CGE LEADERSHIP SERIES Spring 2025 // Canadian Government Executive / 23 I had a young family, so I was worried about the travel. Mark promised me. It was a benign global economic environment, and it would be fine. So he denies he ever said that, but so there’s a part of the public service, particularly at the Department of Finance, that knows Mark from the three years he was at finance, a slightly larger part that knows him from the time at the bank. But most of the public service doesn’t, doesn’t know him. And he’s going to be a very different PM, than the previous Prime Minister. I’m not sure what the mood is, but I think people should expect, a different way of governing, and a different level of focus. There’s going to be differences and there’s actually a lot of uncertainty on how he’s going to govern and, in what ways he’s going to be different. So there’s so three things I’d watch for this. First is the speech from the throne. Are you going to have a return to a kind of Stephen Harper focus on a few priorities, as predominant priorities that we’re going to really channel all our energies into. Or are you going to see a continuation of the 768 mandate commitments? Because the platform is pretty expansive. So that’s going to be the first key signal. Are you going to see him really tighten things up in terms of prioritization and focus or is there going to be a continuation of everything is a priority. The second thing I’d watch for is how he governs. Are you going to see a return to traditional Westminster cabinet governments, where ministers are the ones who make decisions? Because when it comes to growth in the public service, the only thing that’s grown faster. and it’s grown significantly faster than the public service, is the size of political staff. So, are you going to see, as under Jean Chretien, a significant reduction in the size of political staff? Will we see a reduction in the size of the Prime Minister’s Office and a return to ministers really driving things, or are you going to see a continuation of centralization? I think there are real questions on that, and it’s going to be challenging for them, because in a crisis context, you do have to centralize, but what’s the governing DNA going to be? And then the policy issue I’d watch for is the pipelines issue. If you asked the energy sector, the reason that tidewater for oil and natural gas is largely uneconomic is because of the regulatory uncertainty and environment, and the effective cap on emissions. Given it’s Canada’s number one export and the most predominant source of potential, export revenues, are you going to see a significant shift in those policies? And the subtle version of this question would be to say, well, just let the market decide and the market will decide then not to do it. Or are you actually seeing a shift where, we’re going to double down on energy, remove the cap on emissions, at least phase of the exports, and change the fundamental structure of C 69 to facilitate it, which would be the most important thing we could do for economic development in the short medium term. Marta Morgan So how is the public service reacting right now? I would say energized and terrified at the same time. You know Prime Minister Carney said during the election campaign that this was the most consequential election of our lifetime. So he’s coming in with the view that this is the most consequential transition of our lifetime. He started off his first press conference after election, saying, build Canada build. And I think that the message that he has sent to Canadians is that he wants to move fast and he wants to move, think, you know, and as many of you know, in the public service, sometimes that’s challenging to deliver on the speed, you know, and the ambition but that’s clearly where he is. It’s going to be a big agenda. There is an existential threat to Canada coming from Donald Trump and his tariff policies and his trade policies. It’s galvanizing the whole government the geopolitical which is back and, and, the economic challenges, the potential for an impending recession is very preoccupying at the Department of Finance. And there are knock-on social implications. The issues that are really preoccupying Canadians continue to be housing cost of living. And if you layer on that, the potential of a recession, higher unemployment, high youth, youth unemployment, I think that it’s recognized within the public service and being really communicated by Prime Minister Carney that it really is an existential moment for Canada. And that means that everybody has to be thinking big and has to be prepared to move fast. I don’t know Prime Minister Carney; I haven’t worked with him before. But, my sense is that he’s going to be willing to break some glasses to get things done. And the public service is going to have to kind of rise up to that, to rise up to that challenge. Kevin Page It’s getting hard to add to this! I would say Mr. Carney is fairly well known, that he’s been this international figure for a few decades, certainly in his role when he started at Bank of Canada, I think he just he excelled really in terms of in the international financial community. I overlapped with him. I was at the Privy Council office when he was the associate deputy minister of finance. So I got to see him with that transition with Prime Minister Harper and, you know, being inside the room with the man a few times, a number of times with the Clerk’s office in particular. Very thoughtful, very respectful. I think he understands the public service in a way that maybe even some prime ministers that have been around for a long time. I worked for Prime Minister Chretien. Obviously, he’d been around for an eternity and understood public service in in the government. But he wasn’t a bureaucrat. Mr. Carney has bureaucratic experience. Photos: Elise Kelsey
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