The development of policy and the re-establishment of policy capacity in the Government of Canada are important objectives of mine, and the integration of the regions into policy development is essential. I will come back to explain why. When I look around the room, I am pleased to notice that I know a large number of people. I am glad in some respects that the usual suspects are here. New people with new ideas are important because we need to think about how to engage people from all across the Public Service of Canada in the regions and at headquarters and how to integrate that engagement process in policy development.
Policy development is a messy process.
It s convoluted, chaotic, and creative. The way that we establish structures and mechanisms to corral that creativity is new ground to explore. We held a meeting of regional and other managers by putting a whole bunch of people in a room together to talk about inserting regional input into policy development. We had an excellent turnout perhaps because the meeting was in Banff. But it was actually quite a dynamic and creative process, and I see that we have now gone beyond that.