Senators laud performance of public service amidst pandemic, and Harder calls for greater ‘risk taking and innovation’ by bureaucrats

In the final minutes of a Senate meeting on Saturday, April 11, Senator Peter Harder made the case for having a higher tolerance for risk in the public sector.

Senator Peter Harder says the public service is now implementing an extraordinary set of programs over a short period of time, with very large economic costs and huge consequences to their being efficiently and effectively and quickly delivered. 'I made the allusion once that if the public service was a hockey team, it would be a team of goalies because it was better not to be scored on than to score,” said Sen. Peter Harder. “We won’t get through this if we don’t have a full-fledged hockey team, with forwards and risk takers, people who are prepared to see a goal being scored because the game needs to be won. And that requires public institutions like the Senate, the House of Commons, the auditor general, and others who are charged with ensuring proper oversight, are also aware that we need a culture of risk taking and innovation in the public service.”The Hill Times file photograph

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BY MIKE LAPOINTE

April 20, 2020

As Canadians now enter the second month of self-isolation amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal public service is winning accolades for its efforts to help citizens while the fast-changing crisis has strained the civil service’s front-line capacity. Lori MacDonald, senior associate deputy min...

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