During her visit to Vietnam, Ms. Janece Charette (Cabinet Secretary and Undersecretary for Intergovernmental Affairs of Canada) visited and spoke with faculty and students of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities on November 23, 2012.Associate Professor Pham Quang Minh - Vice Rector of the University - welcomed and thanked Ms. Janece Charette. Accompanying Ms. Charette were Ms. Deborah Chatsis (Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Canada) and the Political Counselor of the Canadian Embassy in Vietnam. Following this, Ms. Charette spent time engaging in friendly discussions with faculty and students of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities about issues related to public service in Canada. Ms. Charette stated that the public service is a professional organization in Canada, responsible for serving the Canadian people in the best possible way, ensuring fairness and impartiality. The main task of the public service system is to advise, support, and provide public services to the Canadian people. To fulfill this task, a dense network of offices is spread across the provinces of the vast country of Canada, with a total of 270,000 officials to serve and meet the increasingly large and diverse needs of the people. Public service work in Canada includes: design consulting, policy implementation, human resource training, etc. Speaking about the new developments in Canada's public service sector, Janece Charette emphasized the country's multicultural characteristics, the growing elderly population, and the impact of globalization on public service operations. To address these challenges, Canada's public service must recruit a new workforce with new skills and exceptional talent. However, the Canadian public service system still maintains its unchanging characteristics: high quality, professionalism, transparency, and integrity. As a multilingual country and due to historical factors, public service employees in Canada are required to be proficient in both English and French. Every public service officer must meet high standards of competence and conduct to build public trust. According to Ms. Janece Charette, Canada's public service system is of very high quality, and she is proud to do her job and proud to be a Canadian citizen. Following Ms. Charette's presentation, faculty and students of the university exchanged ideas and asked many questions related to the responsibilities between the federal and provincial governments in addressing issues, specifically education; how to assess the performance of public services; what factors influence the good attitude and responsibility of public servants in the public service sector; what people should do and who to contact when facing difficulties; and the characteristics of Canada's immigration policy. The Cabinet Secretary and Deputy Minister for Intergovernmental Affairs of Canada satisfactorily answered all the questions from the faculty and students.
Concluding the talk, Ms. Janece Charette expressed her joy at visiting the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, feeling as if she were returning home, because she saw the image of the golden maple tree and the Toronto TV Tower prominently displayed in the University's Information Room. She was particularly pleased with the cooperative relationship between Canada and the University and expressed confidence that in 2013, when the two countries celebrate the 40th anniversary of diplomatic relations, the Canadian Embassy will collaborate with the University to organize a major scientific conference, a competition about Canada, and many other meaningful activities.
