Notes for an Address by
Mel Cappe
Clerk of the Privy Council and Secretary to the
Cabinet
to the
Institute of Public Administration of Canada (IPAC)
Annual Conference
Edmonton, Alberta
May 7, 2001
Check Against Delivery
Introduction
- IPAC is, of course, an important organization in the life of those who are interested in the questions facing public administration in Canada today.
- In fact, IPAC’s slogan "dedicated to excellence in public administration" is what I want to focus on today.
- But we shouldn’t.
- We should celebrate our public services and the fact that they are an essential part of the strength, innovation and excellence of this country.
- We have the luxury of taking some things for granted, but this is not the case for all countries. For several countries in the Americas, for example, stamping out corruption is their number one priority.
- One is that governments face new policy, program and service delivery challenges that require public servants at all levels to be up to speed on the transformations reshaping our society and economy and to be responsive to them.
- My second point is that strong, representative and modern public services are critical to ensuring our success as a country and the success of each individual in the knowledge economy and society.
- We need public services in which people continuously aim to be innovative and achieve excellence in all they do.
- To get there, we must build a culture of excellence and demand excellence from ourselves and from those around us.
- People are central to building a modern public service and to ensuring that Canada remains at the forefront of the E-Frontier, able to continue serving Canadians with excellence in the knowledge economy and society.
Responding to a Time of Transformation
- I have been a supporter of the transformation to E-Government, even while being quite clear on the challenges we face and the issues that have to be resolved.
- In fact, not long ago, after a speech I gave on the subject, I was granted the title of "e-clerk" by Reg Alcock, Member of Parliament for Winnipeg South.
- I come by that ability honestly.
- After all, my mother is called "E-granny" by her grandchildren because of how adept she is with e-mail.
- GOL is about using information and communications technology to improve services and access to them.
- E-Government is about the changing relationship between government and citizens.
- A world with changes that require faster, more comprehensive responses.
- Changes that trigger the kinds of policy and program issues that we increasingly deal with, ones that are horizontal in nature and require approaches involving many departments and many partners.
- Canadians expect a different approach to service delivery. They are looking for a more convenient way of interacting with government.
- Those of you who filed your taxes through the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency’s NetFile service in the past few weeks have a first-hand sense of how far we’ve come in a very short time.
- So, fulfilling our commitment to provide high quality services to Canadians also demands that we understand what can be done with today’s technologies.
- But let me make a distinction. While we can learn from the private sector in the area of electronic service delivery, I do not believe that we should be more business-like. We should be more government-like. Afterall, we are held to a higher standard than the private sector when it comes to issues such as privacy, security and accountability.
A Modern Public Service
- They are examples of why an innovative and excellent public service matters.
- "to assist the Government in fulfilling its responsibilities, Canada must have a public service distinguished by excellence and equipped with the skills for the knowledge economy and society."
- that is as diverse and inclusive as the communities it serves, whether for all of Canada, for a province or for a municipality;
- that embraces continuous learning and liberates the potential of its people;
- that is brimming with ideas — with leaders at all levels that challenge themselves and others to do better;
- where people work in teams and networks, breaking down barriers;
- that is dynamic and adaptive, flexible and responsive;
- that values, encourages and rewards excellence and innovation;
- that is risk smart — where people take risks, but know what risks to take — and gets results for Canadians.
- that uses technology in innovative ways to better serve Canadians; and
- that the best and brightest want to join and where people see real prospects for enriching careers and the opportunity to "make a difference".
- You know that many organizations in the private sector are responding to competitive pressures in similar ways.
- Pressures from customers, from stakeholders, pressure to attract the best possible people to work there.
- So what’s special about government here?
- So, when we work in teams and break down barriers to collaboration, we do so in ways that respect the democratic values of our Westminster parliamentary democracy, such as accountability of ministers.
- When we make decisions, we respect the interest of citizens in the best use of public funds.
- It means that we consider a multitude of public interests and focus on the public good, not our own personal interests.
- It means that we don’t just look for ways to use new technologies to improve what we do, but we fully take into account the issues such as privacy and security that matter so deeply to Canadians and to elected officials.
- Where the "E" stands for "E-nabled" and what we enable is the creativity of our people, grounded in the skills, mind sets and leadership approaches for a knowledge economy and society.
- In a time when we face a looming wave of retirements and we need an evolving mix of skills and abilities among our workforce to provide high quality advice to ministers and service to Canadians, we can’t get to where we want to go without some major changes in human resources management.
- So we are pushing to achieve excellence and innovation in how we manage the people side of our work.
Modernizing the Public Service of Canada
- "An activist government requires a first class public service. I am proud of our public service. The government will take all the steps necessary to ensure that we continue to have the talent necessary for a public service that is committed to excellence."
- We are focussing on recruitment, retention and learning.
- Because diversity is valuable to a public service — it is part of being truly innovative.
- It is part of showing that not only are our doors open to all Canadians, but that they are open because we value what each individual brings to the job from his or her own life.
- We want them to join the Public Service to get valuable experience and we hope that many of them will want to stay for a career.
- We have been pushing our departments to take full advantage of the flexibility that already exists in our systems to do more to recruit people and to create opportunities for them.
- But that’s not sufficient, if we want the strongest possible public service.
- Since I know that most of you are not federal employees, I’ll tell you that is code for "our human resources legislation is out of step with today’s environment".
- The E-Frontier challenges us to modernize our institutions and our governance.
Modernizing our Legislative Framework
- A framework that was created in an era when it was believed the best way to ensure that managers respected the merit principle was through detailed rules and procedures.
- That era is gone. The demand to respect competence and merit is not gone, but the existing rules-based approach is out of sync with E-Government and the knowledge economy and society.
- I won’t go into a lot of detail about this process but I do want to make a few points that may be relevant to most of you.
- It will be oriented to moving more authority into the hands of managers at all levels, along with the expectation that they live up to our values.
- It also recognizes that we have a wealth of studies and initiatives over time that have looked at how we manage human resources in government.
- First, we had the Glassco Royal Commission back in 1962, which said -- "Let managers manage".
- Later, we had the Lambert Royal Commission back in 1979, which said -- "Make managers manage".
- Most recently, we had the Auditor General who said a few months ago -- "Please . . . manage!"
Why Modernization Matters
- Why does modernizing public services really matter?
- After all, we don’t have straightforward competitors to worry about.
- Public services can slowly become detached from the real priorities of citizens and of their society and economy.
- The result — the quality of services to Canadians and of policy advice to Ministers would be less than they should.
- In a time when many key issues facing our country require strategic public sector involvement and choices, we can’t afford anything less than the best in our public service.
- We wanted to make a difference to our communities, our provinces and our country.
- Like many of you, I didn’t really expect to stay on permanently, when I joined Treasury Board Secretariat at the start of my career in the mid-1970s.
- But I did because the work is interesting, the people are fascinating, the challenges are there, and I have been able to do fulfilling things.
- It offers some compelling opportunities to do things in new ways and to do some things better than ever.
- It is all part of building an environment that attracts the best people possible.
- It is part of building an environment that offers challenges and opportunities to contribute to building excellence.
- It is an environment in which E-Government is not just Electronic Government, or Enabled Government, it is Excellent Government, too.
Conclusion
- People are central to building a modern public service and to ensuring that Canada remains at the forefront of the E-Frontier, able to continue serving Canadians with excellence and innovation in the knowledge economy and society.
- That is why a focus on excellence and innovation are so central to becoming a modern public service — that is, an E-Government capable of meeting the challenges of the E-Frontier.
- We want to attract, keep and foster the kind of people who can think outside the box and work with the transformation of E-Government in Canada. They will be the ones who help us tap the power of new ideas, new partnerships and new technologies to link people, ideas and options.
- I challenge you to do more work in the area of E-Government.
- Almost every policy field and organization is being profoundly affected by technology, and government is not immune.
- What is clear is that E-Government is about transformation — it will transform how public servants work, relate to each other, do business and engage citizens and other partners.
- Becoming a modern E-Government is the future and we all have a role to play in helping define that future so that Canada and Canadiens are the real beneficiaries.
Thank you.