Born in Davidson, Saskatchewan, Robertson was educated at University of Saskatchewan, Exeter College, Oxford (where he was a Rhodes Scholar) and University of Toronto.[2] He joined the Department of External Affairs in 1941. From 1945 to 1948 he worked in the Prime Minister's Office of William Lyon Mackenzie King, and from 1948 to 1953 he was in the Privy Council Office under Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent. In 1953 he was appointed Deputy Minister of the newly formed Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources. By virtue of that position he was also Commissioner of the Northwest Territories. He remained in this combination of positions until 1963, when incoming Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson appointed him Clerk of the Privy Council and Secretary to the Cabinet, the top position in the Canadian public service. He held this position under Pearson and then under Pierre Trudeau until 1975. In that year, Trudeau appointed him Secretary to the Cabinet for Federal-Provincial Relations, to support Trudeau in his constitutional reform agenda. He remained in that position for most of the government of Joe Clark, retiring in December 1979.[3]
Awarded an honorary doctorate of laws from the University of Saskatchewan for outstanding service with the Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources and Commissioner of the Northwest Territories Council in 1959.[1] In 1970, he won the Vanier Medal of the Institute of Public Administration of Canada.[2]
Robertson was a recipient of the Public Service Outstanding Achievement Award in 1972; in 1976 he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada, and a member of the Privy Council in 1982.[4]
Robertson served as chancellor of Carleton University in Ottawa from 1980 to 1990.[5]
In 2000, Robertson published Memoirs of a Very Civil Servant, which recounted his experiences as a senior civil servant under five Canadian Prime Ministers.[6]
In 2022, in association with the Inuit Advisory Council and Inuit in the region and in the North, Carleton University re-named Robertson Hall (named after Robertson) to Pigiarvik (ᐱᒋᐊᕐᕕᒃ), which is an Inuit name that translates to “a place to begin” or “the starting place."
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