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Board Governance Best Practices and Stories/Experiences Shared
Ralph Goodale: [00:00:03] If you really want to score, skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where the puck is, because you'll always be after the fact. But you have to make those judgments about where the world is going, and making those judgments is harder now because it's all going faster and faster and faster and there are interconnecting circles and everything is more complicated.
Munir Haque: [00:00:29] Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of The Boardroom 180 Podcast. I'm your host, Munir Haque, an executive coach and senior board strategist. I have partnered with Action Edge Executive Development to lead their governance and political acumen division. In each episode, we meet with governance leaders and step into their boardrooms, where decisions shape the world around us.
Munir Haque: [00:00:48] Welcome to another episode of The Boardroom 180 Podcast. Our guest today is the Honourable Mr. Ralph Goodale, High Commissioner for Canada in the United Kingdom of Britain and Northern Ireland and the Permanent Representative on the International Maritime Organization. He's been in this position since 2021, since retiring from Canadian politics. He was first elected to the Parliament of Canada in 1974 at the age of 24, representing Assiniboia and Saskatchewan. This was only two years after receiving his law degree. In the 1980s, he served as a leader of the provincial Liberal Party, and was elected to the Saskatchewan Legislative Assembly in 1986. Mr. Goodale returned to the House of Commons in 1993 and was Member of Parliament for Wascana, and was subsequently reelected in 1997, 2000, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2011 and 2015. He has served many federal cabinet positions, including Minister of Agriculture and Agri foods, Minister of Natural Resources, Leader of Government in the House of Commons, Minister of Public Works and Government Services, Minister of Finance and Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, just to name a few. According to CBC, he is the only MP to serve under both Trudeau prime ministers. So, Mr. Goodale, I was truly honored to have you join our podcast today. Ralph is joining us from London, UK. So it's morning here in Calgary and it's late afternoon there in London? I think it's about seven or eight hour time difference. So welcome.
Ralph Goodale: [00:02:23] Very nice to be on your program and very good to see you again, Munir. It's been a few years since we've had a visit. But glad to be on your podcast.
Munir Haque: [00:02:32] Good. The UK is looking good on you.
Ralph Goodale: [00:02:35] Well, this is a terrific assignment. One that I'm very grateful to have. London is a wonderful venue. There's art and culture and history and something fascinating or completely outrageous on virtually every street corner. The whole world passes through London as international affairs, politics, diplomacy, economic matters. This is an international intersection. We have excellent relationships with the UK government, whether it's the former conservative government or now the new labor government. The relationship between Canada and the UK is strong and deep and we work together on a whole vast variety of matters and we get a lot of things done together. And this last three years and four months that I have been in London in this role has been an incredibly busy period. When I arrived, they were grappling with Brexit and struggling to get out from under COVID, and then that evacuation from Afghanistan came along, and then there was the AUKUS situation. There was the first G7 summit of the G7 leaders in the UK that summer as well. There was COP26, that was the biggest international gathering ever up until that point in time. And that was all still in the year 2021. In 2022, all of the events in the royal family, of course, the Queen's Platinum Jubilee. And then that was followed tragically by Her Majesty's passing, that magnificent state funeral, the accession of the new King. And in the meantime, the British government changed three times from Prime Minister Johnson to Prime Minister Truss to Prime Minister Sunak. And then, of course, in that year, 2022, the tragic war in Ukraine started into 2023. The war in the Middle East. There have been so many huge developments over this relatively short period of time, three years. So there's been a lot to do.
Munir Haque: [00:04:46] So that explains a lot. Since the inception of this podcast, you're one of the first people that came to mind on who I'd want to have on this. So I think you were possibly the first person I reached out to, but I know you've been very busy and it's been challenging, especially with the time difference and everything. But I really thank you for making that time and being as open as you are to being on it. So when I was doing some of the background research and preparation for this, I've seen you referenced online as both 'The Honourable' and 'His Excellency'. So which is the proper way to address you right now?
Ralph Goodale: [00:05:23] Well, I guess it's both. His Excellency refers to the role as High Commissioner, and the Honourable refers to my designation as one of the King's Privy councilors for Canada. There was an interesting situation when the accession to the throne was taking place in the fall of 2022. There is a gathering of senior councilors of the realm. Little did I know that I'm in the category of one of the senior councilors to the realm, because I am Canada's high commissioner in the United Kingdom. And protocol is a very serious subject in British circumstances. Standing in the right place, wearing the right outfit, looking in the right direction. All of that is exceedingly important. And going into this meeting that was held shortly after the passing of Her Majesty, that the group of officials that makes the official proclamation that the King is now the head of state.
Ralph Goodale: [00:06:36] There's a place where high commissioners stand. His Excellencies, that's where they stand. And over on the other side is where the Privy Councilors stand. And they were steering us all in the various directions, and I pointed out that I'm both a high commissioner and a Privy councilor. Well, there was such a scurrying about among the officials wondering, well, does he stand there? Does he stand there? And I said, well, just never mind. Today I'll just be a high commissioner, and I won't be a Privy councilor, and we'll solve the problem for you. Nobody does ceremony as well as the British, and in some ways it is, you might giggle at how prescriptive it is, but it serves a very useful purpose in the British system of governance and in their diplomacy around the world. It enables them to have greater reach and to have more effect and influence than they would otherwise have without it. It greases the wheels in a lot of ways, and it's part of the reason why the British have such an extensive diplomatic reach around the world. As much as protocol and pomp and circumstance can be dismissed as all that puffery, it actually performs a function.
Munir Haque: [00:08:03] Well, thanks for that. That's one of my curiosities, and I think a lot of people, they don't really understand what diplomats do and what the value of them are. So I think it's really good to go into a little bit of detail about that, maybe about what do you, on an average day, what do you do? What are you involved in and how is that interaction back with parliament in Canada?
Ralph Goodale: [00:08:25] Well, every day is pretty busy. Some of the times you're dealing with official representations to the government of the United Kingdom. We are, for example, in the midst of a set of trade negotiations. Now, the government has just changed from one government to another. So we'll have to see if the new government is interested in carrying on where the old government left off, or do they want to change and so forth. We'll have to sort that out. But these are things that have a direct impact on Canada. Getting access for our agricultural products, for example. Making sure that our industrial products and our high technology products are properly treated in the exchanges between the two countries. Making sure that investment flows are functioning successfully so that they're creating jobs and building the economy of both countries. It sounds sometimes like a lot of these interactions are purely social, but there's a very real important economic function that lies under that. And that is facilitating trade, facilitating investment, helping Canadian companies to secure markets in the United Kingdom, helping Canadian companies to secure investors from the United Kingdom. And when you add that all together, it adds up to $410 billion. That's the value today of the economic relationship between Canada and the United Kingdom. About 12% of that $45, $46 billion, is two way trade of goods and services, and the rest of it, 88%, is investment. Canadian investment in the United Kingdom, which is something over $200 billion, and UK investment in Canada, which is something in the range of $165 billion. So we actually invest a bit more in them than they in us.
Ralph Goodale: [00:10:37] But you add that up and they are creating about 125,000 jobs in Canada. We're creating about 155,000 jobs in the United Kingdom. It's extremely important. We are among each other's largest sources and largest destinations of foreign direct investment. So it's a really important economic relationship. And part of what we do at the High Commission is to pay attention to all of the details. And where there are irritants, we try to identify them early and get them out of the way so that the business people can do that trade in commerce. And in the last several years, 3 or 4 years, one of the biggest growing, most important areas is science, technology and innovation. That could be agricultural science, food and protein and food products, it could be clean technology, it could be carbon capture utilization and storage, it could be in the nuclear sector, it could be in bio manufacturing and medical products. You add it all together, and that field of science and technology is big already. And when you add AI to it and quantum to it and cyber to it, this is a field of huge potential. And the more we collaborate with each other under our Science Technology and Innovation Memorandum of Understanding between Canada and the UK. The more we're pooling our resources, we're complementing each other and we are ending up as a team, a partnership, developing some of the best technology in the world and taking on the world together. And that is an area of huge potential for Canada and the UK.
Munir Haque: [00:12:39] In movies, in the news and stuff like that, they always refer to diplomatic immunity. They make it sound like you can go and you can shoplift or you can steal cars. So is that how you spend your free time there, or is that a myth?
Ralph Goodale: [00:12:54] I suppose if you really wanted to violate the rules of your host country and take advantage of that immunity, you could. But virtually every civilized government in the world does not use that kind of a tactic. Those rules are there under the international conventions in order to ensure that diplomatic relations can survive through difficult and tense situations, but in the ordinary course of things, on an average day in downtown London, you play by the rules. I guess that means, along with everybody else in the UK, you probably jaywalk. They are very aggressive, jaywalkers in the UK. Just part of the way they roll over here.
Munir Haque: [00:13:48] When in Rome.
Ralph Goodale: [00:13:49] You play by the rules and those immunities under the international conventions are there for the tense, unusual, dangerous national security situations that, quite frankly, you're not likely to find between Canada and the UK in London, or between Canada and the UK in Ottawa.
Munir Haque: [00:14:11] Okay, so you're saying it is a real thing. Diplomatic immunity is real, it's not just something that's made up in Hollywood or for TV. I was going through your bio, I don't think I had remembered, I might have been too young at the time anyways, to remember that you were an MLA in Saskatchewan. So you've got that unique perspective of having working in provincial politics as well as working in federal politics and now more exposure internationally to UK. I'm not sure if there's an easy way to go through it or not, if there's any, in terms of what works better, at what level in terms of governance, how bills are passed, decisions are made. Sometimes from externals, like when you're watching on the news, it seems like sometimes it's a lot of theatrics around decision making and stuff like that. So the question is, starting with Canada, what works better for us from our governance perspective, and then maybe compare that to what you're seeing right now in the UK.
Ralph Goodale: [00:15:16] We function at the provincial level in Canada, the federal level in Canada, and in the UK unitary system. Each one of those governance systems is a democratic constitutional monarchy, all built around what we call the Westminster model, the model that was first developed here in the UK several hundred years ago. That model really does work in each one of those levels that you've talked about. The nuances are a bit different. Some of the detail will be different, but the principles by which a legislature or a parliament is formed and the rules by which they function are very, very comparable. And it's a system that does work remarkably well. Some people will make the argument some days that, well, we should get rid of the monarchy and have a different system of government in Canada. And people are entitled to their own views on that topic. But I hope if we ever get to that debate in Canada, we will examine very carefully the principles by which a democratic constitutional monarchy functions and compare it to other systems, like the republican system in the United States or the system in France, or in Germany or Italy or other places around the world. And I think by comparison, we might boil it down to say, well, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Ralph Goodale: [00:17:01] Because as messy as it can be sometimes, and the mess is largely attributable to the players, not to the system. Despite the messiness from time to time, our system of governance provides stability, it provides longevity, it avoids constitutional crises, it allows for change. We've just watched, here in the United Kingdom, a government that had been in office, the previous conservative government in office for 14 years, and an election was held on the 4th of July and a new government was elected in Mr. Starmer's Labor government. And they have now taken over and they are now running the UK government. That all happened in the space of about 2 or 3 weeks. There was no revolution or threat of revolution. There was no violence. Compare that to situations where governments are changing around the world, and there is violence and there are crises. And controversy, in some circumstances, people's lives are put at risk. Under this system, it can be messy, but it ensures that people every 4 to 5 years have the absolutely guaranteed democratic constitutional right to decide who is going to govern them. And if they don't like the incumbents, they can turn them out and pick somebody else. And the transition from one to the other will happen rapidly and peacefully and successfully. I think Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer have performed an absolutely model case study in how to change from one government to the next. They've done it with dignity, they've done it in a very civil and civilized fashion, they've been respectful toward each other. One relinquished power, one took power, and every principle of constitutional democratic governance was properly respected. And the world could really go to school on how they did it and did it so successfully.
Ralph Goodale: [00:19:22] The thing that was so impressive about the British change, just this last few weeks, is how rapid it was. The election was on the 4th of July. The polls closed at 10:00 on the 4th of July. That was a Thursday. By about 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning, there were enough results obtained to be clear that it was going to be an overwhelming labor majority. By 10:00 in the morning, Mr. Sunak was on his way to Buckingham Palace to officially turn in his resignation. He met the King and he resigned. By about noon, Mr. Starmer was at Buckingham Palace being asked by the King if he was able to form a government, and of course he would say yes and he became the new prime minister. So that was noon or 1:00 on the Friday after the polls having closed just the previous Thursday evening at 10:00.
Ralph Goodale: [00:20:30] So barely more than 12 or 15 hours had gone by, and the new prime minister was in office. By 5:00 or 6:00 that night, all the important positions in the cabinet had been filled, and the new prime minister was beginning to make his phone calls around the world to other world leaders, including to Canada. That evening, the moving vans were at No.10 Downing Street, removing Mr. Sunak's belongings and bringing in Mr. Starmer's belongings. By the the Sunday, the foreign minister was traveling, the new foreign minister, the Right Honourable David Lamy, was traveling to places like Germany and Poland and Sweden. This is two days after the election. The foreign minister is officially traveling around the world. On Monday morning, he officially greeted his first incoming visitor, who happened to be the foreign Minister from Canada, was the first one to be welcomed to the Foreign Office here in London. It just happened so rapidly and so efficiently.
Ralph Goodale: [00:21:43] And what I discovered under the British system, they had two transition teams working within the British public service. One preparing for the reelection of the Sunak government, and one preparing for the election of a Starmer government. And they were both rolling forward simultaneously so that they could be completely prepared for whatever might happen in the election, and then to move really quickly. So the British accomplished in 2 or 3 days what it would have taken 2 or 3 weeks to accomplish in the Canadian system, maybe up to a month. And what would, by law, take two months to accomplish under the American system. They'll have an election this fall, at the beginning of November, and the new president will not be installed until the middle of January. So their transition takes at least two months to begin, let alone progress. And under the British system, again, constitutional parliamentary democracy with a very professional public service, they're able to move very quickly and very successfully. And I think we could learn some things from the way the British do this. It's brutal, you're quite literally watching the former prime minister's worldly goods and possessions being put on the curbside while the new one is moving in. It's not very subtle, but it is very efficient and very fast.
Munir Haque: [00:23:20] Thank you. Other than politics, there's some significant differences between the UK and Canada in terms of geography, cultural, social differences. And I think in our pre-interview, you mentioned how these really help drive change. I'm just wondering if you can tie that back to how either corporations or government deal with their governance policies.
Ralph Goodale: [00:23:48] The connections between Canada and the UK are so extensive in every field. We have had an historical relationship with the British going back to 1400s, 1500s, and there has been trade and commerce flowing back and forth for centuries. We have similar academic institutions, similar legal institutions, similar commercial systems. Our governance structures, as I was explaining earlier, in terms of democratic parliamentary constitutional parliaments are the same drawn on the Westminster model. There are more people to people ties than you could ever begin to count between Canada and the UK. It's a relationship that is big, it's extensive, it's deep. It's based on two things, I think. Through all of those hundreds of years, we have lived through a lot of things together, and we've done so, by and large, successfully. We've come to know each other very well and that familiarity is an extremely important thing. And then you couple that with a corresponding set of values that are largely rooted in the same principles. So a long lived experience and a similar set of values and how we conduct ourselves. And that builds trust, it builds respect, it builds an ability to work with each other. Whether it's in law, or commerce, or science, or engineering, or national security, or defense, or intelligence systems, or building cyber security, or advancing AI, or quantum, or Hypersonics, or whatever. Because you've got that foundation that is so extensive and so rich and so trustworthy, you're able to work very strongly together.
Ralph Goodale: [00:26:06] Sometimes we take all of that for granted, and we shouldn't. Because in a relationship that is as big and successful as the relationship between Canada and the UK, the worst thing is indifference or apathy or carelessness. So those are the ways in which we're similar, what are the ways in which we're different? You think of some of the superficial things, like boots and bonnets and jumpers and going to the loo and calling it football when it's really soccer and all of those things. But you get past those things. I think there are 2 or 3 things that do make for fundamental differences. One is size and density. Canada is 45 times bigger than the United Kingdom. You could put all of the United Kingdom within the four corners of Saskatchewan, and still have a little bit of room left over. In that space, Saskatchewan, as you know, has about 1 million people, just over 1 million people. The UK has 70 million people. On a national basis, they've got 70 million, Canada's got 40 million. So you can see, and we've got 45 times more space than they do.
Ralph Goodale: [00:27:30] Those factors, size and density, make a difference in terms of people's attitudes. When you've got 70 million people crammed into a space that's smaller than Saskatchewan, you can have a vast intermodal human transportation system. The subways, the trains, the busses, all of the other tools and apparatus of transportation. On the tube in London, they move 5 million people every day. 5 million people ride the transit system. And by and large, it turns a profit. So they've got the volume to be able to run that kind of extensive intermodal system. I mean, we struggle with the notion of high density transportation between Calgary and Edmonton, or between Toronto and Montreal, or between Calgary and Vancouver. Because our population is so spread out, it's smaller to start with and so spread out over the second biggest landmass on the face of the Earth. So size and density make a difference to what you can afford in the UK, not just the UK. In London, which is about 11 million people, they have 11 daily newspapers and 12 weekly newspapers and all of them are profitable. Whereas in Canada we struggle with the profitability of newspapers, again, because we're trying to cover a vast area with pieces of paper, putting them into the hands of a relatively small number of people.
Ralph Goodale: [00:29:12] I must say, the British press are ruthless. They are brutal. The editorial cartoons are a wonder to behold. They're absolutely unrelenting. Sometimes in our political system in North America, we think that the media is a little bit rough and tumble. Well, the British are more so. But it's a profitable venture and they are making money on print. Where this density and geography issue, I think, makes one very clear policy difference is in the attitude that people have generally about a topic like migration. And by and large, in Canada, there will be controversies and people will have debates about the border and the levels of immigration from one year to the next and so forth, and about whether they're high enough or too high and so forth, and that debate will be had. But by and large, immigration from a Canadian perspective has been a positive thing that has led to economic growth and has led to job creation. Problems have to be addressed in terms of housing, for example, and places in education and employment and so forth, that you have to balance all of that off.
Ralph Goodale: [00:30:40] But largely over the long scope of history, Canadians have regarded immigration as a positive thing. And indeed you can say, with the exception of our indigenous people, every single one of us is either an immigrant or the direct descendant of an immigrant. From the British point of view, when you've got a very dense population and you're on an island, you get the sense of crowding. And immigration is a pretty hot button ticket. It was in the last election. It's shaping up to be an issue in some way, shape or form for the new government. It will be an issue for the people who are going to contest the conservative leadership when the Conservative Party here in the UK comes to replace Mr. Sunak. That's already being described as one of the key issues. It's an issue across Europe. The little boats are still coming across the English Channel and just tragically in the last 2 or 3 days, more reported deaths of migrants trying to come from Europe across the channel into the UK and losing their lives in the English Channel. This is a powerfully political issue for the British. And it's one where the framework for how you assess it is certainly different from what we would see from the Canadian experience.
Munir Haque: [00:32:13] I think you really nailed it in terms of the differences, the proximity that the UK is to countries that people are trying to migrate from. Thanks for that. Maybe move on to, you touched on a little bit about all the countries that, Canada being one of them, that recognized the monarchy. I don't know what your thoughts are, if you want to talk a little bit about the future of the monarchy, where it was and where you see it in the future.
Ralph Goodale: [00:32:42] It will be interesting, now that there is a new monarch in place, to see what the attitudes about this institution might be for the future. Some people will want to have a debate. In a democratic constitutional monarchy, they are perfectly entitled to have that debate. That's what democracy is all about. I hope if the debate begins, and we'll see, maybe it won't materialize. But if people want to discuss it, I hope there will be some, as I said earlier, some real analysis of the value of a democratic constitutional monarchy and what you get with that system of government. One of the important distinctions is that critical division between head of state and head of government. Under some Republican systems, as in the United States for example, head of state and head of government are the same person. In our system of government, they are divided. The Prime Minister is the head of government, that's where all of the politics takes place. And the governor general, or the king, is the head of state. And the head of state represents the values that we all share, represents continuity, represents all the good things about the country, totally devoid of any political divisions or distinctions. And that allows you to have good, vigorous political debate without damaging your constitutional structure. If you want to see an example of why that's important, think of the situation on January the 6th, 2021 in the United States versus the political turmoil in the British system in 2022, when they changed prime ministers three times in the space of four months.
Ralph Goodale: [00:34:54] There was real political turmoil in the UK system in the summer of 2022, but the worst thing that got threatened was that there might be an election. Imagine that, in a democracy, we might have an election. Nobody violated any laws, nobody threatened any insurrection, nobody marched on Capitol Hill because there was a distinction between the political controversy and head of state. The Queen, at that point, was totally separate from all of this chaos. And that provided a level of stability and longevity and continuity that was exceedingly important. Which you could not have in a situation in the United States where head of state and head of government were the same thing. And so it did appear that there was an insurrection on Capitol Hill, whereas that could not have happened under the British system. That's the importance of having this distinction between head of state and head of government. There are also, I think, at least three practical considerations if this debate about changing the monarchy emerges. First of all, there is no consensus, at least not yet, on change to what? You can't have a serious debate about, oh, we want change, get rid of the monarchy. You've got to have an answer to the question and replace the monarchy with what? There are many different alternatives as to what that 'what' might be. So far, the question is far from clear in terms of what change is being, or might be, advocated.
Ralph Goodale: [00:36:52] Secondly, under our political system, you can't really open the Constitution and say, well, we just want to change that one little thing there about the monarchy. Once you've opened the debate about the Constitution, you've opened the debate about the Constitution, and everything is on the table. So it's a debate that can very easily get away from you and maybe go to places that you'd rather not be. And then finally, this kind of a change to the constitution affecting the monarchy requires unanimous consent. Every senator, every member of the House of Commons, and every province and territory. Not every member of the House of Commons, by vote of the House of Commons, by vote of the Senate, and every province across the country. So what are the chances of getting unanimity amongst all of those different players? The reality is, I don't think there's ever been unanimity amongst all of those on anything. So from a practical point of view, it's a debate that is probably not going anywhere and I think Canadians would prefer to see their governments at all levels focus on things that improve their quality of life and have real meaning in terms of the things that matter to Canadians from day to day.
Munir Haque: [00:38:18] Before we switch over to talking a little bit more about some of your insights on governments and your experience through your career, is there anything else you want to talk about before we leave the UK in terms of your experience in the UK or Northern Ireland?
Ralph Goodale: [00:38:34] Just to say that this is a wonderful partner to have. We will never be in 100% agreement with the Brits on everything. But when you look at the long sweep of history, through thick and thin, they have been in our corner and have tended instinctively to be on the same side as Canada. And that kind of strength and support and partnership is very valuable. Now, when you have a friend and a partner like that, it also means you can be really candid with one another and honest and straightforward. What's really important is that if we've got differences of that nature, we need to not let them fester. Deal with them and move on and keep the relationship in good shape and right up to date and functioning successfully. So I think the prospects for the future between Canada and the UK are exceedingly positive. And in a world that is as dangerous and difficult as the world in which we live today, where democracy and free markets are more at risk than ever before in our lifetimes, we need to hold our friends really close and work really hard to make sure, that this relationship is strong and healthy and meeting the vital public interests of both Canadians and British citizens, and I'm sure we can do that.
Munir Haque: [00:40:20] I think that'll be a nice segue into talking a little bit more about Ralph. One of the things that I noticed from your bio was that you graduated from law school, and then within two years you were elected to Parliament. Was that in the books? Did you ever practice law?
Ralph Goodale: [00:40:44] Oh, yes. I practiced for a short while with a law firm in Regina. I was always interested in political activity, but I hadn't seen myself as a candidate. I thought I'd be working with and for other people in various kinds of political ventures as a sideline to a prosperous law career. But I graduated, did the bar course, joined the law firm, practiced for a few months, and the then Minister of Justice for Canada, who was Otto Lang from Saskatoon, former Dean of Law at the University of Saskatchewan, he was Minister of Justice in the Government of Canada, and he asked me if I would take a few months and join his political staff as a communications adviser in matters related to justice. And he was also, at the time, minister responsible for the western grains industry, which is obviously something I'm interested in because I come from a Saskatchewan farm. So I joined his staff in the summer of 1973, it was. And I found it very interesting. If you remember, at that time there was a minority government in Ottawa, so it could fall at any time. So I thought I'd be involved in a short term experience related to government that would be useful and then I'd come back to the law firm. But Mr. Lang persuaded me to run as a candidate in an election that suddenly presented itself in the summer of 1974.
Ralph Goodale: [00:42:24] The constituency was Assiniboia, which is a big part of southern Saskatchewan, or it was, it doesn't exist anymore. But it went from the Weyburn Estevan area on one side, all the way across to Mankota and Kincaid and that area on the more westerly side of the province, and came right up to the edge of Regina and Moose Jaw. About 200 miles across, 100 miles deep. And I decided to take a run, a great experience. And I won the election in the summer of 1974. In fact, it's 50 years ago this summer that I ran in that election campaign and became elected. And then the rest is history. One thing led to another, led to another. So I never quite got back to the legal career that I had been preparing for. But the legal training was incredibly valuable from the point of view of political activity, being able to read statutes and understanding the meaning of certain turns of phrase and how bills and laws are put together and why they're structured in sometimes the incomprehensible form in which they're written. It's also been good preparation, both the legal and the political, has been good preparation for now, the diplomatic experience. It's a different role, but the legal education, the political education, that has been great preparation for trying to perform this diplomatic function in a way that hopefully serves the very best interests of Canada.
Ralph Goodale: [00:44:11] You look at life, I think, as a kind of a never ending adventure. There's always something new and interesting around the next corner. And when I left the provincial legislature in 1988 and joined the private sector as a legal counsel in a financial services firm in Saskatchewan, I presume that political life was over and that I would be back providing legal advice, this time as an in-house counsel within a firm, rather than working for a private sector law firm. But with every turn in the road, there are some doors that close and there are other doors that open. And I think you have to be open minded, flexible and always curious. Curious about what the future can bring and how you can turn opportunities into potential successes. And I've had the great privilege, both in opposition and in government and now in the diplomatic sphere, to look for ways in which you can turn those things to the advantage of Canada and make a great country that I am so proud of and so honored to be part of. Make it a little bit better in some of the things I'm able to contribute. It's a small contribution, but it's really the honor of your life to serve in a diplomatic role in a place like the United Kingdom, where you are designated as the official spokesperson for Canada. And when people say that for Canada, they invariably say it with a great deal of respect and admiration, because our country is respected and admired around the world.
Munir Haque: [00:46:14] You've always had a special place in, at least in my mind, my heart. My mother, who for the most part didn't care too much about politicians, but she liked Ralph Goodale. And she liked it when she saw you on the television. She never said much of anything too good about politicians, but she did like you.
Ralph Goodale: [00:46:38] I'm very grateful for that. My mother had maybe some of the same instincts when I'd be active in political life and home on a weekend or something and drop in to visit her. Sometimes I'd be sitting there across the room and she'd be staring at me intently and just say, now, tell me exactly what it is you do for a living. I don't know if I ever had the heart to tell her, but mothers have a way of bringing you down to size.
Munir Haque: [00:47:20] Yeah. In general, the topic of the podcast, or the series, is on governance. Whether that's corporate, government, nonprofit. And what I do say, and people listening will know that I ask all my guests this question, I think it's easier for people to learn from other people's mistakes than it is from their successes. So I always ask, do you have any absolute blunders and failures that you had during your 50 year distinguished career, that have reshaped who you are and that have learning opportunities for you and for other people?
Ralph Goodale: [00:48:03] Oh, yeah. There are no doubt numerous, and they will vary in the eyes of the beholder. And there'll be lots of people that will want to add to the list. One thing I learned in my first term as a member of Parliament was, there is a pace at which the political process moves. And you're getting inundated with stuff all the time, and you can't try to be everything to all people, all the time. You have to prioritize. You have to be able to say yes to some things and no to other things. And if you allow yourself to get inundated and then fall behind, you'll just be washed away. So keep up with the pace, don't let it overwhelm you. And in order to keep up with the pace, you have to have your own priorities and make it clear what those priorities are, and then stick to your own rules so that you can move with the speed that is required. And I think people will also respect, even an answer they don't like, if they can see that it is a well researched, honest answer. The worst thing you can do is lead people on and then produce a result that disappoints them. So be candid with the people that you're working with. Don't be afraid to say no if no is the right answer in the circumstances. And make sure that, on those issues that you really set as your own priorities, don't try to be a one person show. Consultation, listening, inclusion is a good thing. And nobody can pretend to be all things to all people. So be yourself, bring your strengths, play your role, but partner with other people because in partnership there is real strength.
Munir Haque: [00:50:13] Thanks for that. I mentioned before, over your 50 year career, you must have seen governance trends and changes over the years. I don't know if you can talk to some major trends you saw change over your 50 years. And then you also mentioned, you always have to be looking to the future. Where do you see things going?
Ralph Goodale: [00:50:43] On the latter point, I'll get back to the first part, but on the latter point, harnessing technology. And right now the big global debate is about AI. The magnitude of it, the impact of it, the deployment of it, the speed at which it's all happening. And how it's taking over, or potentially taking over so many functions in the way we live, and influencing the things we see and hear and so forth. And how powerful that is and how many wonderful things can be accomplished, and also how dangerous that might be if it's not properly regulated and administered. This, I think, the challenge of the period immediately ahead, is getting our arms around AI and using it for the good that it can accomplish on behalf of all humankind. I was just out the other day to the AstraZeneca facility at Cambridge, just outside of London. Astrazeneca, one of the world's major pharmaceutical companies. And hearing how they are using artificial intelligence to speed up the research into new pharmaceuticals and the potential that that will have for the quality of life and life saving drugs for the future.
Ralph Goodale: [00:52:24] You think back to COVID, and when the vaccine development began in the early stages of COVID, until the the vaccine was actually produced, was about 300 days. Imagine how many lives would have been saved around the world if that vaccine development project had taken 100 days, or 90 days instead of 300 days. The potential to do human good is enormous. The potential to do human harm is also enormous. So for the future, harnessing properly with the right kind of security systems, harnessing the potential of technology in particular AI is, I think, just a hugely significant and powerful thing for the world. And Canada has three of the world's very best AI centers of excellence. One in Edmonton that's called Amii, one in Toronto that's called Vector. And a third in in Montreal, Mila, I believe, is the name of the one in Montreal. But they are superb centers of excellence in relation to artificial intelligence. Canada has been active in this field for 40 years. We've got expertise that lies at the very foundation of artificial intelligence, and we can be, and we need to be, a major global player. This is not something where the Americans or the Chinese or the British or the French or the Koreans or the Japanese have a market cornered. We've got a distinct market advantage and in-house expertise, and we need to utilize all of that to Canada's advantage. Now, remind me what your first question was.
Munir Haque: [00:54:30] Well, I think that was kind of a good place to end. It was more about what have you seen things that have, especially in governance, that have become more obsolete. Like there was something that every board was doing in the 80s that has since dissipated.
Ralph Goodale: [00:54:45] I guess in a sense this is really the answer to them both. Technology has taken over and we have to learn how to live with it. It has fundamentally transformed our lives, and I guess that has always been true throughout the history of humankind. But it's happening in so many different fields and so rapidly now that we have to run hard to catch up. But the advice I guess I would give to people involved in corporate governance is some pretty basic hockey advice that Wayne Gretzky gave many years ago. When he said, if you really want to score, skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where the puck is, because you'll always be after the fact. Pretty obvious advice, but you have to make those judgments about where the world is going, and making those judgments is harder now because it's all going faster and faster and faster. And there are interconnecting circles, and everything is more complicated. And sorting out what's important from what's not is a real challenge. And I know this is easier to say than to do, but being able to anticipate where the world is going to be in 5 years and 10 years and 20 and 30 years, dealing with a topic as difficult and fraught, for example, as the changing economy. We have to build the economy of the 2040s and 50s and 60s, and we can't allow ourselves to be mesmerized by the economy that was historic. And that is not easy. It's a tremendously difficult thing to do, anticipating the future. The geniuses are the ones who are able to visualize what it's really going to be, so I would just say think of Wayne Gretzky and imagine where the puck is going and not be riveted on where it's been.
Munir Haque: [00:56:57] Well, it's truly an honor to have His Excellency, the Honourable Mr. Ralph Goodale on our show today. As I said, you're one of the first people that I wanted to have on this show, and I really am glad that you were able to make the time to grace us with your presence.
Ralph Goodale: [00:57:13] Well, Munir, I'm grateful for the invitation. Thank you, and I wish you every success with the podcast. It's a useful communications tool and I hope it goes really well for you.
Munir Haque: [00:57:25] Thank you.
Ralph Goodale: [00:57:26] Thank you.
Munir Haque: [00:57:28] Thanks everyone for listening to The Boardroom 180 Podcast. You can learn more about me and Action Edge Executive Development on our website at aeednow.com. That's a e e d n o w.com. Fill out the form if you want me to reach out to you, or if you have any thoughts for future subjects or guests on the podcast. We also have a free board self-evaluation that will be linked on our website. You and your board can fill this out either individually or together, and it gives you a bit of a quick temperature check on how your board health is. As always, don't forget to hit like and subscribe to the Boardroom 180 Podcast. We're recording from the Pushysix Studios in Calgary, Alberta, with production assistance from Astronomic Audio. You can find their info and the links to the AEX forums in the show notes. We've come full circle to conclude this episode of The Boardroom 180 Podcast. Goodbye and good governance.