24-06-2025
Opinion: Will Hydro-Québec's Michael Sabia really ‘kick ass' in his new Ottawa post?
'No man should be viceroy of India for whom the position is an honour,' the early Victorian historian and politician Thomas Macaulay reportedly said. A rough contemporary translation might be that really big jobs require impressive CVs.
Like the prime minister he will support, Canada's soon-to-be clerk of the Privy Council, Michael Sabia — who ends his term as Hydro-Québec's president and CEO on July 4 — can boast an awe-inspiring CV of senior public and private sector jobs. Sabia's appointment from outside the ranks of the senior public service has been perceived as a bold departure for a system that typically turns to the usual suspects. In the words of one supporter, the new clerk's mission in Ottawa will be to push the public service to advance Mark Carney's priorities and 'kick its ass.'
Not every commentator has been as gleeful. Journalist Paul Wells declared himself a 'rare Cassandra' on Sabia, suggesting his big-bang beginnings have sometimes ended in a fizzle. Sabia's private sector work is beyond my ken, though I will note that perhaps his most celebrated success, the turnaround of the Caisse de dépôt's fortunes following the financial debacle of 2008, was arguably consistent with the broad trends of the market, though he did steer that fund toward more international investment.
Of more immediate relevance are Sabia's recent and conspicuously brief stints as head of the Canada Infrastructure Bank (2020-21) and federal deputy minister of finance (2020-23), in which capacity he helped establish the Canada Growth Fund. Both the infrastructure bank and the growth fund involved leveraging private sector investment in ways Carney appears to favour, but neither has been a triumph. Sabia was reportedly frustrated at the Finance Ministry, where he can hardly be blamed for the ballooning deficits of the COVID era. But the experience is a reminder that no one walks on water.
In full disclosure, Sabia was my first director at Finance Canada. I lean heavily toward assessing him as very smart. And there can be little doubt that he is committed to helping Carney advance his priorities, including spending less on government operations. I'm also told the two are on good personal terms. But how will they work together? Both are used to being the smartest guy in the room (or thus perceived) and neither seems prostrate with modesty or undue gentleness.
And while Sabia, like Carney, has a long record of dedicated public service and a reputation to uphold, he does not need the job for the sake of his pension. I'm crossing my fingers that this dynamic produces a frank and lively exchange of perspectives and a departure from the tradition of public servant as courtier.
And what of the public service that will advise on and implement this agenda? Carney has given his ministers a single mandate letter, not the detailed instructions that have grown more prescriptive over the years. Instead, Carney has said ministers 'will be expected and empowered to lead, and to bring new ideas, clear focus and decisive action.'
Will what ministers, and by extension the public servants who support them, lose in explicit direction be made up for with an opportunity to generate ideas and show initiative? Carney has already demonstrated a confident willingness to depart from expectations, and Sabia seems similarly unwedded to the status quo. Perhaps each will be a one-man show in his respective sphere, but it's also possible that both will be open to genuinely innovative ideas from the people who advise them. However, I wouldn't anticipate an abundance of patience from either. Translation: They may well kick ass.
As for Macaulay's viceregal admonition, beyond impressive CVs, he may also have been speaking of the importance of being less concerned with one's own prestige than with the public good. On this score, and despite two significant egos at the top, I remain hopeful.
