Kernaghan Kenneth - The Responsible Public Servant

About the Authors

Kenneth Kernaghan is Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Management at Brock University. He served as President of the Institute of Public Administration of Canada and Editor of Canadian Public Administration and the International Review of Administrative Sciences. He is a Member of the Order of Canada, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and a recipient of the Vanier Medal for excellence in public administration. He received the Pierre de Celles/IPAC award for Excellence in the Teaching of Public Administration and the Brock University Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Dr. Kernaghans many publications on public administration include several books, monographs, articles and reports on government ethics. He has advised international organizations and governments in Canada and elsewhere, and conducted many workshops on public service values and ethics. He served as Chair of the federal Task Force on the Disclosure of Wrongdoing.

John Langford is a professor in the School of Public Administration at the University of Victoria. Earlier in his career he worked for two years with the federal Royal Commission on Financial Management and Accountability. From 1993 to 2001, he was a chief federal negotiator in the BC treaty process. He was awarded the Pierre de Celles Award for teaching by the Institute of Public Administration of Canada in 2009.

Dr. Langford is the author or editor of several books, book chapters and articles on public sector ethics. He has provided advice on public sector ethical issues to governments in Australia and Canada as well as to the United Nations and the OECD. He has been actively involved in the design and implementation of standards of conduct, the transformation of ethical cultures in organizations, the development and delivery of ethics workshops and the mediation of public sector ethical disputes.

Dr. Langford received his B.A. from Carleton, M.A. from Oxford, and Ph.D. from McGill University.

Copyright The Institute of Public Administration of Canada 2014

Cover and book layout by: Jennifer Dany Aub ( www.JenniferDany.ca )

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval without permission in writing from the authors.

Printed in Canada

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data

Kernaghan, Kenneth, 1940

Langford, John W.,

The Responsible Public Servant

Published by the Institute of Public Administration of Canada

1075 Bay Street, Suite 401, Toronto, ON M5S 4B2

(416) 924 8787

www.ipac.ca

Includes bibliographical references

(paper) ISBN: 978-1-55061-000-0

(epub) ISBN: 978-1-55061-006-2

(pdf) ISBN: 978-1-55061-007-9

1. CanadaOfficials and employeesProfessional ethics.

2. Civil service ethicsCanada.

3. Public AdministrationMoral and ethical aspects.

4. Public administrationCanada

For Helgi and Kate again

Authors' Acknowledgments

This is the second edition of IPACs best-selling book. The authors gratefully acknowledge the encouragement and financial support of the IPAC Research Committee and staff members at IPAC who helped take it from a proposal to a manuscript and finally to a hard copy volume and an e-book. They include Graham White, Robert Taylor, Wendy Feldman, Andrea Migone, Jennifer Dany Aub and Suzanne Patterson. Others who helped in the production include Irene Huse, who sorted out the references, and Allison Gibson, who did the copy editing and indexing.

We also are very grateful for the assistance of our formal reviewers (eventually revealed to be Paul Thomas and Allan Tupper) and other individuals who provided research help or comments on individual chapters, including Irene Huse, Stuart Langford, Jim McDavid and Tim Scolnick. We also thank the participants at many ethics workshops over the years who focused us on important issues facing public servants across the country and provided the material for many of our case studies.

And, finally, a bow to each other. Our individual intellectual journeys since the publication of the first edition took us in different directions on some of the issues covered in the book. We discussed and even argued along the way but in the end found common ground.

FOREWORD

As governor general and patron of the Institute of Public Administration of Canada, I welcome the publication of this important volume. When I think of the elements that combine to make a smart and caring nation, effective public services and sound machinery of government rank prominently. They exist solely to serve the common good. Additionally, the public service values and standards of conduct of governments at all levels across the country are important statements to ourselves and to the world of that which we hold dear as Canadians.

There is a great reservoir of energy, talent and idealism among public servants. Each year at Rideau Hall I am privileged to present IPACs Vanier Medal for distinctive leadership in public service, and I also know from my years as a university professor and administrator of the many students who desire to contribute to Canada as public servants. As a nation, one of our great challenges is to ensure our administrative machinery and governance systems are able to effectively harness the wealth of talent that exists in this country. This is no small task, but the strength of Canada is inseparable from the strength of its public institutions, and we therefore must succeed.

An effective public service requires careful study and a great deal of effort and imagination. I am confident that this volume will help to inform the dialogue relating to public service in Canada and to improve its practice.

His Excellency the Right Honourable David Johnston
Governor General of Canada

AVANT-PROPOS

En tant que gouverneur gnral et prsident dhonneur de lInstitut dadministration publique du Canada (IAPC), je salue la publication de cet important volume. Lorsque je songe aux composantes dune nation avertie et bienveillante, je pense notamment des services publics efficaces et un appareil gouvernemental solide, qui ont comme seul but de servir le bien commun. En outre, les valeurs de la fonction publique et les normes de conduite des gouvernements tous les niveaux dans lensemble du pays constituent dimportantes affirmations personnelles et publiques de ce qui nous tient cur en tant que Canadiens.

La fonction publique est un vaste rservoir dnergie, de talent et didalisme. Une fois lan, Rideau Hall, jai le privilge de remettre la Mdaille Vanier de lIAPC pour souligner le leadership hors pair en administration publique. De plus, durant mes nombreuses annes comme professeur et administrateur duniversit, jai rencontr bon nombre dtudiants qui souhaitaient apporter une contribution au Canada en devenant fonctionnaires. En tant que nation, lun de nos plus grands dfis est de veiller ce que notre appareil administratif et nos systmes de gouvernance soient mme dexploiter efficacement les talents dont regorge notre pays. Ce nest pas tche facile, mais la force du Canada est indissociable de celle de ses institutions publiques. Voil pourquoi nous devons russir.

Pour riger une fonction publique solide, il faut des tudes rigoureuses, des efforts considrables et beaucoup dimagination. Je suis certain que ce volume servira de fondement au dialogue sur la fonction publique du Canada et en amliorera le fonctionnement.