All through the historical past of the Canadian authorities, few jobs have been as little publicized because the clerk of the Privy Council, quickly to be stuffed by the lately appointed John Hannaford, a senior public servant and former diplomat. Whereas most Canadians could be laborious pressed to outline his new job, Mr. Hannaford is to not be underestimated.
“Other than the prime minister, the clerk of the Privy Council is essentially the most highly effective particular person in Ottawa,” Donald J. Savoie, a professor at College of Moncton who research public administration, informed me. “So when a brand new clerk is appointed, it issues.”
When Mr. Hannaford formally takes over on June 24, he’ll develop into, together with the deputy ministers underneath every cupboard minister, the gatekeeper accountable for turning the politicians’ coverage concepts into motion.
The clerk manages the deputy ministers and has three duties that generally overlap. He’s the top of the general public service, which is made up of nonpartisan bureaucrats who keep of their jobs as politicians and political events come and go.
The clerk can be manages and coordinates the cupboard as its secretary, and maybe most necessary of all, he’s the prime minister’s prime adviser.
Professor Savoie stated that the clerk and the prime minister meet a number of instances every week and that every brings a separate agenda.
“Quite a lot of key selections are made at these conferences,” he stated, including that these periods are sometimes extra necessary than cupboard conferences. A cupboard minister, Professor Savoie stated, as soon as informed him that the cupboard had way back develop into a “focus group for the prime minister.”
The development towards concentrating energy within the prime minister’s fingers, and by extension the clerk’s, has been occurring for many years underneath each Liberal and Conservative governments. And Professor Savoie stated that it’s not essentially an influence seize.
More and more, the federal authorities finds itself grappling with points, like local weather change, that contain a number of ministers, departments and companies, and the position of the clerk is to coordinate that work.
A part of this association is that the clerk and the general public servants he instructions preserve out of public view. The federal government was unable to offer me with a high-resolution {photograph} of Mr. Hannaford, and the Privy Council Workplace stated that he was not obtainable for an interview.
The pondering behind that intentional obscurity is predicated on the concept that the general public service is there to help to the federal government of the day, no matter its political taste, and so it leaves politicians to be the federal government’s public face.
However a number of legal guidelines truly take away decision-making powers from cupboard ministers and place them with public servants. The consequence, Professor Savoie stated, is commonly conditions just like the latest backlogs in passport workplaces, as politicians needed to take the blame for selections through which they had been neither concerned nor even consulted.
Luc Juillet, a professor of public administration on the College of Ottawa, stated there was a bent amongst politicians to deal with new insurance policies and packages fairly than the much less glamorous process of constructing certain that the equipment of presidency runs easily.
“It’s not essentially the form of factor that drives most politicians,” he stated.
Mr. Hannaford has a distinguished résumé as a coverage maker. A lawyer and diplomat who started his profession at what was then referred to as International Affairs, he has been an necessary participant in commerce talks together with the latest renegotiation of NAFTA; has handled local weather points, most lately at Pure Sources Canada; and was as soon as a overseas and protection coverage adviser to Mr. Trudeau.
However absent from all that, Professor Juillet famous, is any intensive expertise in authorities operations.
To Professor Savoie, the appointment of somebody with Mr. Hannaford’s background in worldwide relations and protection is a sign from Mr. Trudeau of what he now views as the best challenges going through his authorities, that are largely worldwide. They embrace allegations of Chinese language meddling in Canadian elections, commerce coverage in the USA, international local weather change and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“The brand new worldwide order is stuffed with pitfalls, and the prime minister wants a serving to hand,” he stated.
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A local of Windsor, Ontario, Ian Austen was educated in Toronto, lives in Ottawa and has reported about Canada for The New York Instances for the previous 16 years. Comply with him on Twitter at @ianrausten.
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