A Biography of Canada's Public Service.

Former Clerk, Jocelyne Bourgon, wrote a book that deserves reading.

This is a wise book. More precisely, it is a book filled with wisdom. Not the received wisdom one typically gets about government and governance, but the measured, considered wisdom of someone who has ‘been there, done that’.

Jocelyne Bourgon ,the first woman Clerk of the Privy Council, Cabinet Secretary, and Head of the Public Service, broke barriers in her public service career. That is exceptional. But her progression through the ranks was not. Which makes her book - part memoir, part history, part political science - not just intriguing as a genre but valuable as a guide. It is really a biography of Canada’s public service through those years.

She was not just present at the crux of Canada’s most seminal debates and decisions but a central participant. Which makes her perspective of what happened and what lessons to draw from those moments so valuable for future governance practitioners. From the point person for Prime Minister Brian Mulroney on the constitution and national unity to the catalytic driver for Prime Minister Jean Chretien’s program and service review, Ms. Bourgon has stories and lessons to share.

They are worth reading. More importantly, they are worth pondering.

Ms. Bourgon’s reputation is that of a consummate public servant. Her book is therefore professional not confessional. Aptly titled “A Public Servant’s Voice”. In a way, she did it all. From a first job as a summer student in the public service to the head of it, Ms. Bourgon experienced all the peaks and valleys that come with an immersive career in the federal government. Which is why she decided to structure her book chronologically, following her ascension from one role and moment to another. She pauses along the way to draw out lessons and learnings relevant today.

This makes her book not a biography of herself but really a biography of Canada’s public service during those times. For those of us who lived through or experienced these moments, it is an historical reminder of what occurred from a central player’s perspective. For those who did not, it is both revealing and reminding that what occurred before - fiscal challenges, national unity strains, public service pressures - exist still.

Be warned … this is no ‘insider’ book dishing out secrets about what ‘really’ happened. Ms. Bourgon remains true to her public service oath. But for governance practitioners, A Public Servant’s Voice, is a valuable guide to both the possibilities but the constraints of good government in Canada. It is a relentlessly positive book. Ms. Bourgon wears the notion of public service boldly on her sleeve. She believes in the fundamental purpose of our governing institutions and system of government.

Ms. Bourgon is no ideologue on weaponizing government power one way or the other. That is not her style. Rather, she teaches as she tells. Which is entirely in keeping with the driving force behind the creation of the Canadian Centre for Management Development, now the Canada School on Public Service, which she helmed as its first president. If Canada has some of the most professional public servants in the world today, much is due to Jocelyn Bourgon.

Having been in PM Mulroney’s PMO with the constitution as one of my shared files and attending Cabinet regularly, I experienced deja vu and mild PSTD from Jocelyn’s chapter on those days, “Canada is Calling”. [I wrote my own tale of those events and others years ago, thankfully]. Still her insights bite, because they ring true. She calls the decision of First Ministers, for example, to hold a referendum on the Charlottetown Accord without a public accompanying legal text wrong. “This was a mistake.” she emphasizes in italics. She points out the inexorable demands on all of getting an agreement and the public scheduling pressures that resulted in the problematic Pearson Accord, with all provinces but Quebec concurring, and the fallout that ensued. Mulroney was not present as he was in Germany at a G7 summit. Travelling with the PM at that time, it fell to me to inform him the morning after (due to the time difference) that this had occurred. He was not amused, to put it lightly.

But that’s my story, not hers. Ms. Bourgon’s is more fluid in recounting this and other episodes that formed governing decisions in Canada at that time. She weaves them into a narrative spine about good governance and public service. That is the contribution her book truly makes. Public servants, then and now, will recognize both what ails and animates doing public service in Canada today.

Ms. Bourgon is both a public service practitioner and a public service reformer. She is clear-eyed, if optimistic, about the state of public service governance today. Thankfully, she doesn’t just bring receipts, she offers solutions. Part of those solutions are reminders of the actual governance roles of the core institutions of responsible government - cabinet, ministers, deputies, PCO, PMO, and the prime minister - and how they are supposed to work. “In Praise of a Cabinet System of Government” is a typical section. Importantly, she writes is as a form of ‘after action’ report on the most consequential set of decisions she shepherded as Clerk, the 1994-1997 program and service review period. For her, the system worked. Not as a matter of course, but because it was adapted to work by a prime minister and his office, some key ministers, and a clerk and cabinet secretary. In conclusion, she makes this trenchant observation that should be read at the start of every cabinet meeting and meetings of deputy ministers:

“A successful public policy is one that, once implemented, achieves the desired policy outcomes while minimizing the disruptions, unintended consequences, and costs for society.”

Too often we have seen peformative public policy; governing by announcements, without due regard paid by either the public service or the politicians to how things get implemented. Ms. Bourgon reminds us of certain governance basics. She also reminds us that the usual tools used by governments for fiscal management don’t work all that well. “There had been twenty-two unsuccessful expenditure reduction exercises.” during the 15 years previous to the Chretien program and service review. Setting deficit targets, salary freezes, public service attrition - alone or in combination, none had worked. Deliberate choices on what government programs to preserve and what are to be eliminated are what’s required. If you are to “regain fiscal sovereignty”, in her words, more deliberate actions are required. This seems an interesting augur for the current government’s own efforts.

As Head of the Public Service, Ms. Bourgon strived to reform how it operates. This is the third hat in the triad worn by the Clerk and Cabinet Secretary. It is fundamentally, a stewardship hat. But it is a hat “with no legal authority and few levers to bring about change in a crowded space”, she says. While changes in public service management and delegated authority has been made since her time, one thing has not: understanding of the public service.

“In my opinion, there are currently no instruments that would allow the Parliament of Canada, the Prime Minister of Canada, and the senior public service to have an informed view of the state of the public service in Canada.”

She takes us through the various public service reform exercises and efforts of those years. Useful fodder that reminds that the fundamental challenges and problems bedevilling good public service performance remain.

Befitting the unique perches she held and the long thinking she has done about public service governance, Ms. Bourgon offers ideas for how to navigate “a more challenging and dangerous time than what I experienced as Deputy Minister and Clerk.” I’ll let her section headings speak for themselves:

• Rethinking Canada’s International Trajectory

• Rebalancing Canada’s Domestic Trajectory

• Ending a Boom-and-Bust Approach to Fiscal Management

• Let Ministers be Ministers

• A Unified Public Service

• A United Centre of Government

• Reducing the Cost of Compliance

• The Public Service Footprint.

There are nuggets in each of these. It would not be an exaggeration, that the former Clerk speaks to a smaller, focused and meritorious public service that privileges talent, knowledge, competence, and excellence over recent trends of politicization, bloat, confusion, and central agency overreach that too often overwhelms and gets in the way of effective public service management. ‘I feel your frustration’ would say most public servants themselves.

“Governing is a search for balance.” Jocelyn Bourgon

A Public Servant’s Voice winds up balanced too. It is a story of public service related from the perspective of, yes, just one public servant; but one who travelled a remarkable journey through public service life. Their are lessons and learnings to be had in this book. I recommend reading it.