INTERVIEW WINTER 2025 // Canadian Government Executive / 21 Q: McLAUGHLIN: Graham, good to see you, and welcome. We want to talk about your time in the federal public service and about some of the key issues facing it today. We also want to talk about uncertainty—what the federal government can and should be doing in these rather unsettled times, economically, socially and politically. We also, of course, have a federal election looming. That’s our theme. So, let’s kick it off: having just left the public service, what’s the state of play inside? How would you characterize the state of the federal public service in Canada today? FLACK: I don’t think you can talk about the state of the public service without talking about the operating context. It’s as challenging as I’ve seen it. Look at the international context—multiple conflicts, instability and questions about the survival of the rulesbased global system. Add in inflation and how it’s disrupting economies, plus a global pandemic and issues like disinformation. I’d call it “everything, everywhere, all at once.” It used to be that we could focus on a few crises at a time, but now there seem to be everything, everywhere, all at once. Another shift is that society, in my view, is evolving at something like a derivative of Moore’s Law—change is accelerating over time. Decades ago, in government, you might introduce a policy framework or program that, once in place, might last 20 years with minor adjustments. Now you need to adapt far more quickly. Add to that the current government’s very ambitious set of priorities—at one point there were over 760 priorities in the mandate letters. I haven’t seen this level of new activity in my career; I’d argue maybe not since the 1970s. So, it’s a super-challenging operating context. Within the executive there’s a high level of fatigue. We’re used to crises—I’ve had a few in my career—but they tended to be measured in days, weeks or maybe months. COVID was 24/7 for a couple of years. There are structural shifts in how we’ll have to increase the pace of change to respond. That creates fatigue and challenges our ability to focus on more innovative approaches. If you’re fully occupied implementing the latest round of new programs, you don’t have time to reflect on transformation. So that’s the challenge. Q: McLAUGHLIN: Right. So, have the federal public service and the institutions of government reached a saturation point? FLACK: You come at it a couple of ways. Public services are “guardian” institutions by design. They’re risk-averse, rules-based. That’s a core feature. In a world of accelerating change and a huge government agenda, there’s massive friction in the existing system. But the public service has shown it can be extremely nimble in a crisis. During COVID, for instance, we set up 13 different benefit programs from scratch in weeks, using some very old systems. Then, after the crisis, the “elastic band” snaps back. Part of the solution is figuring out how to unleash the dynamism and innovation we see in crisis situations, during “peacetime.” How do we increase risk tolerance and speed? If we keep operating in the same context while adding an accelerating number of inputs, that’s not sustainable. But there is an opportunity: change the operating context so that we can be nimbler and implement programs faster. During major events—post9/11, the global financial crisis, COVID— I’ve seen departments regularly do impossible things. The public service is capable of doing that. We need to give the public service the “permissions” to do that all the time and make the right capital investments, so we don’t have to rely on 1970s-era operating systems. If we don’t do that, we can’t keep piling on new responsibilities and expect timely results. Q: TURNBULL: Switching gears, one thing that’s been on my mind—without getting too political—is that if the polls are right, we could soon be in a transition period. The public service is supposed to speak truth to power and carry out loyal implementation. How hard is it when government changes hands? Is it mainly something that’s “shock-absorbed” at the executive level, or do people notice it more widely? FLACK: In a big operational department like Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC), most of the 39,000 employees aren’t dealing with senior executives, let alone ministers. They’re at Service Canada centres serving Canadians, so they’re affected less than senior public servants. Obviously, changes in government are significant. But one of the great features of the Westminster system is that we have a public service loyal to the government of the day. Its job is to advise the government and then implement its agenda efficiently. I’ve been through a lot of transitions—different parties, changes within the same party, or ministerial changes. Each minister has a different style, and you adjust to serve them. I contrast that with the U.S. system, where a transition can take a year of staffing new people, many of whom may not have government experience. They don’t have a builtin administrative system at senior levels ready to pivot and give advice. It’s clunkier and typically leads to weaker outcomes in the first couple of years. Transitions are our job—that’s when we shine. We have to be very adaptable to the styles and policy direction we get from different governments. But we want to do it in a way that continually brings the best possible independent, non-partisan advice and the most effective possible implementation. It can be a dynamic period, sometimes bumpy, but also an opportunity. A new government might focus on areas the old government didn’t, which can give new chances for public servants to excel. Q: TURNBULL: That’s a great answer—it’s actually quite uplifting. It’s true: we do have a successful approach to transition, certainly compared to other places. Westminster countries learn from each other, so is there anything about transitions elsewhere that we might want to copy? We don’t have a cabinet manual, for instance, and some other Westminster countries do. FLACK: There’s one top of mind for me: in the year prior to a fixed election date in Australia, the opposition parties get full access to their Treasury Department. Not only for costing the platform, but also for confidential feedback and advice on what they’re considering. Why would that help? In Canada, over the last 20 years, we’ve seen these megaplatforms that promise everything, but they don’t always have the inside knowledge of the latest data or operational capabilities. After an election, a new government discovers the details and says, “If we’d known that, we might not have promised this.” So, if I had one wish, it would be for our political parties to have confidential access to some public service advice in the year leading up to an election. They could then develop platforms informed by our best evidence. Operational considerations need to be brought up front. In a corporation, you don’t just develop a product and throw it over the wall. You need to plan the rollout. A platform built without any understanding of the operational implications isn’t a recipe for efficient public service delivery. Q: TURNBULL: That’s a great wish. It could help with accountability. A party promising something would know
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