December 17, 2019
Dear Deputy Minister MacLean,
Congratulations on your appointment as Deputy Minister of International Development at Global Affairs Canada (GAC). We wish you all the very best as you settle into your new job.
Since you have been a senior public servant before, you will know that your first job as Deputy Minister is to manage your Minister. We recommend that you do watch a few episodes of Yes, Minister, since one of your key roles is, as a wise former DM loves to say, “to control the follies of the Canadian political classes”. But do not watch too much of Yes, Minister, as that might make you even more cynical and jaded than you may already be. Development requires a least a modicum of idealism, as well as a stiff backbone of realism. Canada’s aid program needs to regain a little of its old idealism.
Fortunately, you seem to have drawn one of the longer straws in the recent Cabinet appointments. Your minister, Karina Gould, is both sharp and well regarded. And she knows the portfolio already, having already served as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Development. Furthermore, Minister Gould appears to be a safe pair of hands, and it seems unlikely that she will be the author of any major ill-considered disruption.
As DM, you are blessed with a relatively clear and uncontested policy stance in your portfolio, namely the Feminist International Assistance Policy, or FIAP. Alas, the inconvenient truth is that FIAP is unsupported by any meaningful new resources and everyone knows it, except perhaps the Cabinet. You may wish to point out to your Minister (and your counterparts in central agencies) that the lack of new resources reinforces the impression at home and abroad that FIAP is little more than virtue signalling. As we recently suggested to your Minister, developing countries are getting tired of hectoring from countries like Canada; a little sugar will help the medicine go down.
We do not need to tell you that your job as DM is to make FIAP work. Despite its undoubted virtues, important questions remain regarding how to implement FIAP, how to measure its success on the ground, and how it relates to other Canadian foreign policy objectives and instruments.
At the same time, there is need for better coherence among the trade, diplomacy, and development cooperation branches of GAC. Indeed, Minister Champagne’s mandate letter demands no less than that he “ensure a close link between foreign, defence, development and trade policy”. Identifying and supporting areas where such collaboration within and between departments can take place should be a key role of your office, along with your fellow DMs in GAC and with the Minister.
Might we propose two examples of how such greater coherence might look in practice? First, international cooperation to support LGBTQ+ rights can be supported not just by speeches and tweets, but by judicious development funding and – in coordination with your colleagues at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada – provision of safe haven for those suffering persecution.
Second, greater attention to the social and environmental impacts of mining by Canadian firms abroad and more Canadian funding for climate change adaptation abroad (themes that appear in both Minister Gould’s and Minister Champagne’s mandate letters) would support sustainable development and may even win us a few friends as we try for that Security Council seat.
The nature of the work in GAC is often responsive to both threats and opportunities external to the department. The resulting short-term reactive culture rewards “doing” (preparing a policy brief, finding allies, making announcements). Paying attention to coordination, smooth functioning and relevant systems is vital for getting things done, but is not usually valued.
Such inattention to process and systems is exacerbated by the complexity of the mandate, which encourages silos. For example, within GAC, one-size-fits-all human resources and financial systems that do not take account of the differing realities of diplomacy, aid and trade are a major source of inefficiency and delay, and of dissatisfaction in the GAC ranks.
GAC’s culture of “doing” also means there is little time for learning and reflection. Foreign Service Officers have a long tradition of thinking they are the best and the brightest in the Public Service, given the rigorous selection process. Alas, being smart can also mean being cocky and unwilling to learn. A new DM should model good practice and reward examples of taking time to reflect, especially on failures, to learn and to act on that learning.
We wish you all the best in your new post. Good luck! And please let us know if we can be of any assistance.
Yours sincerely,
The McLeod Group