Searching for leadership : secretaries to cabinet in Canada / edited by Patrice Dutil.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

The first book to examine the evolving role and leadership of the highest-ranking public servant in Ottawa or in any of Canada's Provinces and Territories, the Secretary to Cabinet, or the "Clerk."

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

This volume is the product of a 2005 conference held in Toronto on the Canadian "secretaries to cabinet." These are the bureaucratic officials who are called alternately clerks or secretaries to the cabinet (and in the case of the federal government, "clerk to Privy Council"). Because they are the heads of the civil service but work for prime ministers (or provincial premiers), their position connects the administration to elected power. In part 1, the authors describe the traits, abilities, and functions of secretaries' leadership. Part 2 treats the evolution of the institution of secretary at the central level and in the provinces of Quebec and Saskatchewan. Part 3 presents three cases--from Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Quebec--in which leaders transformed the role of the cabinet secretary. Volume editor Dutil (Ryerson Univ.) concludes with a summary of the reasons accounting for politicization of the secretary's role--complex new problems confronting the state, sharp changes in economic conditions, generational transition in the bureaucracy, and demands for more integrated governmental responses. The book will be of interest to those interested in the opportunities for, and constraints on, bureaucratic leadership in parliamentary systems. Appendix, but neither a bibliography nor an index. Summing Up: Recommended. Research and professional collections. G. A. McBeath University of Alaska Fairbanks