Blair Armitage, an experienced and active volunteer, is taking on the exciting role of advocacy program officer for Ottawa and Nunavut.
Federal Retirees is pleased to welcome Blair Armitage as the new advocacy program officer (APO) for the Ottawa & Nunavut district. Armitage is also a director of the Ottawa Branch.
He served on Parliament Hill, first in the House of Commons’, and then for most of his career, in the Senate’s nonpartisan procedural services sectors, from 1987 to 2021.
Armitage covered a wide range of operations in his career, including committees, international parliamentary associations and managing debate transcription as well as the inaugural development and implementation of data base-driven support systems for parliamentary business. He was also responsible for pioneering the establishment of a permanent video broadcast service for Senate committees and for the development and implementation of an active social media presence for the Senate.
Armitage finished his career as clerk assistant of committees. Over the course of his career, he enjoyed close working relationships with parliamentarians and parliamentary staff not only through his work on Parliament Hill, but also across Canada and the Commonwealth through the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA). His work with the CPA included numerous professional development presentations both with his parliamentary employee peers, as well as orientation seminars for newly elected parliamentarians. He also served on the executive of the Canadian Association of Clerks at the Table (past president and currently as an honorary member) and of the Canadian Study of Parliament Group.
Active in his home community of Dunrobin, Armitage spent 17 years as a coach for various local sports teams, and on related local and township organizing boards. He was a strong supporter of the Senate participation in the annual Government of Canada Workplace Charitable Campaign (GCWCC), chairing the Senate’s volunteers on four separate occasions.
Armitage is looking forward to serving his new community of fellow federal retirees.