A Profile of the Public Service of Canada

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Foreword to the Country Profiles series

Since the successful launch of the Commonwealth Profiles series in 1995, much has happened. When the Auckland CHOGM of 1995 mandated its 'Towards a New Public Administration' Program, many Commonwealth member countries, to a greater or lesser degree, were contemplating or already applying the principles of the New Public Management (NPM) in their civil services. Since that time, the literature on the NPM has been burgeoning, the architecture of civil service delivery has altered dramatically and the debate about the relative success or failure of the NPM continues. In practical terms, the civil services described in the Profile series back in 1995 are now often radically different from the scope, organisation and approach of the same civil services today.

The Governance and Institutional Development Division (GIDD) has decided that it is timely to revise and re-issue an updated Profiles Series which attempts both to describe and explain the often tumultuous and controversial public sector reforms of the last seven years as they have unfolded in the contributing countries.

We want these updated Profiles to continue to be a readable, accessible and valuable series, especially for practising bureaucrats, and to serve as reference points for diplomatic, bilateral and multilateral, and political and academic audiences.

Tendai Bare
Director,
Governance and Institutional
Development Division

Dr Peter Frost
Special Advisor,
Public Sector Reform,
Governance and Institutional
Development Division

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