Carney ready to dismiss top bureaucrats unable to meet his expectations, Liberal insiders say

Prime Minister Mark Carney expects high-ranking public servants to speedily carry out his ambitious nation-building agenda and is prepared to discipline anyone unable to meet his expectations, government and Liberal insiders say.

To meet his stated goal of achieving “the largest transformation” in the Canadian economy since the Second World War, the sources say, Mr. Carney is also ready to recruit more outsiders like former Hydro-Québec chief executive Michael Sabia.

Mr. Sabia, who served as deputy minister of finance from 2020-23 and once headed BCE and Quebec’s pension fund, will become clerk of the Privy Council Office in early July. The PCO clerk is the country’s top bureaucrat and the Prime Minister’s deputy minister.

The Globe and Mail spoke to five government and Liberal insiders about the Prime Minister’s plans to rapidly fulfill his promises to diversify trade away from the United States and turn Canada into an energy superpower. The Globe is not identifying the sources because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

The Prime Minister and his top advisers have made it clear at every meeting that senior federal bureaucrats must meet the challenge of reforming the Canadian economy with the same “pace and urgency” as the government, one official said.

Two Liberal insiders told The Globe that discussions have been held with Mr. Sabia and incoming PMO chief of staff Marc-André Blanchard about demoting or dismissing senior civil servants who can’t meet the performance goals.

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Mr. Blanchard, a former United Nations ambassador, also has extensive credentials. He was until recently executive vice-president of Quebec’s pension fund and before that was chairman and CEO of McCarthy Tétrault, one of Canada’s largest law firms.

The insiders said the Prime Minister and those two top advisers have been told that they should not tolerate any deputy minister who is slow to implement the government’s agenda. Deputy ministers serve at the pleasure of the Prime Minister, unlike most civil servants who cannot be easily fired or demoted.

One of the insiders said there is frustration in the Carney PMO about the “muscle memory” of senior bureaucrats who seem more focused on process than outcomes. The source stressed, however, that there is no sense that they are opposed to the government’s agenda, but that they are caught up in “analysis paralysis.”

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While there has been high-level talk of recruiting other business achievers to the government, the insider said the Prime Minister is not looking for an Elon Musk type of personality, or the chaos that ensued in Washington when the entrepreneur tried to massively cut spending.

The insider said Mr. Carney would be looking at individuals with deep business and government experience, who could help, for example, new Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson get major energy projects approved quickly. Mr. Hodgson is a former investment banker with Goldman Sachs who was personally recruited by Mr. Carney to run for the Liberals.

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A second official said the Prime Minister is serious about ensuring that top echelons of the public service meet his high expectations. He’s made it clear, for example, that he expects cabinet ministers and deputy ministers to show up on time for meetings, to be well prepared and to have answers to his probing questions.

Government expert Donald Savoie, a professor of public administration at the University of Moncton, said Mr. Carney and Mr. Sabia bring extensive government and business experience to the table and will not tolerate lackadaisical deputy ministers.

“Both of them will know who is performing or not. They have been in government. They know,” he said. “Both Carney and Sabia know the system. When they turf somebody out, they will be turfed out for the right reasons, because they are not up to the task at hand.”

Mr. Carney made a small shuffle of deputy ministers on Friday but a much larger one is expected once Mr. Sabia and Mr. Blanchard have had time to assess the work of top civil servants, according to two of the sources.

Allen Sutherland, a former senior PCO official who recently became president of the Institute on Governance, said the urgency of the Carney agenda presents a challenge for the public service that it hasn’t faced in years.

He acknowledged that some senior bureaucrats are apprehensive about the demands placed on them by Mr. Carney.

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“The Carney government has a high expectation and their ambitions are high,“ he said. ”For some people in the public service there is an appetite for this because they see the moment that the country finds itself in and, just like any other Canadian, they want their institutions to deliver.”

Pierre Martel, a former senior public servant and now professor of public administration at the University of Ottawa, said the federal bureaucracy is going to be tested, not only on its ability to deliver on Mr. Carney’s agenda, but also on whether it can become more efficient with fewer people.

“It is certainly a very profound change from the way prime minister Justin Trudeau operated. Mr. Carney has a more businesslike approach with cabinet setting the direction, and he is expecting results,” Prof. Martel said. “The public service has to demonstrate that they can be more efficient and more agile to produce results very quickly.”

The public service has grown more than 35 per cent over the Trudeau decade, which is not sustainable in a world where there is increased pressure on Canada and its allies to divert money to defence and security, he said.

“It is going to be an exciting time to be in the public service. Obviously there are tough challenges and we will hear more and more about doing more with less,” he said. “There is no way around it but the public service has to reinvent itself.”