225 | CSL Leadership Review Prime Ministerial Leadership, the Public Service and Administrative Reform in Canada: Part 1 Prime Minister in providing leadership to the political 2 Richard Phidd party, the Cabinet and the Public Service. This study is specifically concerned with Public Service O.P. Dwivedi and administrative reform. 3 It adopts the position that the relationship between the Prime Minister and Abstract the Public Service has not been seriously examined. Doctors Phidd and Dwivedi present a detailed analysis The roles of the Prime Minister can be understood of Prime Ministerial Leadership, the Public Service and by distinguishing political, economic and financial Administrative Reform in Canada. The authors de- management roles which are delegated to special- ized organizations. 4 The arrival of management in scribe the history of the public service and administra- 5 tive reform in Canada. While the role of the respective government has led to the delegation of authority to prime ministers is central to their discussion, they care- a number of highly specialized ministers; for exam- ple, the Minister of Finance and the President of the fully describe legislation and institutional changes Treasury Board and the President of the Privy which impacted the public service as well. Detail is Council, among others. 6 given concerning the role of the Privy Council, Treas- ury Board, Civil Service Commission, and other agen- Public sector management requires that functionally cies, offices, task forces and commissions. Prime minis- specific responsibilities be delegated to other spe- terial initiatives are juxtaposed against environmental cialized agencies such as the Privy Council Office, challenges and government power blocks, suggesting a the Treasury Board Secretariat and the Public Ser- need to pay greater attention to how public sector or- vice Commission. The last mentioned agency is ganizations are managed. The authors go on to de- concerned with the application of the merit principle. scribe how contemporary public administration studies The creation of the Civil Service Commission repre- have pointed to the complexities involved in public sented an attempt to isolate selected issues from politics. 7 sector organizations. They further suggest that this requires more analysis of what happens within public J.H. Knott and G.J. Miller have observed that the sector organizations. They also call for greater study of characteristics of bureaucracy associated with twen- organizational development and change within the tieth century organizations were fundamentally dif- public sector. ferent from those of nineteenth century organiza- tions which were staffed, for the most part, by ama- The Phidd & Dwivedi article presented in this issue teurs who were likely to be thrown out of office at ends in the 1980’s with the administration of Prime the next election. They further note that the deci- Minister Brian Mulroney. Part two will cover “Prime sions made by amateurs were conditioned by per- Ministerial Leadership, the Public Service and Admin- sonalities and politics rather than by formal, written istrative Reform in Canada: Public Sector Reforms rules. They have provided reasons for the emer- from the 1980’s to 2000 and Beyond”. Part two will gence of the characteristics identified by the Webe- appear in the Summer 2007 issue of this review . rian model of bureaucracy. 8 In a paper presented to the Canadian Political Science Association meet- ings in 1975, the present authors outlined several of those characteristics and identi- 1.0 PRIME MINISTERIAL LEADERSHIP, PUBLIC fied some of the then emerging SERVICE AND ADMINISTRATIVE REFORMS trends in Canada. More re- This paper is concerned with the role of executive cently, O.P. Dwivedi has leadership in public sector management. 1 It is espe- www.csl.uoguelph.ca 226 | CSL Leadership Review investigated selected contemporary issues in a ment. Consequently, by the 1970s, there were seri- 1993 paper entitled “Public Service Reforms in ous demands for downsizing the public sector. By Canada For The Twenty-First Century.” 9 the 1990s, this had led to the formation of smaller cabinets and to the consolidation of several depart- 1.1 From Bureaucracy to Management: Manag- ments and agencies within broad functional areas. 16 ing Change in a Democratic Environment Given these issues there is a need to carefully ex- The growth in democratic systems of government amine a variety of contentious issues in public sec- has led to greater public participation in political tor management. parties and with increased pressures to control a The growth in the public sector was accompanied 10 growing Public Service. Political parties are es- by institutional tensions between political leaders pecially concerned with controlling the Public Ser- and the Public Service. This issue is a rather com- vice. This has led to the passage of special legisla- plex one especially in democracies because bu- tion and to major reorganization of government, as reaucracy, as an organizational form, had emerged reflected in the rationalization of the central agen- as a source of control over “political machines.” 17 cies, and in the expansion of the Cabinet Commit- This issue has been extensively addressed by Eva 11 tee System between the 1960s and the 1980s. Etzioni-Halevy in Political Manipulation and in Bu- The expansion in the “administrative state” be- reaucracy and Democracy. 18 She, among others, tween 1900 and 1975 had led to significant expan- has outlined a number of hypotheses concerning 12 sion in the number of public employees. It also the reciprocal needs of the Public Service and politi- led to the creation of a variety of new departments cal leaders. (She has utilized a functional theory of and agencies representing new constituencies in elites). In order to gain a better perspective on this the economic, scientific and social spheres, among issue we must go back to the operations of the po- 13 others. The Government of Ontario passed sev- litical system in the previous century. eral reorganization acts between 1966 and 1982 which significantly changed the structure of govern- The creation of the Civil Service Commission in ment and affected the policy-making process. By 1908, and its organizational development into the 1960s demonstrates the concern with controlling way of illustration, there were the following: the 19 Department of Industry Act in 1963; the Depart- patronage. At the same time, the necessity to im- ment of Manpower and Immigration Act in 1966; pose political control over the bureaucracy is re- the 1968-69 Act which established Industry Trade flected in the organizational development of se- and Commerce, Regional Economic Expansion, lected central agencies, the Treasury Board Secre- Energy Mines and Resources, among others; Em- tariat and the Privy Council Office, given their con- ployment and Immigration in 1976; and the Gov- cern with management in government and with po- ernment Reorganization Act in 1983 which affected litical management respectively. External Affairs and Regional Industrial Expansion. In the Canadian setting these tensions are evident The 1973 oil shocks introduced major structural in the works of J.E. Hodgetts and J.R. Mallory, problems in the economies of the western industri- among others. 14 They discuss the development of alized countries. 14 In Canada, it led to major prob- professionalism in the modern Canadian Public Ser- lems in fiscal federalism. As a result, the 1975 fed- vice through the passage of important pieces of leg- eral budget sent signals to the provinces that there islation in 1908, 1919, 1961 and 1967, respectively. would be major reforms in the allocation of re- In effect, they discuss the evolution of industrial re- sources. In 1977, the federal government passed lations legislation in the Canadian Public Service. the Established Programmes Financing Act They address issues such as the rights of public (EPFA). 15 Between 1975 and 1994 the Govern- servants and the manner in which ment of Canada experienced persistent deficits. these rights were gained. We This development led to a search for new ways of must review the managing the public sector within a deficit environ- www.csl.uoguelph.ca 227 | CSL Leadership Review issues and roles of the Treasury Board of Canada, the some major sociological analysts who have reviewed Privy Council Office, and the Public Service Commis- the evolution of western institutions. sion in personnel management in Canada, especially R. Bendix has written extensively on this subject in as they have evolved between the 1960s and the publications such as: Work and Authority in Govern- 1990s. The central decision-making systems which ment and Industry and National-Building and Citizen- evolved between the 1960s and the 1990s were influ- ship. 20 The issue of the treatment of the Public Service enced by several royal commissions, task forces and is a most complex one which is usually intensified in consultants’ reports. Within the framework outlined by periods of poor economic performance. Bureaucracy J.E. Hodgetts, I. Sharkansky, D. Keeling and others, bashing is a well known phenomenon. 21 One issue we can perceive of the political system as one re- Period / Year Legislation, Institution and Mandate 1882 Civil Service Act (required examinations by an examining board) 1908 Civil Service Commission under the Civil Service Act 1918 Civil Service Commission mandate altered 1945 Royal Commission on Administrative Classification