IPAC - IAPC: Gabriel's Blog/le blogue de Gabriel

The Last Post - maybe

2010-07-08T18:19:00.000-04:00

Well it's a hot and humid Thursday July 8, 2010 in good old Toronto the Good. After four years, tomorrow is my last day as CEO at IPAC. It has been quite an experience working for a not-for-profit that focuses on public administration and management. In those four years, I think we have accomplished quite a lot. When I joined IPAC in August 2006, I replaced Joseph Galimberti who had joined IPAC in 1969 and became Executive Director in 1975 until his sudden, untimely death in April 2006. As you can imagine it is quite interesting and challenging to join an organization that had one person as its leader for 31 years. The thing one has to remember is that you cannot be the person you are succeeding, you have to be your own person and do things your way - which can sometimes be difficult for long time staff!

In these last four years, IPAC has evolved in terms of its outreach, programming and web presence (including this blog and my tweeting!). There are more innovations to come in terms of IPAC's web presence but I will not divulge these as I don't want to spoil the surprise. In this day and age organizations such as IPAC must embrace technology to leverage its work and spread the word about what it is doing. I will leave others to judge what was accomplished in those 4 years. In my previous post, "All Good Things", I wrote about the support, or lack thereof from various jurisdictions in Canada. I know that some will say that they do not provide core funding to organizations or they may even say why support IPAC as opposed to some other organization. To these comments I just say that IPAC is the only national organization that brings together public servants from all orders of government in Canada and academics in the field of public administration and management. IPAC conferences, both National Conferences and local events organized by any of our 17 active regional groups, bring together people from all orders of government and academics to discuss and debate issues in public management and policy and allows us to learn from our peers and create connections that will ultimately help create better public services. To those who have the power to do so, I say, support your chosen profession of public service. If not you, then who? If not now, then when?

I think that all of us who have a few years under our belt (or in my case quite a few years!) have an obligation to give back to our chosen profession and ensure that the next generation of public servants have the same opportunities that we had to connect with their peers across the country, with their peers working in other orders of government and the opportunity to contribute to the evolution of excellent public service in Canada and around the world. Remember that most of the public policy issues that we now face will require collaboration within government and between governments, between municipalities, provincial/territorial governments, aboriginal governments, broader public sector organizations and the federal government. A crisis is a difficult time to build good working relationships, IPAC offers the opportunity for us to get to know each other and understand each other through our common bond - the desire to provide excellent public services to Canadians.

Well this may be my last post on this blog. I want to thank all of you, my faithful readers, for the opportunity to share my thoughts with you over the last number of years.

Conférence 150!Canada - rapport final

2010-07-03T21:10:00.000-04:00

Le rapport final de notre Conférence 150!Canada est maintenant disponible sur notre site web. La conférence qui s'est tenue au Centre national des Arts à Ottawa et a réuni 300 délégués de partout au pays pour entendre plus de 25 conférenciers de marque et pour développer un plan d'action pour célébrer le 150e anniversaire du Canada en 2017.
Je pense que vous trouverez le rapport plein d'idées sur la façon dont nous devrions aborder cette occasion mémorable. Comme dans
le cas des présentations des conférenciers, certains thèmes récurrents sont ressortis des tables rondes :

Le sesquicentenaire devrait inclure tous les Canadiens et les Canadiennes. Les célébrations du 150e anniversaire devraient inviter tous les citoyens à apprendre les uns des autres et à prendre part aux traditions des autres. Nous pouvons célébrer le Canada de nombreuses manières, qui ont toutes leur place. Quelle que soit la façon choisie de célébrer, la population entière devrait se sentir invitée à participer.
Cette célébration doit avoir une dimension internationale. Nous sommes une nation d’immigrants, mais nous sommes aussi une nation d’émigrants. Le Canada est le pays du G8 qui a la plus grande proportion de sa population vivant à l’étranger. Pour inclure tous les Canadiens et les Canadiennes, nous devons faire en sorte que cette célébration ait une dimension internationale.
Inciter la communication nationale. Nous devons communiquer avec nos voisins d’autres secteurs et régions, et encourager la communication entre le gouvernement et les citoyens. Le sesquicentenaire représente une occasion pour toute la population canadienne de se parler et de partager cette expérience.
Bâtir le Canada que nous voulons avoir. Le sesquicentenaire sera l’occasion de célébrer ce que nous avons accompli. Ce sera l’occasion d’honorer le Canada en réalisant nos aspirations pour notre pays. Cet anniversaire devrait être un catalyseur pour s’attaquer aux grands problèmes et mettre en branle des projets ambitieux qui créeront des changements positifs pour l’avenir.
Commencer maintenant. Une réflexion sur le Canada et une discussion sur le sesquicentenaire constitue une démarche excitante. Nous n’avons pas besoin d’attendre qu’on nous donne la permission. Personne n’a à nous dire quoi faire. L’année 2017 approche et nous devons commencer à organiser sa célébration dès maintenant.

Le rapport fournit des recommandations concrètes pour nous tous sur la façon dont nous pouvons aller de l'avant. N'oubliez pas que la Conférence 150!Canada n'était que le début de notre voyage incroyable à 2017.

150!Canada Conference - Final Report

2010-07-03T20:52:00.000-04:00

The final report of our 150!Canada conference is now available on our website. The conference which was held at the National Art Centre in Ottawa and brought together 300 delegates from across the country to hear from over 25 distinguished speakers and develop a plan of action to celebrate Canada's 150th birthday in 2017.

I think that you will find the report chock full of ideas on how we should be approaching this momentous occasion. There were several recurring themes that came out of the roundtables that were held on the second day of the conference:

The Sesquicentennial should include all Canadians. Sesquicentennial celebrations should encourage all Canadians to learn from one another and share their traditions. There are many different and important ways to celebrate Canada. However we celebrate, all Canadians should feel welcome.

This needs to be a global celebration. We are a nation of immigrants, but we’re also a nation of emigrants. 2.8 million Canadians live abroad — more than the population of Atlantic Canada, or the Praries. To include all Canadians, we need to take this celebration to the world.

Open channels for communication. We should use the Sesquicentennial to reach out to one another and create new ways to connect. Let’s promote dialogue between communities, and different sectors.

Build the Canada we want. The Sesquicentennial is an occasion to celebrate our accomplishments, and look ahead. It’s time to start punching above our weight. If we’re honest about our challenges, we can make 2017 a catalyst for change.

Start now. Our 150th anniversary excites Canadians. People want to talk about the country and its future, but there isn’t time to waste. Organizers spent a decade preparing for the Centennial. The time to get started is now.

The report provides concrete recommendations for all of us on how we can move forward. Remember that the 150!Canada conference was but the start of our incredible journey to 2017.

World Cup

2010-07-03T07:54:00.000-04:00

Every four years productivity around the world decreases as people are glued to their TVs to watch that magnificent game - football (or soccer). This year has been no exception - especially now that you can watch the matches streamed over the net! It has been an exciting tournament so far with a few upsets. And note how seriously some governments (you were probably wondering how I was going to tie this to public administration!) take the results from the world cup - France has called an inquiry into how badly the national team played and the discord within the team and Nigeria has banned its team from playing internationally for the next two years.

Hope you enjoy this video........

Winding Down

2010-07-02T16:49:00.000-04:00

Well, my last day at IPAC is a week away - July 9th. I'm sure you all enjoyed Canada Day yesterday and celebrated this great country of ours. It is truly an wonderful country. Yesterday we released the report from our 150!Canada conference and it was e-mailed out to participants. We will be posting it on the website early next week and will send it out to all members as well. Watch for it.

In the meantime, I thought you might enjoy a couple of songs by Israel "IZ" Kamakawiwo'ole....

Toutes les bonnes choses ......... et le 202 ème blogue

2010-06-23T22:00:00.005-04:00

Eh bien selon le décompte sur Blogger, ceci est mon 202ème poste depuis que j'ai commencé le blogue à la fin d'août 2007. Mes premiers blogues étaient de notre conférence annuelle à Winnipeg et j'ai posté directement sur notre site web. Un an ou moins plus tard, j'ai décidé de passer au site public Blogger qui m'a donné beaucoup plus de flexibilité en termes de transfert de photos, de vidéos ainsi qu'une plus grand auditoire. Et la "cerise sur le sundae" c'est que c'est gratuit!

J'ai joint l'IAPC en tant que PDG en août 2006 juste à temps pour la conférence annuelle de l'Île du Prince Edouard. Au cours des 4 dernières années, j'ai eu le plaisir de rencontrer de nombreux fonctionnaires dévoués de partout au pays - d'une mer à l'autre - et de tous les niveaux de gouvernement. Il est regrettable que le public canadien ne sache pas toutes les grandes réalisations des fonctionnaires. À l'IAPC, nous avons essayé de mettre en évidence l'excellence grâce à nos prix et d'autres événements. Dans le temps que j'ai été ici, j'ai revu des centaines et des centaines de soumissions pour notre Prix de gestion innovatrice commandité par IBM Canada et KPMG; notre Prix IAPC/Deloitte de leadership dans le secteur public; et la crème de la crème, la Médaille Vanier. En lisant les soumissions j'ai toujours été frappé par les merveilleux exemples de service public. Chaque année, il était difficile de choisir les finalistes parmi les candidats et encore plus difficile de sélectionner les gagnants - en fait tous sont gagnants!

J'ai eu l'occasion de rencontrer de nombreux universitaires de nos grandes universités qui enseignent l'administration publique et la politique public. Leurs travaux constituent un sous-tendent du travail de la fonction publique au Canada. Au fil des années, j'ai lu une pléthore d'articles extraordinaires dans la revue Administration publique du Canada.

J'ai eu l'occasion de travailler avec les présidents incroyable dans mes 4 ans à l'IAPC - Luc Bernier, Carol Layton, Louis Borgeat, Bill Greenlaw et Wynne Young. Ils sont tous bénévoles et ont très occupé avec leur emplois, mais ils croient tous dans la fonction publique et dans l'IAPC et on librement donné de leur temps et continue à donner de leur temps à l'IAPC. La même chose vaut pour le conseil d'administration, les présidents des groupes régionaux et leurs exécutifs et tous les bénévoles qui donnent de leur temps parce qu'ils croient que l'excellence dans le service public est important au Canada et partout dans le monde. Les 17 groupes régionaux de l'IAPC sont très actif et offrent un large éventail d'activités d'apprentissage à la fois membres de l'IAPC et les non-membres.

Et je m'en voudrais si je ne mentionne pas le personnel dévoué de l'IAPC.

Donc, vous devriez avoir deviné que je quitte l'IAPC. En effet, je vais continuer à travailler dans le domaine de l'administration publique et la politique comme sous-ministre adjoint au ministère de l'Éducation de l'Ontario. J'ai hâte aux défis et aux opportunités que ce boulot va apporter.

Pour ces hauts fonctionnaires qui ont lu mon blogue, je tiens à vous encourager à augmenter votre soutien à l'IAPC. Il existe de nombreuses juridictions qui n'ont pas augmenté leur contribution à IAPC depuis le début des années 1990 et d'autres (vous savez qui vous êtes), qui ne fournissent aucune aide de base à cette magnifique institution. Comme je l'ai mentionné dans mon dernier éditorial dans le numéro de juin du magazine Management Secteur Public, sans l'IAPC je crois vraiment que le corps des connaissances actuelles de l'administration publique au Canada ne serait pas aussi grande qu'elle l'est aujourd'hui. Je vous invite à redonner à votre profession choisie - le service public - et à investir dans l'avenir les fonctionnaires en soutenant l'IAPC.

All Good Things.........and the 201st blog post

2010-06-23T16:34:00.004-04:00

Well according to the count on Blogger, this is my 201st post since I started the blog in late August 2007. My first blogs were from our annual conference in Winnipeg and I actually posted directly on the website. A year or less later I decided to move to Blogger a public site that gave me much more flexibility in terms of uploading pictures, videos as well as greater exposure. And the "cerise sur le sundae" as we say in Québec is that it is free!

I joined IPAC as CEO in August 2006 just in time for the Annual conference in PEI. In the last 4 years, I have had the pleasure of meeting many dedicated public servants from across the country - from sea to sea to sea - and from all orders of government. It is unfortunate that the Canadian public does not hear of all the great accomplishments of public servants. At IPAC we have tried to highlight this excellence through our awards and other events. In the time I have been here I have reviewed hundreds upon hundreds of submissions for our Innovative Management Awards co-sponsored by IBM Canada and KPMG; our IPAC/Deloitte Public Sector Leadership Awards and la crème de la crème, the Vanier Medal. As I read these I was always struck by the wonderful examples of public service that leaped off the page. Every year it was difficult to choose the finalists from among the nominees and harder still to select the winners - actually all are winners!

I have had the opportunity to meet with many academics from our great Universities who teach public administration and policy. Their work provides an underpinning to the work of public service in Canada. Over the years I have read a plethora of extraordinary articles in the Canadian Public Administration journal.

I have had the opportunity of working with incredible Presidents in my 4 years at IPAC - Luc Bernier, Carol Layton, Louis Borgeat, Bill Greenlaw and Wynne Young. They are all volunteers and have very busy "day" jobs but they all believe in public service and in IPAC and freely gave of their time and continue to give of their time to IPAC. The same holds true for the Board of Directors, the Regional Group Chairs and Regional Group Executives and all the volunteers who give of their time because they believe that excellence in public service is important in Canada and around the world. IPAC very active 17 regional groups provide a wide range of learning activities to both IPAC members and non-members alike.

And I would be remiss if I did not mention the dedicated staff at IPAC who keep the place running.

So you should have guessed by now that I am leaving IPAC. Indeed I am going to continue to work in the field of public administration and policy as an assistant deputy minister with the Ontario Ministry of Education. I look forward to the challenges and opportunities that the new job will bring and I look fondly back at my time at IPAC.

For those senior public servants who read my blog, I want to encourage you to increase your support to IPAC. There are many jurisdictions who have not increased their contribution in support of IPAC since the early 1990's and others (you know who you are) who provide no core support to this wonderful institution. As I mentioned in my last editorial in the June issue of Public Sector Management magazine, without IPAC I truly believe that the existing body of knowledge on public administration in Canada would not be as extensive as it is today. I urge you to give back to your chosen profession - the public service - and to invest in future public servants by supporting IPAC.

Prix IAPC pour la gestion innovatrice

2010-06-22T22:22:00.000-04:00

Eh bien nous avons finalement lu les plus de 80 présentations que nous avons reçu cette année le Prix de gestion innovatrice commondité par IBM Canada et KPMG. Neuf finalistes ont été sélectionnés et ils feront des présentations au jury de sélection au début de juillet, à Toronto.

Comme vous le savez le thème de cette année est la collaboration. Il y avait de nombreux soumissions valables, mais nous avons dû faire un choix pour sélectionner les finalistes. Inutile de dire que les choix ont été difficiles à faire étant donné le calibre des plus de 80 soumissions.
Et les finalistes sont:

Public Transportation for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games - South Coast British Columbia Transportation Authority (Translink)
Aboriginal Economic Partnerships - Alberta Aboriginal Relations
Alberta's 10 year plan to End Homelessness - Alberta Housing & Urban Affairs
Working Horizontally to Develop a Transformative Initiative on Accessible Transportation - Accessibility Directorate, Ontario Ministry of Community & Social Services
Ontario's Statistical Neighbours: A Tool for Planning - Ontario Ministry of Education
Human Resources Process Lab - Canadian Food Inspection Agency
Restructuring Canada's Automotive Industry - Industry Canada
Impetus for Change: Federal, Provincial, Territorial Pandemic Coordination - Public Health Agency of Canada
La négociation et la mise en oeuvre de l'Accord de commerce et de coopération Québec-Ontario - Ministère de Dévelloppement économique, de l'Innovation et de l'Exportation

Innovative Management Award - Finalists

2010-06-21T12:25:00.002-04:00

Well we finally made it through the over 80 submissions that we received for this year Innovative Management Award co-sponsored by IBM Canada and KPMG. Nine finalists were selected and they will be making presentations to the selection jury in early July in Toronto.

As you may recall the theme for this year's award is collaboration. There were many worthy submissions but we had to make a choice to decide on the finalists. Needless to say that the choices were difficult to make given the calibre of the over 80 submissions.

And the finalists are:

Public Transportation for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games - South Coast British Columbia Transportation Authority (Translink)
Aboriginal Economic Partnerships - Alberta Aboriginal Relations
Alberta's 10 year plan to End Homelessness - Alberta Housing & Urban Affairs
Working Horizontally to Develop a Transformative Initiative on Accessible Transportation - Accessibility Directorate, Ontario Ministry of Community & Social Services
Ontario's Statistical Neighbours: A Tool for Planning - Ontario Ministry of Education
Human Resources Process Lab - Canadian Food Inspection Agency
Restructuring Canada's Automotive Industry - Industry Canada
Impetus for Change: Federal, Provincial, Territorial Pandemic Coordination - Public Health Agency of Canada
La négociation et la mise en oeuvre de l'Accord de commerce et de coopération Québec-Ontario - Ministère de Dévelloppement économique, de l'Innovation et de l'Exportation

National Public Service Week 2010

2010-06-13T20:58:00.000-04:00

June 13 to 19, 2010 is National Public Service Week. It is that time of year when some governments across Canada celebrate public service and the achievements of public servants. The Governor General of Canada has put out a statement commending the public servants for the work that they do.

There are many activities taking place across the country that are aimed at celebrating the excellence in public service that we find day in and day out in public services in Canada. The Government of Canada has a website dedicated to National Public Service Week that includes information about activities being undertaken by the Federal government. The Government of Manitoba has also set up a website to highlight what is happening in that province for National Public Service Week.

While I am happy that some public services are celebrating National Public Service Week, it would be great to have a coordinated campaign that includes the public service of all orders of government across Canada that highlights the value of public service in Canada. Maybe next year??

In the meantime, I would urge all public servants to take pride in their work and to celebrate their chosen profession. Have a great public service week!

E-Government in the USA

2010-06-09T22:47:00.001-04:00

Have come across a couple of reports on E-government in the USA. The first is from Pew Research and is a survey that describes the relationship of citizens to public administration - according to this study, 40% of adult internet users have gone online to obtain raw data about government spending and about government activities. And 31% of online adults have used social media to stay informed about government activities and want to be more engaged & contribute to policy development. This last part on the desire of citizens wanting to contribute to policy development does not surprise me as I have written about the advantage of what I called "open source policy development" in past blogs. You can access the Pew study here.

The second report is a report from the Office of Management and Budget entitled "FY 2009 Report to Congress on the Implementation of The E-Government Act of 2002". This report describes how the US government uses e-government tools to improve its performance and delivery of services and information to the public. The report also delves into transparency and participation initiatives.

In its first year in office, the Obama Administration leveraged the power of information technology to transform the Federal Government. Starting on his first full day in office, the President led this effort by issuing a directive to make the Government more open and transparent. The Administration engaged the American people in new ways such as virtual town hall meetings and improved the quality of the services delivered to the public. Key initiatives demonstrate the commitment to changing the way Government works:

In May 2009, Data.gov was launched to enhance access to Federal data. Since then, the site has grown to contain over 167,000 datasets and tools for using the data. After the Environmental Protection Agency toxic release data was featured on Data.gov, the frequency of downloads of that data increased over tenfold.
In June 2009, the IT Dashboard was implemented to provide unprecedented transparency into $78 billion in annual Federal spending on IT investments. Agency CIOs now review the IT Dashboard monthly to provide updated status information on major IT investments more frequently than ever before.
In September 2009, Apps.gov was launched to provide Federal agencies easy access to new cloud computing and social media technologies. This enabled agencies to transform their computing services quickly and avoid months of delay and redundant effort.
In October 2009, a new platform, CyberScope, was launched to streamline the annual security reporting workload and improved the ability to analyze and report on IT security across the Federal Government.
In December 2009, OMB issued the Open Government Directive instructing all agencies to implement the principles of transparency, participation and collaboration set forth by the President.

The report also includes many examples of initiatives undertaken in e-government that have application to Canada. You can access the full report here.

The High Road: the Podcast

2010-06-09T21:13:00.000-04:00

As I mentioned in a previous blog post, Terry Fallis has written a sequel to his award winning first novel The Best Laid Plans. His second novel entitled, The High Road is scheduled to be published in September 2010. For those who followed Terry's experience with self-publishing his first novel before McClelland & Stewart published it know that Terry also podcast his first novel. Well M&S has agreed to allow Terry to podcast The High Road!! That is quite unusual for a publisher and kudos to M&S. Well Terry has started his podcast and you can listen to Terry reading his novel on iTunes or on his website.

I have listened to the first two chapters and listening to Terry read his work is a delight. And obviously I am not the only one who thinks so as THR has risen up the iTunes charts and others such as the President of the Canadian Booksellers Association have lauded Terry's book.

I would heartily recommend that you listen to this wonderful Canadian political novel. If you enjoyed The Best Laid Plans, you will love The High Road.

Innovative Management Award - More

2010-06-09T13:24:00.000-04:00

A few days ago I blogged about IPAC's Innovative Management Award. Well the application deadline has arrived along with almost 100 submissions! I am now plowing my way through a number of these submissions and I can tell that it will be a very difficult job to come up with a handful of finalists from the amazing examples of collaboration that I have read about so far. These are such great examples of how governments right across Canada are engaging in collaboration to develop better policies and programs. The collaborations include multiple ministries/departments within a jurisdiction, collaboration with other orders of government - federal, provincial, municipal and aboriginal, collaboration with the private sector, collaboration with NGO's and community groups, collaboration with citizens and collaboration with other countries. WOW!!!

I am not sure how I will triage all these submissions, but one thing I can attest to is that citizens should be proud of the public service in Canada for engaging in innovative and collaborative approaches to program & policy development and implementation. Stay tuned for the list of the finalists shortly (have to have it shortly as the awards jury meets in early July to hear from the finalists and award the Gold, Silver & Bronze).

Once again, thanks to our sponsors, IBM Canada and KPMG for supporting this important award and especially thanks to all the organizations across Canada that have submitted nominations.

2nd Curve Health Care Organizations

2010-06-03T13:43:00.000-04:00

As part of IPAC's "Sustaining Transformation: Building a Resilient Organization" conference that we held on May 31st & June 1st, Dr. Marty Merry spoke about the opportunity to create 2nd curve health care organizations.

His premise is that the complexity of our health care system as outpaced its capacity to deliver safe patient care under the old "craft" model. What is required to move from a 4 sigma (6,210 defects/1 million = avoidable deaths) to a 6 sigma organization (3.4 defects/1 million) is a paradigm shift. Moving to a second curve system that imports the best of management science into the field of health care delivery would move an organization from 4 to 6 sigma. As Dr. Merry noted - what is the rate of preventable deaths that would be acceptable. If we say that we are satisfied with 95% success rate, that means that 50,000 people die from preventable deaths in our system. The only real answer that is acceptable is ZERO!

But how do we get there?

Dr Merry laid out "The Vision: 10 Rules of Performance in a Redesigned/2nd Curve Health Care System" (adapted from the Institute of Medicine, 2003):

Care is based on continuous healing relationships;
Care is customized based on patient needs and values;
The patient is the source of control;
Knowledge is shared and information flows freely;
Decision making is evidence based;
Safety is a system property;
Transparency is necessary;
Needs are anticipated;
Waste is continuously decreased; and
Cooperation among clinicians is a priority.

Dr. Merry spoke about the characteristics of a second curve health care organization that is patient focused. I could not do justice to his full talk, but have no fear as we will be posting the videos of his talk on teh IPAC website shortly.

Resilience Conference

2010-06-02T09:49:00.000-04:00

As I wrote previously, on Monday & Tuesday, we organized a conference entitled “Sustaining Transformation: Building a Resilient Organization” that focused on health care. We had an amazing array of speakers! The conference was videoed and will be posting the videos on our website in the next short while.

Among our keynote speakers was Saäd Rafi, DM of the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care who spoke to the delegates on the need for resilience and a focus on quality of care. He spoke of the need for health care organizations to act as a real system that is better aligned to quality health outcomes and that the future core business of the sector is a focus on quality care. There are some who equate the amount of funding to the level of quality. Saäd emphasized that more money does not result in better quality. Indeed there is an argument that true quality is less expensive as it focuses on the best practices for the delivery of care based on evidence. Saäd spoke about the Ontario government’s new legislation “Excellent Care for All” that is presently being debated in the Legislature. This legislation focuses on quality and patient outcomes and requires every hospital to develop an annual Quality Plan that includes regular surveys of patients, their families, and staff to gauge the level of quality being delivered.

Saäd also connected what the Ministry is doing to the 4 parts of resilience model- Responds, Monitors, Anticipates and Learns. He emphasized that the learn is the most difficult as it requires behavioral changes in the system as a whole. The delegates appreciated his take on the challenges and opportunities ahead and the need to build truly resilient organizations in order to be successful.

There were a number of other incredible speakers, such as Dr. Marty Merry and Dr. Josh Tepper on 2nd curve health care organizations that I will blog about in a future update.

Innovative Management Award

2010-05-30T21:58:00.001-04:00

In 1990, IPAC established "The IPAC Award for Innovative Management" to recognize the exceptional management within the public sector of Canada. Each year a new theme is chosen by the IPAC Board of Directors and our sponsors - IBM Canada and KPMG. In those 20 years we have been privileged to see many extraordinary examples of innovation at its best from right across the full spectrum of the public sector in Canada. On the IPAC website we have a database of all the winners and finalists through all these years.

In many years IPAC receives 100 submissions from across the country. These 100 submissions are whittled down to a group of finalists who are invited to present their innovative management submission to a jury composed of distinguished public servants. The top three finalists are then invited to make presentations at the IPAC Annual Conference and winners are announced.

This years theme is "Collaboration at Work".

Governments in Canada and around the world face complex problems that reach across ministerial mandates, regulatory purview and jurisdictions, and affect citizens and stakeholders in predictable and unintended ways. While resources are increasingly limited, citizens expect governments to work together to tackle "wicked problems."

Collaboration is needed within an entire governmental enterprise or public organization, with other governments, the broader public sector, NGOs and with citizens. Natural disasters or flu epidemics, adapting to and mitigating climate change, dealing with the impacts of a global recession, caring for the most vulnerable members of our society, or helping other countries develop their institutions and public services: one single government entity, acting alone, cannot achieve the results that our citizens expect.

We demand that governments act in concert with actors from business, civil society as well as with citizens, and work effectively with other orders of government to achieve the best outcomes. We require that this cooperative approach be cost effective, swift, innovative and transparent. We also expect public sector values to be respected.

For 2010, the Innovative Management Awards will recognize governmental/public sector organizations that have shown new and innovative ways of cutting across bureaucratic boundaries and silos to address the complex issues facing society.

The deadline to submit your application is June 7, 2010. Go to the Innovative Management section of the IPAC website to fill in the application form.

Resilience, Reliability and Results

2010-05-28T19:01:00.000-04:00

On Monday May 31st, and Tuesday June 1st, IPAC will be holding a conference focusing on health care entitled Sustainable Transformation: Building a Resilient Organization.

As part of IPAC's health care research project we will be releasing a study of five acute-care hospitals in the Waterloo-Wellington region that highlight the stories of these "high performers in the making" and their respective experiences with ED PIP – the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care’s “Emergency Department Process Improvement Program.”

This 8 month initiative which ran from March – October 2009 engaged front-line staff from across these organizations in "quality by design" decision-making, planning, piloting and implementing of process improvement changes in Emergency Departments and across Inpatient Units. With Wave 2 just finishing and an additional 17 Ontario Hospital sites added to the roll-out, ED PIP may be one of the most significant transformational efforts to take place in Ontario hospitals in decades. In its early days PIP has clearly demonstrated success by enhancing the quality of the patient experience through improved access to care and flow through the system at the following Wave 1 sites:

Groves Memorial Hospital, Fergus
Guelph General Hospital, Guelph
St. Mary’s General Hospital, Kitchener-Waterloo
Grand River Hospital, Kitchener-Waterloo
Cambridge Memorial Hospital, Cambridge

The case studies provide a context for specific process improvement strategies that could be adopted in other hospitals and outline the challenges or barriers that may prevent the adoption of these process improvements. This study considers:

the significance of a learning culture that builds capacity and resilience in its people;
the importance of process improvement designs that enhance system effectiveness and efficiencies and increase overall reliability in care delivery and patient outcomes; and
the value of a management and performance measurement infrastructure that encourages and supports the desired results of the transformation.

With a spirit of persistent crafting and sustaining of robust strategies and improvements in care, these ‘stories’ and ‘lessons learned’ can influence, inspire and dare us to consider what is possible as we continue the journey of healthcare reform in the province of Ontario.

You can access these cases and much more on the IPAC Health Care Leaders Forum page of the IPAC website.

Next week I will be blogging from our Health care conference. As I've written before on this blog, we must come to grips with the increased demands of our health care system if we are to ensure a longer term fiscally sustainable future and a society that invests in other important areas such as education, the arts and infrastructure.

Patient Safety & Quality Health Care

2010-05-20T09:41:00.002-04:00

An interesting new report, published in April 2010, by the European Commission on the perceptions of patient safety and the quality of healthcare. The survey was conducted in 27 members states of the European Union. Nearly half the respondents feel that they could be harmed by healthcare in their country, and the majority of respondents feel hospital infections or incorrect, missed or delayed diagnoses are either fairly likely or very likely to occur.

The majority of respondents feel hospital infections or incorrect, missed or delayed diagnoses are either fairly likely or very likely to occur when receiving healthcare in their own country.

Over 25% of respondents claim that they or a member of their family have experienced an adverse event with healthcare. However, these events largely go unreported.

Where adverse experiences were reported this was mainly to the hospital management or the relevant doctor, nurse or pharmacist.

Nearly one third of respondents do not know which body is responsible for patient safety in their country. Others see the ministry of health or the healthcare providers (e.g. clinic, hospital, doctor, nurse) as the responsible bodies.

Of the people who underwent surgery, 17% say written consent was never obtained, though great variance across the Member States is evident.

Most respondents (73%) say television is their main source of information regarding adverse events in healthcare, followed by newspapers and magazines (44%) and friends or family (31%). Only 9% would seek information in official statistics or in hospital.

Whether harm occurred in their own country, or another Member State, respondents expect that an investigation into the case or financial compensation would be the forms of redress.

Should they be harmed in their own country, most respondents anticipate that they would seek help from a lawyer, or else the hospital management or ministry of health. If the harm occurs in another Member State, they claim they would first contact their embassy or consulate.

When thinking of high quality healthcare, the most important criterion is well trained medical staff, followed by treatment that works. Thereafter, no waiting lists, modern medical equipment and respect of a patient’s dignity receive roughly equal responses.

Most respondents rate the healthcare in their country as good, though the majority feel it is fairly good rather than very good. However, there is again great variance on a national level (from 97% to 25% of respondents rating quality of healthcare in their country as good).

Respondents from 16 EU Member States consider the quality of healthcare in their country as worse than in other Member States, whereas respondents from 11 Member States consider it as better.

This is a fascinating report and Canadians should be aware that we have similar issues in this country.

La Gouverneure générale remet la Médaille Vanier

2010-05-19T21:55:00.000-04:00

Le 13 mai la gouverneure générale du Canada a présenté la Médaille Vanier au Dr Gordon S. Smith lors d'une cérémonie à Rideau Hall. Ce fut une occasion merveilleuse et l'IAPC est fier que Son Excellence a présidé cette cérémonie importante.

Dr Smith, Wynne Young (la présidente de l'IAPC) et moi sont arrivé à 9:30 où nous avons été accueillis par le merveilleux personnel de Rideau Hall. On nous a montré où la cérémonie aurait lieu et ce que nous avions à faire. Après nous sommes allés à la salon "Mme Vanier" et ont nous a offert café, thé, etc que nous avons attendu que la cérémonie commence a 10h30.

La gouverneure générale a prononcé un discours admirable sur le service public que vous devriez tous lire. Wynne Young a ensuite remercié la GG pour son hospitalité et a présenté le Lauréate de 2009 de la médaille Vanier, Dr Smith. Dr Smith a ensuite reçu sa médaille de la Gouverneure générale et il a parlé pendant quelques minutes sur le service public et sa carrière et sa relation avec Rideau Hall.

Après le chant de «O Canada» nous avons été invités à une réception où la merveilleuse GG nous a rejoint.

Ce fut un événement merveilleux et nous sommes très reconnaissants que la gouverneure général a été en mesure de présider à la cérémonie de cette année.

Pictures from Vanier Reception/Photos de la réception de la Médaille Vanier

2010-05-19T15:36:00.003-04:00

Here are a few pictures from the reception at Rideau Hall following the Vanier Medal ceremony. This picture is of our incoming President, Denise Amyot and the Governor General.

Voici quelques photos de la réception à Rideau Hall, après la cérémonie de la Médaille Vanier. Cette photo est de notre présidente entrante, Denise Amyot et de la Gouverneure générale Michaëlle Jean.

These pictures were taken in the beautiful gardens of Rideau Hall. Picture below from left to right are: Kaili Levesque, Chair National Capital Regional Group, Denise Amyot, Incoming IPAC President, Nancy Chahwan, IPAC National Secretary, me and Nancy Faraday-Smith, IPAC VP.

Ces photos ont été prises dans les jardins magnifiques de Rideau Hall. Photo ci-dessous, de gauche à droite: Kaili Lévesque, présidente du Groupe régional de la capitale nationale, Denise Amyot, présidente entrante de l'IAPC, Nancy Chahwan, Secrétaire national de l'IAPC, moi et Nancy Faraday-Smith, vice-présidente de l' IAPC.

Citizens use of the Internet

2010-05-17T11:11:00.001-04:00

My friend Geordie Adams at Publivate tweeted today about a report on the use of the internet by citizens in the USA. The report by Pew Internet is on Government online and shows that US citizens are more and more turning to the internet to access government in the US.

Fully 82% of internet users (representing 61% of all American adults) looked for information or completed a transaction on a government website.

The report found that:

48% of internet users have looked for information about a public policy or issue online with their local, state or federal government

46% have looked up what services a government agency provides

41% have downloaded government forms

35% have researched official government documents or statistics

33% have renewed a driver’s license or auto registration

30% have gotten recreational or tourist information from a government agency

25% have gotten advice or information from a government agency about a health or safety issue

23% have gotten information about or applied for government benefits

19% have gotten information about how to apply for a government job

15% have paid a fine, such as a parking ticket

11% have applied for a recreational license, such as a fishing or hunting license

The report identifies several other common characteristics regarding citizens’ interactions with government. Specifically, these interactions are frequently:

Data driven – Efforts by government agencies to post their data online are resonating with citizens. Fully 40% of online adults went online in the preceding year to access data and information about government (for instance, by looking up stimulus spending, political campaign contributions or the text of legislation).

Organized around new online platforms – Citizen interactions with government are moving beyond the website. Nearly one third (31%) of online adults use online platforms such as blogs, social networking sites, email, online video or text messaging to get government information.

Participatory – Americans are not simply going online for data and information; they want to share their personal views on the business of government. Nearly one quarter (23%) of internet users participate in the online debate around government policies or issues, with much of this discussion occurring outside of official government channels.

The study also found that 40% of online users search for basic information about government and that the use of the internet is directly proportional to the users level of income and education - the more educated and those with higher incomes use the internet with greater frequency. The report also found that Social Media has the potential of reaching currently underserved populations. This is a fascinating study and is in-line with some of the conclusions of IPAC's study on the use of social media.

Governor General presents Vanier Medal

2010-05-14T08:35:00.001-04:00

Yesterday the Governor General of Canada presented the Vanier Medal to Dr. Gordon S. Smith at a ceremony at Rideau Hall. It was a wonderful occasion and IPAC was proud to have Her Excellency preside over this important ceremony.

Dr Smith, Wynne Young (IPAC Prez) and I arrived at 9:30 and where greeted by the wonderful staff at Rideau Hall. We were shown where the ceremony would take place & what we had to do. After we went to the Madame Vanier room and were offered coffee, tea etc as we waited for the ceremony to begin at 10:30.

The Governor General gave a wonderful speech about public service which you should all read. Wynne Young then thanked the GG for her hospitality & introduced the 2009 Vanier medal laureate, Dr. Smith. Dr. Smith then received his medal from the Governor General & spoke for a few minutes about the public service and his career and his connection to Rideau Hall.

After the singing of "O Canada" we were invited to a wonderful reception where the GG joined and mingled with the guests.

It was a wonderful event and we were very grateful that the Governor General was able to preside over this year's ceremony.

Tweeting Politicians

2010-05-12T15:54:00.000-04:00

There is an interesting article in the May 6th issue of the Economist about politicians and their ever increasing use of Twitter. As the article notes tweeting makes politicians seem more accessible but does it change behaviour?

In Chile, the new President requested that his cabinet all tweet and in Japan there are 485 politicians tweeting versus 3 a year ago. The key question with any public figure who tweets is whether tweeters will tweet on controversial issues.

This phase of social media will be interesting to watch and to see if it changes people's perception of government.

Vanier Medal @ Rideau Hall

2010-05-08T21:23:00.001-04:00

On Thursday May 13th, the Governor General, Her Excellency the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean, will be presenting IPAC's highest award, the Vanier Medal, to Dr. Gordon S. Smith, the 2009 Vanier Medal recipient.

The Governor General is IPAC's patron and as such, we are honoured that she will be presiding over this ceremony at Rideau Hall.

The Vanier Medal is one of the highest forms of recognition for Canadian public administrators. It was created in 1962 in honour of Canada’s second Canadian Governor General, the Right Honourable Georges-P. Vanier, and is awarded annually by IPAC as a mark of distinction and exceptional achievement to a person who has shown distinctive leadership in public administration and public service in Canada, or who, by his/her writings, has made a significant contribution in the field of public administration or public service in Canada.

Dr. Gordon S. Smith is the Executive Director of the Centre for Global Studies, University of Victoria and a former distinguished Canadian public servant.

Dr. Smith is well-known as both a practitioner and as an academic in public administration and has demonstrated excellence throughout his long career. Dr. Smith’s involvement within the Government of Canada began with a focus on security and defence in the 1960s and he quickly advanced to increasingly complex and demanding positions, including Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs; Canadian Ambassador to the European Union; Ambassador to the Canadian Delegation to NATO; and Secretary to Cabinet for Federal-Provincial Relations. He played the principal role in drafting the major document setting out Canada’s defence policy in the 1970s. He served as a valued adviser on constitutional questions in the eighties.

After retiring from the Government of Canada, Gordon Smith continued serving the interests of Canada within an increasingly complex and interdependent world. In 1997 he joined the University of Victoria as Executive Director of the Centre for Global Studies. He was also Chair of the Board of Governors of the International Development Research Centre from 1997 to 2007 and was appointed to the Centre for International Governance Innovation’s International Advisory Board of Governors in 2006. He demonstrated leadership, networking and idea generating skills during a collaborative project between CIGI and the Centre for Global Studies at the University of Victoria. This project “L20” was ground breaking in paving the way for the recent meeting of heads of government in Washington and the London meeting that focused on solutions to the financial crisis.

Dr. Smith is also a prolific writer and is the author of “Canada and Afghanistan: Is it Working?”among many other books and articles.

I will update all of you on Thursday after the ceremony & I hope to post some pictures as well.

British Election - today's the vote

2010-05-06T10:00:00.001-04:00

Well, in what seems like an historic election, voters in the United Kingdom go to the polls today to elect a new government. Polls indicate that the Conservatives have the lead in the popular vote, but that Labour may end up with a plurality in terms of seats with the Liberal-Democrats holding the balance of power.

The Institute for Policy Research in the UK published the results of a survey of "prospective parliamentary candidates" in winnable seats to ascertain how they would react to a "hung" parliament.

In the event of a hung parliament, a post-election deal between Labour and Liberal Democrats could be more politically sustainable than a deal between the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives, according to results from the survey.

And the Globe & Mail today comments on the level of policy debate during the British election versus Canadian general elections.

As voters in Britain queue at the polls today, Canadian political parties could stand to learn a great deal from the political campaign now ending. British politicians offered a higher quality of policy thinking than anything comparable in recent Canadian elections.

It has been a very interesting election in the UK and if the polls are correct, it should continue to be very interesting over the next few days as the party leaders deal with the fallout of the election.

ROB & me

2010-05-05T11:42:00.000-04:00

A little while ago I was contacted and asked if I wanted to be interviewed for a piece that was set to appear in the Report on Business magazine of the Globe & Mail. The piece was on public sector leadership and the challenges facing governments. Of course I said yes, that would be fun.

The piece is actually part of a series by the Certified Management Accountants (CMA) that is looking at leadership and advertising their Executive CMA program (which by coincidence I graduated from last year - the person writing the article did not know this until I told him).

Anyway, here is the article...I hope you enjoy it.

Happy 100th!!

2010-05-04T10:11:00.000-04:00

Today is the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Canadian Navy by the Parliament of Canada through the passage of the Canadian Naval Services Act on May 4, 1910.

In those 100 years the men and women of the Canadian Navy have served this country with distinction, in World War I and II, in the Korean War and in many other conflicts. Imagine the scope of operations for the Navy, with an Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic areas to patrol - that is quite a big coastline. On top of which, in recent years, we have also sent our Navy to the Persian Gulf and to Haiti.

Happy Birthday to that great Canadian institution - the Canadian Navy!!

British Election

2010-04-28T09:38:00.000-04:00

I usually don't comment on politics, but since this is about what is happening across the Pond, I though I would give it a go. It has been fascinating watching the British election unfurl. They held their first ever televised leaders debate - something that we take for granted here in Canada. And the outcome of that debate has been an increase in support for the third party in the UK, the Liberal Democrats under the leadership of Nick Clegg.

With voting scheduled for May 6, 2010, polls indicate that the outcome will be a "hung" parliament - a minority government in our nomenclature. One of the things that I have found rather strange is how partisan the media in the UK is. Rupert Murdoch controls 40% of the newspapers in the UK and his papers have been slagging the Lib Dem leader in screaming headlines. In the language of Yes, Minister, I believe that these papers have been "economical with the truth". The Sun has also been accused of censoring a poll that was favourable to Nick Clegg the Lib Dem leader. Take a look at the Independent's article that lays out the claim made by these papers and the truth.

Another interesting aspect of the UK election is the work of various think tanks in providing analysis of the platforms of the various parties. One such think tank is the Institute for Fiscal Studies. Over the years I have read a number of their analyses and always found them sound. They have just published quite a number of papers analyzing various aspects of the platforms, including Taxes and benefits; education policy; green policy; welfare reform; productivity, innovation and corporate tax; and the public services. They are well worth the read.

Wall Street Crooks

2010-04-17T09:40:00.000-04:00

Making big headlines in the last few days is the charge brought of Fraud brought by the SEC against Goldman Sachs as a result of the subprime and related financial fiasco that precipitated the existing world wide economic recession and the bail out of hundreds of companies. I ranted about the larceny behind the subprime mortgage debacle in a previous post.

The Huffington Post has a fascinating article explaining how one of these massive frauds by Goldman Sachs was orchestrated. In essence one man is alleged to have bundled $2 billion of subprime mortgages that he knew had a very high likelihood of defaulting into an investment vehicle called a "synthetic collateralized debt obligation"...isn't it amazing how these smart wall street types come up with names of investment instruments that sound important but are really JUNK! These debt obligations were sold to pension funds, banks and others and when the mortgage holders defaulted the whole scheme went under and ever one lost money, except of course for Goldman Sachs and the originator of this vehicle who made a fortune.

But the Goldman Sachs charges could be just the beginning of many other charges of fraud against these smart wall street types. Lets hope so!

The people who created these elaborate schemes and caused losses in the billions should be brought to trial.

Wayne Reports & Social Media

2010-04-13T15:26:00.000-04:00

At the end of March, Wayne Wouters, the Clerk of the Privy Council and Secretary to Cabinet of the Government of Canada (boy that's a long title), released the 17th annual report to the Prime Minister on the Public Service of Canada - it is also Wayne's 1st report as Clerk.

I found it to be a very interesting report on a few fronts. The first is in Wayne's introduction where he underscores the importance of values as a cornerstone of the public service. Values underpin everything that we do and how we do it. It does not matter what the issue is or what new technology exists, public service values matter.

in 1987, IPAC put forth its Statement of Principles Regarding the Conduct of Public Employees that underscore that the public services of Canada be seen as neutral, non-partisan, effective and innovative institutions that serve the best interests of the governments and citizens of this country. In 2005, IPAC, after a wide consultative process put forward the Public Servants Commitments which reflects the values of public servants. Both these documents reflect the values that underpin public service and are reflected in Wayne's report.

The second area that caught my attention was the discussion on the use of Web 2.0 technology to enable public servants to accomplish their jobs more effectively. These collaborative tools are changing the way we do business and I am glad that Wayne is embracing these tools. I have written in the past about the need for governments to embrace these technologies so as to engage in meaningful consultations and dialogues with citizens - what I termed as open source policy development. IPAC has just completed the 1st phase of a study entitled “Social Media and Public Policy Dilemmas” that addresses some of the issues related to Web 2.0 in the public sector.

We held a series of roundtables in cities across Canada to get the views and input of public servants, academics and other interested parties. It is evident from this first phase of the study that there is a need for a concerted and focused attempt to look at the impact of social media on government – from the management of information to how we run our organizations. We will be shortly publishing this report.

If you have not read Wayne's report yet, I would highly recommend that you do so. In future posts I will come back to Wayne's report, especially as it deals with Public Service Renewal.

150!Canada Conference - a few pictures

2010-04-08T18:44:00.000-04:00

Here are a few more pictures from our recent 150!Canada conference. These pictures were taken by the amazing David Pike.

This first picture is of me in my Captain Canada pose. Do you like the Canadian flag behind me?

All the presenters signed a few of our 150!Canada posters...what a great souvenir.

The stage at the NAC had these wonderful BIG numbers that matched our conference logo. They are now at the Museum of Science & Technology in Ottawa.

Here are some pictures of the delegates hard at work planning & imaging Canada's sesquicentennial.

And here is a picture of our great facilitators (the "red" shirts)

These pictures just give you a taste of the energy at this conference. Hope you enjoy them.

Clerk 2.0

2010-04-08T12:14:00.000-04:00

Bravo to Wayne Wouters for joining the Web 2.0 crowd. Wayne now has is own website and is also on Twitter!!

It is great to see the head of the Canadian Public Service embracing technology and engaging in on-line discussions. This is an example to all the other heads of public services across Canada - I hope that they follow Wayne's lead.

I'm sure that this public face is just the tip of the iceberg,as I presume that Wayne is probably using similar technology to communicate internally with Government of Canada public servants.

Kudos!

150!Canada Conference - Videos

2010-04-07T19:59:00.003-04:00

The videos of all the amazing speakers at our recent 150!Canada conference are now available on line. If you missed the conference you will not want to miss these amazing talks. To give you a feel of the calibre of the talks, below you can watch and listen to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the Right Honourable Beverly McLachlin speak on Citizenship.

A special shout-out to our great videographer, John Hall of Stretford Media for an amazing job on these videos.

150!Canada: Rt. Hon. Beverley McLachlin on Vimeo.

Man made environmental disaster

2010-04-05T09:29:00.000-04:00

I was surfing the web when I came across the story of the Aral Sea. In the space of 50 years, what had been the world's 4th largest fresh water lake has now shrunk by 90 percent due to the diversion of the rivers feeding the Aral Sea to cotton production. Towns that once were thriving fishing communities next to the Sea are now hundreds of kilometres away from what little water there is and are stranded in the middle of a dessert.

After the Meltdown

2010-04-01T15:03:00.000-04:00

On March 24th I had the opportunity to attend an interesting session entitled "After the Meltdown: The limits and possibilities of economics" that was organized by the Centre for Global Challenges of the Glendon School of Public & International Affairs.

After introductions by Alex Himelfarb and words of welcome by Mamdouh Shoukri (President of York University), the microphone was turned over to Chaviva Hosek, President of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research to introduce the illustrious panelists.

The panelists were George Akerlof, Nobel Laureate & Professor of Economics at the University of California at Berkeley; Tim Besley, Professor of Economics & Political Science at the London School of Economics; and Pierre Fortin, Professor of Economics at the University of Québec at Montreal.

George Akerlof spoke about "animal spirits" and how they impact the economy (this is from his recent book entitled "Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism". The term "animal spirits" is derived from Keynes and relates to the confidence and gut feelings in determining business decisions.

"Most, probably, of our decisions to do something positive, the full consequences of which will be drawn out over many days to come, can only be taken as the result of animal spirits - a spontaneous urge to action rather than inaction, and not as the outcome of a weighted average of quantitative benefits multiplied by quantitative probabilities." (161-162) - J.M.Keynes, General Theory.

By this he meant that data alone (profit/loss, eps, etc) are not enough to explain business decisions and that psychology has a role to play in it. Prof. Akerlof talked about the five animal spirits, with a special emphasis on "snake oil" to explain the meltdown.

In his talk, Prof Fortin outlined the three economic tasks that governments will have to respond to in the next decade: namely, drawing lessons from the recession, responding to the demographic forces that will impact western countries and accelerating economic growth.

On demographics, he quoted David Foot who said "Demographics explain about two-thirds of everything". This is especially true if you look at the demographics facing western industrialized countries like Canada. I have previously written and spoken about this (In fact I gave a speech which contained some of this information and my analysis a couple of days before this session). The combination of demographics and ever increasing health care costs will impose a squeeze on public finances over the medium term according to Prof Fortin. There are only two possible solutions: 1) radical change to our health care sector , and 2) accelerate economic growth.

It was an interesting discussion and I will post my remarks on the demographic challenges to either this blog (if I can figure out how) or to the IPAC website.

Only in Britain

2010-03-27T11:55:00.000-04:00

I read the following in the Globe & Mail on Wednesday...

British civil servants have been given counselling manuals advising them how to deal with stress related boredom and a lack of work, The Daily Telegraph reports. "In one booklet from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, officials said stress-related problems could be caused by having 'too little work or responsibilities' and suggested that pressured workers take up a hobby to alleviate anxiety. The Department for International Development's book warned workers to avoid becoming lethargic from 'too little pressure' but allow for 20 percent more time to complete tasks they feel could add to stress. 'Breathe in and out heavily a few times and imagine yourself being successful', it advises workers."

I don't know about you, but my reaction to this is WTF? Where do these people work? In my experience, civil servants in Canada work hard and are dedicated to serving the public. I don't know any who have too little to do and are stress...quite the contrary, they are stressed because of all the work that they have to do.

150!Canada Conference

2010-03-19T16:10:00.002-04:00

Here are a couple of pictures from the 150! conference. The first is me standing in front of the set that we had on the stage - the BIG numbers! Dylan said that is looks like I am at my 150th birthday! That would be a lot of candles.

Voici deux photos de notre conférence 150!Canada. Me voici devant les GROS chiffres de 150. Dylan pense que c'est mon 150eme anniversaire!

Here's a picture of me with Denise Amyot, our incoming President and CEO of the Tech Museums in Ottawa (Science and Technology Museum, Aviation Museum and The Agriculture Museum.)

Me voici avec Denise Amyot, notre présidente-élu et présidente du Musée des sciences et de la technologie du Canada, du Musée de l'Aviation, et du Musée de l'Agriculture.

150!Canada Conference - WOW!

2010-03-18T10:42:00.002-04:00

It has taken me a few days (almost a week actually) to sit down and collect my thoughts on an amazing experience - the 150!Canada Conference that IPAC along with our friends at MASS LBP organized on March 11 and 12, 2010. What a fantastic and energizing event!!

The purpose of the conference was to start us thinking about Canada's sesquicentennial in 2017 (it is not that far away). And, think & discuss the 300 delegates did!

On the first day of the conference we had 25 incredible & dynamic speakers - including the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, the Right Honourable Beverly McLachlin, Peter Aykroyd who was Director of Communications for the Centenary celebrations, Roch Carrier, Jeff Melanson of the National Ballet School, Mary Simon, Tom Jenkins of Open Text and Senator Romeo Dallaire. Each of the 25 speakers had 10 minutes to present their ideas to the delegates gathered at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa. This is a different format from our traditional conferences. But it worked very well as the speakers had to focus on their core message quickly and the audience was attentive the whole time.

On the second day, the delegates broke out into round tables based on a number of different topics and discussed ideas, made recommendations, etc that will form the basis of the report from the conference. This report, which should be ready in the next two weeks will be made public and sent to governments, businesses, community groups, etc around the country. We hope that this will kick-start the planning for the 150th.

It was interesting to meet local 150 organizations that have already been established in London, Montreal and Edmonton. These cities have already started to think about this occasion and develop ideas on how to celebrate this milestone.

For those of you who missed the conference - we will be posting videos of the presentations by all the speakers shortly on the website. As well, CPAC filmed our conference and will be showing it soon.

There was another first at this conference - at the end of the first day we held a concert at the NAC! Jowi Taylor and Dina Graser produced a spectacular show that included performances by the incomparable Jully Black and Radio Radio. Delegates were dancing in the aisles at the NAC!!

Special thanks to Peter Herrndorf and his staff at the National Arts Centre for all their assistance and kindness. Without their enthusiastic support we would not have been able to pull this off. Thanks to our sponsors - the Royal Bank of Canada, OpenText, and the National Film Board of Canada for all their support. And salutations to our media partners, Metro News Ottawa, the Walrus and the Literary Review of Canada.

Thanks to all the facilitators and others in the special red 150!Canada t-shirts for ensuring that the conference ran smoothly.

Finally a very special thanks to our partners at MASS LBP and especially to Peter MacLeod.

This is but the start of a 7 year journey to 2017. Stay tuned for more on our sesquicentennial.

Celebrating Canada

2010-03-07T09:13:00.001-05:00

Later this week we are hosting the 150!Canada Conference in Ottawa. This is the first conference that will kick start our country's preparations for our sesquicentennial in 2017.

The just completed 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver galvanized Canadians from coast to coast to coast. The pride that we have in our country, which much of the time is below the surface, burst out for all the world to see. The Globe & Mail's Stephen Brunt had a wonderful video essay on the games and Canadians reaction to them. It is a wonderful video.....

Now our challenge as a country is to maintain this spirit in everything that we do as we head to our 150th anniversary. We must work together to forge a better country where all have equal opportunity to excel and contribute to the betterment of Canada. It is not too late to come to our 150!Canada conference on March 11th and 12th in Ottawa and share your energy and enthusiasm.

Poésie

2010-03-06T09:10:00.000-05:00

La grasse matinée

Il est terrible
le petit bruit de l'oeuf dur cassé sur un comptoir d'étain
il est terrible ce bruit
quand il remue dans la mémoire de l'homme qui a faim
elle est terrible aussi la tête de l'homme
la tête de l'homme qui a faim
quand il se regarde à six heures du matin
dans la glace du grand magasin
une tête couleur de poussière
ce n'est pas sa tête pourtant qu'il regarde
dans la vitrine de chez Potin
il s'en fout de sa tête l'homme
il n'y pense pas
il songe
il imagine une autre tête
une tête de veau par exemple
avec une sauce de vinaigre
ou une tête de n'importe quoi qui se mange
et il remue doucement la mâchoire
doucement
et il grince des dents doucement
car le monde se paye sa tête
et il ne peut rien contre ce monde
et il compte sur ses doigts un deux trois
un deux trois
cela fait trois jours qu'il n'a pas mangé
et il a beau se répéter depuis trois jours
Ça ne peut pas durer
ça dure
trois jours
trois nuits
sans manger
et derrière ces vitres
ces pâtés ces bouteilles ces conserves
poissons morts protégés par les boîtes
boîtes protégées par les vitres
vitres protégées par les flics
flics protégés par la crainte
que de barricades pour six malheureuses sardines...
Un peu plus loin le bistro
café-crème et croissants chauds
l'homme titube
et dans l'intérieur de sa tête
un brouillard de mots
un brouillard de mots
sardines à manger
oeuf dur café-crème
café arrosé rhum
café-crème
café-crème
café-crime arrosé sang !...
Un homme très estimé dans son quartier
a été égorgé en plein jour
l'assassin le vagabond lui a volé
deux francs
soit un café arrosé
zéro franc soixante-dix
deux tartines beurrées
et vingt-cinq centimes pour le pourboire deu garçon.
Il est terrible
le petit bruit de l'oeuf dur cassé sur un comptoir d'étain
il est terrible ce bruit
quand il remue dans la mémoire de l'homme qui a faim.

Un poème de Jacques Prévert

Well Done Vancouver! Congrats Canada!!

2010-02-28T20:21:00.000-05:00

It is the last day of the 2010 Winter Olympics just half an hour before the closing ceremonies. As I look back on the last 17 days, all I can say is WOW! Vanoc you have done a wonderful job. Vancouver you were fantastic and Canada you were extraordinary. Though the games started tragically, they went on to be an extraordinary example of Canadian resilience and spirit. Even Jacques Rogge, head of the IOC has said that he has never seen such a spirit in an Olympic City.

What a way to finish the games than to win the Gold medal at Hockey....in overtime with a goal by Sidney Crosby. Parties have broken out all over the country...they are partying and playing street hockey on Yonge Street in Toronto.

From Alexandre Bilodeau winning Canada's first Gold medal on home soil to Joannie Rochette's extraordinary bronze medal performance in figure skating, the whole Canadian team did Canada proud.

I hope that the spirit that was evident throughout these last 17 days and in the torch run that preceded the games will last for a long time in Canada and are a harbinger for a new attitude in this great country.

If Air Travel Worked Like Health Care

2010-02-25T14:15:00.000-05:00

I recently received a link to a great video that is based on an article written by Jonathan Roach of the National Journal magazine in the US entitled If Air Travel Worked Like Health Care. The article is based on the US Health Care system and its fragmented nature. It is very funny but so true! Some of the issues that the protagonist goes through in the US applies to Canada also.

Hope you enjoy!

Fiscal Review of US States

2010-02-24T10:44:00.000-05:00

A recent report by the National Governors Association and the National Association of State Budget Officers lays out the precarious state of the finances in US State governments.

The report makes the case that US states are currently facing one of the worst, if not the worst, fiscal periods since the Great Depression. During 2009 their respective fiscal conditions significantly deteriorated and the trend is expected to continue into the next three fiscal years. Tax revenues from every source are down and demands on state programs is significantly increased as a result of the recession. Unlike Canadian provinces, US States are not allowed to run a budgetary deficit. They must enact either spending cuts or increase tax and must balance every year.

The increase in expenditure pressures for mandated programs such as Medicare and Medicaid as well as the increased demand for social services as a result of the significant increase in unemployment will mean that US States will continue to struggle to balance their budgets. Obviously each individual state has its own particular struggles, with California the one getting the most press given the fiscal mess that they are in. Can you imagine a Canadian province issuing "IOU's"?

Between the fiscal mess at the US Federal Government level and the struggles at the State level, it seems that only a miracle will resolve the fiscal issues facing the US. Let's hope for one, because the alternative for the world economy and in particular the Canadian economy are too gruesome to contemplate. (Sorry to be gloomy, I guess the February blahs have kicked in!)

Tom Brokaw on Canada

2010-02-21T16:06:00.000-05:00

Came across a video that was done by Tom Brokaw on Canada for the Vancouver Olympics. It's a pretty good video explaining to our American cousins the relationship between our two countries. Enjoy......

150!Canada Conference - more

2010-02-20T17:53:00.001-05:00

Shout out to Andrew Steele for his wonderful Blog today on the Globe and Mail website.

Andrew writes about what the 150th anniversary of Confederation could mean for Canada and highlights the role that IPAC is spearheading in organizing the first conference on March 11 and 12 in Ottawa.

As I mentioned in my last post, we have an incredible line up of speakers...so register today...what are you waiting for?

Thanks ANDREW!!

150!Canada Conference

2010-02-16T22:14:00.000-05:00

Have you registered yet for our upcoming 150!Canada conference that is taking place at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa on March 11 and 12, 2010. If you haven't, here is a list of the speakers that you will miss (and probably kick yourself later):

Rt. Hon. Beverley McLachlin on Citizenship
Helen Davies on the Politics of Participation
Peter Aykroyd on the Anniversary Compulsion
Bruce Kidd on Arts and Athleticism
Rita Cox on New Canadian Stories
Roch Carrier on our Past and Likely Future
Jeanette Hanna on Symbolizing the State
Mary Simon on Looking North
Daniel Caron on the Future of National Memory
Justin Brown on Australia at 100
Francisco Barrio on Mexico at 200
Luci Tremblay on Quebec City at 400
Barbara Stymiest on Nation-building
Tom Jenkins on Innovation and Competitiveness
Jeff Melanson on Energizing the Arts
Sujit Choudhry on Demographics and Democracy
Nicole Sanscartier on a New Generation
Keith Neuman on Why Canadians Want to Celebrate
Danny Graham on Citizen Leadership
Monica Patten on Connecting Communities
Marlo Raynolds on Canada’s Ecological Future

Plus a few others to be announced shortly. And if that isn't enough, we also have a wonderful concert on March 11th - 6717: An Arts Celebration with:

Jully Black
Radio Radio
David Virelles
Bear Witness
Rise Ashen
Sampradaya Dance Creations

So what are you waiting for...Register today!!!

And if that isn't enough for you...read the wonderful letter from Wayne Wouters, the Federal Clerk of the Privy Council and Secretary of the Cabinet, commending IPAC for taking this initiative and commenting on the importance of Canada's upcoming sesquicentennial (the letter is on our conference website). Thanks Wayne for such a positive message.

See you in Ottawa!

The High Road

2010-02-14T19:03:00.002-05:00

I wrote a few times about a wonderful book written by Terry Fallis called "The Best Laid Plans" that I enjoyed immensely. When Terry wrote his book, he could not find a publisher, so he started by doing a pod cast and then he self-published the book. He was then nominated for the LEACOCK Memorial Medal for Humour and then went on to win the medal. As a result of all this, Terry got a publisher and has been speaking about the book in numerous venues.

Well....Terry has now written a sequel entitled "The High Road" that is due to be published in September 2010. I can't wait to get my hands on this book. If you are interested in Canadian politics and also want an entertaining and funny book, I highly recommend "The Best Laid Plans" and I am sure that the sequel will be just as entertaining.

The Video below is a synopsis of the book saga by Terry....

Haiti

2010-02-14T09:46:00.002-05:00

On February 12th, an new version of "We Are The World" was released in aid of disaster relief for Haiti. The video was made by Paul Haggis and includes over 80 artists and performers.

World's Most Livable Cities....Guess who's Number 1.....

2010-02-13T21:55:00.000-05:00

The Economist Intelligence Unit has just released the list of the world's top ten most livable cities....and Canada has 3 cities in the top ten.

In fact, the world's most livable city is....Vancouver. Not only are they hosting the Winter Olympics (great opening ceremonies by the way), but now they are #1 in the world. Talk about bragging rights.

Toronto is ranked number 4, followed by Calgary at number 5. For full disclosure, I should note that Australia had 4 cities in the top ten: Melbourne at # 3; Sydney at # 7; Perth at # 8; and Adelaide at # 9.

The Economist Intelligence Unit's liveability rating, part of the Worldwide Cost of Living Survey, quantifies the challenges that might be presented to an individual's lifestyle in 140 cities worldwide. Each city is assigned a score for over 30 qualitative and quantitative factors across five broad categories:

* Stability
* Healthcare
* Culture and environment
* Education
* Infrastructure

For those who are interested in looking at all the factors you can find them here.

The Olympics are another opportunity for the world to see why Vancouver is rated #1. Congratulations to Vancouver.

20 Years Ago.....

2010-02-11T18:37:00.000-05:00

On February 20, 1990 a historic event took place in South Africa...the Apartheid regime released Nelson Mandela from his 27 year imprisonment at Robbin Island. It was a memorable day for those of us who believe in equality, democracy and human rights. I remember the anti-apartheid campaigns that we held on campus at University and still have a framed poster from that time. And I remember seeing Archbishop Desmond Tutu speak to the assembled crowd on the lawns in front of Queen's Park. What a moving experience.

What Nelson Mandela was able to accomplish after his release, moving South Africa to a full democracy without a civil war is truly extraordinary.

In looking at some of the stories related to the release of Nelson Mandela, I came across a reference to a new documentary about another hero of mine entitled "RFK in the Land of Apartheid". This documentary follows Robert Kennedy's trip to South Africa to confront the apartheid regime. I am always moved by some of RFK's speeches such as the one he delivered in Indianapolis the night that Martin Luther King was assassinated.

The speech that RFK gave on June 6, 1966 at the University of Cape Town for the National Union of South African Students Day of Affirmation which is dubbed the "Ripple of Hope" speech is truly moving. Listen to RFK give this speech and read it. His values and perspective is just as valid today as it was in 1966.

The New Population Bomb

2010-02-09T12:09:00.000-05:00

In the January/February 2010 issue of Foreign Affairs there is an interesting essay by Jack Gladstone entitled "The New Population Bomb: The four megatrends that will change the world".

In his essay, Mr. Gladstone notes the following four major demographic trends that will affect the 21st Century:

1) the decrease in the relative demographic weight of developed countries;
2) the aging and declining workforce in these developed countries;
3) the substantial increase in population in the poorest, youngest and most heavily Muslim countries; and
4) the continued urbanization of the world with the majority of the population living in urban areas.

The decline and aging of the population in developed countries is relatively well documented. I actually wrote about this a few years ago as part of an Executive Brief on Organization & People Performance. This decline in the labour force of developed countries is a major challenge facing policy makers as it will impact the potential economic growth of countries such as Canada. A number of countries will actually see a decline in their respective populations, a decline in the active workforce and a significant increase in their seniors population. The percentage of the global GDP derived from Western countries is already on the decline from 68% in 1950 to 47% in 2003. Projections are for a rapid decline to 30% by 2050. The implication of this trend is that the overwhelming majority of GDP growth will occur outside of Western countries over the next 40 years. This is in line with the significant increase in the middle class in developing countries - they will be the engines of economic growth with their increased demand for goods and services. According to a World Bank report, the middle class will increase by 200% in developing countries between 2005 and 2030 (to 1.2 Billion people).

Western countries are also facing an aging population and a decline in the number of working age citizens. The most extreme example cited in this essay is South Korea that will see its overall population decline by 9% by 2050, its working age population drop by 36% over the same period and the number of citizens 60 years of age and older increase by 150%! This same trend is evident in other developed countries, though the swings are not as extreme. Even China will be feeling the impact of these trends as the average age of its population continues to creep up.

The impact on economic growth will be significant. The Canadian Parliamentary Budget Officer will be releasing a report in the next two weeks that will look at the impact of demographics on economic growth and the labour force over the next 50 - 75 years. That should be an interesting read, especially for Canadian policy makers.

I will tackle the two other megatrends in an upcoming blog post, as this one is long enough!

Benchmarking the performance of the Australian Government

2010-02-03T11:22:00.001-05:00

Came across an interesting study by KPMG on "Benchmarking the performance of the Australian Government Service"

In September 2009, the Prime Minister of Australia announced his ambition to further strengthen the Australian Public Service (APS). As a first step, he has established an Advisory Group on Reform of the Australian Government Administration to develop a blueprint for reform of the public service. Its mission is to advise on how to create “the best public service anywhere in the world unified in pursuing excellence and putting Australia and Australians at the centre of everything [it does]”.

To inform the Advisory Group’s work, the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet commissioned KPMG to compare the performance of the APS against leading public services around the world.

The Advisory Group drew up a set of key criteria which reflect the characteristics of a model public service. According to the Advisory Group, the public service of the future must:

-have a values-driven culture that retains public trust;

-provide high-quality, forward-looking and creative policy advice;

-deliver high-quality programs and services that put the citizen first;

-provide flexible and agile responses to changing realities and government priorities; and

- be effective and efficient in all operations.

This study compares the performance of the Australian Public Service (APS) to those of eight other public services in France, Denmark, Canada, Singapore, the United Kingdom, the United States and the Netherlands. It evaluates six key criteria, including the effectiveness and efficiency of operations, the ability to provide flexible and agile responses to changing realities, and the capacity to attract and retain people of the highest quality. According to the results of the survey, the APS is a high performer where responsive to changes in the economy is concerned but performs comparatively poorly in terms of its capability for coordinated, informed and strategic policy.

This is fascinating comparative study of the public service in these 8 countries and provides some food for thought for all those interested in the performance of public services.

If we can put a Man on the Moon

2010-02-02T20:53:00.001-05:00

Tonight I had the pleasure of attending a session with Bill Eggers, global director for Deloitte Research and director of the Deloitte Public Leadership Institute. Bill is responsible for research and thought leadership for Deloitte’s public sector industry practice.

You may have read some of his previous books (if you haven't read them!) , namely Governing by Network; Government 2.0; and The Public Innovator’s Playbook.

Well...he has a new book out called "If we can put a Man on the Moon: Getting big things done in Government".

Tonight in front of a roomful of invited guests Bill talked about his book and about how governments, in Canada as well as the USA, can make things work in this ever increasingly complex world.

People are frustrated with their government — dismayed by a series of high-profile failures (in the US: Iraq, Katrina, the financial meltdown). Yet both Canada and the USA have a proud history of great achievements: the Canadian healthcare system, the highway system, welfare reform, and the moon landing.

In this book If We Can Put a Man on the Moon, Bill Eggers and John O'Leary explain how to do it. The key? Understand — and avoid — the common pitfalls that trip up public-sector leaders during the journey from idea to results.

Bill talked about the Seven Deadly Traps that could result in the failure of an initiative. These are:

The Tolstoy Trap: Seeing only the possibilities you want to see;

Design-Free Design: Designing policies for passage through the legislature, not for implementation;

The Stargate Trap: Idea never makes it though the legislature or is so distorted that it will never achieve its intended results;

The Overconfidence Trap: Creating unrealistic budgets and timelines;

The Sisyphus Trap: Failing to understand the special challenges of the public sector;

The Complacency Trap: Failing to recognize that a program needs change;

The Silo Trap: Fumbling handoffs throughout the execution of the project.

Bill showed us an interactive map that illustrates the traps and shows a journey to success. I would encourage you to take a look at this website.

It was a fascinating talk and I would encourage you to buy Bill's latest book.

Need for Increased Infrastructure

2010-02-02T11:59:00.002-05:00

A recent survey of public sector leaders from around the world conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit on behalf of KPMG has identified the need for continued investment in infrastructure even as economic stimulus funding is slated to end. This is not surprising, especially in North America, as most of our major infrastructure - water & sewage; highways; schools, etc - was built in the 1950s to 1970s and is coming to the end of their useful life. I recall a recent report in a newspaper about the age of the sewer pipes in major Canadian cities - some of these pipes are from the late 1800's and are made of wood. You can just imagine the water leakage that occurs!

The report states that 70 percent of North American respondents said lack of funds remains the largest obstacle to infrastructure development, compared to 56 percent of their global peers.

“While stimulus spending was a first step, many government officials are clearly telling us that they need a long-term infrastructure investment strategy to meet the needs of their country,” said Stephen Beatty, head of infrastructure advisory for KPMG’s Global Infrastructure practice in the Americas and a partner in KPMG in Canada. “Modernizing the world’s infrastructure will require massive investment and cooperation by the public and private sectors for many years to come. But those countries that find ways to make the necessary infrastructure investments now are likely to be the leaders of tomorrow.”

The report also surveys the respondents view as to the effectiveness of governments in delivering infrastructure with the preponderant view that this is one of the barriers to delivery as is lack of financing.

I believe that the solution to "effectiveness" issues requires that governments work closely with their stakeholders in determining the infrastructure requirements and that they then work closely with the private sector to deliver on these requirements. A long-term capital investment strategy is also required to align resources versus the replacement requirements for infrastructure as well as planning for new infrastructure.

In March 2008, IPAC published a special issue of our Canadian Public Administration journal that was devoted to public-private partnerships. If you are an IPAC member, you can log in and go to CPA to see all these fascinating articles.

There is clearly much to do to renew our infrastructure in Canada and governments have a lead responsibility to ensuring that this infrastructure is in place so that our future economic growth is optimized. The KPMG report is quite interesting and I would recommend it.

Social Networking

2010-01-30T18:44:00.003-05:00

Interesting article in the Economist on the rise and use of Social Networking. It is a good read. For those who do not know, IPAC has launched a new IPAC e-connect site that is a networking site to link public servants across the country. If you haven't joined, do so today and connect across the country & around the world with other dedicated public servants.

We officially launched the e-connect site on January 27th and throughout the day a number of different live chats took place on subjects that were discussed at the October New Professionals conference. Check out the site & join in the discussions.

Resilience, Reliability & Results

2010-01-29T09:43:00.000-05:00

A “resilient” organization, team, or individual has the ability to bounce back from a hard hit, to deal with adversity and return to a high level of performance. This idea has been gaining prominence in several fields in the last few years. In safety in high-consequence industries (aviation, chemical, nuclear, and healthcare), it means the ability to recover from accidents and also to prevent them before they happen. In human and social development, it means the ability of individuals and communities to rise above their circumstances and better themselves despite misfortunes or difficult conditions. In organizational terms, in means the capacity of a government, healthcare system, or private-sector company to recover from environmental shocks, adapt to the new situation, and return to a well-performing equilibrium point.

Why is resilience an important capacity for organizations, groups, and individuals to develop? In 1988, in a report for the Office of the Auditor General, Federal Government of Canada, Otto Brodtrick wrote:

“Well-performing organizations encourage risk taking. They are willing to try new methods when common sense dictates that better results can be achieved by following the spirit of a regulation, instead of the letter. However, staff must hold the values of stewardship, service and results, and they must consult with each other. When their people are governed by these values, the well-performing organizations encourage risk taking as a matter of strategy.”

Strategic risk-taking and risk management, toward optimizing performance, are hallmarks of the Resilient Organization. Given budget shortfalls, aging populations, and increasing demands for targeted, high-quality services, governments and healthcare systems must develop their capacity for resilience if they hope to accomplish their mandates. The same thing is true, in different ways, for high-consequence industries and the private sector. Achieving good performance in pockets seems more attainable than maintaining and sustaining it over large segments of a system or organization. Building organizational resilience is a necessary performance platform in today’s environment.

This is even more true today than it was ten or twenty years ago. Many governments, hospitals, school boards are facing budget crises and severe fiscal constraints across Canada, Europe, and the U.S. Take the healthcare sector as a further illustration. In many Canadian provinces spending on health care is fast approaching half of the provincial budget and is growing at a rate of 5-8% per annum. This is at the same time as governments are running significant deficits and demand for health services are climbing. This is also at the same time when government should be focusing more of their scare resources on investing for the future. Departments/Ministries of Health and Finance can only meet their fiscal accountabilities if they adopt the Resilient Organization perspective. Otherwise, their strategies will be limited to broad-brush cuts in service which do not change the basic dynamics of the system. Resilience can achieve both: steadily bending the cost curve, while increasing the quality of care and access to service. How? By improving alignment across the sector, enabling organizations to adapt, flex, and anticipate to environmental shocks, and (in general) reducing the costs of coordination by improving system-wide teamwork and situational awareness. All of these are characteristics of a highly-reliable, resilient healthcare system.

There are a number of studies that show that by only focusing on results, organizational improvement is temporary and not embedded in the culture of the organization. Using the same resources, one can focus on creating a resilient organization that will achieve the desired results over the long term.

In a future post I will write about a new paper by some leading US Healthcare thinkers on "Transforming Healthcare: A Safety Imperative". It is a fascinating paper and I think hits the nail on the head in terms of how to transform health care.

Discussion on International Development

2010-01-28T22:03:00.000-05:00

Video interview with Mark Malloch-Brown on international development and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. Mr. Malloch-Brown is former head of the United Nations Development Programme and former British Minister of State in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

This is a very interesting interview.

Topical Briefs

2010-01-28T14:00:00.002-05:00

As part of IPAC's knowledge sharing strategy, IPAC developed "Topical Briefs" on a number of different issues, that is:

E-Government;
Citizen-Centered Service;
Single-Windows and Integrated Service Delivery;
Codes of Ethics;
Performance Measurement;
Whistle-Blowing;
Alternative Service Delivery;
Conflict of Interest; and
Public Private Partnerships

These briefs were written by Ken Kernaghan and funded by the World Bank Institute and is part of our International work. These are wonderful short pieces outlining the key issues under all these topics. Take a look at these....there is much more on the IPAC website as well.

Role of the State

2010-01-27T10:28:00.002-05:00

In this week's edition of The Economist the cover story is about the growth of government, especially in the developed world. The editorial and accompanying article show that even in the United States under George Bush, government has grown. This growth in the US began before the recent market meltdown and the intervention by the state to prop up the US banking industry and automotive industry. The Economist editorial and article make the point that the upcoming baby boomer retirements will create even more pressure on governments as this generation start to access health care and other services.

The editorial makes a good point that "smaller" government does not necessarily mean "better" government - what is needed is a "right" sized government to deliver the services that citizens demand.

More on Haiti

2010-01-20T21:25:00.000-05:00

I am sure that you have all been watching the news out of Haiti. There was another aftershock today that was quite strong. The devastation in that country is beyond comprehension. The immediate needs are to provide medical assistance and to feed the population.

The responsiveness of the Canadian public service, including the armed forces, has been nothing but extraordinary. I think all Canadians should be proud of how our country and our government have responded.

There will be many years of rebuilding in Haiti. Not only infrastructure but also all aspects of civil society, public services, education, health care and the economy. As I wrote previously, the relationship between Canada and Haiti is a special one and I know that Canada will be at the forefront of this multiyear rebuilding.

I also think that IPAC and its members can play a crucial role in the rebuilding of the Haitian public service. As we are doing in many other countries around the world we can bring Canadian public sector expertise to bear and assist in building a non-partisan, efficient and effective public service.

Tomorrow's bureaucrats

2010-01-16T10:18:00.000-05:00

Interesting editorial in today's Ottawa Citizen about the civil service.

Tomorrow's bureaucrats

what do you think?

Haiti

2010-01-14T22:22:00.001-05:00

As you have all no doubt heard and read, there was a huge earthquake in Haiti that occurred two days ago. The devastation of an already impoverished country is significant.

The relationship between Canada and Haiti is longstanding and strong. Canada has provided significant assistance over the years to support the development of Haiti. In addition, there is a significant Haitian born population in Canada, including our Governor General.

My father before he retired and while he was working for the Government of Canada had the opportunity to travel to Haiti a few times to teach courses in automotive management. He loved the country and its people but was taken aback by the level of poverty in the country.

I see that the Government of Canada has reacted very quickly to the disaster in Haiti and is sending relief teams and supplies. And Canadians have reacted by contributing to the relief effort.

It will be a long process to rebuild Haiti and I am sure that all Canadians will continue to support that redevelopment.

150!Canada

2010-01-11T13:27:00.001-05:00

In a little over two months, we will be gathering in Ottawa to start planning and imagining Canada's sesquicentennial celebrations in 2017. Those of us who were around in 1967 remember the centennial celebrations with fondness. Obviously Expo '67 in Montréal was a highlight of the year, but beyond that there were events right across the country from sea to sea to sea. The Centennial was also part of a period of incredible social change in Canada.

The Centennial year helped define Canada's modern identity. It focused our sense of public imagination and it made us feel proud to be Canadian.All of this took foresight and planning. The Centennial year succeeded because millions of Canadians worked with thousands of dedicated public servants to make it a year to remember.

Since 1967, Canada and the world have changed. Canada's sesquicentennial in 2017 is an opportunity to look back and to look forwards as we assert our ambitions for an even better Canada.

Canada's sesquicentennial is still six years away, but we think the time to start imagining and planning our national celebration is now. Staging major national events take time; we know that the first meetings concerning the 1967 celebrations were held in 1958. By this measure, we're already a year behind!

I urge all of you to attend the 150!Canada conference at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa on March 11-12, 2010. To see the exciting program and the register, visit our website.

Bien de canadiens et canadiennes conservent de précieux souvenirs du Centenaire du Canada, en 1967, notamment, l’Expo, les centaines de nouveaux chantiers de travaux publics et les milliers d’événements communautaires.

L’année du Centenaire nous a aidé à définir l’image moderne du Canada, à aiguiser notre imagination collective et à ressentir notre fierté d’être Canadiens.
Mais pour cela, il a fallu prévoir et planifier. Le succès de l’année du Centenaire est attribuable à la collaboration de millions de Canadiens et de milliers de fonctionnaires dévoués, résolus à en faire une année mémorable.

Depuis 1967, le Canada et le monde ont changé. Le 150e anniversaire du Canada, en 2017, nous offre l’occasion de réfléchir au passé et à l’avenir au moment de définir nos ambitions en vue d’améliorer encore le Canada.

Le 150e anniversaire du Canada se tiendra dans six ans, mais nous croyons qu’il nous faut commencer dès maintenant à concevoir et à planifier notre fête nationale. Les préparatifs de grands événements nationaux exigent du temps. Ainsi, nous savons que les premières rencontres pour les fêtes de 1967 ont eu lieu dès 1958. À ce compte-là, nous accusons déjà un an de retard!

Venez et participez à cette conférence mémorable - prière visiter notre site web

Mental Health Crisis in the Public Service

2010-01-10T14:52:00.000-05:00

In today's Ottawa Citizen, there is an article on the Federal Public Service and the doubling in mental health disability claims between 1991 and 2007 and its impact on productivity and innovation in the public service. Mental health disability claims now make up 45% of all disability claims in the Federal public service.

The following is an extract from the article:

It’s an affliction among the country’s nurses, teachers, police, military and bureaucrats at all levels of government, undermining innovation, productivity, quality of service, policy-making and even the relevance of our democratic institutions, said Bill Wilkerson, founder of Global Business and Economic Roundtable on Mental Health.

Stress, burnout and depression is evident in all workplaces, especially in times of economic turmoil. But few employers have as profound a problem as the federal public service where the health effects of mental distress has been termed an epidemic.

“The public service is a tsunami of distractions — meetings, everything questioned, delegated, people moving … and no one is really in charge,” said Wilkerson. “It’s the most transient, fluid, unsettling work environment on the planet, so why wouldn’t people be anxious and in distress? They are human beings.”

The public service is heading into uncertain times. Speculation is rife that the public service will be the first place the Harper government turns when wrestling with the deficit. There are rumblings of changing or cutting public servants’ pension and benefits plans.

But Wilkerson argued the big savings will come by reforming management in the public service, which will go a long way to reducing disability claims. He said the across-the-board cuts that government’s typically resort to will only eat into the public service’s productivity.

“Pension reform and benefit reconstruction will not save the government money until it creates a work environment that protects mental health and the disabling effects of job stress and depressive disorder. Depression is the public health crisis in the government of Canada. Period.”

Similarly, he called the government’s so-called renewal of the public service, largely aimed at hiring new recruits, a “vision without hope” unless it focuses on improving the work environment. Instead of getting at problems with management, the government has hired thousands of new young workers and placed them in a toxic environment.

Wilkerson singled out two major trends that are crippling the public service. The biggest is the rapid and high turnover of people bouncing from job to job.

“The churn is remarkable, like a ship at sea casting about in turbulent waves and cascading until one day it tips over and sinks.”

A symptom of this is public servants’ obsession with delegating tasks until no one is really knows who is responsible for what. He said stories abound of revolving-door managers who are oblivious to how their behaviour affects others.

What’s needed is a cultural overhaul that brings back “human relations, not labour relations,” said Wilkerson. That means treating people fairly, with respect, giving them authority and fulfilling jobs. Without these basics, people “ruminate” and seethe — the key indicator to stress and depression, Wilkerson said.

So what do you think? Is Mr. Wilkerson correct and does his analysis also pertain to the provincial, territorial and municipal public services?

La mort d'un grand homme/The passing of a great man

2010-01-10T07:52:00.000-05:00

Hier en lisant le journal, j'ai appris de la mort de Rémy Beauregard, le président de l'organisme Droits et démocratie. J'ai connu Rémy en 1989 quand j'ai commencé à la fonction publique de l'Ontario et Rémy dirigé l'Office des affaires francophones. Il a dirigé pendant sept ans la Commission ontarienne des droits de la personne. C'est une grande perte d'un défenseur des droits de la personne à travers le monde. Je tient à exprimer mes plus sincères condoléances à madame Suzanne Trépanier, l'épouse de Rémy.

Yesterday I was shocked to read about the death of Rémy Beauregard, president of Rights & Democracy. I first met Rémy in 1989 when I joined the Ontario Public Service and he was the head of the Office of Francophone Affairs. He subsequently went on to head the Ontario Human Rights Commission. This is a great loss to all who work in the field of human rights right around the world. I wish to express my deepest condolences to his wife Suzanne Trépanier. He will be missed.

And now for something completely different....music

2010-01-09T18:21:00.000-05:00

I just had a late lunch today with a friend of mine and his son. I've known them for over 20 years (time sure does fly). His son is a musician and I have enjoyed his music ever since he started playing...first reggae and now rock/pop. His name is Dylan Murray and you can visit his website to listen to some of his wonderful music as well as link to some of videos on YouTube, or his MySpace Rock page or MySpace Reggae page. He sure uses all the internet connections.

The lyrics and music are wonderful!! Take a listen and you will see what I mean. I think you will hear a lot about Dylan in the future. For those of you in Toronto, he is playing at the Rivoli on January 15, 2010.

You are probably wondering what this has to do with public administration....well his father is a public servant.

From GUI to NUI

2010-01-08T15:55:00.000-05:00

You're probably wondering what the title means...well many of you would know that GUI stands for Graphical User Interface. This is how we interact with computers - via a keyboard, a mouse, commands, menus, etc - to make them run programs and applications.

NUI stands for Natural User Interface. This is what we now have on smartphones such as the iPhone, where you interact with the device using touch, speech, gestures, etc. According to Steve Balmer, CEO of Microsoft, this is the future. Read his interesting article about NUI technology and the future of computing here.

Lots of food for thought. Now imagine utilizing this technology to deliver government services......

IPAC takes a step into Web 2.0

2010-01-07T19:35:00.000-05:00

IPAC is moving into using Web 2.0 technology. Having created a Facebook page and a LinkedIn page, we are now moving into Ning. The site is up and running thanks to the impetus of IPAC New Professionals and Jennifer from the National office.

January 27, 2010 is the official launch date. Some of the presenters at the Winds of Change conference will post on the site throughout the day and there will be opportunities to use the site’s chat feature for live discussions.

The site includes opportunities to get involved in discussions, exchange ideas and connect with other public servants across Canada and around the world.

I urge you all to join by going to the IPAC Connect site.

Happy New Year and happy reading

2010-01-03T16:33:00.001-05:00

The holidays are not only a time to enjoy family, friends and food, but it is also a time to catch up on making some headway through my pile of books. Over the last two weeks I have had the pleasure of reading a few very interesting books. Here is a short review of two of these books

One of my favourite "genres" of books are on politics. I read a couple of books on the 2008 US presidential election. The first is an insiders view of the Obama campaign. Written by David Plouffe, Obama's campaign manager, "The Audacity to Win" is an interesting book that recounts how a relatively unknown first-term US Senator won the presidency. In the primary campaign against what was thought was an unstoppable Hillary Clinton, the Obama team developed a strategy that focused on enlarging the democratic tent. This meant mobilizing non-traditional voters to become involved in the electoral process. In the Iowa caucuses, this meant mobilizing young people and because of the rules allowing for open voting, mobilizing independents and republicans to vote in the caucus. Utilizing a combination of new media (internet tools) and extensive person to person campaigning, the Obama campaign was able to dramatically increase the turnout at the Iowa caucuses and win a decisive victory there. They took this same strategy of focusing on mobilizing new and non-traditional voters to the other caucuses and primaries to win the nomination against the Clinton machine. During the campaign against John McCain, the Obama campaign developed a strategy that expanded the standard number of states that they contested. The book is insightful as it provides an insiders view of the campaign. It is quite entertaining, thought there is a bit of repetition in the book. Overall it is a very exciting and informative book about the US campaign.

The second book I read was also about the 2008 US Presidential election by Dan Balz and Haynes Johnson, entitled "The Battle for America 2008". This book provides a behind the scenes look at the Obama, Clinton and McCain campaigns throughout the primaries and the election. It is a good complement to the Plouffe book as it provides a broader context about what was happening in the other campaigns. They cover the interesting strategy followed by the Obama campaign, including when their supporters were pushing them to alter their strategy when things were not going well. Also interesting is the description and rationale of the selection of Palin as the Republican VP candidate. I would highly recommend this book as well to those of you who are interested in politics.

Happy New Year

2010-01-01T16:38:00.002-05:00

Just want to wish all my faithful readers a Happy New Year and all the best for 2010!

David Logan on tribal leadership | Video on TED.com

2009-12-12T19:04:00.003-05:00

A friend sent me a link to a very interesting TED presentation by David Logan on tribal leadership. He talks about the 5 stages of naturally forming human tribes. His hypothesis is that by understanding the shared tribal tendencies we can become better human beings. Leaders must understand how to deal with people at all 5 stages and help people move to a higher level. Take a look at this video and you will probably recognize some people you know.

David Logan on tribal leadership | Video on TED.com

Preparing the next Generation of Public Servants

2009-12-02T22:39:00.000-05:00

I was having a conversation a few days ago about what kind of skill sets governments are seeking when they are recruiting public servants and what recent employees are saying that they need in terms of skills.

In my years in government I worked in different areas - policy development, program management, operations and financial/fiscal policy. I wanted to have a fully rounded experience in government and was lucky enough to work in different areas and ministries. Having worked most of my career at the Ministry of Finance (Treasury Board, Fiscal Policy) I was always surprised by the lack of financial understanding in some key areas. I was always of the view that a fully fleshed out policy document had to have a robust financial analysis (and these days the full detail of the accounting issues involved - don't you just love PSAB!). But too many times, policy documents were developed without a full understanding of the financial impacts.

Which brings me to what some recent MPA graduates said in a survey that was part of a research paper sponsored by the Canadian Association of Programs in Public Administration (CAPPA) and the Canada School of Public Service (CSPS). The respondents to this survey noted the need for more practical education and that there should be more senior practitioners as instructors. They would have like to have been exposed to real life examples of briefing notes, cabinet submissions/ memorandum to cabinet and treasury board submissions.

As well, they would have wanted greater exposure to actual governmental processes such as budget & estimates and central agency and cabinet approval processes. They also commented that it would have been good to have greater exposure to financial management, government accounting, project management and HR management. Finally they recommended that real life public policy/administration case studies be used to complement the theoretical course work.

Well what can I say! Are schools of public administration & policy listening to this feedback? I hope so! And to those schools and to governments I want to underscore that IPAC which brings together academics and practitioners has a well developed case study program that we are in the process of revitalizing. We have over 150 cases in public administration and policy & we are in the process of refreshing these cases, developing new cases and we will soon launch a new case study website. Stay tuned for more in this early in the new year.

Intelligence Squared

2009-12-01T22:26:00.000-05:00

I have just come across a wonderful website from the UK that promotes debate on topical issues. It is from an organization called Intelligence Squared.

This organization was founded 7 years ago and sponsors debates that can be seen on-line or on BBC TV as well as live in the UK as well as New York, Sydney, Kiev and Hong Kong. The format is to have a specific statement debated by 2 in favour and 2 opposed with the audience voting at the start and the end of the debate. Recent debates include "The Catholic Church is a Force for Good", "Did the New Deal Work", "Democracy is not for Everyone" and "The World in 2050".

I highly recommend this website & if you have a chance to see the debates live go for it! It is great to see such a high level of discourse and debate on important issues.

150!Canada

2009-11-24T13:04:00.002-05:00

On March 11th & 12th, 2010, IPAC in association with our friends at MASS LBP are organizing a conference to help imagine, plan, and organize Canada's 150th anniversary of Confederation (the Sesquicentennial) in 2017. July 1, 2017 is only 7 and a half years away & we must start planning what will be a magnificent celebration of the grand experiment called Canada.

The lead up to Canada's Centenary was part of a decade of extraordinary advancement for Canadian society that included in 1960, the Canadian Bill of Rights and First Nations given the right to vote (about time); in 1965, a new Canadian Flag; in 1966 the Canada Pension Plan; in 1967 a new National Anthem, the establishment of the Order of Canada, the first Caribana parade and of course Expo '67; and in 1969 the Official Languages Act. And these are just a few of the tremendous changes that occurred during that time.

I think that we have an opportunity to make the next decade one of similar changes. As citizens and as public servants we all have an opportunity to contribute to the future vision of Canada.

Our friend Peter MacLeod from MASS LBP recently was part of a TED talk and spoke about the sesquicentennial. Here is the video...enjoy.

If you are interested in joining us to imagine the future of Canada, then register for the conference by going to our website.

Innovation

2009-11-20T21:49:00.005-05:00

Not sure if I have blogged about this (and I'm too lazy to check!), but I have been appointed to the Board of the Innovation Institute of Ontario. The Innovation Institute of Ontario (IIO) is a not-for-profit business services provider supporting other not-for-profit organizations in Ontario and Canada. IIO was established in 2000 as a not-for-profit organization to provide grant management services and shared administrative support to the Ontario Innovation Trust and the Ontario Research and Development Challenge Fund.

Earlier this month, the OIT published a book on some of the innovative projects that the OIT funded in Ontario. Only 22 of the 1250 projects are highlighted in this book (and on the website). The website & book underscore the importance of investing in research to drive economic growth. I would highly recommend that we all take a look at this website & learn the lessons that are highlighted. If Canada is to compete economically and develop the next generation of jobs, then governments, policy makers and the private sector must invest in both pure and applied research. Not doing so will imperil our future.

The website & book contain some very interesting feature articles on public policy, solving the secrets of the universe, searching for gene based vaccines, amongst many other interesting articles.

It also contains "The 10 commandments to make the 21st-century Canada's century"...

1. We must give all our young people as much education as possible because to live in a brain-based economy requires that we exercise our grey matter.

2. We must reward education. We want to see the spectre of people with PhDs or medical or engineering degrees driving cabs or clearing plates to be an anathema. Brainless but worse, to be self-wounding. Education must be rewarded.

3. We must create a culture of excellence. Becoming the best is our only option.

4. We must have strong, independent, well-funded universities. We cannot compete in a worldwide knowledge economy if we don't provide the academic test beds to generate more knowledge.

5. University-based research must be the best in the world. But that means that university-based researchers are going to have to think about themselves in a 21st-century way. They have to ask themselves basic questions like: What can be made of this? How can this be applied? They must see themselves not as trains on a tenure track, not as intellectual high-wire artists trying only to impress their peers in the circus of academia, but as part of the innovation engine, as part of the future of Ontario's economy.

6. We must have entrepreneurs. No, that's not emphatic enough. We must have entrepreneurs! We must develop a sense that making new businesses, spinning off gold from research findings, is not a good. It is a great good, a paramount good, an our-destiny-and-our-hopes-for-the future good.We don't say greed is good; we say not making money from the fruits of our intelligence is senseless and self-defeating. It is an eternally crying eye.

7. We must provide entrepreneurs with intellectual property and technological transfer policies that allow them to be the best. Our academic institutions must understand it is both their job to patent new knowledge and their job to get out of the way of entrepreneurs who transfer intellectual property into commercial good.

8. Accordingly, university administrators and technological transfer officers must say to themselves: How do I get what this institution learned into the hands of someone who wants to make something of it? They must see this as a key part of their mission.

9. We must give rewards/recognition to those who risk, even if they fail.

10. This means government must ask itself every day before it closes for business: Have we supported knowledge-based industries today? How did our tax policies make us attractive to investors and entrepreneurs? Have we made it attractive for scientists who are thinking of coming to Ontario? Have we created a climate that will entice investors and make it easy to keep good managers? Are we becoming the best? And what did we do to make sure we were better than yesterday and will be better tomorrow?

Quick Thoughts of the Day

2009-11-17T09:14:00.001-05:00

Heard the following two thoughts last week at the Peter Aucoin symposium that I was attending:

Knowledge v Wisdom

Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit
Wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad

Kissinger

Richard French recounted what Henry Kissinger once said to journalists: "Do you have questions for my answers?"

Symposium in Honour of Peter Aucoin

2009-11-16T13:01:00.002-05:00

On November 12th and 13th, I had the pleasure of attending a symposium in honour of Peter Aucoin held at Dalhousie University in Halifax. This symposium was to recognize Peter’s tremendous and prolific body of work in the field of public administration and public policy. The title of the Symposium was: From ‘New Public Management’ to 'New Political Governance’.

Anybody who has studied or read about public administration in Canada would be familiar with Peter’s writings on a diverse range of topics. You can view a selected bibliography here.

The Symposium included presentations from a who’s who of scholars in public administration from across Canada and some international guests as well on topics that reflect Peter’s interests, including Democratic governance; electoral reform; Public Management and Reform; and Accountability. I had the privilege of moderating the first session on “Bridging the Gap between Government and Academia”. The panel was composed of Mel Cappe, President of the Institute for Research on Public Policy and past Federal Clerk of the Privy Council and Rick Williams, Deputy Minister of the Office of Policy and Priorities of the Government of Nova Scotia.

Mel spoke about how Peter has played the role of the bridge between government and academia and how the elegance of scholarly work intersects with the chaos that is the life of the practitioner. According to Mel, only academia can help practitioners to sit back and reflect on issues and help draw lessons and academia can provide fearless advice to the “fearless advisors” in the public service. He sees academia as a translator of the practitioners work and as a useful interface between the public service and the political level as it is always helpful to say to the political level that there exists a body of literature on a particular topic. Mel also spoke of the increased centralization in government, which he sees as evolutionary in nature. He also spoke about the different skills needed for operations versus policy and the lack of policy capacity (i.e.: ideas generation) that he sees in government these days. Part of the reason for this is the lack of demand for new ideas from the political level.

Rick Williams spoke about the need to enhance the capacity of government to implement core policy. As a new DM reporting the Premier (from outside government) he thanked Peter for providing sage advice during the transition process. He spoke about the complexity of issues facing governments today that require “joined up solutions”. He underscored the need for a professional public service and the critical role of Deputy Ministers in achieving governmental objectives. The majority of his talk was on the upcoming release of the report of the NS Panel of Economic Advisors being released the next day that would address the transformation in health, education and public service that the government of Nova Scotia needed to do to address the structural deficit.

The presentations were followed by a robust round of Questions & Answers that I will write about shortly as well as give you some of the other highlights from the symposium.

Remembrance

2009-11-10T22:51:00.000-05:00

On November 11th, all Canadians should take time to pay homage to our fallen heroes as part of Remembrance Day. I remember when I was in the Army Cadets in Ottawa we took part in this day by firing one of the guns as part of the official salute. It is always a moving and solemn occasion when we remember the sacrifice of the ultimate in public servants.

On this occasion, we should all re-read the poem by John McCrae

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Recruiting New Talent

2009-11-09T12:11:00.000-05:00

The October 31st issue of the Economist has an interesting article entitled "Public Service Careers: A tough search for talent" that looks at the on-coming demographic problems that Western countries face in revitalizing their respective public services.

The article references an OECD survey showing that at least 30% of central-government workers were 50 years of age or older and that due to generous early retirement provisions, many of these workers would. be retiring in the near future. In Canada the proportion of Federal government employees over 50 years of age has grown from 20% in 1995 to 33% in 2005 according to this survey.

The new way of working - in a networked government with policy issues that cut across government departments and across governments - means that the skill set that governments look for are different than in the past. As well, government is no longer the sole source of information and ideas. A multitude of think tanks and NGO's have carved out a significant role in policy development in the Western world and government policy shops have to work and also compete with them.

At the same time that governments are focused on recruiting new talent and on developing programs and supports for new professionals, they should not forget that the next cadre of public sector leaders will come from those who have been in the service for 10 or so years (the Generation X-ers who are in the 30's and early 40's).

Board Meeting

2009-11-07T11:19:00.000-05:00

It is a mild Saturday in Toronto and we are inside at the IPAC Board meeting. Meeting is at the Pantages Hotel and this morning we are having our committee meetings. I am in the Finance Committee meeting talking about the future of the organization. The Service to Members Committee and the International Committees are also meeting this morning. The Research Committee met yesterday afternoon. This afternoon and tomorrow the full Board will be meeting with a strategic focus on where we want IPAC to be in 5-10 years from now.

IPAC has a key role to play as the "go-to" organization in public administration and policy in Canada and as a meeting place of public servants from all orders of government in Canada - federal, provincial, territorial, municipal, and aboriginal as well as the broader public sector.

Stay tuned........

Leadership Awards - the Winners are announced

2009-11-06T20:55:00.000-05:00

Event: Gala Dinner for the IPAC/Deloitte Public Sector Leadership Awards
Day: evening of November 5, 2009
Place: Pantages Hotel

Almost 150 people gathered at the Pantages Hotel for an evening of celebrating public sector leadership. From all orders of government and from across Canada, these representatives of what is best in public service in Canada came together to enjoy the evenings festivities.

And the winners are:

Federal/Provincial/Territorial category

Gold: Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada
Project: Response to the 2007 Passport Surge in Demand

Silver: Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care
Project: Leading the Transformation in Stewardship

Bronze: Ministère de l’Emploi et de la Solildarité sociale du Québec
Project : Pacte pour l’emploi

Municipal category

Gold: City of Toronto
Project: Streets to Home

Silver: Vancouver Police Department, City of Vancouver
Project: Reclaiming the Street of Shame

Bronze: City of Edmonton
Project: Leading Change – Neighbourhood Revitalization

Education category

Gold: Simon Fraser University
Project: Coming Down from the Mountain

Silver: The Michener Institute for Applied Health Sciences
Project: Innovation Strategy: Transforming Education in the Applied Health Sciences

Bronze: Ryerson University
Project: Leadership for Student Success

Health category

Gold: Hospital for Sick Children
Project: The Canadian Pediatric Surgical Wait Times Project

Silver: Provincial Health Services Authority, British Columbia
Project: imPROVE – PHSA’s Program Focusing on Patients and Empowering Staff

Bronze: Saint Elizabeth Health Care
Project: Partners for Aboriginal Health

Not-for-profit category

Gold: La Société de vélo en libre-service, Ville de Montréal
Project: BIXI : Société de vélo en libre-service (SVLS)

Silver: Children’s Treatment Network, Simcoe York
Project: From Vision to Reality

Bronze: Canadian Partnership Against Cancer
Project: Cancer View Canada – the CPAC Partnership Portal

Public Sector Leadership Award Finalists
Other finalists who also demonstrated outstanding leadership and innovation are:

City of Toronto
Project: The kids@computers – Leading Investment in Disadvantaged Children and Communities

Deputy Minister Council, Alberta Public Service
Project: Creating a Culture of Leadership in Alberta Public Service

Health Canada
Project: Health Canada’s Way Forward Initiative: An Enterprise Approach to IT

Medical Advisory Secretariat
Project: Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care

Ministry of Citizens’ Services, British Columbia
Project: Project Management Centre of Excellence

Ministry of Citizens’ Services, British Columbia
Project: Advanced Communication and Collaboration Services

Institut national de santé publique du Québec
Project: Vision et leadership en santé publique

Congrats to all!

What an ignorant comment

2009-10-31T15:15:00.000-04:00

On October 29, 2009 in the Toronto Star, their editorial page writer, Haroon Siddiqui wrote about a distinguished public servant Max Yalden. In the process of lauding Mr. Yalden for his many accomplishments, Mr. Siddiqui wrote the following:

"He used common sense, had a sense of humour and, rare for a bureaucrat, principles."

Well, excuse me, Mr Siddiqui....rare for a bureaucrat to have principles...WTF!! The vast majority of public servants in Canada have strong principles. In your comment, which I can only assume is based on ignorance (or is malicious?), you have slapped in the face the countless dedicated and principled public servants across Canada. These public servants are in their job because they believe in public service, they espouse the principles of public service every day in their actions. I would urge you to read IPAC's Statement of Principles Regarding the Conduct of Public Employees and IPAC's Public Servant's Commitments to acquaint yourself of the principles that public servants follow day in and day out.

All public servants across Canada await your apology.

New Professionals Conference - Halifax....WOW!!!

2009-10-28T20:48:00.002-04:00

Well IPAC's 3rd New Professionals conference just ended...I can sum it up in one word...INCREDIBLE!! If you where not here you missed a great conference. The organizing committee organized a stellar program...and 530 delegates would agree. That's right, 530 New Professionals (and some not s.o "new") from around the country attended this conference in Halifax. If you missed it you missed a great opportunity to hear from keynote speakers, from concurrent session speakers, to debate issue at the forefront of public administration and policy and to meet your peers from all orders of government from across Canada and some from other countries as well.

I will be posting a little more on the conference once I catch my breath and organize my thoughts. The presentations from the conference will also be posted on the members section of the IPAC website very soon. I will let you know when they are available.

In the meantime, hats off to the Conference organizers....I do not want to miss naming anyone, so please view the organizing committee here.

BRIGHT Sunshine Law

2009-10-24T14:09:00.000-04:00

As some people may know, the Government of Ontario annually puts out a "sunshine list" which provides a list of all public sector employees who make more than $100,000 per year. The Public Sector Salary Disclosure Act was brought into effect in 1996 with that $100,000 threshold. Obviously as the years go by the list becomes larger as more employees enter into the $100K club. And every year, columnists and others comment upon the number of people on the list and use that to denigrate public service.

Imagine then what it would be like to have everyone publicly divulge their earnings. Well, there is a country that does that - Norway. Every year, the tax returns of all citizens is made public - and citizens can go online to see what their neighbours earn and the amount of their wealth. Read more about it here.

I'm not sure what public policy objective this law in Norway serves. What do you think?

Citizens demanding higher taxes?

2009-10-23T14:10:00.000-04:00

You are probably thinking that I am smoking some funny cigarettes or have been hitting the bottle. Taxpayers wanting to pay more taxes? Are you crazy?

But yes, a group of rich Germans have started a petition asking the government to implement a 5% wealth tax for two years. This money would be used to deal with the social and economic needs during this recovery period. Check out the full article on the BBC website.

Now do you think that the wealthy in Canada would make the same request?

Fiscal Advice for Governments

2009-10-22T23:53:00.002-04:00

The TD Bank reported today that the cumulative deficits of the Federal, Provincial and Territorial governments will add up to $90 Billion this year. And today, the government of Ontario announced a record-breaking projected deficit for this fiscal year of $24.7 Billion and projected deficits of $21.1B in 2010-11 and $19.4B in 2011-12.

These numbers are staggering and governments will not be able to return to balance in the next 5-10 years unless they take a different approach than has been done in the past. Past expenditure management initiatives have traditionally been "across the board" in nature with a strategic approach being an exception rather than the rule. But what is facing governments across Canada is quite different than in the past.

So what is a government to do today? Well here are some thoughts to assist in dealing with this situation to add to my previous blog....

1. Focus on the core activities of government - decide on what is the function of government.

2. Get out of activities that are not part of the core responsibilities of government. For example, is it a core function of government to issue cheques? Why can't that be done by the private sector under a stringent service level agreement?

3. Review remaining functions of government to ensure that they are being run as effectively and efficiently as possible. Implement a lean approach to these activities - there are lots of examples in the public sector of organizations that have implemented a lean approach to it processes resulting in higher productivity, quicker turn around times and increased through-put.

4. Ensure that the tax regime raises the funds required to deliver the services that society has decided is needed from government. It is a fallacy to believe that you can have gold plated level of government services with a very low tax rate.

5. Use evidence to make your decisions and set up measurable outcomes to track progress on your activities.

6. Don't spend your time on little nickel and dime amounts. Remember that it takes just as long to review a small program with very limited spending than it does to look at major expenditure areas.

7. Be careful of unintended consequences of your actions - take a systems approach when looking at spending as a reduction in one area may result in a new pressure in another area.

8. Continue to invest in your staff - put your money where your mouth is when you say that your staff are your best "resource". If you truly mean that, then they also need to continue to develop their skills and share experiences with peers across Canada.

This will not be easy and will require for government to act courageously (as Sir Humphrey would say) and look to the long term.

The Learning Organization and Leadership

2009-10-20T21:06:00.000-04:00

Organizations keep talking about the importance of being a "learning organization". But what is a learning organization and are the ones that trumpet themselves as such, really learning organizations.

Let's start with a couple of definitions. Peter Senge defined a learning organization as "Organizations where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning to learn together."

Pedler, Burgoyne and Boydell gave this definition: "an organization that facilitates the learning of all its members and consciously transforms itself and its context".

But in many cases in the public sector in Canada, people have a very narrow view of what a learning organization is. To them it is merely an organization that provides learning opportunities to its employees. But that is not what a learning organization is. A true learning organization is able to learn from experience and adapt its behaviour to take into account these experiences. But too many times organizations do not learn and end up repeating the same dysfunctional behaviours over and over again. For example, how many times have organizations restructured or reorganized and when they do not achieve the outcomes that were anticipated, they do it all over again, time after time! How many of you have been a part of an organization that keeps reorganizing every 18 - 24 months. All organizational effort is focused on the reorganization which does not accomplish anything, other than angst. And yet, 18 months later the organization begins the same merry-go-round.

Learning organizations have 5 basic characteristics according to Senge. These are:

1. Systems Thinking;
2. Personal Mastery;
3. Mental Models;
4. Shared Vision; and
5. Team Learning

It takes real leadership to develop a learning organization, but organizations that have been able to implement this have seen significant and sustained improvements in productivity, staff morale and outcomes.

IPAC Leadership Conference

2009-10-19T22:33:00.000-04:00

On November 5th and 6th, IPAC will be holding its 5th annual Leadership Conference at the Pantages Hotel in Toronto. The theme of the conference this year is Stepping Up to the Plate: Your A-Team in Action.

The theme, topics and conference format are designed help public servants to create and sustain an A-team. Today's leaders must understand the importance of shared leadership. Leaders must focus on the diverse talents required and available to deliver on the organization's vision.

The topics and format for the conferences are designed to build capacity to:

1) Identify and develop the talent required for today and tomorrow
2) Create the synergy: utilize the strengths of each team member
3) Develop collaborative relationships with multiple and diverse stakeholders
4) Motivate and inspire people and align the organization, its strategy, goals and values;
5) Empower and create accountability with individuals and teams.

The speakers line up is a stellar one and I would urge all to attend. For more information on the conference, check out the conference website

In addition to the two day conference, on the evening of November 5th, we will be holding the 2nd annual IPAC/Deloitte Public Sector Leadership Awards Gala Dinner. At this dinner, the winners of this year leadership awards will be unveiled in an "Oscar like" evening full of suspense, entertainment (I might wear my mask & cape at the Pantages), and excitement. Don't miss this year's Gala Dinner - it is going to be a great evening.

New Professionals Conference in Halifax

2009-10-16T15:27:00.000-04:00

On October 26-28, 2009, IPAC will be holding its 3rd New Professionals Conference in historic Halifax, Nova Scotia. For those who do not know a "New Professional" is anyone, regardless of chronological age, who has been in the public service for less than 5 years. I think that we should also extend the definition to those who are young at heart!

Anyway, the conference organizers have done an extraordinary job pulling this conference together. The conference is divided into 4 thematic blocks with a Keynote speaker and concurrent workshops for each block. These 4 themes are:

1. Creativity & Innovation;
2. The Role & Use of Technology in a Modern Public Sector;
3. Public Engagement; and
4 Sustainability & the Greening of the Public Sector.

And of course, as new professionals you can join the Conference Facebook page or follow the conference on Twitter.

In addition to the serious parts of the conference, I am sure that delegates will enjoy that legendary Maritime hospitality!

I will be providing some short opening remarks for the conference. Karl won't let me give a Fidel Castro type 3 hour address, so I have to keep may remarks to 5 minutes :(

It promises to be a wonderful event and I will be blogging from Halifax to let you know what you are missing.

If you want to register, you still can just go to the Winds of Change website.

See you all in Halifax!

The Rising Tide of Red Ink

2009-10-15T18:24:00.001-04:00

I was going to title this blog “Can we part the Modern Red Sea to reach the fiscal balance promised land?”, but apart that it is maybe too long for a blog title, I really couldn’t see who would play the part of Moses. Though there exist a good set of fiscal rules (aka: the 10 commandments) it seems that most have been discarded during these economic times.

Fiscal balance has gone out the window as stimulus spending by governments in Canada and around the world are the order of the day to try to get out of this made in Wall Street greed based recession. In the USA, there have been bank bailouts, auto bailouts, mortgage lender bailouts, Wall Street investment firm bailouts…it is a wonder that there are any pails left to bail out all the companies under water. In Canada, what was once a land full of fiscal surpluses has turned into a sea of red ink. The federal Government is projecting a deficit of over of $50 Billion. the Ontario government is updating its forecast in its upcoming Fall statement – the last official deficit number was $18.5 B this fiscal year. Watch for it to be easily north of $20 B. Alberta is swimming in red ink ($7 B deficit) instead of oil and gas revenues.

In the first battle against the deficit of the mid-1990’s, the Federal government substantially reduced transfers to provinces as one of their deficit reducing measures. Provincial governments, in turn, reduced spending on health care, education, infrastructure and “non-core” government activities. Many governments reduced the internal administrative and policy functions in their operations and outsourced or eliminated public service positions and froze the hiring of new staff. Municipal governments, in many cases, had their funding from the provincial government reduced and thus had to reduce services to their population or increase property taxes (the most regressive forms of taxation in my opinion, but the subject of a future blog).

We are all cognizant of the impact of these measures………deterioration of our infrastructure, increased wait times for health care, reductions in social supports to the most vulnerable in Canada, elimination of cultural grants, and the list goes on.

Well, I guess we are at that point again. Though governments are presently in a spend mode, you can be sure that the guardians of the public purse are developing strategies and options on how to return to fiscal balance. At the political level, some have ruled out tax increases and reductions in spending. Logically all that remains to achieve balance is economic growth. But how long and sustained must that economic growth be before balance is achieved, especially given the fiscal pressures for more investment in health care (aging boomers) and in education and in maintaining our infrastructure. And this does not include government support to help develop the nirvana of the new economy.

Others will want to cut "fat, waste and inefficiency" in government and in the broader public sector. But governments have been through these processes ever since the 1990's. Many times, governments just implement across the board reductions (while exempting health care & education) that yield little in terms of sustainable savings.

What we need in this country is a new way to look at what government spends the taxpayers money on. We need to take a systems approach to programs and policies; determine what is the exact role of government; and coordinate between the different orders of government by taking a "citizen-based" view. Let me give you a small example. In British Columbia, the Provincial Health Authority has implemented a program called imProve that is looking at the processes in the hospital to make sure that they are focused on the patient. They have been able to streamline processes throughout their hospitals resulting in better patient safety and better quality. At they same time they are able to deliver more services to more patients with the same level of resources.

The old approach to budget constraints will not work. Now is the time for new innovative and bold approaches. Within an efficient and citizen centred provision of services, Canadians must decide what they want from their government and be prepared to pay the appropriate level of tax to sustain those programs and services.

Ministerial Accountability - part 2

2009-10-10T14:51:00.000-04:00

I've been thinking some more on the issue of Ministerial Accountability as a result of the fallout of the eHealth debacle in Ontario and past issues in other governments across Canada that resulted in the resignation of a Minister as a result of what is in fact an administrative matter.

There has been quite a lot written on ministerial accountability and ministerial responsibility. One of Canada's preeminent scholars, Donald Savoie, has written on this topic. In his recent book Court Government and the Collapse of Accountability in Canada and the United Kingdom (published as part of the IPAC Series in Public Management and Governance), Mr. Savoie writes about ministerial accountability and responsibility. He writes about the UK model, where "under the Minister, the head of the department, as the Accounting Officer, is also personally responsible and accountable to Parliament for the management and organisation of the department..." I would encourage anyone interested in learning more about this topic to read Mr. Savoie's book. (IPAC members get a 20% discount on these books - order here).

Another interesting read is the report from the Library of Parliament entitled"The Accountability of Deputy Ministers before Parliament"(March 2006). This short paper succinctly lays out the history and evolution of accountability of Deputy Ministers for the administration of their department as well as the concept of Ministerial Accountability. The paper provides a background on the role of the Deputy Minister at the Federal level and the debate about her/his accountability. The Lambert Commission (1979) recommended that the Deputy be clearly accountable for the administration of the department. The McGrath Commission (1986) echoed this recommendation.

It is only logical that the permanent public service be held accountable for the operational/administrative functioning of their department or agency. After all, they are the experts in terms of administration. A Minister often does not even have the subject matter background in the portfolio that has been entrusted to them. They rely on the professional public service and their Deputy Minister for advise on how best to implement their political direction. I believe that there is a need to clarify the roles of the Minister and Deputy Minister to ensure clear accountability.

The Limits of Ministerial Accountability

2009-10-07T22:49:00.001-04:00

Today's Ontario Auditor's report on eHealth has got me thinking about the concept of "ministerial accountability". Under this concept, the Minister is held responsible for anything that happens in his or her ministry. If anything goes wrong, it is laid at the feet of the Minister. And critics call for the Minister to resign.

I think that the concept of ministerial accountability should be balanced to take into account the responsibility of the Minister and the Deputy Minister. In my understanding, the Deputy Minister (or Deputy Head - CEO, etc) is responsible and accountable for the proper administration of the ministry or agency. The Minister should not get involved in the day to day administrative issues of the ministry. The Minister is responsible for providing the broad policy (and small p political) direction of the ministry.

We get into trouble when this line becomes blurred and Ministers try to administratively run the operations of the ministry/agency. We have seen this blurring much too often in legislatures across the country and in the media. Whenever anything goes wrong that is operational in nature, critics call for the resignation of the Minister. But when we look at what went wrong and why, it is often an administrative matter that is the responsibility of the public service.

Unless there is complete incompetence or malfeasance that should be dealt with severely, a true learning organization learns from its mistakes and ensures that procedures and processes are changed to ensure better results.

As I was thinking about the role of the Minister and of the Deputy Minister, I remembered a classic episode from “Yes, Minister” about Government Policy. In this clip, Sir Humphrey is called in front of a Parliamentary Committee to answer questions on a government policy. His view is that the Minister answers questions about policy, while the civil service answers questions about administration.

Obviously this is a comedic view of the difference between policy & administration and having appeared in front of quite a few legislative committees I can testify that this is not how the public services answer questions - but I felt we all deserved a good chuckle!

I understand the politics that are at play in any of these issues across the country, but I guess what I am saying is that there should be a better understanding of the roles of the key players in government and that accountability must be tied to a person's responsibility and ability to affect change.

I will be coming back to this topic in the next while.

The Law of Uninteded Consequences

2009-10-06T16:54:00.000-04:00

I am sure that many of you have been reading about the upcoming report from the Auditor General of Ontario on the administration of the eHealth file in Ontario. The report is supposed to be released tomorrow morning, but already leaks about the content of the report are to be found in the media (side note: wonder where those leaks are coming from? To quote my favourite sage - Sir Humphrey - "the ship of state leaks from the top").

In anticipation of that report and as a result of the slew of untendered contracts put out by eHealth and others, the Government of Ontario has laid down the law - all contracts, no matter what value are to be competitively tendered. Previously the rule (brought into effect in 1985) was that all contracts over $25,000 had to be competitively tendered. Contracts with a value under this threshold could be sole sourced (with appropriate rules around follow-on work).

So what are the implications of competitively tendering everything? Let me give you an example that I recently heard about. An RFP was sent to a number of consulting firms for work with an estimated value of $1000. That's right, for One Thousand Dollars. In addition, the recipients had to adhere to and send in all the paper work that went along with this RFP. The paper work is basically the same for $1000 as it is for $100,000.

This overreaction leads to unintended consequences.

And from Wikipedia, for those who like definitions: The "law of unintended consequences" (also called the "law of unforeseen consequences") states that any purposeful action will produce some unanticipated or unintended consequences.

This maxim is not a scientific law; it is more in line with Murphy's law as a warning against the hubristic belief that humans can fully control the world around them. Stated in other words, each cause has more than one effect, and these effects will invariably include at least one unforeseen side effect. The unintended side effect can potentially be more significant than any of the intended effects.

The unintended consequences will rear their ugly head in reduced innovation, slower implementation of key initiatives, and more and more red tape. The pendulum has swung to the rules based approach to government with approaches that do not fit within a predetermined and rigid framework are not even considered. The message this sends out is no more innovation, no more calculated risk-taking, just follow the rules.

In 1988, in a report for the Office of the Auditor General (Canada), Otto Brodtrick wrote:

“Well-performing organizations encourage risk taking. They are willing to try new methods when common sense dictates that better results can be achieved by following the spirit of a regulation, instead of the letter. However, staff must hold the values of stewardship, service and results, and they must consult with each other. When their people are governed by these values, the well-performing organizations encourage risk taking as a matter of strategy.”

What Otto put out in 1988 was true then and is even more so today! Let us not lose the spirit of innovation in the stampede to put rules around everything.

Transformational Leadership Panel

2009-09-23T16:24:00.055-04:00

I was asked by Rob Dowler of MGS (Government of Ontario) to moderate a panel at this year's Showcase Ontario. The panel was on "Transformational Leadership for Today's Public Service" and took place on September 23, 2009. They assembled a stellar panel for me to moderate. The panelists were:

* Shirley Hoy, former City Manager, City of Toronto and now CEO of Toronto Lands Corp;
* Tony Dean, former Ontario Secretary of the Cabinet and now a fellow in residence at the School of Public Policy & Governance, University of Toronto; and
* Alex Himelfarb, former Clerk of the Privy Council (Government of Canada) and the newly appointed Director of the School of Public & International Affairs, Glendon College.

To say this was a stellar panel would be a gross understatement. What was interesting to me was that all three worked together to achieve some substantial breakthroughs in intergovernmental cooperation. As you can imagine, entrenched interests make this kind of three level cooperation difficult most of the time. Anyway, the 10 minute presentations from each of the panelists was quite interesting.

Tony was the first to speak and he talked about 1) the importance of "people issues" in the public service including proper and enlightened leadership; 2) Complex policy issues and 3) Execution. He spoke of the need for the establishment of benchmarks and measurement which requires robust information systems to provide evidence in terms of both delivery and policy. He underscored the importance of public sector leadership in protecting the core values of the public service and building a culture of flexibility and innovation within the public service.

Alex spoke about 1) the deterioration of the policy role within government and 2) the challenge to be innovate with the current "cult of accountability". He contrasted today's Deputy Minister to DM's when he first joined government. DM's 20 years ago focused on policy and provided "fearless advice and loyal implementation", while today's DM is an executioner and provides "loyal advice and fearful implementation". He sees the reductions of the past having a significant negative impact on the policy capability of public service. As a result, there is decreased demand for policy advice from politicians. The advent of technology has resulted in the "democratization" of the policy process, where expertise has become devalued. On the cult of accountability Alex spoke to the need to be innovative (as part of a learning organization) and to take risks which has been affected by a focus on blame.

Shirley spoke of the "implementation gap" in government...how to properly implement broad policy decisions and that public servants had become too risk averse. She spoke of the need to focus on results and outcomes and using technology as an enabler for transformation. She sees that we are in a post bureaucratic model of government and that no single level of government can tackle the complex problems and policy challenges that face society today.

Following the presentations, the floor was opened up for a Q & A session. There were questions on technology as an enabler; the trend of centralization of decision making; and how to ensure innovation within public service.

A video of the session is presently being edited. Once it is complete, I will provide you with the link so that you can all watch what was a fascinating session.

IPAC/Deloitte Leadership Awards Jury - Day 1

2009-09-22T21:17:00.003-04:00

Well we had quite a day today. But first a little about the reception last night for all the finalists in the IPAC/Deloitte Public Sector Leadership Awards. The reception was held on Monday night in the Martini Bar of the Pantages Hotel (and no I did not wear my mask & cape!). It was a great evening and I had a wonderful time meeting the finalists and invited guests.

Today the jury had the pleasure of listening to the 9 finalists in the Federal/Provincial/Territorial category. All the finalists wonderfully put forward their case and explained to the jury what they have accomplished and how they accomplished it. I really can't say anymore or else I risk spilling the beans! The Gold, Silver and Bronze recipients will be announced at the Gala Awards Dinner on November 5, 2009 as part of the 5th annual IPAC Leadership Conference being held on November 5 & 6 at the Pantages Hotel in Toronto.

Special thanks to Rob Fowler, Deputy Minister, Executive Council of Nova Scotia for chairing today's jury.

Tomorrow the juries will meet with the finalists in all the other categories: Municipal; Health Care; Education; and Not-for-profit.

IPAC/Deloitte Public Sector Leadership Awards: Finalists

2009-09-21T09:22:00.000-04:00

On Tuesday September 22 and Wednesday September 23, 2009 the finalists in the second annual IPAC/Deloitte Public Sector Leadership Awards will be making their presentations in front of the juries.

This year we received over 80 submissions in all categories of the award:

* Federal/Provincial/Territorial
* Municipal
* Health Care
* Education
* Not-for-Profit

The winners will be announced at a Gala dinner on November 5, 2009 as part of IPAC's Leadership Conference (November 5 & 6, 2009 at the Pantages Hotel in Toronto).

The finalists are as follows:

Education

Innovation Strategy:Transforming Education in the Applied Health Sciences
The Michener Institute for Applied Health Sciences, Toronto
Dr. Paul Gamble, President and CEO

Coming Down from the Mountain
Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia
Cathy Daminato, Vice President, University Relations

Leadership for Student Success
Ryerson University, Toronto
Julia Hanigsberg, General Counsel and Board Secretariat

Not-for-Profit

From Vision to Reality
Children’s Treatment Network Simcoe York
Louise Paul, CEO

BIXI: Société de vélo en libre Service (SVLS)
Montreal
Alain Ayotte Président

Cancer View Canada – The CPAC Partnership Portal
Canadian Partnership Against Cancer
Lee Fairclough, Vice President,Knowledge Management

Municipal

Reclaiming the Street of Shame
Vancouver Police Department, City of Vancouver
Adua Porteus,Inspector

Leading Change – Neighbourhood Revitalization
City of Edmonton
Kathy Barnhart, Branch Manager

The kids@computers: Leading Investment in Disadvantaged Children and Communities
City of Toronto
Ted Lis, Director Social Services, Employment and Social Services Division

Streets to Homes
City of Toronto
Ian De Jong, Manager Streets to Homes Shelter, Support and Housing Administration

Health Care

The Canadian Paediatric Surgical Wait Times Project
Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto
Monica Cottafavi, Communications Manager

Improve – PHSA’s Program Focusing on Patients and Empowering Staff
Provincial Health Services Authority, British Columbia
Jennifer MacKenzie, VP Strategic Planning, Transformation and Infrastructure

Partners for Aboriginal Health
Saint Elizabeth Health Care
Shirlee Sharkey, President and CEO

Federal/Provincial/Territorial

Response to the 2007 Passport Surge in Demand
Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada
Gerald Cossette, Associate Deputy Minister

Creating a Culture of Leadership in the Alberta Public Service
Deputy Minister Council, Alberta Public Service
Dale Silver, Public Service Commissionner

Health Canada’s The Way Forward Initiative –An Enterprise Approach to IT
Health Canada
Rudy de Sa, CIO

Pacte pour l’emploi
Ministère de l’Emploi et de la Solildarité sociale
Bernard Matte, Sous-ministre adjoint

Evaluation on Health Technologies for the Ontario Health Care System
Medical Advisory Secretariat and Ontario Health Technology Advisory Committee
Dr. Birthe Jorgensen
Director

Vision et leadership en santé publique
Institut national de santé publique du Québec
Dr. Pierre Gosselin, Responsible scientifique (INSPQ)

Leading the Transformation in Stewardship
Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care
Debbie Fischer, Assistant Deputy Minister

Advanced Communication and Collaboration Services
Ministry of Citizens’ Services, British Columbia
Jill Kot, Assistant Deputy Minister

Project Management Centre of Excellence
Ministry of Citizens’ Services, British Columbia
Richard Poutney, Assistant Deputy Minister Common Business Services

Tonight we will be holding a reception for all the finalists as well as invited guests from government and the broader public sector. It will be a very interesting evening.

New Study from the US: 45,000 excess deaths annually linked to lack of health coverage

2009-09-18T10:34:00.003-04:00

More evidence that the lack of universal health care in the USA has a direct impact on health outcomes. A recent study from Harvard has highlighted that there are approximately 45,000 excess deaths in the US due to lack of universal coverage. Read on.......

A study published online on Sept 17th estimates nearly 45,000 annual deaths are associated with lack of health insurance. That figure is about two and a half times higher than an estimate from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in 2002.

The new study, "Health Insurance and Mortality in U.S. Adults," appears in the online edition of the American Journal of Public Health.

The Harvard-based researchers found that uninsured, working-age Americans have a 40 percent higher risk of death than their privately insured counterparts, up from a 25 percent excess death rate found in 1993.

Lead author Dr. Andrew Wilper, who worked at Harvard Medical School when the study was done and who now teaches at the University of Washington Medical School, said, "The uninsured have a higher risk of death when compared to the privately insured, even after taking into account socioeconomics, health behaviors and baseline health. We doctors have many new ways to prevent deaths from hypertension, diabetes and heart disease - but only if patients can get into our offices and afford their medications."

The study, which analyzed data from national surveys carried out by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), assessed death rates after taking education, income and many other factors including smoking, drinking and obesity into account. It estimated that lack of health insurance causes 44,789 excess deaths annually.
Previous estimates from the IOM and others had put that figure near 18,000. The methods used in the current study were similar to those employed by the IOM in 2002, which in turn were based on a pioneering 1993 study of health insurance and mortality.

Deaths associated with lack of health insurance now exceed those caused by many common killers such as kidney disease. An increase in the number of uninsured and an eroding medical safety net for the disadvantaged likely explain the substantial increase in the number of deaths associated with lack of insurance. The uninsured are more likely to go without needed care.

Another factor contributing to the widening gap in the risk of death between those who have insurance and those who don't is the improved quality of care for those who can get it.

The research, carried out at the Cambridge Health Alliance and Harvard Medical School, analyzed U.S. adults under age 65 who participated in the annual National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES) between 1986 and 1994. Respondents first answered detailed questions about their socioeconomic status and health and were then examined by physicians. The CDC tracked study participants to see who died by 2000.

The study found a 40 percent increased risk of death among the uninsured. As expected, death rates were also higher for males (37 percent increase), current or former smokers (102 percent and 42 percent increases), people who said that their health was fair or poor (126 percent increase), and those that examining physicians said were in fair or poor health (222 percent increase).

Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, study co-author, professor of medicine at Harvard and a primary care physician in Cambridge, Mass., noted: "Historically, every other developed nation has achieved universal health care through some form of nonprofit national health insurance. Our failure to do so means that all Americans pay higher health care costs, and 45,000 pay with their lives."

Dr. David Himmelstein, study co-author and an associate professor of medicine at Harvard, remarked, "The Institute of Medicine, using older studies, estimated that one American dies every 30 minutes from lack of health insurance. Even this grim figure is an underestimate - now one dies every 12 minutes."

Health Care - US

2009-09-09T15:05:00.000-04:00

I usually don't comment on politics on this blog, but in this case I will make an exception, especially as it relates to Health Care, President Obama and the opposition to health care reform in the USA.

I have been astounded by the level of so-called debate in the US over the proposed reforms to the US health care system and the vitriol of those opposing the public option. When debate descends to the level where President Obama is compared to Hitler, you have to wonder what these critics have been smokin'! Then you have people like Sarah Palin who have said that the Obama plan includes "death panels" of bureaucrats who would decide who lives or dies. Where did she get that? There is no such thing, and yet she makes headlines "by being economical with the truth" as Sir Humphrey would say.

After our annual conference in Fredericton, I took some time off and stayed for a couple of days at the Algonquin Hotel in St. Andrew's. It is a wonderful Gatsbyesque place. At night, on the front lawn, they have a fire pit going with a number of Muskoka chairs around the fire. We were sitting there one night and talking to some of the other guests. A few of them where from the USA, so we asked them about Health Care reform. One was from Massachusetts and the other one was from Connecticut. They were both against the "public option" as they felt that people should take individual responsibility and that they did not want to pay for people who do not take care of themselves. We continued the debate, though when they stated that the fair news in the US was Fox news, we knew where they were coming from. Mind you it was a civilized debate, not the overexcited, screaming & yelling that one has seen at US town hall meetings. Must have been the effect of being in Canada that calmed them.

Whatever your position is on the public option in the US, you should at least have a civilized discourse!

Back to the substance of the debate - tonight Barack Obama addresses Congress to try to get his message across. We will see if he will be successful. I have my doubts, given that they have let the anti-reform side frame the debate. Whatever comes out of Congress will be watered down and the winners will be the special interest groups (US insurance companies) and the losers will be those with out coverage or with inadequate coverage.

You have to wonder why a society as individually generous as the US (compare their charitable donations per capita to other countries) would be against the concept of putting in place a universally accessible health care system. It is not as if the US system produces better health outcomes or costs less than other "socialized" health care systems. Some of the opposition is based on not wanting a government health bureaucracy and the assumption that government can't run anything (the example they give is Hurricane Katrina). But is it better to have multiple private health insurance bureaucracies that result in a huge administrative overhead (some estimates are that this overhead is 30% of the health care bill in the US).

I could go on, but I think I will stop here - there is much on this topic in cyberspace...check it out.

Stay tuned and see what happens with this interesting debate.

Whale Watching

2009-09-09T14:44:00.007-04:00

This video has nothing to do with public administration, though I guess it has to do with public policy. After the annual conference we went to St. Andrew's and went whale watching. On our 3.5 hour tour we saw 30 Right Whales. There are only 300-350 Right whales left in the world and we were lucky enough to see almost 10% of the population. Enjoy.

Annual Conference

2009-09-01T14:40:00.000-04:00

Sorry about the lack of Video blogs from Fredericton. I had a few problems uploading my first video blog and did not get to any others. In the next little while I will produce a summary video blog (now that I have figured out how to upload). Stay tuned.