John Tait Memorial Lecture in Law and
Public Policy


Twenty-first Century Ethics: the Challenge

delivered at

The National Gallery of Canada
Sussex Drive
Ottawa, Ontario

Tuesday, December 4th, 2001

by

The Rt. Hon. Kim Campbell

Former Prime Minister of Canada and Minister of Justice, Visiting Professor at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University


Mary Dawson

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. We are very pleased to have such distinguished guests this evening. We have representatives from the Supreme Court of Canada, from the Senate, from our finest universities, and from a wide variety of federal departments.
     
I would also like to thank our guests who have travelled from McGill University to be here, and to extend a warm welcome to John Tait's wife, Sonia Plourde, his mother and father, and his brother, David. I believe his sister, Pam, is here as well. All of them have kindly joined us this evening.
     
I am Mary Dawson. I am an associate deputy minister in the Department of Justice. This evening, I have the great pleasure of welcoming you to the second John Tait Memorial Lecture, presented by the Department of Justice and McGill University, Mr. Tait's alma mater.

     
Tonight, we are honoured to welcome the Right Honourable Kim Campbell as our guest speaker. She will be sharing her thoughts on the challenges of twenty-first century ethics. I know that we are all looking forward to that presentation.
     
But first, I would like to introduce Peter Leuprecht, the Dean of the Faculty of Law of McGill University, who will speak to us about the man whom we commemorate this evening, John Tait. Ladies and gentlemen, Dean Leuprecht.

National Gallery of Canada
Dec. 4, 2001

PRINCIPALS:

Mary Dawson, Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Justice
Morris Rosenberg, Deputy Minister, Department of Justice
Peter Leuprecht, Dean, Law Faculty,
McGill University

Lecturer:
The Rt. Hon. Kim Campbell, Visiting Professor, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard


Peter Leuprecht

Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, it is a great honour and pleasure for me to be present at, and involved in, this second John Tait Memorial Lecture, the first one to be held here in Ottawa.
     
This event brings together two institutions that mean a lot to me: the Department of Justice, which was largely responsible for attracting me to this country, and the Law Faculty of McGill University, which is responsible for my staying here much longer than I had intended.
     
Let me already, at this stage, express my warmest thanks to all those who have made tonight's event possible: our friends and colleagues from the Department of Justice, and, on the McGill side, my dear friend and colleague, Professor Stephen Scott.
     
We have gathered here, once again, to pay tribute to the memory of John Tait. In this assembly, I am one of the few who did not have the privilege of knowing John Tait personally.
     
However, I have heard and read so much about him that, somehow, I feel as if I had known him, and I think I can imagine what kind of a person he was and what he stood for.
     
John Tait was obviously a man of great intelligence and wisdom. He had strong principles and was an outstanding public servant. Four words characterize his unfortunately too-short life: public service, values, and ethics. The motto of his life was public service, service to the community and the common good, based on values and ethics.
     
One of the main and lasting elements of his legacy is the Tait Report on Public Service Values and Ethics, very appropriately entitled “A Strong Foundation.”
     
This is, in fact, what is urgently needed by our society. It needs values and solid ethics to serve as the basis of our actions in service to the community and to the commonweal.
     
We must not succumb to the simplistic slogans of those preaching the withdrawal of the state, who promote the minimal state, and who scoff at the idea of public service. If we are not vigilant, the state and the public service run the risk of being, paradoxically, victims and artisans of their own demise.
     
As far as the University is concerned, it would fail in its mission if it were reduced to a simple instrument of professional training. It must be, and remain, the site of education in the widest and noblest sense of the term, a place where ethics must occupy a central seat.
     
The Right Honourable Kim Campbell will speak to us shortly about the challenges posed by ethics in the twenty-first century. John Tait reflected deeply on the question of ethics in the public service, and he would certainly have appreciated the fact that this evening has ethics as its theme.
     
At McGill, we are reflecting seriously on ethics in fields like medicine, bio-genetics, and the environment. We have instituted a new chair for ethics in communication, and our Law Faculty's goal is to teach not only the law, but also, and above all, to teach what is and what should be before and behind, above and below the law and its practice.
     
Together, we, the federal Department of Justice, which John Tait so brilliantly served, and the McGill University Law Faculty, from which he was graduated, wish to honour
the memory of John Tait.
     
I am convinced that the best way of doing this, the way that John Tait would have wished it, is to display and practise the values and ethics that inspired his life's work.
     
Despite his early death, John Tait can and must remain a guide and a source of inspiration for us. Thank you.


Mary Dawson

Thank you, Dean Leuprecht. At this point, it would have been my pleasure to introduce the Honourable Anne McLellan, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada. However, Minister McLellan has asked me to extend her regrets. She very much wanted to be here this evening, but urgent business in the House of Commons has prevented her from joining us. I am sure Ms. Campbell can relate to that. I will now read you the Minister's remarks.
     
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. We are all delighted that the Right Honourable Kim Campbell accepted our invitation to be the keynote speaker.
     
“We also have in the audience, among so many others, members of the judiciary, senators, members of Parliament, deans of law faculties, the Clerk of the Privy Council, and deputy ministers who are eagerly awaiting Ms. Campbell's presentation.
     
“As many of you will know, tonight's lecture represents the second in what we hope will become a long and venerable tradition, a tradition to honour the memory of a great public servant, lawyer, colleague, citizen, and friend to so many.
     
“The late John C. Tait, a man of unparalleled intellect and integrity,
had an illustrious career spanning a quarter-century in the federal government. From 1988 to 1995, he served as Deputy Minister of the Department of Justice.
     
“For three of those years, he served our honoured guest speaker. I am sure that this former minister and attorney general has a few memories of her days working side by side with her deputy on difficult files like gun control and sexual assault. Many of you, too, I am sure, nurture fond recollections of this extraordinary man.
     
“Tonight, the Right Honourable Kim Campbell will speak to us about a subject that interested John Tait greatly: ethics. As we move into the twenty-first century, does the task of ensuring ethics become easier or harder? In this information age, with a more engaged and informed public, are we finding a clarification or a blurring of ethical boundaries?
     
“These are some of the questions that have preoccupied our distinguished guest speaker during a career that has taken her from school board government through provincial politics to the federal government and the Prime Minister's Office. In short order, we will hear her thoughts on the challenges of ethics in the twenty-first century.
     
“I do, however, want to take a moment to pay tribute to the organizers of this event, Peter Leuprecht and the Faculty of Law at McGill University, in collaboration with the hard-working people of my department.
     
“I should point out that McGill, along with Oxford and Princeton, is one of the fine institutions where John Tait studied. It is, therefore, fitting that McGill join the Department of Justice to sponsor this annual lecture in his memory.
     
“If we can take any guidance from last year's lecture and from the experiences of tonight's speaker, I know that we can look forward to a stimulating and thought-provoking evening. And now, it is with great pleasure that I introduce this evening's speaker, the former Prime Minister of Canada, the Right Honourable Kim Campbell.'

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