Bernard Lord is Building on the Medavie Foundation
Newly appointed Medavie CEO Bernard Lord has found a role he considers the best of both worlds of public policy and business, a role that also allows him to spend his time in the province he loves.
In this newest role, Lord is using the values and passion developed throughout his political career and business experience to emphasize the importance of education and training, infrastructure, innovation and prosperity at Medavie.
After serving as New Brunswick’s premier from 1999 to 2006 and then as president and CEO of the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association, along with roles as numerous other organizations, Lord is aiming to make use of experience from both the public and private sectors to help the three branches of Medavie Inc. (Medavie Emergency Medical Services, Medavie Blue Cross and Medavie Health Foundation) grow and prosper.
“My goal as the incoming CEO is to build on this foundation. I think we have a unique opportunity here in Atlantic Canada to do something remarkable and that is to make significant advancement in how we provide healthcare,” he said.
“As a company that manages health benefits and also delivers healthcare services…that is the sweet spot of this company and I believe we can grow and we will be growing hopefully here in Atlantic Canada but also in other parts of the country.”
Raised in Moncton, Lord has always been attached to New Brunswick and the particular kind of people who live here. Lord says that he gets to see New Brunswick’s uniqueness in action every day in the six thousand people employed or managed by Medavie. After spending the last decade involved with work mostly outside of the province while still living here, Lord says the opportunity to make a difference at home was one of the reasons he accepted the challenge.
“I just love the place. I love New Brunswick,” he said. “I think we have tremendous potential. People here are extremely friendly. We have a unique culture being a bilingual province…New Brunswickers are extremely tolerant and I’ve always felt that we have an opportunity to build on our strength.”
“My kids remind me all the time, ‘dad, you keep saying New Brunswick’s a great place to live, work and raise a family.’ I believe that and I believe that we have an opportunity to continue to build on that, to make that better for future generations. That’s what motivated me to enter public life almost twenty years ago and it still motivates me every day today.”
Lord explains that there are many different ways New Brunswickers build the province, whether that’s by being elected, by working for a good company or by supporting community groups. He says that New Brunswickers often look solely to elected officials to build the province, but that it’s people, not government, who build the province and that elected officials are responsible for helping to create an environment that will allow these people to flourish.
“Often the province will go out and roll out the red carpet for companies that come from away and I think it’s important as well to acknowledge the work and contributions that are made by thousands of New Brunswickers that are already here that set up their businesses,” Lord said. “We’re just happy to contribute to that to create good jobs and create a good working environment and we want to continue to improve healthcare for New Brunswickers.”
Lord says that government can create an environment for growth through education and training, infrastructure, innovation and prosperity (through balanced budgets), but that the people of New Brunswick then need to build on that foundation.
“I’ve always believed that governments have a responsibility to balance budgets,” he said. “We can’t simply keep spending money and ask future generations to pay for the spending we make today. We also need to have a taxation regime that invites and incites and favours investment and growth and not just spending.”
Lord believes those same elements apply to companies like Medavie. He sees the public policies he’s always believed in are reflected in what Medavie invests in.
Lord says that he’s happy to continue to work with governments on partnerships that provide healthcare across provinces, but that he is going out of his way to separate himself from his previously political identity. His focus now is on building Medavie and ensuring the company provides jobs in Atlantic Canada and great service to clients.
“We invest in our technology, we invest in our infrastructure, we invest in our people. We are an innovative company so as a company we support these pillars of growth,” he said.
“We have some really future-focused companies in New Brunswick and in Atlantic Canada. Traditionally we’ve thought of innovation more as technology companies and that’s a good place to start but it’s not the only place. I’m hoping that people will realize that a company like Medavie is an innovative company.”
Lord says the opportunities for growth for Medavie lie in partnerships with provincial governments and in spreading the reach of both Medavie Blue Cross and Medavie EMS to other provinces while continuing to innovate wherever they can.
“That’s the key, innovation comes from new ideas. We need to nurture individuals and companies that have new ideas and make sure that we don’t set up barriers for them to succeed,” he said.
“But at the same time, that doesn’t mean we collectively need to provide handouts to everybody. That’s not really the solution; it’s making sure that when we see innovation that we’re not afraid of it and we embrace innovation and that innovation becomes almost like a second nature of ours as New Brunswickers.”