New RRSP Calculation Method in 1991
As a result of changes to the Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP) legislation on 1 January 1991, all foreign service officers may now make a deductible contribution of at least $1,000 a year to an RRSP. Those who earned between $28,900 and…
Réclamations d’assurance et évaluation d’oeuvres et d’objets d’art
À bien des égards, faire évaluer ses oeuvres d’art et objets précieux importe autant que de les assurer.
Llamas and Lunch in Bolivia and Peru
I was hired on subcontract with the World Bank in Washington, to produce a slide show. It would eventually be translated into 22 different languages, to be used by professors in Third World Universities as a guide to making their own slide…
On a Hinge of History
From prehistory until about 1000 AD, the world’s population did not increase by much. In earliest times, life was so precarious, and food supplies so unreliable, that a rough balance obtained between births and deaths notwithstanding an undoubtedly high fertility rate. The…
A Soliloquy for Septuagenarians
In recent months some of our historians have published their matured spin to explain the course of Canadian events way back in the Trudeau era. Pirouette: Pierre Trudeau and Canadian Foreign Policy cries out for comment on its treatment of policy development…
A Scrap of Paper
As one of bout de papier’s supporters and contributors, from time to time I am asked why PAFSO’s quarterly was given its distinctive name.
The Department and the Country
(In this excerpt from a book he is writing about the Canadian foreign service, the author argues that foreign service officers must do much more to explain their profession to the Canadian public.)
Letters // Correspondance
I cannot agree more with Diana Lary’s case for more exchanges between the Department, Universities and the Private sector (bout de papier, vol. 8, no. 1, “Outsider, Inside”). The four university sinologists I have personally known in Beijing are all leading very…
The Diplomat’s Union
On posting to Brazil, I found that one of the fastest ways to get a reaction from Latin American diplomats was to introduce myself as a “sindicalista”, or “member of the Canadian diplomats’ union”. The concept of an elite profession being unionized…
Managing Diversity and Change
The Department buzzes with a current preoccupation with “managing change” (ie. organization and work-related change). Nothing is said about a concurrent need for “managing diversity” (ie. non-traditional composition of employees).
