Every Minister should have a clear mandate
Plus a new Build Canada committee
Mandate Letters to Cabinet Ministers
Prime Minister Carney released his Cabinet this past Tuesday. Throughout his campaign, Carney has made it clear that his ambition was to unify the country, grow the economy, and protect our sovereignty. His Ministers will be the one to turn these plans into action.
Traditionally, the Prime Minister has issued mandate letters to each minister, which outline government priorities, give advice on ministerial behaviour, and describe specific tasks to be accomplished in each portfolio.
Prime Minister Carney may or may not make his mandate letters public. But whatever he decides, we hope that the letters are written with an emphasis on action and outcomes that will get Canada building again. To that end, the Build Canada team has worked with entrepreneurs in our network to craft mandate letters for specific ministries that we believe will help transform the party’s policy agenda into action.
Some examples:
The Minister of Housing and Infrastructure, Gregor Robertson, should be entirely focused on increasing the pace of home-building from 250,000 to 500,000 per year.
The Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, Lena Metlege Diab, should be entirely focused on raising the median income of immigrants to 90% of Canadian-borns’
The Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, Tim Hodgson, should be entirely focused on increasing energy exports by 30% while reducing the time to approve major projects from 5 to 2 years.
Build Canada Committee
The Prime Minister also announced on Tuesday his new committees, including a new Build Canada committee:
The team here at Build Canada could not be happier with the creation of this committee, in both its name and its purpose. Competition, productivity and a strong economy were not even talked about just few years ago.
In Other News
Immigration in the UK
The United Kingdom has announced large changes to their immigration system to favour towards those who contribute most to economic growth:
Our current system is not selective enough about who comes to the UK. We’re raising the skills threshold to degree-level to make sure we attract people who can grow our economy. [X]
We believe Canada’s immigration system could use a similar strengthening, taking greater considering of long-term economic benefits. (See our memo on talent-first immigration.)
What’s more, we are excited to see them extend their points-based system to not just determine who can come in, but also who gets citizenship:
We’re introducing a new contributions-based model to settlement and citizenship. Extending the length of time a person needs to live in the UK from five to 10 years, with reductions for those who contribute to economy. Settlement in the UK is a privilege, not a right. [X]
See our memo with a similar proposal.
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Child Investment Fund in the US
The United States has introduced a bill that would give every American child a $1,000 seed investment at birth:
Every child in America will have private investment accounts that will compound over their lives, enhancing the prosperity and economic participation of the vast majority of Americans.
We see this as a critical investment into the most important part of our future: our children. We could have this in Canada too, without any additional spend.
👶 Read the Build Canada memo on a Child Head-Start Fund
What Else We’re Reading
In other countries, a shuffle will be analyzed in terms of what shifts in government direction it might signal, or how the prime minister is balancing the differing wings of his party, or what changes in approach particular ministers will bring to their posts.… In Canada, these questions are almost never asked.
🗞️ Carney’s cabinet: a familiar mix of quotas, duplication and pork-barrel politics [Globe & Mail]
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[À Longueuil] le prix de remplacement d’un seul feu de circulation est désormais de 1 million [In Longueuil, the replacement price of a single traffic light is now 1 million dollars]
🗞️ Un million pour remplacer un feu de signalisation [La Presse]
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The government does not know what it is trying to accomplish with middle-class housing. It lacks clear goals and objectives. The federal government will not fix this problem until it [does].
🗞️ Federal mixed messages on home prices stem from a deeper issue [Missing Middle Initiative]
I think @gregorrobertson probably needs a strongly worded memo given his mid response and commitment to new housing
I really appreciate the talent and effort Build Canada puts in to identify improvements we can make. I realize Singapore is a small city/ state in comparison to Canada and people can argue how they operate isn’t relative to Canada. However I think we can learn a lot from them.
One thing I like is the salary of each senior government official is based on whether they meet their goals for the year . This includes how much they directly contributed to growing the economy. They have a way to define and calculate this. Potential salaries are also far higher than here for these positions because they are more incentivized.
Singapore also sends qualified government people to other countries for several months at a time to study best practices by directly talking to the private and public sectors.