General versus Economist

[Edward Campbell]

Here, reproduced under the fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act, is an editorial from today’s National Post; I considered posting this in the RCMP board but my key point relates to security/intelligence and the Privy Council Office, thus it’s in this thread, despite its age.

My emphasis added.

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/editorialsletters/story.html?id=ae7b120d-ceeb-4750-8e6d-aaff08a85212

Depoliticize the RCMP

National Post
Published: Tuesday, April 03, 2007

On Sunday, Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day pledged a thorough and prompt investigation of allegations that senior ranks of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police were rife with corruption, that senior Mounties and civilian employees may have taken money from the force's pension and insurance funds and then -- because they had authority to investigate themselves -- obstructed probes into their possible misconduct.

Good. Getting to the bottom of these allegations is the least the government can do for the men and women of the RCMP who risk their lives keeping the peace in much of Canada. But if Mr. Day truly wants to tackle what is behind the possible wrongdoing, he will have to cast his net much wider. In the past two decades, our national police force has seen its independent, upright culture replaced by a bureaucratic mindset. If the minister wants to return the Mounties to what they once were, he needs to investigate everything that has gone wrong with the RCMP, not just the pension revelations.

The latest crisis stems from an Auditor-General's report, released in November, that concluded that the Mounties' pension fund was rampant with spending abuses, nepotism and money misdirected to pay for general budget items. Five RCMP officers and a whistleblower who lost her job, late last month accused senior management, including former commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli, of corruption and of derailing at least two investigations into what happened to the money, including one criminal probe. These witnesses shocked members of the House of Commons public accounts committee by playing recordings of telephone calls in which participants describe investigations that were delayed, misdirected or stopped entirely as investigators moved toward senior uniformed and civilian executives.

Since their stunning testimony, it has come to light, for instance, that a seven-member internal audit team concluded as early as 2003 that "various activities related to pension administration would not withstand the scrutiny of the Canadian public or that of RCMP members contributing to the pension plan," and that "an improper allocation of costs might be perceived as a misappropriation or misuse of pension funds." Still, it is alleged, senior Mounties, including Mr. Zaccardelli, knew of these actions and did nothing. Or worse, they knew and attempted to cover up the truth.

But sadly the troubles extend well beyond the pension and insurance funds. The Airbus witch hunt against former prime minister Brian Mulroney, the Mayerthorpe ambush, the Adscam contributions to the Mounties' 125th anniversary celebrations, the errors that led to Maher Arar being sent to Syria and tortured, even the force's handling of the Auberge Grand-Mere scandal have all called into question its investigatory competence and its coziness with its political masters.

Since 1984, the commissioner has been a deputy minister, first in the Solicitor-General's department and most recently in Public Safety. This change was made to end the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s when an independent RCMP became obsessed with undermining the Quebec separatist movement and engaged in several questionable attempts to embarrass or disrupt its campaigns.

But making the commissioner a bureaucrat has been a cure that has proven worse than the disease. Instead of putting the force's commitment to impartial policing first, senior Mounties have often allowed themselves to become embroiled in Ottawa's internecine game-playing.

Reid Morden, the former head of the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service, recently told the Senate committee on national security and defence how this has compromised the RCMP's performance of its duties. Along with CSIS, Mr. Morden warned, the RCMP "remains too close to the political process," not just because the commissioner is now a civil servant, but also because on counter-terrorism and national security, both agencies report directly to the Privy Council Office, which is too closely aligned with the Cabinet's political operations.

Paul Palango, author of The Last Guardians: The Crisis in the RCMP, wrote last December that "the current culture of the force at every level ? can be described as inexperienced, undersupervised and largely unaccountable."

He and others -- including many retired officers who recall the force before it became a branch of the bureaucracy -- have recommended spreading the RCMP's current myriad duties among several forces. The Mounties should, for instance, cease to provide contract policing for most provinces and compel those provinces without their own provincial police force to set up their own. The special branch of the RCMP that guards Parliament Hill, diplomats and government entities should be converted into a separate Protective and Preventive Service along the lines of the U.S. Secret Service, and Fisheries and Oceans, Customs and the Canadian Border Service, among others, should police their own operations, rather than having to call in Mounties whenever an armed response or a criminal investigation is needed. According to Mr. Palango, the RCMP could then "be converted into a highly skilled FBI-type force with a clear mandate and focus, which would include a counterintelligence capability.

"Most important, the RCMP must be disconnected from the political process. The commissioner should not be a deputy minister, and the government should not be directing RCMP policies." Instead, the Commissioner should be hired by an independent, non-partisan review agency and report directly to it or to Parliament.

The pension scandal in the RCMP is serious, but the problems go well beyond whether or not someone dipped into the kitty. If Mr. Day is serious about preventing this type of crisis from recurring, he needs to change the Mountie culture, and that will require a top-down overhaul.

© National Post 2007

The National Post has it right: the Chief Commissioner should be the apolitical chief of a uniformed service – just as the CDS is the chief of the Canadian Forces.  There was (still is, I suppose) a strong lobby in Ottawa which was always uncomfortable with the paramilitary origins, traditions and (less and less) management of the RCMP.  They may have some valid concerns but they went too far.

With all possible respect, Reid Morton is wrong.  The Privy Council Office is exactly the right place, in my opinion the only place, from which to direct security/intelligence (and defence) matters.  There is no doubt that the Clerk of the Privy Council has finely tuned political antennæ – as (s)he must have in order to balance the mandarins’ long term strategic goals and plans with the short term priorities of the elected government of the day.  That is the nature of our Westminster style parliamentary democracy, as it has been since Robert Cecil was Queen Elizabeth I’s clerk.  The management of the RCMP and CSIS can be safely left to the Deputy Minister in the Public Safety ministry – as the management of DND/CF is left to DM Ward Elcock.  The business of setting goals and priorities, however, as with the goals and priorities of the CF and CSE are way too important to be left to anyone except the Prime Minister’s top  official – the Clerk of the Privy Council.  Reid Morton’s position is popular, I think amongst many people in the security/intelligence community but it is also destructive –t is, essentially, an attempt at empire building which failed when Morton et al were serving and ought not to succeed now.

In sum: by all means, Prime Minister: decouple the CC from the civil service - make her/him analogous to the CDS, but do not change the role of the PCO in leading all defence, security and intelligence services.

 

[Reccesoldier]

Lynch is not the enemy; he is not even – as he was when he was DM Industry - a competitor.  The best description for Lynch viz à viz Elcock and Hillier is Boss.  Lynch is the Clerk of the Privy Council.  His responsibilities (for government, all of government) and his powers (over government, all of government)  are probably exceeded only, and only slightly, by PM Harper’s.  Lynch has and will have far more to say about defence policy than will Gordon O’Connor and Ward Elcock and Rick Hiller combined.  That is as it should be.

However little PM Harper's powers may seem to trump Lynch's there is no doubt, nor can there be any question that if the PM says jump, Lynch will in the end ask how high.  All the intelligence, skill and savvy the man has will not stop the PM from firing his ass in a heartbeat if he were to confound the will of the duly elected government.

If this is not the case, our nation is already dead because our democracy is a sham.

To the meat of my argument though...

I think Edward that you are writing the PM off as being softer on defence than he is.  Think about this politically. 

Except in circles like this site and other defence friendly areas defence is at best a distant third or fourth choice with most Canadians behind, health care, the economy, social programs and perhaps the environment.

PM Harper is no dummy, he knows this, but he is also a conservative minded politician who (if his true feelings were to be discovered) would display typical conservative ideals on the reasons and rational behind the interaction of sovereign states.  In other words he believes that; States are rational actors that act in their own best interest (witness his governments support of Israel last summer) and a good deal of soft and diplomatic power still rests in a nations ability to project hard power where and when required (Canada's reemergence on the world stage corresponds to our increased share of the heavy lifting in Afghanistan).

However much PM Harper believes in this traditional IR theory and no matter how much the goals of General Hillier's transformation correspond to his own, the man is a skilled and dedicated politician in the truest sense of the word.  He will I think continue to downplay defence as a priority in the public eye while guiding and nurturing it's continued growth below the radar of Joe and Jill Canadian.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s National Post is an interesting rumour dressed up as a news story:

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/canada/story.html?id=d8fffa44-b4c5-4057-917a-0cb71bb74c88

PM's trusted aides may move on
Lynch, Brodie 'have their fingers in everything'

John Ivison, National Post
Published: Saturday, June 30, 2007

OTTAWA -Summer has arrived on Parliament Hill with severity. Mounties mill around in preparation for the Musical Ride on Canada Day, rather than to testify before a parliamentary committee about the administration of their pension fund.

Work in the capital has come to a near standstill. Thousands of public servants stew in downtown office blocks, as they idle toward their summer vacations. In between water-cooler breaks and surfing the Internet, they chat about their political and bureaucratic masters. Some of the talk is invented; some enlarged upon. But if even half is true, the much-heralded Cabinet shuffle expected this summer could be overshadowed by behind-the-scenes changes that would have far greater impact on the governance of the country.

The latest rumours surround Kevin Lynch, the head of Canada's public service as Clerk of the Privy Council, and Ian Brodie, the Prime Minister's chief of staff. The speculation suggests that both men will leave their jobs in the near future-- Mr. Lynch to succeed David Dodge, who has announced he will not seek a second seven-year term as Governor of the Bank of Canada in January, and Mr. Brodie back to the University of Western Ontario, where he is a tenured professor on leave of absence.

Neither rumour is completely outrageous and, if true, the repercussions would be felt throughout the government. Though not well-known to the general public, these two men constitute Prime Minister Stephen Harper's real inner circle. "Brodie and the Clerk have their fingers in everything," said one Conservative.

Mr. Lynch's qualifications for the job as governor are impeccable: An economist by training, he began his career at the Bank of Canada. He then moved into government, where he became deputy minister of Industry and deputy minister of Finance before becoming Canada's representative at the International Monetary Fund.

While the bank job would be a fitting bookend to a brilliant career, insiders suggest Mr. Lynch believes he still has unfinished business in the Clerk's job, where he has made renewal of the public service one of his priorities. "He's not interested at this time," said one source close to Mr. Lynch.

If he isn't keen to jump, it seems unlikely he'd be pushed, even though the Prime Minister's admiration for him is not shared universally around the Cabinet table. Jim Flaherty, the Finance Minister, is said to feel particularly aggrieved that the bureaucracy convinced him to include a new measure to eliminate the deductibility of interest incurred by foreign affiliates of Canadian companies in his last budget. The idea has apparently been proposed and rejected on a regular basis since the 1970s. Mr. Flaherty was forced to water down the proposal after an outcry by business.

Mr. Brodie declined to comment on the rumours but his departure would also come as a major surprise. The 39-year-old political science professor has been on a leave from UWO since 2003, when he became chief of staff in Mr. Harper's office while in opposition. Grappling with the Conservative agenda and message control has had its challenges but there is widespread belief that Mr. Brodie -- typically described as "smart, capable and decent" --has done a good job.

If he does leave the Prime Minister's Office, it may simply be because he has tired of the political life and wants to return to academia. As one Conservative put it: "The chief of staff 's job is mainly making sure people are on the right trains, planes and automobiles. Ian is not an operations kind of guy."

The timing might also suit the Prime Minister, who is said to have been counselled by Brian Mulroney to do what he did when he brought in Derek Burney as his chief of staff in 1987. Mr. Burney acted as an agent of change, clearing out the people who had helped elect Mr. Mulroney and replacing them with a team better equipped to help him govern.

Both rumours may just be the products of bored imaginations. But the desire to freshen up the face of government before the next election on the part of Mr. Harper does seem real. When he was asked about a Cabinet shuffle last week, particularly the fate of Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor, his response was equivocal. Sources continue to suggest that Mr. O'Connor will be replaced eventually, most likely by Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day, with Treasury Board President Vic Toews moving into Mr. Day's shoes.

It is expected Mr. Flaherty will remain Finance Minister but there is increasing speculation that Jim Prentice, the Indian Affairs Minister, may push for a new job. He is said to have been offered, and declined, Environment earlier this year but may now feel he has made enough progress in Indian Affairs that he can leave with his head held high.

Mr. Harper may also want to use a shuffle to reward some of the more capable backbenchers, in the interests of caucus discipline.

With the rising of the dog star Sirius next week, which marks the real beginning of the dog days of summer, speculation of an ever more bizarre nature can be expected. How about the suggestion that Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon might replace Premier Jean Charest as leader of the Quebec Liberals? Or the speculation that Garth Turner might kiss and make up with Mr. Harper and return to the Conservative ranks in triumph as Finance Minister? The former is a real rumour. The latter was made up to give readers a foretaste of the tall tales coming their way over the next two, news-lean months.

© National Post 2007

If I had to guess I would guess that Brodie goes for the reasons Ivison suggests: he’s overwhelmingly overqualified to be an ‘operational’ kind of guy in the PMO.  When Chrétien was PM the Chief of Staff was more powerful because Chrétien’s Clerks (Bourgon, Cappe, and Himmelfarb) were all second or even (Bourgon) third rate – he did not want, would not tolerate a ‘proper’ Clerk.  (Don’t get me wrong – Jocelyne Bourgon, Mel Cappe and Alex Himmelfarb are bright, hard working people – worth a six or even seven figure salary in the private sector - but none were anywhere near being the ‘best’ available choices for Clerk.)  Being Chief of Staff in a PMO which must deal with Lynch’s PCO doesn’t give Brodie the kind of power or influence that Jean Pelletier enjoyed.

I would also guess that Lynch may well not be ready to move.  He might feel compelled – I believe he has a very strong sense of duty – to move IF he thinks there are no really good choice for the Governor’s job, but I think there are a few good choices out there, willing and able to serve. 

 

[Greymatters]

Depoliticize the RCMP
National Post
Published: Tuesday, April 03, 2007

An excellent idea except for one major problem - the top RCMP boys like having control of all that power and you'll need a pretty big political crowbar to pry them out of provincial and departmental policing.

 

[Osotogari]

One thing that that was mentioned that I do agree with is that DND has morphed into a hugely bureaucratic and inefficient machine.  I'd like to see that change, and if a few people get downsized so that training funds and procurement funding can be freed up I'd be happy.

 

[Cdn Blackshirt]

I'm actually torn on a couple of issues.

Everything I had heard about Lynch was that he is a brilliant man and economist.

What confuses me therefore is the ham-handed fashion in which a number of key economic policy issues have been handled:
1)  Income Trusts - I agree with the fact they needed to be taxed just like corporations.  Having the entire economy shift to an income trust model which prioritizes cash distribution over growth (which is what provides for employment growth) would've been a long-term nightmare.  That being said, what they needed to do was put a moratorium on new trust filings until public consultations could be held, then ensure there was lots of time for people to "read the winds" in order to get diversified before dropping the hammer.  Right policy.  God-awful roll-out which hurt a lot of people for no good reason.
2)  The 2007 Budget in general.  Politically driven, not economically driven.  Spending increases where there should've been none and not enough debt elimination. 
3)  The foreign interest deductibility rule revision.  Again, a roll-out with significant tax implications that Flaherty has now had to completely back-track on the move.

Bottom Line:  Considering Lynch's key role at the time of all these decisions, either Harper locked him out for not falling inline, or he presided over some serious screwing of the dog.  I guess history will eventually let us know which one of the two was accurate.


Matthew. 

 

[Edward Campbell]

I'm actually torn on a couple of issues.

Everything I had heard about Lynch was that he is a brilliant man and economist.
...
Bottom Line:  Considering Lynch's key role at the time of all these decisions, either Harper locked him out for not falling inline, or he presided over some serious screwing of the dog.  I guess history will eventually let us know which one of the two was accurate.

It is important to remember that the Clerk’s responsibility is for the ‘machinery of government.’  (S)he ensures – as, by law, (s)he is bound to do – that the decisions taken or policies announced by any minister or department are consistent with the agreements made in cabinet.

Cabinet government, in our Westminster style system, is a collegial enterprise.  Once a policy or course of action is agreed all ministers are required, by Constitutional custom (a hugely powerful force) to support the government or resign forthwith.  While all the power, statutory and prerogative, rests, eventually, with the Prime Minister, it is impossible for him to direct like an 18th century Prussian drill master.  The PM works much more like a 21st century infantry battalion CO: exercising his undoubted authority through a ‘regimental staff’ which, in his case, means the PMO (for politics) and the PCO (for policy and machinery of government) – rather like the way the battalion CO uses the Ops O, adjutant and RSM to manage the day-to-day affairs, major and minor, of the unit.

Policy coherence is one of the Clerk’s key concerns.  This has two aspects:

1. Long term – between governments; and

2. Short term – within this government.

Sometimes the two aspects can clash.

Every government has priorities.  One hopes most Canadians heard about them during the election campaign – as part of the winning party’s platform.  The country also has priorities – matters of concern, even threats, which may (sometimes, as with, intelligence, should) have been way beyond the ken of working politicians during an election campaign.  It is the Clerk’s duty and ’right’, as the nation’s top civil servant, to present these concerns to the government – essentially the PM and cabinet, and to insist (that’s pretty close to the right word) that these ‘official’ concerns influence the government’s programme.  Consider, for example, my comment, of a few days ago.  I didn’t see too much attention to aboriginal affairs in the 2006 Conservative Platform but I’m willing to bet that very, very early on in the transition (before hard cabinet appointments were made)  Alex Himmelfarb (the Clerk) briefed the PM, personally, and Ian Brodie and put several issues – including aboriginal problems ‘on the agenda,’ no matter what the Platform said or failed to say.

This, transition of government, is a key moment for the Clerk.  (S)he, alone, links the last ministry with the new one.  Deputy Ministers and senior officials in departments have their own, long term, responsibilities to keep some things moving while governments change but only the Clerk has the position and the knowledge to advise an incoming PM about which policies of his predecessor need to be continued – renamed or reshaped, perhaps, but continued all the same.  The Clerk can, and should, tell a new PM about policies which are not working.

The short term policy coordination is getting closer to the question at hand.  I’m fairly sure the Clerk and the DM at Finance both argued against the income trusts promise from day 1.  But, it was, clearly, an important political matter, see page 32 of the Platform, and, therefore, within the PM’s power to keep in place, at least until it threatened the national fiscal position as, arguably, the Telecomm company musings did.  Then the Clerk and the Deputy at Finance were able, indeed duty bound, to stand up to politicians and say, “Now, ladies and gentlemen, you must, finally, admit that your programme is wrong and you must reverse course, publicly and immediately, and face the consequences.”  There was never a good time for the Conservatives to reverse their income trusts position – not from the day they made it.  It was a fiscally unsound promise – made, solely, to score cheap political points against the Liberals – which a responsible political machine should not have made.  (So, yes young critics, I’m calling Harper irresponsible, too.)

The budget is the same – it is a highly political documents, one which many bureaucrats consider amendable, through policy, if it is carefully enough written.  (I guess the 1942 budget was pretty apolitical but, from 1943 onwards even wartime budgets were as much about Liberal Party fortunes as they were about winning the war or exploiting the peace.)  The Clerk gives the best possible policy advice but (s)he also has finely tuned political antennae and, as (s)he has a duty to support the government-pf-the-day, the policy advice offered must not put the government at a disadvantageous political position.

I think the main problem with income trusts and the budget lies within the PMO – specifically with a flawed and failing communications strategy.  Maybe Harper (like Diefenbaker and Mulroney before him) mistrusts a civil service which he sees as ‘Liberal.’  In a few places, e.g. DFAIT and Health, the civil service is weak, inept and partisan but, in my opinion at the centre, PMO and Finance, where it matters, the service is strong, professional and loyally apolitical.  Harper needs a Derek Burney – an Ottawa insider who can fix the real problems (there are some) and help the PM learn to trust officials who want to help him succeed.  It’s a hard course: Diefenbaker never managed, Mulroney did – Harper might, but he reminds me of The Chief in a few respects, especially in his stubbornness.

I’m not trying to whitewash Lynch but I think we have to understand that there is a major division of  responsibilities between the PMO (politics) and the PCO (policy).  I suggest that most, not all, of the blunders Harper has made can be traced back to his 2006 campaign team and his current PMO.

 

[Edward Campbell]

This post quotes rumours about a possible role of the bureaucracy, maybe even the top levels of the bureaucracy, in the downfall of Maxime Bernier.

 

[Edward Campbell]

This column by Lawrence Martin, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyrigt Act from today’s Globe and Mail, is an interesting bit about the political centre:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20081113.COMARTIN13/TPStory/TPComment/?query=

Pulling back the cloak from our powerful Clerk

LAWRENCE MARTIN

November 13, 2008

There is, as the word has it, no No. 2 in today's Ottawa, no deputy prime minister as there was, at least nominally, under Jean Chrétien.

Jim Prentice was thought to have powers tantamount to the role. But Mr. Prentice, considered a future leadership prospect, didn't fare particularly well in the recent cabinet shuffle, losing a couple of responsibilities. That leaves no one at the political level within even miles of Stephen Harper. But it doesn't mean there is no second in command.

In the capital's power dynamic, not to be overlooked is the rise of an office-bearer rarely mentioned in the media. In terms of power accumulation, few can match the Clerk of the Privy Council. For most intents and purposes, Kevin Lynch is deputy prime minister. The economist serves as secretary to the Prime Minister, secretary to the cabinet, head of the entire public service. He co-ordinates policy, implements policy and has a major role in monitoring information flows. All this and, as a senior official was saying the other day, "No one outside this place has any idea who the hell he is."

Mr. Lynch, the long-time civil servant from Cape Breton, is Mr. Harper's indispensable man. Patrice Dutil, who has put out a study, "Searching For Leadership" on secretaries to cabinet, said in an interview that scholars and journalists are missing the most pertinent story. They overlook the real power nexus. They concentrate on cabinet, but cabinet power is now overshadowed by Clerk power. "It's government by thunderbolt," said the Ryerson academic. "The PM decides what he wants to do and he does it not through the cabinet, but through his Clerk" and the PCO.

The Clerk has become so powerful, says Donald Savoie, the East Coast academic who is an authority on the executive branch of government, that he can make or break a prime minister. "If Paul Martin had Kevin Lynch as Clerk," he said, with Mr. Dutil concurring, "Paul Martin likely still would be prime minister today. Kevin would have brought the discipline and rigour and focus to the Martin shop which wasn't there."

Many wonder, as there is so little access to him, whether Mr. Lynch or his office has crossed the line from public servant to a political role. The PCO increasingly vets communications and access to information requests and has come under criticism from Information Commissioner Robert Marleau for obstructionism. He gave the PCO an "F" grade in a report last year. Since that time, there have been countless reports of a further muzzling of the system.

Crossing the line into political partisanship is "a danger," said Mr. Dutil. "Let's not fool ourselves," he said, pointing to many examples from history. "Clerks are political."

Mr. Savoie, who has known Mr. Lynch a long time, said he has no partisan leanings. Clerks must be loyal to their governments and he fills that role, he said. At the same time, he has to be careful to respect the laws of Parliament. "If someone is playing fast and loose with those laws, it should not be tolerated."

Experts trace the beginnings of the rise of the power of the Clerks to Michael Pitfield, who served under Pierre Trudeau and shifted the role from one of support for the cabinet to deputy to the prime minister. In the early 1990s, that arrangement was formalized and the Clerk's power over the entire public service was also broadened. Compared to other countries with similar systems, Canada's Clerk wields more power, said Mr. Savoie.

In his view, and Mr. Dutil's, what was a chief cause of the centralization of powers was the introduction of access-to-information laws 25 years ago. Prime ministers saw potential land mines everywhere and moved to exert far greater control over information flows, sending a chill through the system that has increased with time.

In some provinces, the trends are the same as at the federal level with respect to Clerk power. Traditionally, senior public servants enjoy anonymity. In Ottawa, the media ritualistically covers Parliament Hill, the legislative branch, but have limited access to the Langevin Block, the executive branch, where the real power resides. That wasn't so bad in the days when power was less concentrated at the centre. Nowadays, it's inadequate.

We know the odd thing - that Mr. Lynch, like the PM is cerebral, highly organized, emotionally detached, economically oriented. But in the wielding of his wide powers, the Clerk remains under a cloak - something that suits this government, or any party in power, just fine.

At an individual level, I think Don Savoie is right: Lynch is apolitical but he is loyal to the government of the day and he will work incredibly hard to implement its programme. That is how it should be.

There is some overestimation of the changes made since Pitfield. The clerk has always had considerable behind the scenes power and influence by the simple fact that (s)he has always coordinated the implementation of the decisions made by cabinet. Mao Zedong said, somewhere – I cannot put my fingers on the reference right now, that secretaries are usually more important than presidents because they coordinate and implement decisions. In and after the Pitfield era we simply formalized powers that have existed, to a greater or lesser degree, since the days of the great secretaries/clerks: the Cecils, father and son – William Cecil, Lord Burghley and Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury.

But, Martin is right: the Clerk is immensely powerful and we pay far too little attention to him and his actions. That being said, our system requires the clerk to have the advantage of relative anonymity – he doesn’t run for office and we must always hope that elected office holders will carefully judge those to whom they plan to delegate great power, as this PM does to this Clerk.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s Globe and Mail is an editorial expressing the “Good Grey Globe’s” admiration for retiring Clerk of the Privy Council, Kevin Lynch:
----------------------------

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090508.wELynch09/BNStory/specialComment/home

A great public servant

Globe and Mail

May 8, 2009 at 8:18 PM EDT

Few Canadians have heard of Kevin Lynch, which is as it should be with a member of Canada's permanent public service. But for more than three decades, this Cape Breton native served successive governments and, through them, the people of Canada, with the greatest distinction.

Mr. Lynch helped shape tax policies, and in the 1990s was a champion of reinvesting in university research, to help prepare Canada to compete in a knowledge economy. For over three years, from the Harper government's early days until his resignation this week, he served in a critical job, as the Clerk of the Privy Council. The role entails advising the prime minister, managing the needs of cabinet and leading the public service. It is a difficult, often thankless job, especially with a rookie government facing a minority parliament.

In reality, so-called faceless bureaucrats have personalities. Mr. Lynch's family was said to know the difference between weekdays and the weekend because on the weekend he didn't wear a tie to the office. He has always been a driven, ambitious man who has held himself to the high standards he expects of others.

Nobody can be certain why Mr. Lynch is leaving the public service now, whether he was pushed or jumped. But he was clearly caught in a vicious power struggle – one for which a public servant, even one as savvy as Mr. Lynch, can never be properly armed.

The relationship between the public service – which, in Canada as in Britain, stays in place as governments change – and Stephen Harper's Conservatives is not an easy one. This government has shown little propensity to respect its professionalism and expertise, and often seems uninterested in the advice of public servants; it prefers them to simply carry out political orders, playing the role of mechanics.

For most of the Conservatives' first mandate, Mr. Lynch had some success in bridging this divide. Mr. Harper evidently respected him, or at least his ability to help his young government navigate its way through Byzantine policy processes, and Mr. Lynch enjoyed a co-operative relationship with Ian Brodie, the Prime Minister's former chief of staff. But Guy Giorno, who succeeded Mr. Brodie last year, appears to have found the room crowded with Mr. Lynch in it.

Mr. Lynch had reason to be put off by the government's increasingly overt partisanship, exemplified by last fall's disastrous fiscal update (in which Mr. Giorno had a strong hand). And Mr. Giorno, who had a rocky relationship with the Ontario public service when he worked for Mike Harris, apparently considered Mr. Lynch an obstacle to the fast-tracking of the stimulus measures in the January budget – failing, unlike Mr. Brodie, to recognize that it is the job of a good public servant to pay attention to detail. (Ironically, the Conservatives have privately complained that bureaucrats fail to watch their backs – the very thing Mr. Giorno's impatience may have prevented Mr. Lynch from doing.)

The recruitment by Michael Ignatieff's Liberals of Kevin Chan, who had worked closely beside Mr. Lynch in the Privy Council Office, likely contributed to suspicions of the public service inside the hyper-partisan Prime Minister's Office. The end result was that Mr. Lynch and Mr. Giorno were reportedly barely on speaking terms in recent months, an untenable relationship between the government's most senior public servant and its top political staffer.

The government has graciously announced that, in recognition of his service, Mr. Lynch will be sworn in as a member of the Privy Council – an unusual distinction for those not in cabinet. But Mr. Harper could best honour him by affording his successor, Wayne Wouters, the same respect that his office showed Mr. Lynch in his earlier days on the job. The diligence that Mr. Lynch displayed should be sought out, not discouraged.
-------------------------


Caveat lector: I know Mr. Lynch, slightly, and had the pleasure, many years ago, to brief him of several matters that were of mutual concern to DND and Industry Canada. I became one of his (many) admirers – I was mightily impressed by his capacity to absorb, sort, filter, analyze and use new and often foreign information.

Mr. Lynch was no great friend of DND. That was (is) not because he doesn’t understand the roles and functions and challenges of national defence; rather, I think, it is because he considers DND to be poorly, even ineptly, led and managed.  I suspect many Deputy Ministers of national Defence and Chiefs of the Defence Staff felt his quite withering disdain over the years when they failed to make their department’s case to ministers and the PCO. I think he was dismayed when senior military officers would puff up their chests and cry “rust out” and then, suddenly, find a way to conduct this, that or the other operation which had, just weeks before, been declared beyond the CF’s capability. I believe that he believed knew that these sorts of reversals are seen, in the cabinet room, as indications of indecisiveness and a lack of understanding of the CF’s real capabilities and limitations.

To the degree that we, Canadians, have any natural, or historic “view” on national defence it is one of mistrust. We inherited some of this from Britain and some was home-grown in Canada – especially in the middle and late 19th century. In the upper ranks of the public service and in the political realm the military and national defence in general is regarded as an expensive, indeed wasteful, encumbrance. Only rarely has DND been seen as a well organized and well managed organization – most Canadians, including most politicians and many, many senior civil servants are accustomed to, even expect to see a DND with horses on the payroll and ship refit scandals.

In my opinion DND and the CF were only the “apple of the government’s eye” once – in the 1950s when Prime Minister St Laurent wanted to use military power to advance Canada’s strategic interests. He retained and appointed powerful politicians with excellent leadership and management skills to lead DND (Claxton and Campney) – something that has rarely happened since (Bud Drury, Barney Danson, Erik Neilson, David Pratt and Bill Graham being the five exceptions (out of 30 since Campney) that prove the rule). DND and the CF cannot prosper unless and until he Prime Minister of Canada decides that their value exceeds their cost. M. St Laurent did so; John Diefenbaker, Mike Pearson, Pierre Trudeau, Joe Clark, John Turner, Brian Mulroney, Kim Campbell, Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin did not; Stephen Harper does not.

My guesstimate is that Mr. Wouters will, from DND’s perspective, be a clone of Mr. Lynch. There is no point in crying about that; it is a well established national custom. Only the PM an change that old custom and I see no indication that Mr. Harper is interested in so doing.

 

[GAP]

it is because he considers DND to be poorly, even ineptly, led and managed.

I suspect your comment overall, is fairly accurate.....big bureaucracies tend to be, and DND & the CF has a long convoluted history of making some illogical decisions as well as working hard towards feathering their own nest....

 

[Edward Campbell]

While I am pretty sure we are likely to see much more of Mr. Lynch in public life it is most likely, in my view that we will see less and less of him when we look at defence policy and military matters. This report, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s Ottawa Citizen, then is something of an envoi of sorts for a man who had a huge impact on DND:

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Celebrating+passion+public+service/2030944/story.html

Celebrating a 'passion for public service'
Politicians, CEOs and academics filled a sold-out dinner for a chance to hail former top bureaucrat Kevin Lynch for his courage in tumultuous times. Kathryn May writes.

By Kathryn May, The Ottawa Citizen

September 25, 2009

Former Clerk of the Privy Council Kevin Lynch's career-long effort to renew the public service was celebrated Thursday night at the Château Laurier.
Photograph by: Bruno Schlumberger, The Ottawa Citizen, The Ottawa Citizen

Even in Ottawa, it's hard to fathom that a dinner to honour a bureaucrat could sell out before the tickets were printed, and draw two prime ministers, a former provincial premier, a slew of CEOs, university presidents and politicos of every stripe.

The man of the hour was Kevin Lynch, the country's former top bureaucrat and likely the first clerk of the Privy Council to be so publicly fêted.

He had a customary private send-off dinner with deputy ministers and Prime Minister Stephen Harper when he stepped down in late June after 33 years in the public service, but not even organizers at the Public Policy Forum expected a sell-out for the dinner Thursday at the Château Laurier.

"I'm happy to say this is one of the hottest tickets in town because of the number of people we turned away," said forum president David Mitchell.

In a video tribute, Harper warmly joked that with he and Lynch, two workaholic economists as clerk and prime minister, the "risk of never reaching a conclusion was extraordinarily high."

By all accounts, Lynch was one of Harper's trusted advisers -- having sent him some 16,000 memos during his tenure as clerk. Lynch's departure came amid speculation he and Harper's chief of staff, Guy Giorno, didn't get along. Harper, however, gave Lynch the title 'honourable,' a rare acknowledgement for clerks.

All this attention was for a bureaucrat who built his legacy around "renewing" the public service -- an issue one wouldn't expect to resonate outside the national capital region, where most folks don't even know who heads the 260,000-strong public service headquartered here.

At the end of a three-hour tribute, Lynch said "good public policy and an excellent public service" go hand in hand and are key to a country's "comparative advantage."

But what set Lynch apart was his effort to bridge the private and public sectors so they could work towards improving Canada's prosperity.

And Lynch said that interaction between public and private sectors will matter even more in developing the "right long-term policies at the right time."

"We need to guard against becoming locked into our regional perspectives or narrow points of view. We need to reach out, stay connected and strive to understand the different challenges and tradeoffs that are part of sound and enduring public policy."

He was a relentless promoter of a non-partisan public service as key to Canada's productivity, competitiveness and innovation -- issues he championed in the 15 years he spent as a deputy minister of finance and industry and three-and-half-years as PCO clerk.

He wanted bureaucrats to think globally, get out of the Ottawa bubble to hear what business, universities, researchers and ordinary Canadians across the country had to say.

Heather Munroe-Blum, principal and vice-chancellor of McGill University, said Lynch's "passion for public service" extended to his efforts to transform Canada's universities into "world-class" facilities. He was the driving force behind Canada Foundation for Innovation, endowed chairs through the Canada Research Chairs, Genome Canada, the Vanier Scholarships and the Canada Graduate Scholarships.

"It was a bleak landscape in the 1990s and fast forward 10 years and we have all the pillars of a knowledge society and Kevin Lynch was the public service architect who worked hand in glove with universities to do it," she said.

Paul Tellier, a clerk during the Mulroney era, was recruited to help advise Lynch and Harper on how to rebuild the public service.

"(Lynch) really went out of his way to explain the public service to the outside world, promoting the value of the public service and, more importantly, he listened. He developed a reputation in these circles that none of his predecessors had," said Tellier.

While at the helm, Lynch faced a calamitous financial crisis, the near- collapse of the Conservative government late last year, and the country's first major war in 50 years. He also helped put together a historic stimulus package and oversaw a shift in foreign policy.

As a deputy minister under the Liberals, he helped wipe out the deficit, reduce the debt and make Canada one of the "most connected" nations in the world.

For a bureaucrat so strongly linked to Canada's economic agenda, many were surprised Lynch made public service renewal his priority as clerk, with a plan to restock it with a new generation of leaders to replace thousands of retiring baby boomers. He wanted to bring the best and brightest to government again and he couldn't leave it to chance.

As clerk, he presided over one of the rockiest relationships between federal politicians and the bureaucrats who serve them. The Conservatives came into office distrusting public servants. Mitchell argues that making public service renewal a priority at such a time "took courage."

With the prime minister's backing, he launched the biggest recruitment drive in the public service since the 1970s to make up for the lost generation that was shut out of federal jobs by the hiring freezes of the 1990s.

Lynch set hiring targets and brought in thousands of new university and college graduates. He toughened up management, and revamped bonuses for deputy ministers and executives.

He gave speeches across the country to debunk what he felt were the myths and misconceptions of the public service as broken, risk-averse, poorly managed and a shadow of the policy powerhouse it used to be.

But many say what troubled him was the perception that Ottawa is too isolated and out of touch with the rest of country. He argued the public and private sectors had to collaborate or Canada couldn't compete in a global marketplace.

The history books will rule on Lynch's effectiveness as clerk.

One senior bureaucrat said, "Clerks have short lifespans these days" and "never win popularity contests," especially among public servants who feel they aren't being asked for policy advice, but simply ordered to implement it.

"It's so difficult with a minority, a clerk can't manoeuvre like he can in a majority government, But given the hand dealt to him, he did very well," said University of Moncton political scientist Donald Savoie.

And many say only time will tell whether Lynch succeeded in re-branding the public service as an exciting place to work.

"I think he's been successful. ... All clerks have tried to move this ball forward and Kevin has done that better than any of his predecessors," said Tellier.

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen​

During his tenure as Deputy Minister of Industry (John Manley was minister for much of that period) he was a great friend to DND – inter alia, promoting defence R&D and production.

During his time as Deputy Minister of Finance he presided over the continuance of deep, damaging cuts to DND’s budget.

As clerk, during the recent financial crisis, he appears to have protected DND’s budget.

Sound policy, in the public interest, was his watchword. I think he had little interest in national defence, per se, seeing it as a necessary, important but not central function of government: “central” to the state, Yes; “central” to the business of government,  No. He was neither “our” friend nor "our" enemy, but he was a constant, and clear eyed, critic, in the proper sense of the word, of our management.

 

[Edward Campbell]

John Ivison, in today's National Post suggests that tere will soon be a change in Clerk of the Privy Council.

He names two top candidates:

  and   

Yaprak Baltacıoğlu,                      Janice Charette,
currently DM of                            currently Associate Secretary
Transport Canada                        to the Cabinet and Deputy Minister
                                                    (Intergovernmental Affairs), Privy Council Office

Either will be interested in the management of DND and its budget.

 

[dapaterson]

John Ivison, in today's National Post suggests that tere will soon be a change in Clerk of the Privy Council.

He names two top candidates:

  and   

Yaprak Baltacıoğlu,                      Janice Charette,
currently DM of                            currently Associate Secretary
Transport Canada                        to the Cabinet and Deputy Minister
                                                    (Intergovernmental Affairs), Privy Council Office

Either will be interested in the management of DND and its budget.

One is already fairly well plugged in to the defence bureaucracy (no pun intended).

http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/88100.0

 

[Edward Campbell]

I wonder if that connection is why there are rumours (albeit only a couple that I've heard) about Mr. Fonberg's imminent retirement.

 

[The Bread Guy]

John Ivison, in today's National Post suggests that tere will soon be a change in Clerk of the Privy Council.

He names two top candidates:

  and   

Yaprak Baltacıoğlu,                      Janice Charette,
currently DM of                            currently Associate Secretary
Transport Canada                        to the Cabinet and Deputy Minister
                                                    (Intergovernmental Affairs), Privy Council Office

Either will be interested in the management of DND and its budget.

With only one having somewhat more.... private? .... access to DND's current DM  ;D

 

[dapaterson]

Given that he's 57(ish), with a long public service career, and has been DM at DND for the last 5 years, retirement would not be out of the question - or possibly sliding into an "eminence gris" position at the school of the public service (which would also keep the conflict of interest police at bay).

I expect him to be leaving as well - DND burns out DMs at the best of times.

 

[Edward Campbell]

John Ivison, in today's National Post suggests that tere will soon be a change in Clerk of the Privy Council.

He names two top candidates:

  and   

Yaprak Baltacıoğlu,                      Janice Charette,
currently DM of                            currently Associate Secretary
Transport Canada                        to the Cabinet and Deputy Minister
                                                    (Intergovernmental Affairs), Privy Council Office

Either will be interested in the management of DND and its budget.

More rumours from the Twitterverse:

Clerk Wayne Wouters is likely to stay on long enough to oversee the beauty pageant which will select his successor. The front-runners are:

Yaprak Baltacıoğlu (pictured above); Janice Charette (pictured above); Morris Rosenberg; and John Knubley.

                   

Morris Rosenberg                              John Knubley
Deputy Minister, Foreign Affairs        Deputy Minister, Industry Canada

 

[Old Sweat]

To an outsider the four candidates all seem to have one thing in combination - they are not from social policy or redistribution of income ministries as opposed to more, I'm searching for a word here, traditional peace, order and good government organizations.

 

[Edward Campbell]

To an outsider the four candidates all seem to have one thing in combination - they are not from social policy or redistribution of income ministries as opposed to more, I'm searching for a word here, traditional peace, order and good government organizations.

I think you're right; notwithstanding what former Clerk Kevin Lynch said he wanted by way of civil service renewal, these, less Rosenberg, are the people he promoted and they are clones of him. Rosenberg is, for me, a bit of an outlier; I think he is more of an idealist than the others, but, so far as I know, his career is, like the others, broadly based and to the degree that he has any specialty it is in government operations/machinery of government.