Message from the Clerk for the Holiday season

December 21, 2020 – Defence Stories

As the year limps across the finish line, I want to thank every one of my public service colleagues for your contribution in an unparalleled year. I say “limps” because 2020 has been hard, it has been grueling, it has been a marathon. In fact, it has often been a marathon of sprints. Looking back, this year was not a favourite.

But we don’t get to choose the circumstances in which we are called to serve. From the earliest days of 2020 with its geopolitical tensions, to the arrival of the pandemic, to the very public and graphic reminders of the long-standing scourge and pain of racism, this year has imposed challenges and shocks that we couldn’t have imagined this time last year, or have ever anticipated.

I am proud of the public service of Canada. I believe we have done well. Undoubtedly, looking back will reveal things that could have been done better. Lessons will be learned, and we shouldn’t shrink from learning them. However, the public service has served, with skill, imagination, sensitivity, creativity—without complaint, and in many cases, to the point of exhaustion. I know that for many, this year has cost dearly.

I think your general good cheer has come from a sense of the privilege it is to serve, and an awareness that many others right on the front lines of the COVID battle have given of themselves beyond imagining. We are keenly aware of the loss of employment and opportunity that has been experienced right across the country. Parts of Canada are really hurting deeply. No one has been untouched. So we have, I think, been humbled and proud to do our part.

Our work is never done. The work of being a better institution is never done. The pandemic isn’t over, although the year ends with hope! 2021 beckons with challenges and opportunities of its own—some continuing, others undoubtedly new!

I truly hope that you will take the opportunity the holiday provides to reflect and recharge. To accept and give love. To be thankful for what we have, not least as participants in this wonderful and richly blessed country.

You have my thanks, my support, and my admiration.

Ian Shugart
Clerk of the Privy Council and Secretary to the Cabinet