The Honourable Robert Gordon Robertson, Former Clerks of the Privy Council (1963-1975)

The Honourable Robert Gordon Robertson, P.C., C.C.
Clerk of the Privy Council and
Secretary to the Cabinet
July 1st, 1963 to January 15, 1975
Appointed Member of the Queen's Privy Council
March 2, 1982

Biographical Notes

On July 1, 1963, Robert Gordon Robertson was named Clerk of the Privy Council and Secretary to the Cabinet, a position he held until January 15, 1975.

Mr. Robertson graduated from the University of Saskatchewan, Oxford University and the University of Toronto. He joined the Department of External Affairs in 1941, remaining there until 1945 when he became Secretary to the Office of the Prime Minister. He served as a member of the Cabinet Secretariat from 1949 to 1951 and Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet from 1951 to 1953, at which time he became Deputy Minister of the Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources. In 1953, he was sworn in as the youngest serving Commissioner of the Northwest Territories. From 1975 to 1979 Mr. Robertson was Secretary to the Cabinet for Federal-Provincial Relations. Following his retirement from the Public Service of Canada in 1979, he became President of the Institute for Research on Public Policy, where he was fellow-in-residence from 1984 to 1990. For his outstanding service to Canada in many areas of the Public Service he was named Companion of the Order of Canada in 1976. In 2000, Memoirs of a Very Civil Servant, his book recounting his career as a senior civil servant serving under the administrations of five prime ministers, was published.

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