After a preliminary analysis of this material, James Hurley of the Privy Council Office followed up with each Cabinet Secretary's Office to prepare comparable profiles for each province and territory. Philippe Lajeunesse was responsible for the final editing of the text. Ren e Gu rette formatted the book. Draft profiles were prepared for consideration, comment and approval by each government. The results of the exercise are set out in this document which constitutes an initial attempt to set out the decision-making processes and describe central agencies of the federal, provincial and territorial governments in a comparative perspective.
Individual profiles respect the wishes of each government with regard to substance and presentation.
At the meeting, we agreed that it would be useful to make the document available to the public, both to enable Canadians to gain a better understanding of how governments operate in Canada and to stimulate debate on questions of governance. Governments are continuously reflecting on their organization and methods of operation and changes occur quite frequently. I wish to take this opportunity of thanking my colleagues, the provincial and territorial Cabinet Secretaries, for their invaluable cooperation and support, without which this study could not have been done. We, the Cabinet Secretaries, all gain from this sharing of information. The people of Canada will, I believe, also benefit from its publication.