Canadian Government Executive - Volume 24 - Issue 03

May/June 2018 // Canadian Government Executive / 9 INTERVIEW CGE Editor in Chief George Ross recently sat down with Patrick Borbey , President of the Public Service Commission of Canada. Patrick Borbey was appointed President of the Public Service Commission in May 2017. He has held a number of positions of significant respon- sibility with the Government of Canada, including Associate Deputy Minister of Canadian Heritage, President of the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency (CanNor), Senior Assistant Deputy Minister of Treaties and Aboriginal Gov- ernment, Assistant Deputy Minister of Northern Affairs, and Assistant Deputy Minister of Corpo- rate Services at both the Privy Council Office and Health Canada, to name a few. Patrick hails from Elliot Lake, Ontario, and holds a degree from the University of Ottawa in Social Science and has a Master’s of Business Admin- istration. Q: Patrick, you’ve been President of the Public Service Commission of Canada for almost a year now; tell CGE a little bit about what brought you to this role given your long, distinguished career with the Government of Canada. It all started with two summer jobs I got through a program back in the day called COSEP, the Career Oriented Student Em- ployment Program. In the summer of 1982, I was looking for a job and was willing to take anything. An interesting opportunity came up with the Department of Industry, Trade and Com- merce, as it was called back then. I knew of the stereotypes around government and so I was expecting a bit of a boring job; but I figured it would pay for my studies the next year, and that’s what really counted. What I discovered was absolutely the op- posite. It was an amazing experience. I worked with great managers and I was given an assignment with responsibili- ties that stretched me beyond my comfort zone. I learned a lot and it really did whet my appetite for more. The second sum- mer job – as I was finishing my MBA, I re- turned to government and the experience was just as enriching and valuable as the previous summer. So I thought to myself, “Well it’s not a fluke. I know what I want to do. The public service is where I want to be.” That’s how I started my career in the federal public service. I’ve had tremen- dous support and opportunities through- out, culminating in this pretty unique and important role that I’m playing here at the Public Service Commission. If I take a moment to reflect, my varied past experiences have actually prepared me for this job. I’ve been a hiring manager for over 30 years. I was a corporate ADM responsible for Human Resources in two different organizations. I was involved in some of the work that led to the mod- ernization of our HR regime in the early 2000’s. I was also a delegated deputy head. So I have basically played a lot of different roles that involve the management of Hu- man Resources and, of course, recruiting, staffing, looking for talent, and developing talent. For me, it was a natural evolution to take on this role at this stage in my career.