Canadian Government Executive - Volume 24 - Issue 01

26 / Canadian Government Executive // January/February 2018 THE INTERVIEW could take the entire federal government and make it a platform for Canadians to access content to create businesses off of, to use content from the Government of Canada to launch a business, or to do bet- ter trade. How do we amplify the work of Cana- da? I think if we’re able to look at it from that perspective, it changes how we make policy. I think the word ‘consultation’ in a digital age is a token form of engagement. Dialogue happens 24/7. And people ex- pect that. They expect constant dialogue from Twitter and other social media plat- forms. Yet, our consultation phase has a beginning and an end. So we have to change our business mod- el. I think you could take the profession- alism, the values and ethics of a strong public service and flip them to digital. I think the world is the oyster for Canada. Canada is primed for to have a large im- pact on the global scene because of digital – if we realize that digital is government. Q: Very interesting. Perhaps other jurisdictions have leap- frogged us because they haven’t had those 100-plus years of public service infrastructure that we’ve had. Transitioning old models of delivery that citizens have de- pended on for generations can be more challenging than starting with a blank page. So one of your roles is going to be moving from the existing delivery model to a digital platform while protecting those core services? some of that in government, and by the way, we’ve got other problems too that you would need to look at.” How do you spend $6 billion in a way that actually has an impact on Canada – not just doing the same things over and over again? I took the gig because I think ‘digital’ is govern- ment. It’s not an enabler. It’s not a back office function. Digital is government, and I’m not sure government has realized that around the world yet. So that’s why I took the gig: because it’s a huge opportunity. Q: All of the work Canada is do- ing relative to open government and digital service transforma- tion is happening in a global con- text. By any standards, our public service ranks highly – perhaps with the exception of the provi- sion of digital services to citizens, where we appear to be lagging, and other jurisdictions seem to have embraced digital service delivery more effectively. I’m interested in your views on this; specifically, how are we doing as a country? I think we’ve got a tremendously profes- sional dedicated public service. I came back because I wanted to. It’s a proud public service that has years of experi- ence, and that has reacted to some things in the past. Every public service in the world will have challenges for a period of time. For us, it was accounting and finan- cial management; now that’s shifted, and we have a really strong Comptroller Gen- eral model now. So hopefully on the tech front or the digital front, maybe we take a page out of that transition – federally speaking – and look at what we need to do now to have a strong digital presence. But I think our public service is fantastic. Like you said, we have the best public service in the world. Where we fall apart a little bit in the digital front is on the re- alization that we need to do things a little bit differently. As for where we could lead? Imagine taking the values and eth- ics of our civil service in Canada and mak- ing them digital, which would mean that our culture and our values get explored globally in a way that we just can’t even fathom. So if I take the Museum example – how it became a platform for others to engage on – imagine if government be- came a platform like that. Imagine if you Having that rich foundation of public ser- vice is both a blessing and a curse. Again, to reiterate, take all the amazing things that a top-rated civil service has – like we have – put them on a digital platform – which is limitless – and start thinking dig- ital first. That’s the dream. That’s the goal. Q: A bit of a fundamental ques- tion, if I may. Digital government and open government – how do they relate? They are the same. Next year, we would like to start investigating what a digital policy for the Government of Canada looks like – a government that is based on two principles: open data and information, and service. Like I said, from the Museum experience, I’ve now got a blueprint, and we’ve gone through it once. You can scale it. Take open dialogue, for instance– how does the Government of Canada’s content, which is the new currency, integrate into open innovation value chains and ecosys- tems? How do you do ‘open’ science? It’s public science. It should not be behind closed doors, ever. Not when you have the opportunity to do it in the open and then partner with NASA, or partner with citi- zens around the world. For 10 to 20 years, NASA tried to predict solar flares and spent millions of dollars on that. The best scientists in the world were going to announce their findings, right? And then they had to release the content out to the world because they couldn’t fig- ure it out. And it was a retired radio opera- tor from Massachusetts who won the prize “Every public service in the world will have challenges for a period of time. For us it was on accounting and on financial management and that’s shifted and we have a really strong comptroller general model now.”