Transcript
Transcript: Deputy Minister Leadership Reflections Series: Margaret Bloodworth
[00:00:00 Video opens with a montage of views of the CSPS building, the Deputy Minister's Office, and the crew setting up their equipment for the interview. Margaret Bloodworth takes a seat in an historic room. Text on screen: Deputy Minister Leadership Reflections, with Margaret Bloodworth. Inspiring music plays while the questions are being asked.]
[00:00:22 Overlaid text on screen: Margaret Bloodworth concluded her distinguished public service career as the National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister and Associate Secretary to the Cabinet. She also held several key leadership roles within the federal government.]
[00:00:33 Overlaid text on screen: Currently, she serves on the boards of the Hospice at May Court; the Community Foundation of Ottawa; World University Service of Canada; and the Canadian Ditchley Foundation.]
[00:00:46 Margaret Bloodworth appears full screen. Overlaid text on screen: Where were you born?]
Margaret Bloodworth: I was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and raised there, but moved to Ottawa when I was about 22, I think.
[00:00:56 Overlaid text on screen: What was Winnipeg like when you were growing up?]
Margaret Bloodworth: Winnipeg was a great place for a kid to grow up.
[00:01:02 Overlaid image of Winnipeg.]
Margaret Bloodworth: And it was a different – it's still a great city – but it was a different city.
It was the fourth largest in the country at that time, which meant we were on the main circuit for most of the big shows in North America, which I suspect is not the case anymore. But we certainly thought of ourselves as a big city. There was nothing bigger, closer than Minneapolis. It was a time – I grew up in the 50s and 60s – where there were lots of kids on every block and lots of mothers [at] home, which wasn't so great for the mothers, but it was great for the kids. We were very free in those days and could do lots of things, partly because there were lots of people around.
[00:01:38 Overlaid text on screen: What was your perception of Canada growing up?]
Margaret Bloodworth: I remember when the flag came in, for example. I would have been one of those, as a teenager, very pro new flag. Unlike my grandmother, who would have been very anti and wanted the red ensign.
[00:01:55 Overlaid image of René Levesque, speaking from a lectern.]
Margaret Bloodworth: And I remember René Levesque visited the University of Winnipeg, where I went, and spoke to what wouldn't have been a very congenial audience at the time. But he was a wonderful speaker, and he did a wonderful job.
And, actually, when I look back on that, I think of that as being one of the plusses of the Canada of the time, and I hope it would be now. That you could have somebody who was kind of antithetical to what most of us in Manitoba would have wanted for the country, but we still had an amazing speaker and an amazing discussion. And there might have been the odd protest, but there was no interruption of him. It was a quite civil discussion. So, that to me represents a bit of what Canada was like. What I grew up in.
[00:02:38 Overlaid text on screen: Where did you go to university?]
Margaret Bloodworth: I went to the University of Winnipeg,
[00:02:43 Overlaid image of the University of Winnipeg. Overlaid text on screen: Mrs. Bloodworth graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1970 from the University of Winnipeg.]
Margaret Bloodworth: which had just separated from the University of Manitoba to become a separate university.
[00:02:47 Overlaid image of the University of Manitoba. Overlaid text on screen: As well as a Bachelor of Law from the University of Ottawa in 1977. She was called to the Bar in 1979.]
Margaret Bloodworth: I did go to the University of Manitoba, but only for one year when I took education. But I took my degree at Winnipeg.
[00:02:54 Overlaid text on screen: What brought you to Ottawa?]
Margaret Bloodworth: What brought me is my husband got a job in the government. And we were young, we'd only been married a year. And I don't think I really thought about it much. It was an adventure to go to another place.
[00:03:09 Overlaid text on screen: What was your first job in Ottawa?]
Margaret Bloodworth: So, I worked for a bank for the first year I was in Ottawa. Then I got a job with the Post Office, in Compensation. The Post Office was still part of the Government of Canada at that time. And then I took a leave to go to law school, I guess in 74, I started law school.
[00:03:31 Overlaid text on screen: What did you do next?]
Margaret Bloodworth: I said I spent 10 years at the regulatory agency,
[00:03:37 Overlaid text on screen: Mrs. Bloodworth began her professional career in 1979 with the former Canadian Transport Commission, now the Canadian Transportation Agency.]
Margaret Bloodworth: but I did at least four different jobs while I was there. I was a lawyer, and I eventually became a General Counsel there.
[00:03:46 Overlaid text on screen: During her time there, she served as General Counsel and Director General of the Dispute Resolution Branch.]
Margaret Bloodworth: I spent at least a couple of years where I was attached to the Minister of Transport, Mazankowski of the day, office where we were developing a new economic regulatory system for railways. And that was the first time I ever heard of PCO because they phoned me at some point about the new appointment regime for the new commission that was going to come out of their agency.
And when that legislation was done, I then took a non-legal job as a DG at the agency. And from that I was phoned by Ward Elcock, who was Deputy Clerk I think at the time at PCO, to see if I wanted to go to PCO.
[00:04:26 Overlaid text on screen: In 1989, Mrs. Bloodworth was appointed Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet of Legislation and House Planning, and Counsel at the Privy Council Office.]
Margaret Bloodworth: I think I had to actually look up and see what it was PCO was all about. I really came from the outskirts of government to the centre. And when I look back on it, it was a huge leap of faith when I think about it. I really didn't know much about what they wanted me to do. I did spend an hour or so talking to Ward. I knew they wanted somebody who was a lawyer. And it was Legislation House Planning and legislative planning. And I'd taken a bill through the House, so I knew a bit about that. But really, I leapt into the unknown.
And when I came, it was a huge shock the first year because I'd come from a fairly small organization, by government standards, where I was one of the top two or three people, seen as kind of a star, and everybody certainly knew who I was, to a place where everybody was a star and what's more, they knew what they were doing and I didn't when I first started. So, I remember that first year as being quite a humbling experience. But I often recommend that to people who start because the first thing you have to do when you're going to go ahead is realize how much you don't know. And I certainly learned that in spades that year. But I loved the job actually, when I wasn't being scared about what it was, [what] I was all about.
There were enormously interesting people, people that I learned a lot from, people I learned both good things and bad things about. And you did get an overview of the government in a way that's very hard to get in many other departments. So, it was a wonderful experience.
[00:05:59 Overlaid text on screen: What was your perspective on the program review of the 90s?]
Margaret Bloodworth: Well, I was a bit privileged with program review in the sense that I got a chance to watch it fairly closely because I was by then, starting in 94, I was the Deputy Clerk
[00:06:13 Overlaid text on screen: In 1994, she was promoted to Deputy Clerk of Security and Intelligence, and Counsel at the Privy Council Office.]
Margaret Bloodworth: and part of the senior management team at PCO, so it was discussed often at the senior management table. But I didn't play any direct role.
[00:06:22 Overlaid text on screen: In January 1997, she was appointed Deputy Minister of Transport, then Deputy Minister of National Defence in May 2002.]
Margaret Bloodworth: It was the economic people, largely, and finance and departments who played the big roles. But I got to watch it, and it was a fascinating thing to watch, and I hope it's been fully documented, because there were success stories and some not so success stories. And I would say the departments that came out of it successfully were the ones who actually rethought how they were going to do things, and Transport was one of them. And I think they were fortunately ready because Jocelyne Bourgon had been there and started the thinking even before they knew program review was going to happen. And then they had Doug Young as the Minister and Nick Mulder, a long-time Transport person as well as the Deputy, and they were ready to do big things, and they also had plans to do big things.
So, they successfully, I would say – and this had nothing to do with me because I arrived at the end – they successfully transformed a department in a way that didn't hurt that department. Whereas there are other departments who didn't do that kind of rethinking and they got cut so badly, it took them years to recover.
And the lesson I took from that is, if this happens – and it will happen periodically, it always happens in any government periodically, you have cutbacks – take the chance to think through how you'd do things differently, because just saying you'll do more with less doesn't actually work.
[00:07:47 Overlaid text on screen: What stands out to you about the process of transitioning between governments?]
Margaret Bloodworth: Well, it is a hugely special moment, and it's also gems of a moment from a democracy's point of view, because while we take it for granted in this country that power will pass smoothly, and people will help one another get along, in most of the world, that doesn't happen. In most of the world, they don't even have transitions. So, it's a hugely special moment, and we should remind ourselves of that.
[00:08:17 Overlaid image on screen of former Prime Minister, Kim Campbell.]
Margaret Bloodworth: My first was in the 93 government, which was from the Campbell government – although Campbell had not been in very long,
[00:08:26 Overlaid image on screen of former Prime Minister, Brian Mulroney.]
Margaret Bloodworth: Mr. Mulroney had only left a few months before that –
[00:08:29 Overlaid image on screen of former Prime Minister, Jean Chrétien.]
Margaret Bloodworth: to the Chrétien government. And I still remember working with the transition team, which I think all governments would have. And first of all, they're not going to like some of the things you've done over the last year or so, things that you may be proud of in terms of getting legislation through or whatever, are not necessarily things they're going to like. In fact, they're going to want to undo some of the things. And they did want to undo some of the things in 93.
Pearson Airport, for example, the previous government had wanted to privatize one of the terminals. And in fact, the terminal was built, as I recall, and they wanted to undo that. Well, that's a difficult thing to do. And figuring out how to do that, that was our job, is to figure out how we might. Now, I was not, because I was in PCO, it wasn't my job to figure out all the details, it was the Transport department to do that, but it was my job to make sure that department was thinking through and that the right questions were asked that they wouldn't get any more liability for the government than was absolutely necessary.
So, that's one small example. But they also wanted to have a legislative agenda. And all of that has to happen fairly quickly because while it's usually a month or two before the parliament meets, it's still not a long time by standards. So, it's a time to be – and I've been through several transitions since – and I would say it's a very special time. And I think any public servant who has an opportunity to be involved with that is privileged, actually.
[00:09:58 Overlaid text on screen: What key strategies did you employ to navigate government transitions as a deputy minister?]
Margaret Bloodworth: It's your responsibility to make sure you understand what promises the government coming in – which could be either the existing government, which usually makes another set of promises [INAUDIBLE] – or a new government. And often you don't know that until, sometimes not until the very end and sometimes not until very close to the end. So, you kind of have to have two tracks going. But it's important to take seriously all the promises that the politicians have made. Even ones you might say, oh, that's crazy. There's a reason they've said that, and you need to be able to, right from day one, be able to say, okay, well, if you want to do this, this is what you'd have to do, but here's some of the downfalls, and so on. And that takes a lot of work to do.
And most departments, I think every department I was in, but I think most departments do the same. They get very organized for transition. Fortunately, we have a period of an election campaign to do that. And for the deputy, you'll have lots of people doing all of that. But you've got to make sure, first of all, it's comprehensible to people who are not immersed in the department. And secondly, that you try and identify for the department you're in what are likely to be the key things for government as a whole and the key things for that minister, and be able to say, well, here's what we can do, how we could do it, and if you can't do it, why. But you need to be very careful about the "can't do", because most things are doable, it's just how you do them and in what order, and so on.
[00:11:32 Overlaid text on screen: How did you become an associate deputy minister?]
Margaret Bloodworth: It was pretty clear when I was going that I was going to become the next deputy,
[00:11:41 Overlaid text on screen: Mrs. Bloodworth left the Privy Council office in October 1996 to accept an Order-in-Council appointment as Associate Deputy Minister of Transport.]
Margaret Bloodworth: because Nick Mulder was going to retire. Now, I think Jocelyne Bourgon, who was the one that appointed me there, thought Nick was going to be around longer than he was going to be. It's pretty apparent to me after I arrived that he was not going to be there that long. And I went in October, as I recall, and he left in January. So actually, it was a wonderful time to have that opportunity to learn about the department, because I had never been in the Transport Department. I'd done Transport regulatory work in the agency, but I had never been in the department. I had worked with the department during the legislation, but not always happily. The department was not universally delighted that this group of people from the regulatory agency came over, associated with the Minister's office, to develop legislation, as you can imagine. I don't think if I'd been in the department, I would have been delighted either. But at the time, I didn't know there was any unusual about that.
So, I went. When I came to the department, I had the great gift of about three or four months to kind of have a chance to get to know the department, which was a very large department, even then. They thought of themselves as much smaller, but it was still spread across the country. Five regions, I think it was still about 12,000 people when I arrived. But in the meantime, Nav Canada left, two or three more of the airports left, and by the time I was a deputy, I think it was down to about six or seven thousand people. And I look upon that as a huge blessing because really, I didn't know anything about being a deputy. And if we're all honest, none of us know much about it until we become one.
And so, having a gift of a few months where I could look on and be involved, and Nick did involve me. And I knew Nick. I'd worked with him before. I think he was happy to have me, and I think he felt he could leave happily, now that I was there, that was a huge gift.
[00:13:34 Overlaid text on screen: What were the key challenges you faced when leading a department that had recently undergone significant structural changes?]
Margaret Bloodworth: Well, it was a huge learning experience for me and fortunately I learned a lot from the department. They were very patient with me at the time. But the department, I would say, was fairly demoralized. They openly talked about themselves as "we're the rest".
For example, Airports. By and large, all the people that were with Airports, went with Airports. They didn't stay with Transport. Nav Canada went as a whole organization and it had been an integral part of Transport. Air Canada had gone a few years before that, as had CN. And they were separate crown corporations, so they were a little different than those. And the ports were also in a crown corporation, so it was a little bit different. But certainly, the big parts, the airports – which is a huge set of organization, they had an ADM in charge of airports – and Nav Canada were the two big, big parts. And the airports kind of went one by one. I think Vancouver and Montreal were early experiments because they had a little different arrangement than the others because they were done, I think under the previous government even, but most of it was done during program review.
And I would say those people kind of were all, oh, we're on an exciting new adventure, we're going off to be something different. But the people left kind of didn't know who they were. They knew what Transport was, as it had always been, and had been in department for, I don't know, 100 some odd years by then. It was one of the oldest departments, I think maybe even the oldest in government. And so, I would say, looking back on it, and I did not realize that initially, it took me, I would say, a few months to realize that a big part of my job would be creating a new department. Not because I had to create new structures and so on, but people had to kind of see themselves as something different, and who they were. And that takes a lot of work and defined effort to make that happen.
[00:15:35 Overlaid text on screen: What do you remember about the morning of September 11th, 2001?]
Margaret Bloodworth: Well, I remember that morning vividly. I don't think any of us involved will ever forget that morning. The minister was actually speaking to the heads of all the airports in North America, in Montreal at the time. He said he knew he'd lost his audience when they all started looking at their phones at some point. I was in a meeting at Industry Canada, and I'd started at 8 o'clock and a woman came in about, I'm going to guess it was about 10 to 9, maybe 5 to 9. And she came in quietly and she just said to me, there's something I think you should see.
She took me to a TV. And as I stood there, kind of trying to make sense about what I was watching, I saw the second plane hit the second tower.
[00:16:19 Overlaid image on screen of the World Trade Centre towers engulfed in smoke and flames.]
Margaret Bloodworth: And anyone who saw that knows that was not an accident. You knew right away this was deliberate. It was going at high speed, a large plane, into the tower.
So, I picked up my things and walked back to Transport. On my way back, I'd already called the DG of Security because the ADM Safety was not in the country either. Safety and Security. He was in China. Louis Ranger, who was the associate by then, was in Montreal. So, I called the DG of Security – or I called my office – and asked that he be in the office. And so, I would have been in the office about 10 after 9, roughly. And in that first meeting, he already said to me, you know, I think we're going to have to think about closing airspace. And I said, whoa, just a minute. Let's take stock of where we are, and where the Americans are, and so on. But when the plane hit the tower and hit the Pentagon is when we decided to close airspace. And the Americans, I think, did it almost the same time.
And one of the first lessons was how much relationships matter. I called John Crichton, who was the head of Nav Canada and said, you're going to have to land all the planes and everything that's over the Atlantic, which I knew would be very heavy at that time of day – there's about 500 planes over the North Atlantic in the morning – and I said, send any back that can go back, and the rest are to land on the East Coast.
Now, to give him credit, he didn't even question me. He said, okay. He'd not had an order. I think I had talked to the minister before that and said, I think we're going to have to think to do this. But that was relationships. And it was also the events were so significant. People knew something had to be done. But that was a pretty significant thing to happen on the words of people talking over the phone.
[00:18:08 Overlaid text on screen: How would decision-making during a crisis like 9/11 differ today with real-time communication?]
Margaret Bloodworth: I'm not sure it's possible to answer that question. I think the prime minister was one of the few ministers that were even in town. I think Paul Martin was in the Eastern Townships somewhere; John Manley was in Europe; my minister was in Montreal.
So, could we have taken time and waited? Maybe, but there wasn't any advantage to waiting. And we also didn't know what we didn't know. I mean, when the third plane hit the Pentagon, the first question was, who's next? None of us believed that that was the only – and it turned out there was another one which crashed into Pennsylvania because the passengers by then had learned, which I think is a huge credit to the ordinary citizen. It didn't take them long to learn that we're going to crash into something, so we're going to take this plane over. And as it turned out, they all died doing that, but they saved lives because they didn't go into, I think it was headed to the Pentagon. Not the Pentagon, they hit that, but the legislature or White House, one of the two Congress [inaudible].
So, I don't know whether it would have been different. I think it would have been different for people on those planes because the planes that were landed, none of them knew until they landed why they were landing, which probably made it easier for the pilots. Nowadays they'd all be able to find out what was happening, and they'd know, and they'd all be looking at one another, so I think it would be much more difficult for the pilots and the air crew nowadays. Whether it would be different for us, I don't know.
[00:19:50 Overlaid text on screen: How do you approach making important decisions when you lack sufficient information?]
Margaret Bloodworth: Well, first, you never have all the information to start with. Second point I would make is, rarely are you making the decision yourself. There're often people around you: You're advising a minister who has to agree with it; You have ADM's around you who will have various views and debate them. For me, the test of decision making for any leader is knowing when you have enough information to make a decision, and when waiting longer is going to cost more than doing something now. And that's an art. It's not a science. And are you ever going to get it 100% right? No. But sometimes not making a decision is effectively making a decision, and not necessarily the best decision.
So, is it always comfortable? No. But if you're not comfortable making decisions in times where you're not certain of everything, then it's probably not the job for you. And there are lots of jobs that don't require that. But we need people for it. So, I'm not saying one is better than the other, but it is a function of leadership, knowing when you have sufficient information to make the decision, and when waiting longer is going to cost you more than it's worth to do something now.
[00:21:20 Overlaid text on screen: What does leadership mean to you?]
Margaret Bloodworth: Well, leadership primarily for me meant creating the environment that the people working for you could do more than if you weren't there. Because in the end, if you're a leader of a large organization, not only can you not do all the jobs; you're not competent to do a lot of the jobs. And certainly [at] Transport, nobody cared whether I thought a plane should fly. But we care whether the [inaudible] civil aviation and should care. So, you want to make sure that that person and the other people can actually do the best job possible.
Now, can you do everything? No. But you have a role as a leader in making sure the organization facilitates good decision making and good acting by all the people that have key jobs under you, which is most of the people there.
[00:22:13 Overlaid text on screen: What is the role of a deputy minister from your perspective?]
Margaret Bloodworth: Well, I saw the job of deputy minister has three facets.
[00:22:21 Overlaid text on screen: When Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada was created on December 12, 2003, Mrs. Bloodworth became the Department's first Deputy Minister.]
Margaret Bloodworth: One is advisor to the minister. Second is managing whatever organization you're in charge of. And thirdly is you have responsibility towards the public service as a whole.
[00:22:31 Overlaid text on screen: Prime Minister Announces Changes in the Senior Ranks of the Public Service; News Release, October 3, 2006, Ottawa, Ontario: Prime Minister Stephen Harper today announced the following changes in the senior ranks of the Public Service:
Margaret Bloodworth, currently Associate Secretary to the Cabinet, Privy Council Office, will assume additional responsibilities as National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister.
Yvan Roy, currently Counsel to the Clerk of the Privy Council and Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet (Security and Intelligence), becomes Deputy Secretary to the Cabinet (Legislation and House Planning and Machinery of Government) and Counsel, Privy Council Office.]
[00:22:31 Overlaid text on screen: In May 2006, Mrs. Bloodworth was appointed Associate Secretary to the Cabinet in the Privy Council Office. On October 10, 2006, she took on the role of National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister.]
Margaret Bloodworth: So, let me leave that third one aside for a moment and go back to advising the minister. The one thing that is probably different from private sector, because they have other people they have to respond to regularly. So, it's not unique to have different – I think what is unique is the person that we're advising was elected and we weren't. And the best of ministers, and I've worked for some wonderful ministers in time, they bring something that you can never bring. They know and relate with the public in a way that is impossible for public servants. It doesn't mean we don't get along with people outside and we don't have connections with them. But we're not elected by them. And I think that's probably what's unique about the deputy minister. And not just deputy minister, other senior public servants who have lot to do with the elected people.
Which is one of the reasons why I never liked the phrase "speaking truth to power". I understand where it comes from, but it suggests that the truth's all on our side. And that's not been my experience. I prefer to use fearless advice, and I do believe in that. You have to think through what you're saying, and you have to be fearless about saying it, and say it in a way that you're sure they've heard you, and what it means if they don't agree with you.
But sometimes you will be wrong. And sometimes the political level will have the right answer. And even when they don't have what you think is the right answer, it's important to think about why are they saying that, and what is it we can do to adapt? Because they're not saying it for foolish – we're not a country that has – I know we talk about corruption, but we don't have huge corruption in the public sector. It doesn't mean we don't have any, but we are not like some countries which are rife with it. So, I would say the ministers that I worked for, by and large, they wanted to do what was best for the public from their perspective. So, it's important to think through what they're saying, and trying to put into words and thoughts what you're proposing to do. And why is it that they're hesitant about that? Because they're probably right to be hesitant, and figure that out.
[00:24:39 Overlaid text on screen: Is working in security more challenging than in other areas of government?]
Margaret Bloodworth: No, I honestly can't say it was. Now, I was not a frontline security person. I was not a soldier or a general, even. I was not an RCMP officer, and so on. And so, I'm not talking about their job. I was more of the policy, international relations side of it. Because, in many ways for many people, the economic decisions that are made have every bit as big an effect on them as security, and sometimes more.
Now, do people react emotionally differently? Yes, absolutely. I mean, why do people react differently when 100 people die on an airplane than when 100 people die on the roads? But they do. And yet airlines, by any definition, are the most regulated sector there is. So, of course emotion affects it. And I'm not sure it shouldn't. I mean, in the end there's a certain wisdom of the people, if you like, that we can't overlook.
And I think the one thing in security that could be frustrating at times is, as somebody's put it, "the terrorist has to only get it right once". The security people have to get it right all the time because there's always people trying to do danger. So, that can be frustrating.
But on the other hand, I don't remember finding it a heavier burden, in some ways than the economic, because the economic regulation is fundamental to the country, and the well-being of the country.
[00:26:14 Overlaid text on screen: What do you believe are the main challenges public servants face today compared to previous decades?]
Margaret Bloodworth: I think the challenge for public servants is to meet the challenges of the day they're in, and they're all different. I came into public service in the 70s and that was a very different time of the public service. And those who were the senior ones when I came in, would come in post-World War II and with all the challenges of that. And before that they fought World War II and the challenges of that as a public service. And nowadays, there are different challenges. I think being a good public servant is being able to function in the area you're in and meet the needs and demands of that.
I've also cautioned people, yes, you can learn from the past, but don't rigidly follow the advice of people in the past. Because people like myself who've been out of government for a long time, we don't really know what the environment's like right now. We know what it was like when we were there, but we don't really know the environment. So, whatever advice we give, you have to kind of filter it through, well, okay, but that wouldn't really work nowadays, because every area is different.
[00:27:19 Overlaid text on screen: What advice would you give to a junior public servant just starting out their career?]
Margaret Bloodworth: Well, I put my caveat by saying, be careful what words of wisdom you listen to from people like me. But I would say I don't think it's changed. That there is still a huge array of interesting, challenging jobs to do. And if the first one you get is not as interesting and challenging as you want, look around, you'll probably find some others.
I guess the other thing I would say is, be ready to take a chance. Trust a bit your gut instinct, but don't be afraid to take some leaps of faith because there are some interesting things out there that you may not know and may not have thought of before you try them out.
[00:28:06 Video closes with the crew packing up their equipment from the interview.]
[00:28:11 The CSPS animated logo appears onscreen. Text on screen: canada.ca/school.]
[00:28:18 The Government of Canada wordmark appears, and fades to black.]
