The Widening Record

The closure letter arrived on January 7, 2026.

The documentary record did not.

During the AI Strategy consultation in October 2025, I had submitted the coordination effectiveness framework I had been developing to two officials at federal departments: Associate Deputy Minister Mark Schaan at Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, and then-Chief Information Officer Dominic Rochon at the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat.

Within twenty-four hours, both had written back. Rochon's reply was specific:

There are direct links to our thinking on both coordination and measurement from your email below.

He named Jonathan Macdonald — Director for Responsible Data and AI in his own office — as the person who would handle the file. He described Macdonald as the pen on our Government of Canada AI Strategy. Schaan wrote that the framework would be shared with the strategy team assessing the submissions.

Ten days later, on November 4, Macdonald wrote himself.

The premise is intriguing... I have circulated it within my team.

Nothing in the correspondence suggested the conversation was ending.

The AI Strategy was the first formal application of the framework, but the coordination questions it measured extended well beyond artificial intelligence. Because I expected the engagement at Treasury Board and ISED to continue, I began applying the framework to other government challenges — asking one underlying question: could coordination itself be measured before failure became visible?

Two of those challenges accepted submissions in the same window.