Canadian Government Executive - Volume 24 - Issue 05

Our mission is to contribute to excellence in public service management EDITORIAL Editor-in-Chief | George Ross george@promotivemedia.ca DEPUTY EDITOR | LORI TURNBULL lori@promotivemedia.ca MANAGING Editor | Marcello Sukhdeo marcello@promotivemedia.ca COPY EDITOR | James Brandon COLUMNISTS | ANDREW GRAHAM JEFFREY ROY HARVEY SCHACHTER ALISON TAYLOR JOHN WILKINS EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD DENISE AMYOT, PENNY BALLANTYNE, Jim Connell, Michael Fenn, Lana Lougheed, John Milloy, Vic Pakalnis, Robert Shepherd, Andrew Treusch, David Zussman Sales & Events Vice President, Sales | Terri Pavelic 905-727-3875 x2 terri@promotivemedia.ca Director, Content & Business Development | David Blondeau 905-727-3875 david@promotivemedia.ca ART & PRODUCTION ART DIRECTOR | Elena Pankova elena@promotivemedia.ca Subscriptions and Address Changes Circulation Services | (905) 841-7389 circulation@promotivemedia.ca General Inquiries 1-226 Edward Street, Aurora, ON, L4G 3S8 Phone 905-727-3875 Fax 905-727-4428 www.canadiangovernmentexecutive.ca corporate Group Publisher | John Jones john@promotivemedia.ca Publisher’s Mail Agreement: 40052410 ISSN 1203-7893 Canadian Government Executive magazine is published 6 times per year by Navatar Press. All opinions expressed herein are those of the contributors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher or any person or organization associated with the magazine. Letters, submissions, comments and suggested topics are welcome, and should be sent to george@promotivemedia.ca Reprint Information Reproduction or photocopying is prohibited without the publisher’s prior written consent. High quality reprints of articles and additional copies of the magazine are available through circulation@promotivemedia.ca . Privacy Policy: We do not sell our mailing list or share any confidential information on our subscribers. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Periodical Fund (CPF) for our publishing activities. www.canadiangovernmentexecutive.ca 6 / Canadian Government Executive // October/November 2018 web Welcome to the fall edition of CGE. Since our last issue, there have been lots of develop- ments in the political landscape across the country. In Ontario, after 15 years of Liberal rule, the Ford government has recently completed its first 100 days in office marked by an active and contentious legislative and fiscal agenda which has been accompanied by a new approach to governing and communicating with citizens. Of note in Ontario is the government’s use of external consultants to reset its defi- cit projections and its use of the extraordinary powers of legislative committees to compel senior bureaucrats to divulge information about advice they had provided to a previous administration. This all makes for a wonderful political theatre, but the tactics are question- able. This approach has severe longer-term implications for governing through a transition where conventions relating to Cabinet secrecy and the discretion of public servants could always be relied upon. In New Brunswick, a near dead-heat election result has once again brought our consti- tutional processes into the spotlight. Besides, this fall saw province-wide municipal elec- tions in Ontario, where over 50 communities used electronic voting systems for the first time with interesting results. British Columbians are participating in a referendum on a potential switch to proportional representation. In Alberta, preparations are underway for a much anticipated 2019 provincial election. What do all these things have in common? Well, they all put public servants to the test. Supporting transitions of governments, providing advice on conventions and legal prac- tices during minority governments, developing fiscal strategy and safeguarding democratic processes - while not well understood by a majority of citizens - is all in a day’s work for readers of CGE. A backdrop to many of the national developments affecting public servants is mounting concern over privacy and the safeguarding of personal information. Canada is, of course, being swept up in genuine issues surrounding the social media “giants” involvement in real and perceived misuse of these platforms to shift public opinion and for illegal activities. All of this is affecting Canadian perceptions as well. Even highly credible organizations such as Statistics Canada are under the gun for plans to use digital financial information as a tool. Another example is Waterfront Toronto’s partnership with Alphabet’s Sidewalk labs. This grand plan to “digitize” the urban landscape in a part of the city has come under sharp criti- cism from those concerned about privacy including from some of its board members. Based on this, we are in for interesting several years where the push for more effective, digital government runs headlong into issues of citizen trust, calls for transparency and general dissatisfaction with democratic institutions. All of this creates interesting leadership challenges for public servants across our coun- try, and at CGE we will continue to explore these times of unprecedented change, people who will inspire these reforms and the best practices in governance, policy and program leadership. We hope you enjoy this issue of CGE and as always, your comments and suggestions are welcome. You can reach me at george@promotivemedia.ca . George Ross Editor-in-Chief editor’s note