A PLAN TO END ALL PLANS

Canada has so many national strategies on the go it needs a National Strategies Strategy

As Canada matures as a nation and approaches the 150th anniversary of Confederation, it is becoming clear that the national structures that hold the nation together — the very architecture of the economic and political institutions that bind the people into a unified whole — are in need of fundamental renewal. In short, we have reached the point in our institutional evolution where we need a new national strategy for the strategic invigoration of our various national strategies.

Let me explain. For some time now, our leaders in business and government, in civil society and public service, have been separately calling for overarching national approaches to the urgent and compelling issues of our time. We have, for example, the council of Canadian premiers calling for a National Energy Strategy. The Institute for Research on Public Policy recently proposed a National Seniors Strategy. The Canadian Federation of Agriculture, in collaboration with food processors and other business groups, has articulated the need for a National Food Strategy. Public Safety Canada, a federal government agency, is working on a National Strategy for Critical Infrastructure, the objective of which is to “build a safer, more secure and more resilient Canada.”

One hardly needs to mention Industry Canada’s Science and Technology Strategy or its National Aerospace/Defence Strategic Plan, which proposes that the industry “build on its strengths through involvement in major strategic initiatives. Such projects include the development of strategic domestic platforms... to build on the Canadian strength in aircraft manufacturing.”

Then there’s the movement for a National Pharmacare Strategy and The Conference Board of Canada’s desire to create the Centre for National Skills and Post-Secondary Education Strategy through the activities of stakeholders who will “support and operationalize” a plan. The centre “will require a combination of research, convening, and communications to stimulate evidence-based public understanding, and engage the key players in the PSE system, including senior management, faculty and staff, government, business, professional and regulatory associations, communities and students.” A report by the Electricity Sector Council in 2009, following a pan-Canadian consultation, outlined plans for a National Human Resource Strategy for the Electricity and Renewable Energy Industry in Canada. Six years later, however, nothing much seems to have come of the NHRSEREI initiative.

And that’s the problem. All of the above are but a sampling of the national strategies under discussion — but not much is happening. Canada is a land of national strategy proposals that fail to materialize nationally or as strategies.

And so here’s the solution: A National Strategies Strategy.

A National Strategies Strategy would aim to bring together all Canadian stakeholders, perhaps at a foundational event or summit, for cross-disciplinary strategy-setting that would devise evidence-based intelligence on how Canada — as a diverse nation — can set up a system that would allow our best minds, institutions and diverse cultural communities to establish a national strategic hierarchy of strategies.

It is clear that the current practice of allowing every government, NGO, think tank, academic, business lobby group and vested interest to launch calls for national strategies is simply not working. The alternative is to begin building a dialogue among the different strategic strategists with a view to achieving consensus.

No doubt the buy-in necessary for such a build-up needs to be established. This should be done at the federal, provincial and territorial levels and, necessarily, encompass all jurisdictional responsibilities within the existing multi-faceted community of national strategy initiators. Let no strategy be left behind.

It goes without saying that it will be necessary to consider new ways and means of developing policies and priorities that will facilitate inter-departmental and cross-ministry dialogue, along with joint decision making so as to comprehensively address final goals and strategic objectives. But it can be done.

The time for a National Strategies Strategy has come — nay, it is past time — so let’s get on with it.

CANADA IS A LAND OF NATIONAL STRATEGY PROPOSALS THAT FAIL TO MATERIALIZE NATIONALLY OR

AS STRATEGIES