Former PCO clerks Bourgon, Cappe say major cuts require program-by-program decisions, careful management of departures

Jocelyne Bourgon and Mel Cappe say major reductions require decisions about what government should preserve, redesign, or stop doing.
Jocelyne Bourgon, left, and Mel Cappe. Bourgon says the wider effects of major spending and staffing reductions can take years to surface.The Hill Times photograph by Aidan Raynor and handout photograph
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BY MZWANDILE PONCANA
August 3, 2026

Two former clerks of the Privy Council Office who helped steer Jean Chrétien's government Program Review in the 1990s, which shed 45,000 federal public service jobs, say governments making major staffing and spending reductions should decide program by program what work to ...

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