Commission on the Reform of Ontario's Public Services

This context lifts the task ahead well beyond that of merely cutting or restraining costs.
We must be students of history and history shows that simple cost-cutting by governments too
often generates fiscal improvements that peter out after a few years as pressures build.
In the end, spending surges again and the result is more of the same, but at a higher cost.
The only way to get out of deficits and stay out, in a period of limited economic growth, is to
reform government programs and the manner in which they are delivered.
This should be viewed as an opportunity, not a problem. Ontario can and should have the best
public services in the world; this is an opportunity to reach for that goal. To get there, we
should study promising practices around the world by others who have faced similar issues.
But to be the best, we must go beyond that. Ontario should become the first government to
relentlessly pursue quality and efficiency in public services. It is often argued that governments
cannot do this because they lack the discipline imposed by a bottom-line profit imperative and
shareholders to hold them to it. But the Ontario government has over 13 million shareholders
who do not want their government to run deficits and believe they already pay enough
taxes. That should be incentive enough.
What we need is to drive those incentives into every corner of government and the broader
public sector. Programs need clear objectives. Metrics must be created to track whether
programs meet those objectives. If not, the programs must be changed.
The government must constantly benchmark its effectiveness and efficiency against the
private sector and against the best public services in the world. It must be prepared to shed
old priorities (and offend their advocates) and set new priorities (which often have no
advocates) as they arise.
It must make tough decisions on which services are best delivered by the public service and
which can be better done by others, in the private sector.
The calling of public service must be restored to a position of honour and respect, so it can
draw the province’s best and brightest. Their performance should be adequately compensated
and rewarded –– not for effort, but for results. There is huge value in a public service that can
think deeply and wisely about public policy and deliver effective programs in an
efficient manner.
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