Happy New Year

We are now into the year 2009….it looks like it is going to be an “interesting” year for Canada and the world.

We ended 2008 with the election of Barack Obama in the United States which marks a sea-change in American politics and society. The promise of change and hope for the future has resonated across the United States and throughout the world. The economic cards that he has been dealt will make it a very challenging term in office. How do you fix the economic meltdown that started in the US and has reverberated around the world? What do you do when you are projecting a deficit of over $1 trillion (over 7% of GDP) even before any stimulus package is layered on?

In Canada, our election led to the re-election of a minority government, albeit with more seats than the last time. The events of late November/early December in Ottawa underscored that politics in Canada is definitely not boring! We will all await the budget on January 27th to see what transpires. What kind of stimulus package will emanate from the budget – how much infrastructure spending will be included and how fast can shovels be put into the ground? Unless the projects are ready to go and have passed all the necessary approval, including environmental assessments, it will take at least a year to get a shovel in the ground. I’m sure that all the public servants in charge of infrastructure have their list of projects that are ready to commence almost immediately.

Governments mustn’t forget that all sectors of the economy are facing tough times. Though I understand the reduction in public servant travel and attendance at conferences as a good public positioning, it does have consequences on the economy as well. In addition, how are public servants going to learn about best practices in other jurisdictions, debate ideas and develop their skills if they are not allowed to attend conferences? In the late 90’s, governments all across the country denuded their policy capacity. There has been a substantial push to rebuild this capacity. But it is not good enough to just hire people – employers also have an obligation to provide them with learning opportunities. That is what a good learning organization does! Eliminating the ability to attend conferences, seminars etc is a short-sighted reaction that may save a few pennies but will have a longer term detrimental impact on governments ability to intelligently and innovatively respond to societal needs.

Well that’s my first post for 2009 and my only New Year’s resolution is to write more posts and do more video blogs.