The Black Hole of Public Administration

Chapter 1 The Clerk as R

CHAPTER 1 TheClerkasRévélateur …he was born poor, died rich, begat a new form of art and hurt no one along the way. —Duke Ellington at Louis Armstrong’s funeral The way a socio-economy governs itself is defined by a composite of private, public and civic mechanisms, practices, norms, organizations, institutions and regimes. This amalgam constitutes an ecology of governance: “many different systems and different kinds of systems interacting with one another, like the multiple organisms in an ecosystem.” (Hubbard and Paquet 2002: 27). As Anderson suggests, such arrangements are not necessarily “neat, peaceful, stable or efficient…but in a continual process of learning and changing and responding to feedback” (Anderson 2001: 252). From the time it became a country in 1867, Canada has had a variety of ecologies of governance. The relative importance of the public sector (the machinery of government, organization, processes and personnel) within it, and its architecture, have evolved both as a result of external and contextual circumstances and of the transformation of the guiding principles and norms in good currency at any particular time. In general, the public sector (federal, provincial, local) has acquired an increasingly significant 20 21 The Clerk as Révélateur weight over this period. Some have argued that it was because the public sector could do most things better than other sectors (H. Hardin 1974). In the recent past, this sort of assumption about the superiority of the public sector has been questioned, but the public sector remains a significant factor in the governing of the country. The last three decades have brought new, and even more daunting, challenges for the public sector: the need to accommodate deep diversity, globalization, and the citizens’ rising desires to be ‘kept in the loop’ have increased the pressure to adjust both more substantially and more rapidly (Hubbard and Paquet 2005). This has led to public sector reforms throughout the world. The Clerk of the Privy Council (hereafter, the Clerk), who is also the Secretary to Cabinet and head of the (federal) public service in Canada, is a central figure in the federal governmentcum -state governance apparatus. The incumbent sits at the heart of ‘federal government’ and holds many of the key levers that can redefine the ‘shape’ of the public sector. The current duties of the Clerk are wide ranging and are described as follows by the Privy Council Office: …the most senior non-political official in the Government of Canada,…[that] provides professional, non-partisan support to the Prime Minister on all policy and operational issues that may affect the government…[and] also has particular responsibilities with respect to: ensuring the continuity of government between successive administrations; keeping custody of the records of previous administrations; and enabling the government of the day to understand and recognize the established conventions of Canada’s constitutional monarchy…[comprises roles as] Deputy Minister to the Prime Minister…[including] advice on appointing senior office holders in the public service and organizing the government…Secretary to the Cabinet…[and] Head of the Public Service (Canada 2010a). 22 The Black Hole of Public Administration In a Westminster-type system, the Prime Minister, as leader of the political party that forms the government (the executive), is quite powerful. The executive formally ‘governs’ with the consent of Parliament, and many key positions (including those of deputy ministers and many heads of Crown corporations) are filled de facto by the prime minister. The power carried by the position is especially great if the distribution of seats in Parliament is based on a ‘first past the post’ system of election (as is the case in Canada). Such a system tends to produce a majority for one political party in the legislature. In such situations, the Clerk also can carry enormous power and influence within the formal machinations of government. Following the evolution of the role of Clerk through history can provide interesting insights into the ways in which Canada has coped with the challenges of change. The Clerk is obviously neither the sole site of power, nor necessarily the most important in a federal system that leaves much of the public sector under provincial and local dominion, but the incumbent has a privileged vantage point. He/she can observe the interactions among the different forces at play (private, public and social; federal, provincial, local), as well...