Professional athletes know better than most that when a muscle isn\u2019t used it doesn\u2019t take long for atrophy to set in, no matter how well developed that muscle once was.\u00a0 And when the muscle is eventually re-engaged it can be a long and arduous road back to recovery.<\/p>\n
After ten years of Conservative government the policy analysis and policy development muscle of the federal civil service suffers a sclerosis that will take a very long time to cure.<\/p>\n
The erosion of policy capacity in Ottawa pre-dated the Harper government.\u00a0 It is a problem that has been the subject of conversation among wonks for years.\u00a0 Often its origins are pinned on the Chretien government\u2019s Program Review of the mid 1990s, through which some federal departments had their policy shops cut or even gutted.\u00a0 Moreover, throughout much of the 1990s demand for creative policy in Ottawa was weak, especially anything that cost money, due to the deficit control obsession.<\/p>\n
But while the weakening of policy analysis and advice in Ottawa began at least twenty years ago, it accelerated radically during the Harper period.\u00a0\u00a0 There are several reasons for this.<\/p>\n
The Harper Conservatives began their time in office with a deep mistrust if not disdain for the federal public service generally, and those charged with analyzing and providing advice on policy, specifically.\u00a0 This skepticism toward bureaucrats was also evident when the Mulroney Progressive Conservatives came to power in 1984.\u00a0 However, it quickly dissipated when the challenging realities of governing took hold, and once Prime Minister Mulroney and his Ministers realized that their opinion of officials as a bunch of Liberal leaning wets was wrong.\u00a0 Unlike the Mulroney government, however, the aversion to public service policy analysis and advice resident in the Harper government did not diminish over time\u2014it was more like a genetic condition than a virus that would run its course.\u00a0 As a result muscle atrophy in the policy functions of the public service was compounded during the Harper period.<\/p>\n
Another major cause of this disease stemmed from the fact that a large chunk of the Harper government\u2019s program was driven by ideology and populism, not evidence or analysis.\u00a0 The government\u2019s criminal justice, tax policy and foreign affairs agendas are the most obvious examples of this kind of thinking.\u00a0 A Prime Minister and Ministers that are animated primarily by ideology and populism, favour what one might term \u201cpolitical policy\u201d, and are relatively impervious to evidence, analysis and argument, are not the kinds of decision makers the public service are equipped to deal with.\u00a0 This further weakened the public service\u2019s policy muscles.<\/p>\n
The Conservatives also had a greater penchant than their predecessors to seek policy advice from experts and consultants outside the public service.\u00a0 The most notable manifestation here was in the government\u2019s preference to set up blue ribbon panels or commissions on all manner of important policy areas in which the government was not hamstrung by its ideology.\u00a0 Notable files in this connection were support to the aerospace industry, R&D policy, defence procurement reform and even Canada\u2019s role in Afghanistan. \u00a0\u00a0While the panels addressing these and other issues were staffed by public servants, officials tended to provide secretarial and organizational support more than analysis or policy advice.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, the private sector consulting industry\u2014firms like KPMG, Price Waterhouse Coopers, Deloitte and Ernst and Young–which prior to the Harper government were bit players in policy analysis and advice to the federal government, became lead actors on many key policy stages over the past ten years, sidelining the professional public service.<\/p>\n
Finally, under Mr. Harper\u2019s watch, there were whole swaths of public policy\u2014notably in health and the environment\u2014where the government had virtually no agenda at all.\u00a0 With no priorities to develop creative policy options for, the public service policy muscle got very flaccid indeed.<\/p>\n
But what does all this history mean for the new Liberal government?<\/p>\n