While National Newswatch does not keep an archive of external articles for longer than 6 months, we do keep all articles written by contributors who post directly to our site. Here you will find all of the contributed and linked external articles from Kathryn May.
Jocelyne Bourgon, a key player in Canada’s historic 1990s fiscal turnaround, says reforming the public service is critical to the success of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s economic agenda — but this time, it doesn’t have to mean deep cuts and mass layoffs. Bourgon, the former clerk of the Privy Council Office during the Chretien government’s massive downsizing, said Carney’s ambitious...
There’s growing chatter in senior bureaucratic circles that the new Carney government is exploring a different way to govern – one that could execute plans for the biggest remake of Canada’s economy since the Second World War. Thrust into office by Trump’s trade war, Prime Minister Mark Carney is trying to turn an economic crisis into a defining moment for...
Treasury Board President Anita Anand is poised to table a report revealing a multi-billion-dollar surplus in the public-service pension plan at a time when the government is struggling to meet its deficit target and is facing financial pressure on all fronts. The chief actuary’s report on the pension plan landed on Anand’s desk on Sept. 27. She has 30 sitting...
Canada’s ballooning public service has been bracing for spending and job cuts, and now unions are sounding the alarm that they are coming. With the federal deficit larger than anticipated, budget cuts and layoffs increasingly appear to be unavoidable. Departments are scrambling to meet their latest spending targets set by Treasury Board, with a deadline later this month. Projections suggest...
The pay bump that comes from temporarily filling in for senior colleagues is deeply rooted in the culture of Canada’s public service, a staple for thousands of bureaucrats in a way not seen in other sectors. But acting pay has created a longstanding backlog of troubles that the government paymaster doesn’t want to move over to the new system it...
Brian Mulroney was elected prime minister promising to give public servants “pink slips and running shoes.” He didn’t follow through on that, but his reforms laid the groundwork for the largest downsizing of the federal workforce in Canada’s history and redefined the role of government. “Politicians respond to the public, but good leaders affect the public’s understanding of public-policy issues,”...
Graham Flack, a senior federal public servant who held jobs at the centre of crises ranging from the threat of Quebec secession, 9/11, the 2008 global financial meltdown and the pandemic, is leaving the public service after a last stop running Treasury Board. Flack announced his plan to retire as Treasury Board secretary to fellow deputy ministers and Treasury Board...
Canada’s top bureaucrat has assembled a dozen teams of deputy ministers to shake conventional thinking on policymaking and develop fresh perspectives on key issues the country will face over the next decade. Privy council clerk John Hannaford assembled the teams, which have been meeting over the fall, on topics that include health and aging, confidence in institutions, reconciliation, artificial intelligence...
So far, the buck stops nowhere. MPs on the government operations committee have spent a year trying to untangle contracting for the ArriveCAN app and now they’re stalled trying to figure out if senior bureaucrats are lying to them. Public servants are supposed to work in in the shadows, so it was a jaw-dropper to watch senior bureaucrat Cameron MacDonald...
The federal government’s chief information officer is leaving the job as the bureaucracy struggles to modernize aging technology systems and bring services into the digital age like Canadians expect. Catherine Luelo, who became CIO in July 2021, came from the private sector after holding senior jobs at Air Canada and Enbridge, to help accelerate the shift to digital government that...