Control-Freak Kingdom

When I joined what media critics then called the “imperial PMO” of Pierre Trudeau in the autumn of 1976 as a policy advisor, one of the first things I did was to ask the Privy Council library for everything it had on “prime ministers’ offices” or “central agencies” plus any other readings that might help me understand the world I had just entered. I was gobsmacked when I got nothing of much use in response to my request.

Fortunately, in the years since then, the study of public administration in Canada has blossomed with scholars such as Donald Savoie, Peter Aucoin and others who have accurately explained how we are ruled by our betters, elected or otherwise. But, far from comforting Canadians, analyses such as that contained in Court Government and the Collapse of Accountability in Canada and the United Kingdom, Savoie’s comparative study of how government works today in Ottawa and Westminster, are causes for concern for any democrat.

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