How come?

Well, I would say some things stay the same or change very, very slowly, and, and some things evolve very quickly.

Um, from the perspective of governing or governance, which has been my field for the last little while, I mean, some things are constant.

I started to describe them as firmware.

Uh, you know, we have a Westminster system and a relationship with Parliament.

Uh, federalism explains an awful lot of what happens in Canada.

I, I keep saying to people, "We're not Estonia.

Uh, and then we'll talk about the current case.

Why do you think that is the case?

Well, attrition is just relying on a passive pattern of who dies, who gets sick, who takes retirement.

It's not going to end up with a public service and the right people in the right places.

I would work backwards from what kinds of services and functions you want to offer Canadians, and then you make sure the people are in the right place.

If you want to reduce the overall personnel complement at the same time, that's fine.

But you can't just wait for people to leave.

I think you have to mindfully, proactively put people where you want them to be.

But like for people who are at home who rely on many government services, like what are the stakes of getting it wrong?

What are campaigns like for the public service?

Yeah, it's an interesting question.

Let me run through some of the basics for your listeners.

I mean, I won't go into the political science, but one in five Canadians is a public sector worker, if you add up all the levels of government.

It's a lot of voters and with a high propensity to actually turn up.

So somewhere in there, it's part of the campaign itself.

Let's talk about the federal service, which about 40% is in Ottawa, 60% spread across the country.

First of all, do you buy that? And secondly, if so, is it a problem?

Are these things that you would prefer to see happen when Parliament is sitting with, we should say, a prime minister elected by the broader majority?

Well, the government was the government until the day the election was called and still is during the campaign period.

I think there's a bit of a difference between announcing an intention to do something in the future and the actual execution of it.

So the intention to spend in the Arctic is different than spending that will make that happen.

or the procurement contracts or the staffing or all the things that they'll implement it.

35 days as a timeout, I don't really see as a lot.

The only scenario where it's going to be important is where you would think you need to go to Parliament for a brand new piece of legislation.

They become really great at understanding defense or procurement or you know, social services, and then they get promoted into a whole other ministry where they don't have that subject matter expertise? Are we losing out on something here?