is not something we are traditionally good at, but definitely need to get better at.

So, neutrality and loyalty, as we talked about throughout this whole presentation, challenging concepts, and as you mentioned, we saw in the deputy minister's report that public servants are really, truly grappling with them. And there's a lot of effort in making sure that we're having the right conversations, that we're putting it back in the forefront. But what are the risks of us not addressing these challenging topics? It is easy to misinterpret neutrality and loyalty, and you started to sort of carve out that difference from a public service context, but could you comment on the potential risks of us not really addressing these challenging topics?

Dr. Ian Stedman: Yes, and let me say, I know it sounds rich, me sitting out here trying to tell you what neutrality and loyalty are. And I don't think that's what I want the takeaway to be is me trying to tell you that you've got it wrong, and these tensions aren't there. What I want to tell you is that we need to have this conversation because the context in which we're having it now is a new one.

But we're not going to have it if we don't actually carve out space to have it in a way that pays it the respect it deserves and gives it the space to be uncomfortable that it needs, because this is a different conversation. With respect to the risks of not doing it, I think we're starting to see it. It's hard to predict, because I think this is a different public service and the challenges are different. I alluded earlier to this quote where I asked, where does the public servant fit in? Because it was about looking up and looking down. It was not about looking in. And I think we're at a moment right now where it's important for us to be us, to bring ourselves to work. And so, we have to do some looking in as well.

And I think if we do not do this right this time, if we do not find a way to shift the paradigm, you're going to see the things that we're seeing, for example, in the disability community, which is an inability to retain talent. There's going to be attrition. There's going to be people who say the cost benefit, the value reward is not there for me in the public service, and I'm valued differently elsewhere. I'd love to give, but I can't. People will feel that there's a double standard. We've heard that. And that they don't have the support that they need, I think, to work through what are, I think, complex normative issues where we don't have the luxury of time, we're not being bestowed new resources that allow us to do more things. And so, it's hard to find the space to make decisions that you think you might get wrong, so people just don't make those decisions, or have those conversations and they take it home with them.

So, I think the real risk here is that it gets worse before it gets better, because we can't just say, yes, we hear you, every 10 years. At some point that's going to get tired and the public service is going to say, you heard us, great, either do something or your public service isn't going to be the public service that you want it to be – that's representative, and that can bring divergent voices and experiences and perspectives. So, I would worry that we do the opposite of empowering and instead we take away the power. What little there is.

Gaveen Cadotte: And that's why I think action now and continuing this dialogue is so important because of what has been voiced and what we've heard. We need to be acting on that so that public servants can see that change and be part of the changes we want to see.

So, I'm at the end of my questions, but I know that there are some points that you might want to go back and reiterate as sort of the key takeaways. So, what would you want to share with all the participants here today in terms of what you really want them to take away from this session?

Dr. Ian Stedman: Yes. Thank you. And thank you all again for spending the time with us today. I think the big takeaway for me on all the reflection I've done,

[00:42:00 Dr. Ian Stedman appears full screen.]

Dr. Ian Stedman:  and trying to piece together what this conversation means within the arc of history of what this public service is, what it's growing into, what we want it to become, I think it's that we've forgotten to find the space to talk. It's a world of productivity at all costs. Constant. The public demands more of you. Your house, your family's demands, the economy demands more. It's constant. It's constantly coming in. And we don't do ethics and values with a checkbox. It's not a checklist. It is tough, uncomfortable conversations about new challenges. And we've grown into a tech driven society that has forgotten to find space to turn off the tech, and to turn inward.

And so, I think my takeaway would be, not just the public servants who are here, but for the management who are here, to find space where the cell phones get turned off. Where the values and ethics codes cannot be weaponized, put back in their holster. Where people can take comfort in sitting together and take comfort in the discomfort of having challenging conversations. Because if you are confronted with something you haven't thought about, you're more likely to get it wrong than if you've had the time to think about it and talk it out first. I know it's not always easy to say that's possible, but at least we can try.

And if we want it to be a professional public service, where people enjoy working and who bring their best selves, we need to carve out that space. Carve out that space, genuine conversations so that we don't let more uncertainty continue to breed distrust.

[00:43:49 Split screen: Gaveen Cadotte and Dr. Ian Stedman appear in video chat panels.]

Gaveen Cadotte: Powerful. Thank you so much. Colleagues in the audience, thank you so much for participating. This concludes our event today, and on behalf of the School, we'd like to thank you, Ian,

[00:44:05 Gaveen Cadotte appears full screen. Text on screen: Gaveen Cadotte, Privy Council Office]

Gaveen Cadotte: for this really rich conversation. And again, I like to thank all of you across the country for being part of today's discussion. I hope you found this conversation very helpful and inspiring, and that it inspires actually further conversations within your teams. As we've learned today, we've got to continue the dialogue and make it part of our public service work and not an add on.

So, thank you again. I'd like to encourage you all to visit the website to keep up to date and register to all future learning opportunities. And once again, have a wonderful day. Thank you.

[00:44:45 The CSPS animated logo appears onscreen. Text on screen: canada.ca/school.]

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