• Historical

Principal Secretaries to the Prime Minister
Current List

ROLE OF PRINCIPAL SECRETARY

"The principal secretary is the Prime Minister's chief of staff and main political adviser. As such, he has virtually uninhibited access to the Prime Minister, senior officials and members of the office staff; he attends cabinet meetings with the Prime Minister's approval, he attends or is represented at weekly meetings of the Privy Council Office's senior staff; he ensures that the Prime Minister's Office maintains close liaison with the PCO and with the extraparliamentary party; he oversees the activities of the Prime Minister's staff; and from time to time he offers the Prime Minister advice on policy issues."(1)

Although all Prime Ministers did have a private secretary, the office of principal secretary did not evolve until the late 1930's. According to Jack Granatstein, author of the "The Ottawa Men: The Civil Service Mandarins 1935-1957", the first "genuine" principal secretary was Arnold Heeney who was appointed in 1938. Heeney, who studied at Oxford University, based the office on the role of the British Secretary to the cabinet, a position held by Sir Maurice Hankey. The early Prime Ministers' secretaries were hired mainly to answer routine correspondence. In fact, for several months after being elected Prime Minister, Alexander MacKenzie answered all his own mail by hand, with a quill pen, a task which occupied several hours a day.

Heeney, who later became head of the Privy Council Office, tried to keep the role non-partisan and refused to do anything political. However, Jack Pickersgill, who later held the position under MacKenzie King, did not share this view. He checked with O.D. Skelton who told him "that it was his duty to do whatever the Prime Minister wanted so long as it did not involve making public speeches or statements."(2)

Jack Pickersgill later argued that in Canada, the private secretary fills a unique position "in the never-never land between the world of politicians and proper bureaucrats."(3)

1. Marc Lalonde, "The Changing Role of the Prime Minister's Office." Canadian Public Administration Winter 1971, p. 522.
2. 2.Jack Pickersgill, My Years, p. 10.
3. 3.Jack Granatstein, The Ottawa Men: the Civil Service Mandarins, 1935-1957. p. 215.