Deputy ministers’ report on values and ethics in public service lacks ‘a point of view,’ says expert

The report’s authors said the document is “intended to serve as a prologue to a broader dialogue on values and ethics in the public service.”

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Published Jan 11, 2024 • 6 minute read

Former Clerk of the Privy Council Michael Wernick. Photo by Wayne Cuddington /Postmedia

While a new report on values and ethics within the federal public service highlights a need for more tools and training on the matters, one expert says the document “oddly lacked a point of view or position or a stance on anything.”

The “Deputy Ministers’ Task Team on Values and Ethics Report” prepared for the Clerk of the Privy Council was published in late December with 15 recommendations. Its authors include members of a task force assembled by Clerk John Hannaford a few months after he took on the senior bureaucrat role in June.

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Key issues highlighted in the report include the need to continue to build a more diverse and inclusive public service, and to consider challenges created by social media and AI, as well as the call for more tools and training on values and ethics.

It also recommends that deputy ministers “continue the dialogue on values and ethics in their departments and agencies.” It did not, however, recommend a specific process be followed.

Offering the first major values and ethics review since the “A Strong Foundation” report was released by John Tait almost 30 years ago, the document drew from over 90 conversations that took place with public servants and external stakeholders throughout the fall.

Some of those participants also expressed concerns about a “double standard” between senior leadership and employees around compliance and enforcement of the 2003 Values and Ethics Code, and about their ability to “maintain political neutrality when dealing with political staff in a minister’s office.”

“There was strong agreement that public servants must maintain their independence and credibility, which requires non-partisanship and resistance to external pressure,” the report said. “Striking a balance between political neutrality and providing expert advice, as well as the faithful implementation and delivery of programs and policies, can be challenging.”

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Other recommendations from the report include that “broad-based work be done to reinvigorate training and dialogue on values and ethics for employees throughout their public service careers” and that “central agencies update guidance for social media use as required.”

Michael Wernick, a former Clerk of the Privy Council, said that while the document was a “decent consultation ‘what we heard’ report,” it left him asking “what now?”

“It’s oddly lacking a point of view or position or a stance on anything. It kind of just sends the ball back to the Clerk and the Secretary of the Treasury Board and says we really should have policy on acceptable use of social media, but there’s no advice on what that policy should look like,” Wernick said.

“It identifies a problem with the incursions of political staff, but there’s no advice on what to do about it. So it kind of left me hanging.”

The report’s authors said the document is “intended to serve as a prologue to a broader dialogue on values and ethics in the public service, and we begin by sharing what we have heard, frankly and without filters.”

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Pierre-Alain Bujold, spokesperson for the Privy Council Office, said the Clerk is taking time to reflect on the report’s observations and recommendations and consider the best options for next steps. He said the report will inform the “next phase,” including how to broaden the discussion on values and ethics.

When Hannaford created the group of senior officials tasked with discussing values and ethics within the public service, he said he expected to see a “milestone report” by the end of the year.

Wernick said he agrees with the report’s call for more engagement, adding that he’d like to see the next round “drill deeper and be more pragmatic.” He added that it will be interesting to see if Parliament shows interest in the report and if the House of Commons committee on government operations invites the Clerk to speak about it.

“This looks like a picture of how the public service sees itself,” he said. “I don’t know exactly who they talked to but it sounds like they talked to a lot of those who were involved in diversity, equity issues. The report is a bit light on things that voters and taxpayers would probably be more interested in like money, productivity, excellence.”

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Daniel Quan-Watson, former deputy minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs. Photo by Handout

Daniel Quan-Watson, a deputy minister for just under 15 years before his retirement last year, said he supports the report’s recommendation for conversations to be furthered “institution-wide” within federal government departments.

“We need to keep talking about this because things are evolving quickly and in different ways and because people have a lot of questions,” Quan-Watson said, adding that conversations will differ substantially from organization to organization. “I think that this goes a long way to making sure that they do that.”

Quan-Watson said it would have been “deeply problematic” for a tool on all values and ethics in the public service to have been developed or for any major changes to be made to the Values and Ethics Code over a few months.

“That would miss 90 per cent of the public service, I’m not sure that those changes are ones that would be that effective,” Quan-Watson said, adding that he hopes public servants feel free to raise their questions and concerns to managers and senior leadership. “I think the sensible thing to say is listen, here are the areas that we looked at, we’re getting consistent themes in this, so let’s go see what the broader public service has to say about it.”

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“That takes time. It makes it stronger and it makes it incredibly more valuable when it’s done.”

Jennifer Carr, President of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada. Photo by Julie Oliver /POSTMEDIA

Jennifer Carr, president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC), which represents more than 70,000 government workers, said she’s concerned that the recommendations of the report leave solutions up to individual departments.

“The decentralization of the public service, it makes it very hard for us as the unions to provide guidance to our members,” Carr said, noting that she would have at least liked to see details on how departments should establish policies. “There’s no larger policy that should be the overarching one.”

The report didn’t mention a need to update the Values and Ethics Code, last updated in 2012, or the Open and Accountable Government document, released in 2015. Wernick said it would be “very, very useful” for the latter to be reissued, given the advancement of social media.

“The code is 30 years old, I was hoping that it would bring it into the 21st century,” Carr said. “Not restrictively, but at least give some guidelines, because the whole social media thing, of course, is a big, big part of the next generation. Public servants need clarity.”

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“It just keeps coming back to looking at performative actions and instead of real change.”

The report found that many participants “raised the significant impacts of the proliferation of social media, the emergence of generative AI, and the spread of misinformation and disinformation.” It also notes that some participants said serving the government can feel like censorship.

“While these technological and communication trends offer opportunities for government engagement, transparency and communication, they have also raised complex challenges with regards to maintaining transparency and accountability, as well as public trust in the integrity of information and institutions,” it states.

The report task force was chaired by Catherine Blewett, deputy minister of Economic Development and president of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. Other members included deputy minister of Health Canada Stephen Lucas, deputy minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada Christiane Fox and chief of the Communications Security Establishment Caroline Xavier. It also included ex-officio member Donnalyn McClymont, the Privy Council Office deputy secretary to the cabinet.

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