Canadian Public Administration-Administration Publique Du Canada最新文献

This research note explores how Toronto's grassroots organizations use digital tools to enhance civic participation, address systemic challenges, and reshape power dynamics. Interviews with 15 groups reveal diverse structures and strategies, including information sharing, collective decision-making, and service provisioning. By integrating digital and traditional approaches, these groups foster inclusivity, collaboration, and trust while navigating relationships with local governance. Despite challenges, they leverage innovation to drive democratic change. The research recommends fostering participatory frameworks, improving digital equity, and institutionalizing support for grassroots initiatives, contributing to the understanding of grassroots digital mobilization in complex urban settings.

Studying bureaucratic pathologies has long been central to public administration (e.g., Bozeman, 1993). Recently, administrative burden has gained traction among academics and practitioners (Daigneault, Defacqz, et al., 2024; Halling & Baekgaard, 2023; Madsen et al., 2022). Administrative burden refers to “an individual's experience of policy implementation as onerous” (Burden et al., 2012, 741). The concept is intuitive and covers various costs arising from citizen-state interactions (Christensen et al., 2020; Moynihan et al., 2015): learning costs when searching for and acquiring information about programs and services (e.g., eligibility rules) and assessing their relevance; compliance costs when fulfilling rules and requirements (e.g., completing forms), and; psychological costs (e.g., stigma, loss of autonomy, frustration, stress). Two recent additions complete these categories: redemption costs, a subset of learning costs, refer to challenges in using benefits, such as SNAP or WIC recipients struggling to identify eligible products or participating stores (Barnes, 2020); and correction costs, linked to resolving administrative errors, such as identifying and addressing issues with authorities (Holler et al., 2024; Schmidt et al., 2023; Widlak & Peeters, 2020).

The administrative burden framework provides unique insights into citizen-state interactions. First, it focuses on citizens—broadly defined—rather than businesses or public employees (Halling & Baekgaard, 2023; Herd & Moynihan, 2018; Madsen et al., 2022). Second, unlike red tape (see Bozeman, 1993), it emphasizes subjective experiences rather than objective frictions like rules and regulations (Baekgaard & Tankink, 2022; Daigneault, 2024; Madsen & Mikkelsen, 2022). Third, it posits that burdens, whether intentional or not, are constructed by public officials (Herd & Moynihan, 2018; Peeters, 2020). Many burdens stem from rules and organizational operations, suggesting they can be reduced through improved program design and burden reduction policies (Benish et al., 2023). Fourth, the framework highlights negative effects on citizens, including non-take-up and political disenfranchisement, though some scholars point to benefits like fair and efficient delivery and skill development (Baekgaard & Tankink, 2022; Herd & Moynihan, 2018; Holler et al., 2024; Nisar & Masood, 2023). Fifth, it underscores the unequal distribution of burdens, with certain individuals disproportionately affected by burden-laden programs, differential treatment within these programs, or limited resources to overcome

Implementing a results-oriented management system has been a long-term goal and a challenge for federal public sector organizations in Canada. This article highlights the efforts by the Government of Canada to improve performance measurement, evaluation, and audit (PMEA) functions over time. The article traces administrative reforms since 2000, highlighting the shift from inputs and outputs towards a results-focused environment aimed at achieving outcomes. However, even after many reforms and goodwill, there remain gaps among the senior policymakers regarding the meaning of “results for Canadians.” The article points out that siloed approaches by function have led to isolated practices and inefficiencies in data sharing and reporting for effectively supporting decision-making. Although individual functions have improved, implementing a comprehensive results-focused management architecture continues to pose a significant challenge. The article proposes steps to enhance the effectiveness of PMEA functions, emphasizing the need to integrate functions to enhance public services, decision-making, and institutional learning.

Canada's federal public servants believe their values and ethics framework are falling short, particularly in ensuring accountability from senior leadership. This article explores the many emerging challenges for ethical leadership in Canada's federal public service and argues for specific reform approaches. We offer key recommendations, including the need to align various systems that help foster ethical leadership, improving the enforcement of accountability mechanisms for senior leadership, and employing data-driven performance metrics to improve the ethical management of people and services. We conclude by exploring the preconditions for sustained reform and the long-term measures required to embed ethical accountability across public service institutions. Our analysis emphasizes the essential role of people, starting with senior executives. We assert that policies and codes of conduct alone cannot achieve organizational ethics—only strong, values-driven and accountable leadership can influence culture and ensure lasting change in people and services.

National surveys have documented a major decline in Canadians' satisfaction with public sector service delivery since 2020. Service satisfaction levels for federal services are back to levels not seen for two decades. Potential reasons for the recent declines in public sector service delivery performance are examined, as well as lessons from public organizations which have maintained high levels of service satisfaction in recent years despite the challenges. The article suggests the building blocks of a more robust approach and proposes a citizen-centred, results-based model for public sector service delivery in Canada, using service satisfaction as the primary results measure. Regular, measurable improvement in service satisfaction should be both the objective and the criterion of high performance in public sector service delivery and will require a sustained, multi-channel approach to service improvement planning and implementation based on measurement of, and focus on, key drivers of service satisfaction.

This article explores the growing trend of contracting-out public services in Canada, highlighting its increasing impact on government activities as governments have expanded outsourcing from traditional goods like office supplies to complex infrastructure management and professional services. Recent cases, including federal government spending on consulting and high-profile failures of Public Private Partnership (P3) projects, underscore the need for critical reassessment. Two major areas—professional services and large-scale infrastructure management through P3s—are analyzed to understand the challenges and consequences of contracting out. The discussion highlights issues including inefficiencies, governance challenges, and risks associated with outsourcing, emphasizing the blurred lines and complications often existing between public, private, and non-profit sectors in service delivery. The article calls for reforms to enhance accountability, transparency, and efficiency, while also reconsidering the role of private and non-profit actors in public service delivery if sustainable effective outcomes are to be achieved.

Administrative debt is when successive waves of reform result in an accumulation of rusting-out systems that are not optimized. This occurs when the drivers for change prioritize expediency, offering quick fixes rather than a focus on long-term sustainable re-design. This is the case for the federal government's Internal Services and is illustrated through a look at the Real Property function over time. This function has been routinely discounted when priorities and budgets are set. Resulting capability deficits are exposed periodically in audits and as part of higher profile reviews revealing gaps in the maintenance of asset integrity that put public-facing program delivery at risk. We make the case that Internal Services are inseparable from how governments deliver public-facing external programs. We suggest ways to close the information gaps contributing to this overall administrative debt.

One of Canada's most significant public administration challenges is ensuring the public service possesses the capacity and modern practices needed for effective policymaking. This article argues that Canada's policy renewal efforts have been hampered by a lack of focused and coherent public service reform more generally. Informed by international best practice and an appreciation for Canada's unique public administration context and history, I argue that Canada must adopt a stewardship approach. I provide five actionable recommendations targeted at renewing and modernizing policy capacity. These include: creating a new unit responsible for managing public service renewal to be headed by a new deputy Clerk of the Privy Council, mandating regular systematic reviews of public service policy capacity, expanding the substantive focus of the Clerk's annual reports, developing an enterprise-wide training strategy for policy professionals, and standardizing modern policymaking practices by embedding them in formal policymaking processes and instruments.