Advice to the public service: Five ways to confront monsters and chaos

Events are accelerating quickly in the United States and in our hemisphere. Canadian governments—and the public service—were not designed to confront what we are experiencing. 

We are witnessing a rapid collapse of the rule of law in the United States and a dramatic repudiation by Trump of the world order that the U.S. built and that kept Canadians safe. An authoritarian, imperialist America is quite obviously a threat to Canada. 

A transnational network of authoritarian billionaires— with access to huge pools of capital and technology platforms— will accelerate their attempts to undermine successful nation-states like Canada who act as a check on their ambition to replace democratic governments.  

Most Canadians have understood all of this for a while, but the invasion of Venezuela and the threats to Greenland—plus the language used to justify them—make clear what the U.S. has become.    

The Canadian federal government knows all of this. Even if most of our leaders make tactical decisions to bite their tongues, no one doubts any longer what is happening.  

The federal government and the public service were not designed to deal with this kind of threat. Political and bureaucratic leaders are trying to re-wire the system quickly, but systems can’t deliver what they were not designed for. Vertically organized ministries, with highly segregated legal authorities and responsibilities, are not equipped for strategic, coordinated agile decision-making. 

We need rapid changes to confront this national emergency and security threat. Those changes include the instincts, assumptions and habits of public servants and political decision-makers, but also organizational changes—called “machinery of government” issues.  

Ottawa is starting to head in this direction. There is a recognition that processes and systems created in the Before Times are methodical, but are too slow and disjointed to respond in a strategic and integrated way to the current emergency.  For example, the government has taken the necessary steps to create new Crown agencies, like the Major Projects Office and the Defense Investment Agency, to clear administrative hurdles and execute on strategic projects more quickly.  

Let’s start with five “machinery of government” changes that I think are needed to meet today’s threats. I know that some of these are already in the works.  

If Canada had more runway, some of this work could result in the creation of new stand-alone ministries, but that seems unlikely to occur in the next few weeks. But the assignment of full-time Ministers, Deputy Ministers and staff should be possible, even if the ministers don’t have full authority over a statutory department. Soft coordination methods like inter-ministerial results tables or working groups can be useful, but they will not be sufficient in many cases unless they are stewarded very carefully at the most senior levels. Five priorities should be: 

Building democratic resilience 

Our government is not designed to withstand systemic, orchestrated attacks on the institutional foundations of democracy. That should be obvious, as we have watched the global forces of chaos and autocracy undermine the capacity for democratic government in the U.S. The authoritarian playbook is not a mystery and it will be deployed in 2026 within Canada.  

If Americans who are committed to democracy and the rule of law could go back to 2010 or even 2020, they would do many things differently to make the democratic state more resilient to attacks from democracy’s enemies. We need a Minister, properly supported, whose full-time job is to prepare for all the ways that the transnational authoritarian movement will seek to undermine the Canadian democratic state, and to take action to make the authoritarian project less likely to succeed. Reinforcing the independence and transparency of elections so that the public would quickly dismiss false claims of election fraud and improving support for civic, local and independent journalism are two of many steps that should be undertaken. 

Governing Big Tech platforms  

In 2018, I began work within the federal government to develop governance to more strategically confront the threat that digital platforms represented to our economy, national security, democracy and children, and to build capacity within the federal public service to treat them as geopolitical actors. This entailed assembling expertise from across multiple departments, all of whom were engaged with Big Tech with different objectives and on different issues, but were overmatched by the capacity of the world’s largest companies.  

Although the government chose to defer decisions at that time, the case for action has only gotten stronger. Our options today are more constrained than they were a decade ago, but we need to mobilize across the system to ensure our digital sovereignty and have at least some democratic control over Big Tech. 

Coordinating national security  

Those charged with protecting Canadian national security and sovereignty are scattered across multiple agencies and ministries. The Canadian Armed Forces, the RCMP, Global Affairs, Public Safety, Industry, Fisheries, Justice and multiple security and intelligence agencies across multiple ministries have never been properly coordinated. That is endemic and, until this year, did not represent an existential threat.  

I know work is underway to apply a more integrated lens and decision-making process to a variety of issues including foreign investment review, defense procurement, monitoring hate and the work of the Coast Guard. But organizational cultures, legal responsibilities and program authorities do not align easily or change quickly. Re-working this governance, in real time, is an urgent national priority. 

Supporting the community and charitable sector  

The not-for-profit sector, broadly defined, has no home in government. Private-sector industries—from agriculture to fisheries to natural resources to manufacturing and auto—know where to go in government when they need support meeting a vital need. Charities, foundations, community organizations, co-ops and not-for-profits have no Minister thinking of them first and how they can be supported—and how they can help meet urgent national priorities that play out in community.  

While there are scattered offices in ESDC, Industry and the CRA, these are not designed to meet the needs of civil society organizations. These organizations, working in community, are going to be vital to Canada’s resilience. If Canada is to thrive in the coming decade, we will need to mobilize all sectors and the government needs to engage with them as strategic partners. 

Preserving national unity  

The federal government should build secretariats within the Privy Council Office to prepare for the inevitable onslaught of disinformation and illegal foreign intervention in Canadian issues. These campaigns will be designed to exacerbate and invent regional grievances and animosities in the context of discussions about Alberta and Quebec secession.  

There will be many American agents of chaos looking to disrupt Canadian democratic processes and our sovereignty this year. A peaceful, democratic Canada that respects human rights and the rule of law is an important counterpoint to the world’s most dangerous authoritarian regimes and the dissolution of Canada would be a huge victory for the forces of global authoritarianism.  

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But machinery changes alone will not be enough. We need to rewire our brains, not just our organizations.  

There are many ideas and habits deeply embedded in the federal government that are not right for this moment. Bringing new people and perspectives into the government—including private-sector, not-for-profit, community, faith and labour leaders—can help. Some of the changes in our mental maps are already underway, but will need to be intensified. To succeed, we will need: 

Transparency and engagement. While it will be necessary to keep many plans secret, the federal government and public service need to be more transparent and engage more directly with leaders and communities across the country who can help them co-create and co-deliver solutions. 

Innovative state capacity. We need to discard the deeply embedded neoliberal assumptions that have governed policymaking for over three decades and learn how to deploy the state in a strategic ways, using all the tools of industrial strategy to deliver positive economic outcomes.  

More talk of shared citizenship and sacrifice. Governments need to talk more about our responsibilities as citizens. Our governments will have to ask more of us – and ask those of us with privilege and economic security to make sacrifices. That includes being very frank about the threats we face and how a peaceful, law-abiding democratic Canada—despite all its flaw—is the best hope for ordinary Canadians to have a meaningful, secure, prosperous life. Fascist countries with secret police who shoot down their citizens in the street are not great places for ordinary working people to live and thrive. 

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These are some early thoughts on evolving federal governance and I welcome others. I know people within the federal government are contemplating how to organize themselves to confront this national emergency and a belligerent United States. This is a time like no other in our history, and those making decisions have not been trained for this unprecedented threat—because we haven’t experienced anything like this before.  

If those entrusted with the enormous responsibility to navigate Canada through this crisis approach the moment with humility, a willingness to discard some of the things they thought they knew and recognize that they will need help from across Canadian society, we can get through this. There are signs that this is happening, and I’m cautiously optimistic that our governments can organize themselves in new ways to meet this moment of peril.