By David McLaughlin
This opinion piece originally appeared in The Hill Times on July 23, 2026.
Canada has big plans.
The federal government has announced strategies to build infrastructure, accelerate major projects, strengthen the North and prepare the country for rapid advances in artificial intelligence.
All to the good. But can the federal government deliver all this? Not as it currently operates.
Government is unnecessarily complex. Major priorities move slowly through burdensome approval processes. Decisions are made, but implementation stalls. Programs are created, but the systems required to deliver them are outdated or fragmented. Responsibilities are divided, and accountability for the final result has no clear home.
This isn’t about public servants but the system they operate in. Canada’s public service contains deep expertise and a strong commitment to serving the country. The problem is that even highly capable people struggle when authority is unclear, information is trapped in organizational silos, decisions take too long, and the work culture rewards caution more than results.
These weaknesses have existed for decades. But the consequences have become more acute.
Canada now faces challenges that demand faster decisions and much stronger coordination. We need to build major infrastructure at a scale and pace the country has not managed in recent years. We need to adopt artificial intelligence while protecting privacy, security and public trust. We need to strengthen Canada’s presence and capacity in the Arctic at a time of growing geopolitical competition.
Our public institutions were not designed for this environment. The public service was largely built for a period when government addressed issues through distinct departments, relatively stable technologies and predictable policy cycle. That is no longer the case. Today’s problems cross organizational boundaries and evolve faster than traditional government processes. Government is simply not designed for what’s at stake.
That gap between the way government operates and what it is being asked to accomplish is the reason this independent Task Force for Modernizing Government has been established. This group of experienced public and private sector leaders has come together to offer practical advice to the government on how it can improve the way it delivers for Canadians. We are focusing on three priority areas central to Canada’s national economic resilience: digital government and AI; major projects and infrastructure; and Arctic and Northern sovereignty.
Our purpose is not to produce another broad review of the government or a lengthy catalogue of what’s wrong. Canada has no shortage of reports diagnosing institutional problems. The urgent need is to identify and implement practical reforms that can produce results sooner not later. The name of the game is execution or, more simply, getting things done.
Task Force members bring decades of combined experience of working with and within government, federally and provincially. Its members have led major public institutions, infrastructure projects, Crown corporations and federal departments.
We are not a royal commission studying the problem. We are a practical, action-oriented task force singularly focused on how the federal government can improve its own implementation capabilities to deliver faster and better for Canadians.
The Government has an important stewardship role on behalf of all Canadians. These responsibilities are exactly why poor service delivery, uneven implementation, turgid decision making, and opaque accountability must be fixed wherever it exists. Public trust in a democracy depends upon its well-performing public institutions that operate transparently and effectively, delivering results for citizens.
Our Task Force will not solve every problem in its year-long mandate. Nor should modernizing government be treated as a one-time exercise.
The federal government must continue to make meaningful improvements. It needs to focus not just on what it does but how it does it. That means reducing duplication of effort and process inside, reducing risk aversion in decision-making, clarifying accountabilities, and giving public servants better tools and more authority to become more productive in how they do their work. And it means measuring success by results and outcomes, not announcements, activity, or money spent.
Canada’s ability to advance and prosper is directly related to the performance and effectiveness of our governing institutions. It’s time to pay attention to this truth.