Canadian Government Executive - Volume 22 - Issue 5

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30 / Canadian Government Executive // May 2016
The Trudeau government is now six months into its man-
date and has looked very decisive and competent in
dealing with many election promises such as refugee
resettlement, climate change, Senate reform and doc-
tor-assisted suicide.
One major reason the government has so successfully moved its
policy agenda forward is the result of good working relations that
have been established between the government and the public
service. All new governments learn early in their mandate that
their success is to a large degree dependent on the relationship
that they develop with the permanent public service — and it is
clear the Trudeau government learned a lesson from the failure
of the Harper to work with public servants by addressing the is-
sue early in its mandate.
Due to the asymmetrical power relationship along the admin-
istrative–political interface there is often some tension between
newly appointed political advisers and public servants especially
for newly elected governments during their early days in power.
Typically, on one side of the interface, the public service antici-
pates the prospect of working for a newly elected government,
while on the other side, the political staff who populate the high-
ly prized jobs in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and Ministers
offices are often too inexperienced or too partisan to appreciate
the pivotal role they will play in the success of the government’s
policy agenda.
The role of the political advisers (known as exempt staff in Can-
ada because they are exempt from the merit based hiring rules
that apply to public servants) has received increased attention
over the past 20 years as exempt staff have become more impor-
tant in helping governments implement their policy agenda. The
asymmetry in the relationship became most apparent in the last
years of the Harper government when the PMO appeared to be
directing ministers and public servants. In 2012, this tense state
of affairs was best captured by Senator Mike Duffy who referred
contemptuously to the exempt staff as “boys in short pants” be-
cause he viewed them as inexperienced youngsters who blindly
followed the direction of Prime Minister Harper’s PMO.
Since that low point, the Privy Council Office took some mea-
sures to regularize the role of exempt staff within the Ministry. As
a starting point exempt staff are hired into the Prime Minister’s
Office or in one of 30 Ministers offices to support the work of the
government of the day. In general, their work is to provide po-
litical input on policy decisions, and “to facilitate the work of the
public servants by conveying their minister’s views to the public
service.”
In fact, the continuing importance of exempt staff as key players
within the Ministry has led the government to publish updated
guidelines about the role of Ministers and their staff. Accordingly,
Open and Accountable Government 2015 provides a very detailed
explanation of how the Trudeau government views exempt staff
within our Cabinet system of government.
Their expectations are very clearly anchored on developing a
strong working relationship with public servants. The document
explicitly defines the nature of the power relationship between
the two groups when it states that “exempt staff can ask depart-
mental officials for information, transmit the Minister’s instruc-
tions, or be informed of decisions in order to address communica-
tions and strategic issues.” However, they explicitly have no role
in departmental operations and no legal basis for exercising the
delegated authority of Ministers. Most important, it is now very
clear that exempt staff cannot give direction to departmental of-
ficials on the discharge of their responsibilities, or on any issue
related to the management of departmental resources or opera-
tional matters.
The Prime Minister further elaborates on this when he rein-
forces the value of the relationship by stating that “good work-
ing relations between the Minister’s office and the department,
characterized by mutual respect, cooperation, and the sharing of
information … are essential in assisting the Minister and deputy
minister in managing departmental work.”
Thus far, one major success factor of the Trudeau government
has been its ability to establish trusting and collaborative work-
ing relations between Ministers and their staff with the senior
mandarins. For this, credit must be given to the prime minister,
his senior staff in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), his transition
team led by Senator Peter Harder, and the leadership in the Privy
Council Office provided by Janice Charette and Michael Wernick.
The Prime Minister has set clear guidelines and the quality of
the exempt staff reflects a high degree of commitment to profes-
sional and experienced staff. Given the government’s appetite for
rethinking the role of its major institutions, such as the Senate
and electoral reform, this may be a good time to further profes-
sionalize the appointment and accountability of exempt staff by,
first, developing a more formal appointment process that clari-
fies who is actually doing the hiring and for what purpose and,
second, by introducing a mandatory training program for exempt
staff that would explicitly define their roles.
David Zussman is a Senior Fellow in the Graduate School
of Public and International Affairs at the University of
Ottawa and is Research Advisor to the Public Sector
Practice of Deloitte.
The Last Word David Zussman
Political Advisers: A Good Start
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