A Proposal for Canada's Federal Public Service
Leveraging our collective intelligence to find and test solutions to our most wicked problems.
By Ode Lunardi
Informed by 25+ hours of conversations with contributors across the federal public service and academia.
Connect on LinkedIn“This is a first draft — and it relies on your collective insight and intelligence to evolve from a good idea into a great one ready to be tested.”
Innovation across the federal government remains uneven and overly reliant on individual champions rather than embedded as core business. Labs get defunded, pilots don't scale, and hard-won knowledge disappears when teams dissolve.
UN E-Government Development Index
The system cannot learn from itself, cannot see itself, and cannot innovate at the scale Canada now requires.
A central mechanism for capturing solutions from one part of the system and transferring them to another.
Connect labs, hubs, and communities of practice into a shared network. Host events and build a cross-sector community.
Crowdsource solutions to real problems. Match top-down wicked problems with bottom-up solutions from public servants.
Form cross-disciplinary teams for disciplined testing. Start small, learn fast, scale what works.
Create a searchable resource library of case studies, tools, templates, and lessons learned.
Turn learning into reusable assets — podcasts, playbooks, guides — and partner with CSPS for learning paths.
The Hub models the culture it builds: reviewing, refining, and reporting annually on what works.
The proposed office would operate with a lean structure, leveraging existing government infrastructure and partnerships. Detailed costing is available in the full proposal.
See full costing in the proposalThe Case for Action
Every current government priority becomes more achievable, less costly, and more citizen-centred when supported by a coordinated system for learning, experimentation, and innovation.