Response to the Working Group on Public Service Productivity
What does the documentary record establish regarding TBS's handling of the Working Group on Public Service Productivity Response?
The published work was titled the Response to the Working Group on Public Service Productivity. It was released on December 12, 2025 by the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat as the Government of Canada's formal response to the Working Group's nineteen recommendations. The Working Group had been established in August 2024 by the President of the Treasury Board and co-chaired by the President and the Secretary of the Treasury Board, with six external members. Its mandate was to examine productivity in Canada's federal public service and to inform the government's economic plan.
This Record examines what the released records establish about the Response's production and publication, and about the access-to-information and oversight processes now reconstructing the internal drafting history. The reconstruction proceeds against a documented baseline: the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat's own Office of the Chief Information Officer was independently examining coordination across departments and across CIOs as a factor in AI deployment months before the events documented in Records 1 through 3.
Record 1 documents the Coordination Effectiveness Measurement Framework's submission to the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat on October 23–25, 2025. Record 2 documents the department-tailored version submitted to Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada during the same period. Record 3 documents the Execution-First Architecture for AI Workforce Transformation, submitted to the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat on November 3, 2025.
This Record examines the Response to the Working Group on Public Service Productivity. The submissions documented in Records 1 and 3 arrived at the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat within the Response drafting window (fall 2025). The Working Group itself had been established in August 2024, and the department's Office of the Chief Information Officer had been independently examining coordination across departments and across CIOs as a factor in AI deployment months before the framework submissions arrived — as documented in the January 14, 2025 slide deck disclosed under A-2025-01102.
Institutional co-presence is established: the Working Group's productivity examination, the department's independent coordination baseline, and the framework submissions were all active within the same department during the Response drafting period. The documentary record establishes the temporal and substantive relationship described above. It does not establish any further documentary connection beyond those facts. The remaining propositions are unresolved within the currently available record.
Findings
What the Response articulates
- 1
The Response addresses each of the Working Group's nineteen recommendations with dispositions ranging from recommendations being pursued to recommendations declined as "not being considered at this time."
- 2
Recommendation 1 concerned productivity measurement across the public sector. Recommendation 12 concerned appointing an external working group made up of individuals with public service experience and experts in artificial intelligence, human resources, and labour relations to advise the government on how to proactively respond to the impacts of AI on its workforce. Both were among the recommendations declined "at this time."
- 3
The Response was signed by the President of the Treasury Board, Shafqat Ali.
The independent baseline in the disclosed record
- 4
The released record establishes that the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat's Office of the Chief Information Officer was independently examining coordination, productivity measurement, governance structures, and organizational capability months before receiving the framework submissions documented in Records 1 through 3.
- 5
A TBS OCIO slide deck dated January 14, 2025, prepared for the Working Group's second meeting on technology adoption, framed coordination across departments and across CIOs as the missing ingredient for AI deployment. The deck was disclosed under file A-2025-01102.
- 6
A late-November 2025 Working Group Meeting 5 planned topic listed:
Key Factors: Policies, Processes and Structures — Discuss how government policies, processes, and structures (e.g., delegations, layers, horizontal coordination, focus on processes rather than outcomes) impact its productivity.
- 7
These framings were in place approximately eight months before the framework submissions arrived at TBS in October 2025.
The parallel Statistics Canada baseline in the disclosed record
- 8
Statistics Canada records disclosed under file A-2025-00147 (released June 26, 2026, 468 pages) document a coordination chain between the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat and Statistics Canada on productivity-measurement methodology across the Working Group's operational period, including a January 23, 2026 meeting between Deputy Ministers concerning the TechStat program allocated under Budget 2025.
- 9
A pre-inaugural Statistics Canada presentation deck titled Presentation on AI Tech Statistics Strategy and dated November 29, 2024 was disclosed via supplementary release under file A-2025-00155 on July 7, 2026. The deck predates the December 2024 inaugural Working Group meeting by approximately three weeks.
- 10
Recommendation 1 of the Working Group specifically called for Statistics Canada to develop a public-sector productivity measurement program. The Response declined that recommendation as "not being considered at this time."
- 11
The released record establishes that Statistics Canada was, in parallel with the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat's Office of the Chief Information Officer, developing federal work on AI adoption measurement and productivity measurement before the framework submissions documented in Records 1 through 3 arrived at the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat. The relationship between that Statistics Canada work, the Working Group's recommendations, and the Response remains only partially documented in the released record.
Observed intersections and the drafting window
- 12
The framework submission documented in Record 1 entered the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat on October 23 and October 25, 2025. The framework submission documented in Record 3 entered the Secretariat on November 3, 2025. Both submissions arrived within the Response drafting window (fall 2025).
- 13
The published Response addresses subject matter that substantially overlaps with concepts developed in the frameworks documented in Records 1 through 3. The currently available documentary record does not establish whether those intersections arose through independent development, common source material, consideration without adoption, or other pathways.
Current documentary state
- 14
Five access-to-information files targeting Response and Working Group substrate have produced partial disclosure: A-2025-01003 (40 pages, ministerial approval package); A-2025-01102 (129 pages, Working Group internal material); and three additional files under active oversight.
- 15
A-2025-01002 (Response drafting substrate — drafts, tracked changes, approval records, publication strategy communications) is the subject of an active order recommendation under section 36.1 of the Access to Information Act on OIC investigation 5825-05056, with an expected institutional response by September 14, 2026.
- 16
Four oversight investigations are active on files relating to the Response and Working Group substrate.
- 17
The Response's drafting history, revision record, approval chain, and any consideration given to externally submitted frameworks during the fall 2025 drafting window remain documented gaps in the currently released record.
- Treasury Board of Canada SecretariatLead department; publisher of the Response
- Working Group on Public Service ProductivityExternal advisory body established August 2024
- Office of the Chief Information Officer of CanadaTBS branch documented in the independent baseline substrate
- Statistics CanadaFederal statistical agency identified in Working Group Recommendation 1; released records document parallel work on AI adoption measurement and productivity measurement
- Office of the Information Commissioner of CanadaOversight authority; active investigations including order recommendation on A-2025-01002
Roles reflect positions held during the events documented in this Record; current appointments may differ.
- Shafqat AliPresident of the Treasury Board; ministerial signatory on the Response; Working Group co-chair
- Bill MatthewsSecretary of the Treasury Board; Working Group co-chair
- Anita AnandPresident of the Treasury Board at Working Group formation, August 2024
- Working Group on Public Service ProductivityAdvisory body that prepared the Government Response and supporting recommendations; established under Anita Anand
- ?Which branches within the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat were consulted during the Response's production, and by which drafting authors and editorial staff.
- ?Draft versions of the Response and their tracked-changes history.
- ?Content inclusion and exclusion decisions during Response drafting.
- ?The reasoning behind the dispositions of Recommendations 1 and 12, both declined as "not being considered at this time."
- ?Interdepartmental communications concerning the Response and the Working Group's recommendations during the drafting period.
- ?Publication strategy communications during the December 2025 release window.
- ?The specific secretariat actors within the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat supporting the Working Group, and their role in the Response's production.
- ?Whether the Coordination Effectiveness Measurement Framework documented in Records 1 and 2, the Execution-First Architecture for AI Workforce Transformation documented in Record 3, or other relevant external submissions concerning AI adoption, coordination effectiveness measurement, or productivity realization were received, circulated, considered, recorded, or used during development of the Response.