Leaving the first “planning forum” of their cabinet, what the previous pricing would have called a “retirement” of the cabinet, on Tuesday night, Mark Carney told journalists that their ministers had received a single letter of mandate.
“It reflects a unified mission,” said the prime minister about his letter. “This letter describes the main priorities of the new Government of Canada, which reflects the mandate that the Canadians have given us.”
A little less than 800 words, Carney’s mandate Potentially interesting contrasts with the Wordier epistles That his predecessor was launched in 2015. But by succinct, the Carney letter also makes clear the challenges and considerable objectives that are now presented to this new government.
The issuance of mandate letters to cabinet ministers is not a new practice. But until Justin Trudeau decided to publicly publish a set of letters for his new ministers in November 2015, the memoranda containing the official marching orders of a minister remained confidential, seen only by the ministers themselves and a handful of older officials.
It has been argued that this practice of officially instructing ministers lost part of its usefulness once the letters were written for public consumption. But Trudeau’s approach still had a potential value in terms of transparency and responsibility.
In question this week: Prime Minister Mark Carney prepares the stage for a throne speech with a mandate letter that describes tasks and priorities for his cabinet. Canada looks beyond the United States by allies. And, the liberal parliamentarians will soon decide if the powers are given to order leadership revisions.
Each of Trudeau’s letters included a long practice that establishes (or advertising, so to speak) the established government principles. For each minister, a specific set of tasks was described, essentially a list of pending tasks that explains what policy initiatives the minister was responsible. For the most part, these elements were extracted from the commitments on the campaign platform of the Liberal Party.
He Letter issued to the Minister of HealthFor example, it contained ten vineado points, including instructions to seek new medical care financing agreements with provincial and territorial governments (and what these agreements would ideally include).
According to the official count of the Trudeau Government, that first set of mandate letters covered no less than 289 initiatives that the ministers had to complete, an expansive list of tasks that the government later Compiled and tracked online In a “mandate letters”.
In the Estimation of the Trudeau Government, its ministers were decently well completed that first set of tasks, a trial that was widely backed by independent researchers who observed the promises and actions of the liberal government. At the same time, it was fair to ask if 289 commitments were in total many commitments (subsequent mandate letters really brought that total, for the government count, to 432 commitments).
Carney seven priorities
Instead of a detailed list of commitments, the Carney letter focuses on a list of seven “priorities.” And when trying to strengthen and define the government approach, the Carney list remembers something from the list of Five priorities that the conservatives of Stephen Harper identified before coming in 2006.
But however close in number, Harper’s declared objectives were simpler. A conservative government, he said, would approve a new ethics legislation, would reduce the GST, would impose new mandatory minimum sentence requirements, implement a new children’s benefit and establish new waiting time guarantees for certain medical procedures. The conservative government reviewed the first four articles with relative ease and then He left silently worrying about the fifth.
Carney’s priorities are not so tidy.
The new liberal government will focus on: renegotiate Canada’s relationship with the United States and strengthen relations with other countries; eliminate interprovincial commercial barriers and accelerate the main infrastructure projects; helping Canadians with the cost of living; make the house more affordable and catalyzing a modern housing industry; build the Canadian army and reinforce domestic security; Immigration rehealth; and reducing the cost of government operations.
On one level, Carney’s decision to describe seven broad priorities, instead of publicly accusing each minister of a task verification list, could give the members of the Cabinet more space to maneuver, to design and boost their own ideas and initiatives. After describing the seven priorities of the government, Carney asks each minister to “identify” so much “how specifically can contribute to these missions” and “the key objectives and success measures on which to evaluate the results it will achieve.”
If this will bring back the type of “cabinet government” that remains to be seen, but the seven great priorities of Carney can also be read as seven great challenges that will face.
“We must face a series of unprecedented challenges,” writes Carby in the preamble of the letter “with a disciplined approach to central priorities and new approaches to the government.”
And in the midst of those unprecedented challenges, Carney does not apparently lack ambition. Speaking to journalists on Tuesday, he said that his government is “accused of building the strongest economy in the G7, an economy that works for everyone.”
Four years, if this Parliament even lasts so long, it is not much time to turn Canada into the envy of G7. And it is known that several of the things in which Carney intends to focus, build an important infrastructure, acquire military equipment, take time. The correct size of the housing supply could take the rest of the decade or more.
But Carney does not move away from the emergency sensation that she emphasized during the campaign of this spring. And even only two or three years could be enough time, if used wisely, to show real progress in each of these priorities.
Without a set of detailed lists of tasks that will be carried out, more attention could also be paid to the real results of the government’s actions, an approach that Trudeau’s liberals fought to establish.
There is much to say that political parties tell the public what they will do with power and so much to say to expect governments to fulfill their commitments. But the government is more than a matter of verifying the boxes.
