Policy Making in the 21st Century: New Challenges for Canada
- Presentation to the Johnson-Shoyama School of Public Policy
- October 13, 2009
Objectives
I’m pleased to have the opportunity to discuss with you:
- The complex issues facing Canada: challenges, opportunities and uncertainties, both globally and domestically;
- The changing environment for policy making – more players, greater expectations for openness and participation; and
- From these, the implications for how we work on policy in the Public Service – where we’re still learning what works and what doesn’t.
I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts on these issues.
Complex Issues: Global
We make the point, over and over, how Canada is a trading nation. Globalization has brought a great deal of benefits to us, in terms of jobs, economic growth and a range of consumer choices that wouldn’t be there otherwise. At the same time, we weren’t insulated from the recession – while policy decisions on the deficit put us in a better fiscal position than some other countries, and the innate conservatism of our bankers reduced the impact on our financial sector, there have still been major impacts on average Canadians.
The relentless pace of globalization is also re-shuffling the countries and institutions that matter.
The emergence of China, India, Brazil and Russia has forced a shift to new fora: moving from the G8 to the G20, with new bilateral and multilateral relationships needed to advance Canada’s interests.
Canada has always been an important player in the international clubs (NATO, Commonwealth, Francophonie…). But the new structures are forcing Canada to be more strategic and bring value-added to discussions – we’re no longer automatically a member of the club, instead we have to earn our seat.
On the security front, the end of East-West conflict has paradoxically led to greater instability:
- Failed states, small wars, international terrorism have led to a renewed focus on security issues, instead of a peace dividend;
We have the phenomenon of ‘angry young men’ – unmarried, without jobs, lacking the ties needed to ground them in society – a driver of instability in countries like the former Yugoslavia, Pakistan, and Iraq…
For Canada, the U.S. has always been our most important partner, and this will continue. At the same time, we need to figure out what to do if the U.S. is slow coming back from the recession: if its economy is slow to recover, or if it is constrained by deficit and debt issues.
These connections have blurred the lines between global and domestic on growing number of issues. But while the globalization of the economy continues to advance, we haven’t made progress on the governance structures needed to address these issues:
- Climate change: economic growth in China and India has created a huge increase in their energy consumption – we can’t have a global solution without addressing this;
- Food and product safety: foods now include ingredients from dozens of countries – so food safety doesn’t work unless they have effective inspectors in China or Chile. And it means that at the same time that we need to monitor and strengthen systems here, we need to help build capacity there;
- Infectious diseases: Our best protection is to stop outbreaks where they start, rather than waiting for them to spread – so we have to monitor local newspapers in places like Mexico, China, and Indonesia, and be able to help them respond.
And this blurring of issues means solutions have to be worked up in parallel, at home and abroad – often when we don’t know what the right forum is for the discussion.
Complex Issues: Domestic
Here at home, we are also facing a range of new realities.
No matter what, an aging population will mean a shrinking labour force – even if we boost immigration and encourage seniors to participate, the number of hours worked per capita will reach its peak within the next couple of years. This means that while costs rise, our fiscal capacity as a society will be reduced – affecting not just governments, but also charitable / volunteer organizations.
Our Aboriginal population has a new generation of leaders, with more education and the desire to achieve change. At the same time, most of this population still needs significant help to prepare them to participate in our economy and society.
We’ve seen the debates over diversity in the media: Canadian society is already very different from what was there twenty years ago, and these changes are accelerating. Issues like immigrant integration, dual citizenship and ‘reasonable accommodation’ have been getting increased attention lately.
These changes are also reflected in the growing urban-rural divides: differences in populations and values are playing out in attitudes on issues like immigration, environmental regulation and gun control.
The recession has accelerated a number of structural changes in our economy: for example, the shift from manufacturing to a service-based (or, in some cases, a resource-based) economy in parts of Canada.
For a number of years now, the Western Provinces have been leading in growth and employment. At the same time the lists of have and have-not provinces have changed: Newfoundland is now grouped with Alberta and Saskatchewan as an oil power; Ontario now needs support through the Equalization program.
Coming out of the recession, we have many possible scenarios: what if we have a resource-driven recovery based on exports to China, rather than renewed growth in North America? Is the loss of manufacturing jobs in Ontario temporary, or is it permanent? In previous recessions, employment has always lagged behind the overall recovery – is this still true, given our aging population?
We’ve seen this reflected in new regional groupings and agendas, such as the Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement to remove barriers between British Columbia and Alberta – seen by others as an example of how to move forward on economic union.
Major cities also have a key role to play: with 80% of Canada’s population, they have responsibility for delivery of social services, public health, transportation and transit.
Changing Environment for Policy Making
It’s been more than a decade now since Neil Nevitte first raised the issue of the ‘decline of deference’ in Canada: a shift in values that has clearly become permanent, across the developed world.
This is reflected in the expectations of younger citizens, along with the risk that they will become disaffected with traditional ways of participation – seen in the percentage of voters in each election.
With the media, we have greater attention and higher scrutiny of government actions, but this brings a risk of public cynicism.
The emphasis on “scandals” has had the benefit of putting an emphasis on accountability and results in governments, but at the same time has resulted in a focus on risk avoidance. For public servants there is an overemphasis on “make no mistakes” to the detriment of creativity and innovation.
There’s also a much longer list of players who now expect to be part of the policy process, and who we now need there to ensure that we can address the complex issues of today.
The problem is that this runs counter to how governments worked in the deficit-reduction era: we focused on looking inward, doing the things that fell directly within our respective jurisdictions and pulling back in other areas.
Possibly exacerbated by repeated minority governments: there is a tendency to focus on short-term issues and on the things that you can directly influence, to ensure that you can demonstrate results to Canadians.
The result is that we know we need to engage other players, but this requires renewed effort, in a context where some of our capacity for making connections has perhaps been eroded.
Implications for how we work
While today’s policy challenges cut across jurisdictions and there are many new players, from a federal perspective, the Parliament and Government of Canada remain the only institutions with the mandate to advance the national interest, and when things go wrong – whether it’s on natural disasters, health care issues or the economy – Canadians still expect these institutions to do something about it.
Since so many of these issues cross jurisdictional boundaries, the federal government has a key role in linking the domestic and international spheres – aligning efforts, or bringing to Canada lessons learned from abroad.
As a federal government, we also have a strong fiscal capacity, with greater flexibility than a number of other countries that didn’t do the hard work of addressing deficits, and a high level expertise in developing solutions and providing advice in the federal Public Service.
Those are our assets. But to get at these issues effectively, we’ll need to change how we do policy making as a government.
Where we have the jurisdiction, we can still intervene directly with initiatives and programs at the federal level.
But the federal government has other tools that it can deploy on these issues:
- As the institution with a mandate to speak for Canada, we can provide a public voice to mobilize action on an issue by a range of players;
- With that national role, we can also act as a convenor to bring the relevant parties together to work on an issue;
- We have unmatched resources to generate information and share knowledge: from the best statistical agency in the world in Statistics Canada, to the Granting Councils, to our in-house capacity for scientific and social science research and analysis;
- And with our fiscal capacity, we can fund demonstration projects, allowing community groups to develop and test solutions to the problems we face.
But make no mistake: making this shift on how we do policy will challenge old ways of doing business and will require changes in processes, structures and our own corporate culture.
We’re still learning how to do this.
One early example of this shift is Mental Health Commission of Canada: rather than impose a solution, or set up a matched-funding program, we worked with partners, inside and outside of governments, to provide leadership, in defining a national agenda on mental health.
However, to succeed in this transformation, we’ll need new Public Servants who are comfortable in making connections and working across organizations, and are willing to share both accountability and credit for results.
I think I’ve only touched on the many fascinating public policy issues that the next generation of Public Servants will have to address. But to respond to this new context, we’ll need new ideas and new approaches, in order to get new solutions for Canada and Canadians.