SENATORS’ STATEMENTS — Public Servants

Honourable senators, perhaps not surprisingly, I rise today to talk again about Canada’s public servants who serve us at all levels of government. Today, I’m staying close to home.

We benefit in this place daily from the expertise of former public service leaders in this chamber — Senator Harder, Senator Boehm and Senator Marshall’s 30 years of public service with Newfoundland and Labrador’s public service and a decade as the province’s Auditor General.

Daily in here, we see the experience and good judgment of former public service leaders — Senator Saint-Germain, Senator McNair, Senator Cotter, Senator Arnot and Senator Oudar, all of whom bring extensive public policy leadership and legal expertise.

Senator Black came to us from the Ontario Public Service. We are also privileged to work alongside leaders with deep public safety and national defence expertise, and, of course, I’m talking here about Senator Boniface, Senator Busson and Senator Patterson.

We also welcome two former public service leaders in the gallery today: First, there is Gail Beggs, with over 30 years of service in the Ontario Public Service, including the positions of Deputy Minister of the Environment, Deputy Minister of Natural Resources, and Deputy Minister for the Aboriginal Affairs Secretariat. Gail is joined by another former senior Ontario public servant Wolfgang Scheider, whose lengthy career focused on environmental stewardship.

This is a thank you to all public servants who work hard every day, and often through the night, to deliver important services to the public, and I include in that our social workers and our physicians in this chamber.

Colleagues, more broadly, as I look around this room and our work here in the Senate, I am reminded that it involves a mix, at the highest level, of public policy, the law and politics. We are fortunate to have extensive talent in all three of these fields and, indeed, beyond them. And I would say that we are at our very best when we find a good balance between all of them, and I think that often we do. Thank you, colleagues.