Notes from the Neo-Neolithic
The royal launch swooped down on the docks at Bhyll, past the river steps fronting the Hindu temples where hundreds of the devout were bathing in the sacred Su Wa Ni. Jungle-clad mountains rose on either side of the fertile plain behind…
British Security Coordination: The Secret History of British Intelligence in the Americas, 1940-45
At the end of 1999, Canada Post issued a postage stamp commemorating William Stephenson, ‘Intrepid,’ in its Millennium Collection. Ironically, the remembrance was for his inventions although he is better known for his role as a wartime spymaster. Few intelligence officers have…
The Pity of War
For a nation of peace-keepers, peace-mongers and peace-builders, with Pearson’s Nobel Peace Prize in the national display cabinet, it is an irony of history that all of Canada’s wars have been “good wars.” From repelling General Montgomery from the heights of Quebec…
The Boundary Hunters: Surveying the 141st Meridian and the Alaska Panhandle
What do most of us know of Canada’s boundary with Alaska? Very little, perhaps, apart from schoolday memories of the “Alverstone Award” when a perfidious English lord evidently preferred Britain’s relations with the United States to Canada’s interest in the Alaska Panhandle.…
Prime and Other Ministers
For a party in power, the timing of a change in leadership can be an awkward and vexatious question, particularly when the Prime Minister seems determined to use his discretion to choose the precise moment of his departure. Those contending for the…
Louis D. Burke 1927-1999
Along with his other friends and colleagues I was very sorry to hear that Lou Burke had passed on at the end of many months of coping with cancer, on December 29, 1999. The Service was held at the Ascension of Our…
John Stiles 1918-2000
John Stiles, who died in Ottawa on January 9, just a few days short of his 82nd birthday, spent his entire adult life, one way or another, in the service of Canada, but still found time to be a devoted family man…
Lessons of the 20th Century for Canadian Foreign Policy
It may be quite audacious for a non-Canadian to try to come up with something worthwhile reading after having spent just a few months as a guest in this country. The one real advantage a foreigner has, though, is a chance to…
Interview with Martha Nixon
bout de papier Editor Robert Peck, and Lynda Joyce, member of the Editorial Board, interviewed Martha Nixon, Assistant Deputy Minister of Operations for Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC), in February in her office at the Jean Edmonds Building. Her responsibilities involve the…
Albania 1999 – An Unbelievable Memoire
A couple of weeks ago I had a bad case of déjà vu. While attending a conference sponsored by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) to identify means to promote Balkan Stability, I was about to drift into a state of terminal…
