I have great confidence that the Public Service is in good hands and that you will rise to the many challenges and even greater opportunities of the months and years ahead.
The role that communications professionals play, as part of a non-partisan professional Public Service, in helping the government communicate in two directions with Canadians and, indeed, with the rest of the world, is incredibly important to the rest of the country.
We have to apply the lessons that we learned from the past ten years and face the challenges ahead in pieces, whether it is about recruitment, staffing, learning and development, meeting culture or changing the way we think, and who is brought into conversations. A lot of it is about mindsets, cultures and expectations and those require engagement and dialogue.
I do not think the workload is ever going to go down. The important thing is that we have to learn the tools of personal and organizational resilience and make sure that fatigue does not turn into bad behaviours, harassment, or interpersonal conflicts. We do have to learn to work at a high tempo and with a heavy workload. That is the Public Service that we are headed towards.
The holiday season is here, and so is the end of a very successful year. I would like to thank you for all the work you do to serve Canadians and to help make Canada such an extraordinary country.
Having confidence that the government’s decision-making is open and transparent and that the government is listening is incredibly important to maintaining a united and cohesive country.