TRANSCRIPT

Hello. It’s National Public Service Week. I’m proud of serving Canadians on a daily basis.

I’m so proud of being a public servant. It’s a career I chose. It’s not something that I fell into, and it is something I pursue now for close to 30 years.

Being a public servant means that I am part of the fabric of this country. I serve Canadians, I work for Canadians, I represent Canada abroad. And as a Canadian woman in particular, I think I represent the Canadian values of quality and diversity and I help to send the message of what Canada is about to Canadians and to colleagues around the world.

Here in the Department of National Defence, our role is to support the men and women in the Canadian Armed Forces so they can go and do the really important things they do all around the world, and without us, the 24,000 public servants, they would not be able to do that.

National Public Service Week is a time to say thank you. We all have our heads down, we work hard. What we expect of public servants, you know, our expectations are so high, and we don’t day-to-day take enough time to say thank you.

So National Public Service Week is an opportunity to celebrate ourselves, celebrate our country, celebrate service to Canadians and just take a moment to say thank you for the excellent work that is done by public servants everywhere in this country, every day of the year.