Hon. Peter M. Boehm: Honourable senators, I am deeply saddened to rise today on behalf of the Independent Senators Group to pay tribute to our late colleague the Honourable Ian Shugart, who left us far too soon.

Ian was many things: an excellent colleague, a scholar, a teacher, a leader, an intellectual and a patriot. To me, he was also a mentor, a role model and a friend.

I first met Ian about 20 years ago, when he was an assistant deputy minister at Health Canada and I was transitioning from my assignment at our embassy in Washington to an assistant deputy minister job here at what was then the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.

At the time, Ian had successfully managed policies regarding severe acute respiratory syndrome, a.k.a. SARS, and I attended a few interdepartmental meetings on the subject. I was struck by the calm, highly intelligent interventions he made on ways forward once others had expressed their views. I remember him saying that Canada had to develop standard operating procedures to prepare for the next mass health scare or even a pandemic — how very prescient.

I left for my assignment in Germany a few years later, and, unsurprisingly, Ian moved upward to associate deputy minister and then deputy minister at Environment Canada. By the time I returned to Ottawa in 2012, Ian was Deputy Minister of Employment and Social Development Canada, and I was what in bureaucratic slang was referred to as a “baby DM.” I felt I needed a mentor who could help me find my way through Ottawa officialdom. He took me on and always had time to discuss policy issues and approaches. To my delight, a few years later, we also ended up working together in the same portfolio.

He hosted my retirement event at Global Affairs Canada, presenting a slide show full of wry cartoons from the acerbic comic strip The Far Side. The highlight was the two bears seen through the hunter’s scope with one smiling and pointing at the other as the preferred target. “You are the one smiling, Peter,” Ian said.

Colleagues, I was not the only one mentored and shaped by Ian Shugart. Since his passing last Wednesday, in addition to the grief felt by his beloved family — his wife, Linda, and their children, Robin, James and Heather, who are here with us today — there has been a tremendous outpouring of gratitude from many, not just in the public service but across the country, whose lives and careers he touched in his gentle, helpful way. It is this quality, coupled with his deep spiritual faith and love for his country and its institutions, that took him to the pinnacle of the public service as Clerk of the Privy Council and Secretary to the Cabinet.

Ian Shugart was a leader without peer. This rings true in the remarkable speech he gave in this chamber on June 20 on the value of restraint in political discourse and action. As with SARS all those years ago, he was telling us to be prepared, to exercise our best judgment and to be mindful of the consequences of our actions. He said this diplomatically, of course, because after all, the art of diplomacy is letting someone else have your way.

Rest in peace, my friend, you great Canadian.