David McLaughlin

President & CEO, NRTEE

David McLaughlin has over 20 years of experience as a senior public policy professional at both the federal and provincial levels of government; as a deputy minister and chief of staff in the private sector, and in multi-partisan, multi-government settings.

David began his career as a policy assistant to the Minister of Health and Social Program Reform in the New Brunswick government from 1980 to 1984. He went to Ottawa in 1984 as Senior Policy Advisor to the federal Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. From 1986 to 1990, he served as Chief of Staff to the federal Minister of State for Small Business and Tourism, Consumer and Corporate Affairs, and Minister of Fisheries and Oceans.

Following a one-year sabbatical at the University of Bath in England where he earned his M.B.A., Mr. McLaughlin returned to Ottawa as Senior Policy Advisor to the Minister of Constitutional Affairs. In 1992, he joined the Prime Minister’s Office as Senior Advisor, Operations. In 1993, he was appointed Chief of Staff to the Prime Minister.

From 1994 to 1999, Mr. McLaughlin worked in the private sector as Partner and Executive Vice President of Veritas Communications Inc., a healthcare communications firm.

In October 1999, he returned to New Brunswick to serve as both Deputy Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and Deputy Minister of Policy and Planning. In June 2000, he was also appointed as Secretary to the Cabinet Committee on Policy and Priorities.

During this period, Mr. McLaughlin was responsible for the development and implementation of the government’s long-term policy agenda, spearheading major new comprehensive policy frameworks for the province including Greater Opportunity – N.B.’s Prosperity Plan, 2002 to 2012; Healthy Futures – The Provincial Health Plan; the K-12 Quality Learning Agenda; the N.B. Innovation Agenda; electricity restructuring; as well as establishing new environmental policy and legislative initiatives for coastal areas protection, a protected areas strategy, waste reduction and diversion and clean water and air.

In September 2003, Mr. McLaughlin was appointed as Deputy Minister to the New Brunswick Commission on Legislative Democracy, an independent, non-partisan commission examining democratic reform. It conducted over a year of research and consultations delivering a comprehensive final report containing 89 recommendations for democratic reform, most of which were accepted by successive governments of different political parties.

In May 2005, the Premiers of Canada’s provinces and territories announced the creation of the Council of the Federation Advisory Panel on Fiscal Imbalance, and Mr. McLaughlin was hired as the Panel’s Executive Director. From March 2006 to August 2007,
Mr. McLaughlin served as Chief of Staff to the federal Minister of Finance.

David McLaughlin has a Bachelor of Arts degree with Honours in History and Political Science from Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick (1978), a Master of Arts degree in International Affairs from Carleton University in Ottawa (1980), and a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Bath in the United Kingdom (1991).