Over the past decade, many Canadians have come to believe that the federal public service has lost its capacity to deliver services competently, consistently, and cost-effectively. This perception is not ideological. It reflects the lived reality of citizens and businesses who increasingly encounter delay, diffusion of responsibility, and uneven execution.
Repairing this will not be simple. But in the current political and economic climate, it is imperative if Canada is to remain serious about national ambition and institutional credibility. The problem is not a deficit of talent or dedication within the public service. It is a loss of institutional focus.
For much of its modern history, the federal bureaucracy was organized around a clear purpose: delivering results in the public interest. Authority was matched with accountability. Advancement followed performance. Judgment mattered. Outcomes mattered more. That equilibrium has eroded.
Today, the public service is weighed down by internal process, diffuse accountability, and a culture that rewards compliance over execution. Major infrastructure projects stall. Procurement timelines stretch into decades. Digital systems arrive late or are obsolete. Layers of approval multiply, yet responsibility for results becomes harder to locate. This is not a failure of individuals. It is a failure of institutional design.
One manifestation of this drift has been the elevation of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) from a workplace consideration into a governing doctrine. What began as an effort to ensure fairness has hardened into a permanent administrative architecture, complete with compliance regimes, reporting requirements, and dedicated offices that operate largely disconnected from delivery. These structures are rarely assessed against a simple question: do they improve results for Canadians? Increasingly, the answer appears to be no.
Canada does not need a public service optimized for internal signalling. It needs one capable of building housing, procuring defence platforms, executing major projects, and delivering services at speed and scale. The corrective is not ideological retrenchment. It is operational renewal. The public service should be re-anchored around a governing doctrine of Merit, Excellence, and Integrity (MEI).
Merit means placing demonstrably capable people in roles of responsibility based on performance and experience, not process fluency or symbolic alignment. Advancement must be earned through delivery.
Excellence means outcomes matter. Performance should be measured, differentiated, and consequential. High performers should advance faster. Persistent underperformance must be addressed with clarity and fairness. Mediocrity cannot remain the system’s default setting.
Integrity means authority and accountability travel together. Managers must have real control over budgets, staffing, and timelines and be held directly responsible for results. Decisions need owners. Failure must be acknowledged and corrected, not buried under committees.
Reform must also address the machinery of government itself. Internal processes should be pruned, not layered. Committees should enable decisions, not replace them. Horizontal initiatives should have clear executive ownership. Central agencies must justify internal controls in delivery terms and eliminate those that do not materially improve outcomes.
Procurement and project execution require particular attention. Canada needs a professionalized delivery corps with the authority, expertise, and incentives to manage large projects. Fixed-price contracts, off-the-shelf solutions, and disciplined tradeoffs between cost, time, and scope must become the norm, not the exception.
None of this compromises neutrality or fairness. On the contrary, a merit-based system is the strongest protection against patronage and politicization. It treats public servants as professionals, not proxies for demographic categories. It restores trust by producing results.
Canada’s public servants are not the problem. Many are frustrated by a system that asks them to manage optics instead of outcomes and process instead of purpose. Reform would liberate talent rather than constrain it. The choice before us is not between compassion and competence. It is between drift and discipline.
A public service grounded in MEI would be faster, more confident, and more capable. It would deliver better outcomes for Canadians and restore pride within the institution itself. Canada can still build. It can still execute. But only if we choose seriousness over symbolism and results over ritual.
Photo: iStock
