Jocelyne Bourgon, shown in 1998, was the first female clerk of the Privy Council.Dave Chan/The Globe and Mail
Jocelyne Bourgon, who led the country’s public service during the deep cost-cutting of the mid-1990s as the first female clerk of the Privy Council, is urging current leaders to learn from the past as they aim to reshape the federal bureaucracy.
Spending should be reined in by eliminating lower priority programs, rather than relying on attrition and across-the-board cuts that risk hampering important services, she says in a book released Tuesday.
She also warns that the growing power of hundreds of political staffers who interact daily with government officials puts at risk the non-partisan nature of the public service.
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Ms. Bourgon was PCO clerk between 1994 and 1999. The role involves regularly briefing the prime minister on public policy files, while also acting as head of the public service.
Her time in the position was a tumultuous period for the country and for the government. She oversaw the deepest public-service spending cuts in a generation and advised then prime minister Jean Chrétien during Quebec’s 1995 referendum on sovereignty.
In A Public Servant’s Voice, Ms. Bourgon has written a book that is part memoir of her career and part critical analysis of the public service, with recommendations for change.
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Her advice is timely. Sovereignty is back on the agenda, with the separatist Parti Québécois leading the polls in a provincial election year and a potential sovereignty referendum on the horizon in Alberta. The federal government is also once again trying to squeeze billions of dollars in savings out of the public service.
The spending review announced in the Nov. 4 budget aims to cut direct program expenses by about 5 per cent. (In contrast, Ms. Bourgon led the public service as it implemented budget cuts three times as deep.)
Ms. Bourgon’s book, which was written and sent to the publisher before Mark Carney became Prime Minister, warns against many of the core approaches that his government is taking with respect to finding savings.
She writes that experience has shown that across-the-board cuts, which were a common approach under former prime minister Brian Mulroney as the government struggled with chronic deficits, “were not the way to go.”
Further, “giving departments a target – be it three, five or 15 per cent – prevents them from coming forward with ambitious ideas.”
Counting on people to retire or leave is also not a great strategy to reduce the overall head count, she wrote, warning that it is unpredictable and can leave shortages in critically important areas.
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The Carney government’s plan includes elements of all of these approaches.
The budget gave most departments a goal of achieving 15 per cent in savings over three years. It also pledged to cut the size of the public service by 30,000 positions, in addition to a recent 10,000 cut from a peak in 2024. The government said it would manage the reductions “to the greatest extent possible through attrition and voluntary departures.”
In an interview with The Globe and Mail, Ms. Bourgon said there is still time for the government to implement her advice.
“Do I stand by what I said? Absolutely.”
She expressed concern about the current approach of leaving spending cut decisions in the hands of individual departments.
“There’s more risk that they will end up doing across-the-board cuts,” she said. “Why? Because you try to minimize the political cost.”
She expressed hope that they will decide to eliminate some programs in order to protect higher priority services.
In her book, Ms. Bourgon also questions why more public servants have been hired at central agencies such as the Treasury Board, the Privy Council Office and the Finance Department, which have all grown to “disconcerting” sizes since 2000.
And she adds her voice to other public administration experts who question the continued growth of political staff working for the Prime Minister and in ministers’ offices.
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The Prime Minister’s Office is staffed almost entirely by political aides who are called “exempt” staff, because they are exempt from public-service rules requiring non-partisanship. Political exempt staff also work in ministers’ offices, providing communications and policy advice. For instance, 17 staff members are listed as working on the policy team for Finance and National Revenue Minister François-Philippe Champagne.
Ms. Bourgon points to statistics gathered by the Ethics Commissioner that show the number of political staff assisting the Prime Minister and cabinet ministers grew to 815 in 2024, up from 381 in 2016.
More recent data show the number of political staff declined around the time of last year’s federal election campaign, but climbed back up to 668 as of Dec. 31, 2025.
It’s not clear whether the lower numbers are part of a deliberate strategy or a gradual ramp-up in postelection hiring. Mr. Carney’s cabinet has had about 10 fewer ministers than that of his predecessor, Justin Trudeau, which would mean fewer political aides.
“There is no doubt that the network of political staff under the leadership of the Prime Minister’s Office exercises growing influence,” Ms. Bourgon wrote. “This is an extension of the governing political party inside every public organization. It gives rise to a concern about the capacity to maintain a non-partisan public service servicing every political party in an even-handed way.”
Warnings about the centralization of power in Ottawa and the sidelining of ministers and the public service have been growing for decades. Public-service scholar Donald Savoie highlighted this in his 1999 book Governing from the Centre and has been sounding the alarm since.
Kevin Lynch, who was PCO clerk from 2006 to 2009, co-authored a book last year that flagged similar themes.
In a recent opinion piece for The Globe and Mail, Mr. Lynch and his co-author, Jim Mitchell, described the situation as “extreme centralization” and a de facto “presidentialization” of Canada’s Westminster system of government. They wrote that there does not seem to be a significant reversal of PMO control under the current Prime Minister.
In the interview, Ms. Bourgon said it appears that Mr. Carney is “behaving very responsibly” in his relationship with the public service. But she said it is too soon to say whether he is addressing public-service concerns about the influence of political staff.
“We defend a concept which is a professional non-partisan public service, and that should mean that you serve political parties in an even-handed way,” she said. “Well, it’s hard to do that if you’re interacting daily with 800 representatives of the governing political party. Not impossible, but it raises more questions about the dos and don’ts. It makes it more difficult.”