New Public Management (NPM) Reforms In Canada

New Public Management (NPM) was debuted to be part of a revolution in public sector which was borrowed from the private sector swept across many countries. The globalization of reforms in public administration was meant to be a stop gap measure to alleviate the deteriorating financial performance in governments which coincided with public pressure for better services. With its adoption, many countries expected instant changes with the legislators getting more oversight power on public spending. In this regard, many countries tried to engage citizens in policy making but the stark reality is that these efforts are infrequently realized. This paper is a critical review to the employment of the New Public Management (NPM) reforms in Canada and

However, it was only after a decade of its inception that it proved impractical because its effectiveness became an issue of question. From a realist perspective, it was a bold move to admit the NPM was not itself the source of change but the human resource. The change in human resource obscured the desired changes from NPM because of the lack of clarity between service delivery and policy making. Though the system worked for some time, it encountered various challenges after it emerged that it did not provide the desired results (Kartalis et al.

The cynicism started with the fall of giants like Enron which coincided with the going under of Nortel after losing stock worth ten billion in a single day. What followed was dwindling trust in the NPM after it emerged that federal tax dollars were lost through private entities that were paid above the standard rates. Therefore, the system that was supposed to guard public interests was then seen to be propagating for the abuse of the same interests. After enquires were made, it was found that the NPM was liable for the deliberate actions made in avoiding compliance of law.

There were also many agencies that made political donations in order to get kickbacks in the form of contracts within the system. Additionally, there was fear of among public servants who worked under the new managers in the system who had political backing. The fear resulted in erosion of public service delivery while others abetted with the managers in looting public resources. These are among the many cases that led to the uneasiness in the NPM that eventually degenerated to its redundancy. The system proved that contracts were an avenue for evasion of transparency (Sutherland