One year ago, it was pretty easy to draw a map of power and influence in Ottawa.<\/p>\n
All you needed was a pencil and a ruler, and neat, straight lines pointing up and down from the Prime Minister\u2019s Office (PMO).<\/p>\n
But the new occupants of that office are making some big changes to the road map of power in Canada. If you are trying to navigate your way through policy-making in the new Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, your journey will take you down many more winding roads.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s all a bit of an adjustment for those inside and outside the halls of power who are trying to come up with policy for a government with activist aspirations, and those who are trying to influence policy decisions.<\/p>\n
\u201cI tell people who want to see me: have you talked to the minister yet?\u201d says one of Trudeau\u2019s top policy advisers, who prefers to talk off the record. \u201cThere\u2019s no sense coming to me unless you\u2019ve seen the minister first.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMy job lately with clients is to say, point blank: \u2018Why do you need to be in front of the PMO?\u2019\u201d says Andr\u00e9 Albinati, a principal at the Earnscliffe Strategy Group and head of the Government Relations Institute of Canada.<\/p>\n
The word is getting around, says Albinati, that policy-making in the new Liberal government neither starts or ends at the PMO. \u201cAbsolutely that\u2019s out there\u2026For people interacting with the government, what I\u2019ve been saying is: get ready for that,\u201d says Albinati, who was a political staffer during the Jean Chr\u00e9tien years.<\/p>\n
The switch from Stephen Harper\u2019s strong, central command to Trudeau\u2019s \u201ccabinet government,\u201d which is how insiders ask you to describe it, is still very much a work in progress. The cabinet has heard multiple times from Sir Michael Barber \u2014 a veteran of the old Tony Blair government \u2014 including at the cabinet retreat in Kananaskis, Alberta, this week. Barber is an expert on what\u2019s called \u201cdeliverology\u201d \u2013 giving citizens results they can see and measure from their governments on well-defined priorities. The policy branches across government are busy these days adapting to the new normal, reporting regularly to the Privy Council Office (PCO) on now more granular policy objectives. (Matthew Mendelsohn, a former Ontario deputy minister and ex-director of the Mowat Centre for Policy Innovation, is now leading the PCO\u2019s results and delivery unit.)<\/p>\n
One question that remains is can any government deliver results without governing from the centre? Centralization in the federal government didn\u2019t happen by accident. As the world got more complicated and demands for accountability grew, politicians responded with sharper, simpler lines of authority and action.<\/p>\n
People may have bristled under Harper\u2019s management approach, but it was simple to follow \u2014 all power flowed to and from the top. A vivid glimpse of that leadership style was provided in the trial of Senator Mike Duffy and the verdict, as well as the scathing ruling from Justice Charles Vaillancourt. Trudeau has promised to govern very differently. So things are getting a bit more complicated in the new Liberal Ottawa \u2014 policy-making is effectively being crowd-sourced. Everyone \u2014 from ministers to Commons committees to public servants, even people outside government \u2014 is being asked to come up with policy options.<\/p>\n
Everyone \u2014 from ministers to Commons committees to public servants, even outsiders to government \u2014 is being asked to come up with policy options.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The full cabinet meets at least two to three times a month, and ministers are being asked to arrive bearing memorandums to cabinet that outline the options to be thrown on the table for discussion. This month\u2019s unfolding tragedy in Attawapiskat, a remote First Nations community where there have been about 40 suicide attempts since March, is an example. The ministers of health and of Indigenous affairs were asked to come up with solutions in the past few weeks and present them to cabinet. \u201cIt\u2019s not like PMO is driving this and using the ministers for a photo op here and there. The ministers are driving our response,\u201d one PMO source said.<\/p>\n
To complicate things further, ministers have been told to collaborate with the provinces and all kinds of stakeholders \u2014 the marching orders are right there in the mandate letters. So, as often as not, when lobbyists do try to press the new government on issues, says Albinati, the ministers will pointedly ask where things stand with people affected by the proposed policy. \u201cIn that kind of activist environment, you better engage,\u201d says Albinati. \u201cYou better have a view and talk about that, and let that view be known, because, absent that, others will.\u201d<\/p>\n
As well, the Trudeau government\u2019s first budget, released in March, was filled with \u201cto be continued\u201d items \u2014 a clear signal, PMO sources say, that this government is only just getting started on some big policy decisions. The big-ticket stuff in the budget, such as the new child-benefit program, they add, only landed fully formed in the budget because the Liberals had spent two years working out the details while they were in opposition. Other matters, such as defence policy and health care, are going to be negotiated in the months and years ahead.<\/p>\n
Reportedly, when Finance Minister Bill Morneau drew up his budget drafts he deliberately left blanks in areas for full cabinet to debate and discuss. \u201cThere was more cabinet in this budget than people expected,\u201d one PMO source said.<\/p>\n
Commons committees are also taking policy into their own hands. Health Minister Jane Philpott was reminded when she appeared before the Health Committee earlier in April that the MPs have decided, on their own steam, to launch a study into whether pharmacare is feasible for Canada. Philpott gently reminded the MPs, \u201cit\u2019s not part of my current mandate,\u201d but she also said she \u201creally, genuinely\u201d looked forward to what the committee might propose.<\/p>\n
Still, there\u2019s no guarantee that cabinet will go along with committee suggestions. Take a look, for instance, at the glaring differences between the report from the Special Joint Committee on Assisted Dying<\/a> and the proposed legislation, Bill C-14<\/a>. While the committee called for a broad, expansive view on who would be allowed to end their lives with medical assistance, the legislation was far more specific, limiting the right to those who are terminally ill and rejecting the idea of advance consent. Committee chair Rob Oliphant has said he was not consulted in the drafting of the Bill, which shows that there is still a big gap between listening to parliamentarians and acting on their advice<\/p>\n
Rob Fonberg spent decades in the public service, serving as deputy minister of defence and international trade, and with Treasury Board and the PCO. For a half year before he left government, he worked on a paper about the challenges facing policy development in the public service.<\/p>\n
Fonberg agrees with others still in government that this culture switch demands that public servants rediscover some reflexes that may have atrophied over the past decade. The new Clerk of the Privy Council, Michael Wernick, told the Ottawa Citizen<\/em> bluntly that the current public service is \u201ca bit of a fixer-upper<\/a>,\u201d and that big reforms would be needed to implement Trudeau\u2019s agenda.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s in no small part a legacy of the previous decade. Veterans of Harper\u2019s years in power say that there was less interest in having the bureaucracy come up with arrays of options and more emphasis on the PMO or PCO shaping policy around one preferred course of action. Crackdowns on lobbying and conflict made ministers and officials risk-averse to holding discussions with business people and other stakeholders.<\/p>\n
Veterans of Harper\u2019s years in power say that there was less interest in having the bureaucracy come up with arrays of options.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Fonberg says that the public service can\u2019t \u201cown\u201d the market on policy advice or evidence as some perhaps once believed it did back in the good old days. The world has moved on. In his paper, presented to the PCO in 2014, he noted that \u201cjust about anyone with a smart device can participate in a policy dialogue,\u201d and that those dialogues can be informed by what\u2019s going on in other countries. \u201cStructured networks and network effects provide real-time gateways to a much larger pool of policy knowledge and ideas than has ever been available before, and at a very low cost,\u201d Fonberg wrote.<\/p>\n
PMO insiders acknowledge they\u2019re still grappling with these realities. \u201cThis is a nut we have to figure out how to crack,\u201d says one. \u201cWe\u2019re going to continue to try and figure out how we engage with outside sources of expertise so it\u2019s not just Ottawa-driven policy.\u201d<\/p>\n
The rap against all this loose, wide-open \u201ccabinet government\u201d is that it becomes less nimble. Advocates of Harper\u2019s approach argue that it may have been strict and disciplinarian, but it also avoided getting bogged down in process.<\/p>\n
Policy-makers in this PMO argue that the opposite is true \u2013 you can only be nimble if you delegate tasks widely throughout government. Harper may have been able to keep his hand on all files because he believed in minimalist government, but the Liberals came to power with a broad, wide-ranging platform.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf everything (in that agenda) is waiting for the centre to make a decision, waiting for the Prime Minister\u2019s personal involvement, you just will not be able to get enough stuff done and we will not be able to respond rapidly enough to events,\u201d one PMO source said.<\/p>\n
They acknowledge that there\u2019s still some big skepticism within the public service about \u201cdeliverology,\u201d but they insist that simply turning attention to results has already changed thinking within the bureaucracy. Right now, though, it\u2019s probably fair to say that \u201cdeliverology\u201d is still more a state of mind than a new way of doing things. The big work on results-based governance, for instance, is mainly happening in two places \u2014 in Treasury Board and in the Cabinet Committee on Agenda, Results and Communication.<\/p>\n
That committee is expected to have more to say soon about a few focused goals for the Prime Minister. Meanwhile, the minister in charge of the Treasury Board, Scott Brison, is in the midst of a complete overhaul of how departments report on their plans, priorities and past performance. Rather than have departments focus on how many dollars or public-service hours are invested in government initiatives, these reports will measure according to the tangible goals achieved. Through this perspective, for instance, a budget announcement of $8.4-billion for Indigenous issues is less significant than the goal of ending boil-water advisories on reserves (also announced in the budget). One is an abstract figure, the other is a measurable target.<\/p>\n
The last government was often accused of coming up with policies for purely political reasons to court future voters. On this score, the new government won\u2019t be that different (though the voters they\u2019re courting probably are). Dan Arnold, the polling expert who worked in the Liberal Party for two years up to the recent campaign, is now installed at PMO as the head of research and advertising, constantly analyzing how proposed policies are landing with Canadians. So yes, ultimately public opinion is going to be driving policy.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt should matter, and policy-makers on the political side should be thinking about that constantly \u2014 how will our actions be judged by the electorate in a few years\u2019 time?\u201d said one PMO source.<\/p>\n
One straight, clear road remains, then, on the more complicated map being drawn by the new Liberal government \u2013 the road to 2019 and the next election. Power may be spread out more widely throughout the corridors of government, but staying in power is still the ultimate goal.<\/p>\n
This article is part of the Policy-Making in the Trudeau Government<\/a> special feature.<\/strong><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\nDo you have something to say about the article you just read? Be part of the <\/em>Policy Options discussion, and send in your own submission. <\/em>Here is a <\/em>link<\/em><\/a> on how to do it. |\u00a0<\/em>Souhaitez-vous r\u00e9agir \u00e0 cet article ?\u00a0 Joignez-vous aux d\u00e9bats d\u2019<\/em>Options politiques et soumettez-nous votre texte en suivant ces <\/em>directives<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One year ago, it was pretty easy to draw a map of power and influence in Ottawa. All you needed was a pencil and a ruler, and neat, straight lines pointing up and down from the Prime Minister\u2019s Office (PMO). But the new occupants of that office are making some big changes to the road […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":251072,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2025-10-08T01:09:17Z","apple_news_api_id":"5e485e19-6829-4d66-b939-e7a58ae44d95","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2025-10-08T01:09:17Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AXkheGWgpTWa5OeeliuRNlQ","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[9387,9358],"tags":[9132],"article-status":[],"irpp-category":[4295],"section":[],"irpp-tag":[],"class_list":["post-264092","issues","type-issues","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-elaboration-de-politiques","category-politique","tag-politique-canadienne","irpp-category-politique"],"acf":[],"apple_news_notices":[],"yoast_head":"\n
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