Clerk’s Remarks at the 2017 Manion Lecture

Check against delivery
May 10, 2017

Good afternoon everyone and welcome. I am here for a few words of welcome, and to set the table for the main course, so I will be brief.

Firstly, I would like to thank Claudette, Elder Commanda, for her blessing and her opening words. I acknowledge that we are here in the traditional territories of the Algonquin peoples. 

I would also like to thank the team from the Canada School of Public Service, who worked so hard to put this event together for all of us here, and those who are joining us by webcast.

This is, I understand, the largest Manion Lecture in its distinguished history. There are something like 900 of you here tonight and many more hundreds online, and there will be an audience that lives on in the program being recorded and recaptured. This is a tremendous accomplishment for the School and I want to congratulate and thank them in advance.

This has also been a very important day across the Public Service. We had regional  Innovation Fairs taking place  from coast to coast to coast in 12 locations across the country.  Unfortunately, we had to move the event in the National Capital Region because of the extreme weather and the displacement that it has caused. All across the country public servants have been getting together today and exchanging ideas and inspiration, talking to each other, and building a community around innovation, which I understand is another topic near and dear to His Excellency’s heart.

This is Canada’s 150th birthday, and we will have many opportunities to celebrate over the next little while. It is also the 150th birthday, of course, of our national Public Service and many of our institutions. I think as we celebrate our history, it is a time to appreciate where we have come from, and to think about where we are and where we are going.  

I have had more to say about this and I recommend to you my Annual Report to the Prime Minister that was tabled and released on Monday, May 8^th. I’ve spoken to the ADM Forum, the Policy Community Conference, and you can certainly follow what I have had to say and what I think about many of those issues.

We are not only celebrating history these days, we are living it, and we live in times where nothing can be taken for granted. This country is a remarkable success and a beacon of hope and inspiration around the world, and much of that success lies on the foundation of generations of people who have built strong public institutions and the culture of trust that we are going to discuss today.

There is nothing to be taken for granted in having a lively, democratically-elected Parliament, free and fair elections, independent courts, Officers of Parliament, a lively free press that is free to do its job and hold people to account, and of course a non-partisan, values-based excellent public service. These are all tremendous assets to the people of Canada. I think that we have to work very hard -- those of us who are in leadership positions now, and those of you out there who will be in leadership positions in the future -- to make sure that that legacy is passed on to future generations of public servants and Canadians.

You only have to watch the evening news to know that this is not something to be taken for granted. It will take work. It will take effort. It will take will to carry on into the future. That is why today’s topic is so pertinent.

I would like to thank His Excellency for taking the time to join us today for this important discussion.

I am looking forward to carry on a conversation and to engage you. Please think of your questions and your reactions to today’s topic. It is so fundamentally important. Trust is the foundation of everything that we try to accomplish as a public service and I could give many, many examples of that. It is the trust of the people who we serve, their elected governments, and it is the trust of Canadians every day. They count on us, they need us, and, yes, they trust us.

To expand on this topic and to talk about where we have come from and especially our future, I’m so happy to have the Governor General with us. The best part of my job is I get to meet His Excellency once a month and we have a lively exchange. I catch him up on matters of government. We talk about the topics of the day, and it’s just a wonderful relationship and a real pleasure to have the opportunity to engage His Excellency.

I would now like to introduce the Governor General of Canada, His Excellency the Right Honourable David Johnston.