Today, I want to talk about tech – the big picture.
FWD50, the annual meetup for digital government, its believers and enthusiasts, is taking place here in Ottawa this week. But it’s hard to ignore Canada’s dismal performance in the global e-government landscape.
Twenty-five years ago, Canada was a poster child for e-government. Fifteen years ago, we were third in UN rankings of countries. Now, we’re 47 out of 193.
Before we jump in, a reminder that if you didn’t see the Functionary about Peter Wallace from Friday, Oct. 11, it’s here. Some of you – especially at CBSA – have super powerful security filters.
Ok, here we go.
Today:
“It’s not stuck elsewhere”: Other countries are modernizing. Canada is stalled.
Look at Ukraine: From 102nd to 5th on the list. Despite an invasion.
But not that: Public-service survey goes out with a curious omission.
It’s like 1999 again: The first PS survey was born out of familiar circumstances.
MODERNIZATION
Is it a luxury or an essential?
This week at FWD50, top digital experts are discussing how technology can “make society better for all.”
A big theme this year is accountability – or rather unaccountability – partly inspired by Daniel Davies’sUnaccountability Machine. This part-biography, part-political thriller examines why massive systems, including governments, make bad decisions.
So, what happened to Canada?
“It’s stuck in Canada. It’s not stuck elsewhere,” said Alistair Croll, co-founder and chair of FWD50. “We went from number three to number 47 in 14 years. We made it to the ‘digitize all the things’ but not to ‘streamline the processes and delete all the old stuff.’”
Croll gave the opening talk at FWD50’s “executive cohort” sessions held in late October, exclusively for executives. “It was literally called ‘Why we can’t have nice things,’” he said.
So, can Canada catch up? Canada hasn’t gone backward. It has just stalled as other countries surge ahead.
“It’s time for a radical upheaval in how we approach citizen services,” Croll said. “Digital government is a once-in-a-century chance to rethink our organization, and Canada has become complacent.”
“The countries that nail it — Estonia, Ukraine, South Korea, Taiwan — are terrified that if their democracies collapse, they’re done. They don’t see modernization as a luxury. They see it as existential. Until Canada adopts this mindset, we’ll continue wasting money and hollowing out the public sector, leaving us with rent-takers who overcharge and then leave before finishing the job.”
No mincing of words there.
Digital tech, especially AI, is expected to be central to a drive by Treasury Board President Anita Anand to boost public-service productivity.
Treasury Board is now consulting on a new AI strategy. But digital experts are surprised by the slow uptake of AI across the public service.
At the tech conference AccelerateGOV two weeks ago, Anand and her top tech bureaucrats presented their vision – The Digital Ambition – to modernize government and services, including all the barriers. Anand and CIO Dominic Rochon and Shared Services President Scott Jones will also be speaking at FWD50.
“Canadians can book a restaurant with a tap on their iPhone, breeze through airport gates with their Apple Wallet,” Rochon said. “But when they try to interact with their federal government, it’s a different story — and that’s just not good enough. We need to meet Canadians where they are and offer that same seamless, modern experience.”
But some of the audience at AcclerateGOV was hoping for more.
“We’ve talked about all of these great things that we know we can do,” said one public servant. The problem is I’ve heard these things before many times. What are you going to do to make sure we tackle these so that we hear different things in future editions of this conference?”
WE’RE STUCK IN MUD
But look at Ukraine’s lightning rise
Digital tools are central to everything the government does: gather and analyze data, develop and implement policies, and deliver services. The connection is crucial for Canada’s productivity, a hot topic these days.
But the government has long known its rules, processes, structures, the way it funds IT, procures IT and recruits talent are “not fit for purpose,” said digital expert Ryan Androsoff said in an interview.
Androsoff has chronicled how modernizing government in Canada is stalled and “stuck in the mud” in his podcast called Let’s Think Digital. This season he’s looking at how to get unstuck and unpack why Canada is so uniquely slow to modernize government.
It takes lots of money and political will. It’s also not easy in a large, decentralized country like Canada, where Ottawa has to co-ordinate with provinces and territories to fund and deliver services.
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Look at Ukraine. Despite fighting a Russian invasion, it skyrocketed from 102nd to fifth place in this year’s UN e-government list because President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made a firm pledge in 2019 to build a digital state.
“When you look globally at countries that have made big reforms, almost across the board, it’s because there was strong political leadership that was ... pushing the public service to move in very different ways,” Androsoff said. “I think there are real limits to how much the public service can reform itself without that outside influence.”
It’s an issue that should be top of mind for whichever government wins the election. Big transformations are more likely to happen early in the mandate. And there’s nothing like austerity, slamming the brakes on spending, to help spur innovation.
The Liberals were on it early in their mandate with Scott Brison as digital minister and the creation of the Canadian Digital Service, but they lost momentum along the way. By last year, CIO Catherine Luelo left because she saw the public service as too undisciplined to bring the government into the digital age.
“Every government, regardless of political stripe, wants a public service that’s more efficient, delivers better services, and is more digitally modernized. This isn’t a controversial or ideological issue,” said Androsoff.
The public service hasn’t had an easy time, with the pandemic and now political chaos paralyzing Parliament and spilling over into the workforce, causing instability. Many bureaucrats are tired and burned out, feeling like their “batteries are drained” as “they push a proverbial boulder uphill,” said Androsoff.
Which brings us to the recurring survey designed to take the temperature of the public service.
TELL US (ALMOST) EVERYTHING
Public-service survey goes out – with not one RTO question
Public servants just got their invites to fill out this year’s Public Service Employee Survey. The survey launched in 1999 and gathers opinions on jobs, workplaces, to see changes might be needed.
But here’s the kicker: despite all the noise around the return-to-office (RTO) mandate, there isn’t a single direct question about it.
It’s not like the government hasn’t added questions on pressing issues in past years. Think discrimination or the Phoenix pay nightmare, for example. Phoenix even gets a couple of questions this year.
The last time the survey went out, in 2022, more than a dozen questions focused on hybrid work. But that was before the RTO mandate kicked in.
This year? Nada.
Questions are bundled around big themes like engagement, leadership, workplace well-being, and compensation. Important stuff, sure. But they skip right over what’s probably the No. 1 gripe for public servants right now.
Here are the kind of questions the 2022 edition had:
The RTO omission this year is not sitting well with unions, which were asked for input on questions.
CAPE President Nathan Prier said the lack of direct RTO questions is “an intervention from out-of-touch senior management that didn’t want another round of data showing how despised their ridiculous and wasteful return-to-office policies have been.”
He argued Treasury Board has politicized the survey to avoid hearing “what they already heard and that they didn’t want to hear again.” Meaning public servants want flexible remote work, he said.
The survey might still yield some RTO insights. Analysts might just have to read between the lines to find them.
THE SURVEY’S ORIGINS
Twenty-five years ago, a familiar crisis
A bit of history: a crisis in morale sparked the first edition of the Public Service Employee Survey. Public servants had just endured over a decade of cuts and wage freezes under Brian Mulroney and Jean Chrétien.
The final blow came with a Liberal program review that slashed 55,000 jobs. Treasury Board needed answers and hoped the survey could help diagnose the malaise — and guide any needed reforms.
Some argue that today’s public service is up against a crisis much like it faced 25 years ago, with the pandemic’s impact and fiscal pressures that will probably lead to strategic review or significant downsizing.
It makes one wonder: is the public servants’ frustration with RTO really about office attendance? Or is it more about a workplace that needs deeper reform?
The public service dramatically shifted gears during COVID, tapped into digital tools and embraced remote work like never before.
At a recent IPAC conference, Evert Lindquist, a professor at University of Victoria’s school of public administration, said he is “stunned that there was not a big strategic review in the wake of the COVID pandemic.”
“There’s something to be learned from that, and we need to seriously think about where we are now and what’s on the horizon,” said Lindquist (pictured).
“We have to get ready for the next wave of challenges coming our way, and I don’t think we are ready for it.”
An employee survey isn’t a substitute for a thorough strategic review. I’m just noting the first survey came about because similar pressures hurt morale and underscored an urgent need for reform.
(BTW, the survey closes on Dec. 31. It takes 30 minutes and can be completed on the clock. Results are expected next summer.)
Oh, one more thing.
Treasury Board credits the survey feedback with giving it insights that led to all kinds of reforms or “initiatives,” including:
The Federal Public Service Workplace Mental Health Strategy
The Indigenous Student Employment Opportunity
Creation of the Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Anti-Racism and Leadership team within the Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer
The new strategy to integrate pay and HR in a new system to replace the troubled Phoenix pay system
But the last word goes to Alastair Croll. He says what’s needed is more like revolution. But his worry is that even a change of government is “unlikely to bring anything more than austerity.”
On a scale of zero to 10, how was today? | Past editions are here.
A bit about me. I cover and analyze the federal public service for Policy Options as the Accenture Fellow on the Future of the Public Service. I've been reporting on the public service for 25 years. My work has appeared in the Ottawa Citizen and iPolitics, and has earned a National Newspaper Award. My full bio. X: @kathryn_may.
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