2003 PAFSO Awards — In Pursuit of Excellence

bout de papier, Vol. 20, No. 1 (2003) — Spring/Summer 2003 // Printemps/Été 2003, pp. 9–15

On June 12, 2003, 250 colleagues, guests and media gathered to celebrate excellence in the Canadian Foreign Service at the PAFSO Award Ceremony and Dinner held in the Panorama Room of the National Arts Centre in Ottawa.

David Manicom, Christopher Alexander and Ron Willson. Absent: Eileen Olexiuk.

Ian Gray’s bag pipes signaled the start of another outstanding evening with a dinner prepared by NAC Executive Chef Kurt Waldele. Each course was accompanied by wines provided by Inniskillin.

Le president de l’APASE, Masud Husain, a souhaité la bienvenue a tous et a toutes et souligné la presence des invites spéciaux, le tres honorable Joe Clark et Mme Maureen McTeer, l’honorable Mitchell Sharp et Mme Jeanne d’Arc Sharp, et l’honorable Flora MacDonald. Mr. Husain welcomed the evening’s co-hosts, Kathryn Aleong and Vicken Koundakjian, Co-Chairs of the Awards Committee. Both the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade and Citizenship and Immigration Canada, and in particular the Human Resources and Geographic branches, were gratefully acknowledged for their assistance with the costs involved in bringing back to Canada the winners serving abroad.

Mme Aleong et M. Koundajkian remercient également la direction des affaires publiques du Ministère de la Citoyenneté et de l’Immigration Canada et le bureau des communications et relations avec les médias du Ministère des Affaires étrangères et du Commerce International et ainsi que les amis des médias qui sont au dîner. Robert Peck, Director of the West and Central Africa Division, hosted the Awards présentations for a second year. Mr. Peck, a récipient himself of a PAFSO Award in 1993, joined the Foreign Service in 1982 and served in Lagos, Bern and Athens.

Jury de sélection pour 2003

The panel which selected this year’s Award recipients was composed of people who themselves had achieved distinction in their various fields. The panel included:

The Right Honourable Kim Campbell, former Prime Minister of Canada, and more recently Consul General in Los Angeles. Ms. Campbell is now a Visiting Professor of Practice at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Paul Frazer, Principal in Murphy, Frazer & Selridge, a Washington DC based government relations firm. During 25 years with the Canadian government, Mr. Frazer served as Press Secretary to the Prime Minister and to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, as well as Ambassador to the Czech and Slovak Republics.

Arthur Perron, directeur des Relations publiques de Bombardier à Montréal, et ancien ambassadeur en Corée et en Thaïlande, et haut-commissaire en Afrique du Sud.

L’honorable Christine Stewart, ancienne secrétaire d’État, Amérique latine et Afrique, et elle est actuellement envoyée spéciale du Commonwealth au Cameroun.

Anthony Wilson-Smith, editor of Maclean’s magazine and a frequent guest commentator on radio and television.

The panel of judges was chaired by former judge, John Baker, a private and public sector consultant, and the former Director General for Case Management at Citizenship and Immigration Canada.

Leslie Toope and the Hon. Mitchell Sharp.

Let me begin by saying what a genuine and trankly unanticipated honour it is to be among tonight’s recipients. As I am sure you will all agree, there are times both in Ottawa and abroad when each of us doubts the worth or efficacy of what we are doing, when our disconsolation is relieved — if only temporarily — by trinkets of thanks and gratitude. At other times indeed, for a great many of us, most of the time — there is no job we would rather do; ours is truly le plus beau métier qui soit.”
But there is no sweeter reward than recognition by one’s peers — these peers. So my thanks go out to all of you, as well as to PASO – for organizing another magical evening, and for making the Canadian foreign service stronger…. The real honour for me has been to work with so many of you on issues fundamental to this country’s future.”

Christopher Alexander

Christopher Alexander is being honoured with a PAFSO Award this year for his out-standing performance during his three years on posting in Moscow, in what has been a period of intense development of Canada-Russia relations. During this period, the mission has experienced roughly two dozen ministerial visits, the development of Closer relations in the war on terrorism and international crime and the création of the $100 million dollar per year Global Partnership Program. En sa qualité de chef adjoint de l’ambassade, Christopher a joué un rôle clé en dirigeant la section politique et en coordonnant un vaste éventail de fonctions de gestion de la mission — programmes d’administration, expansion du commerce, défense, pénal et sécurité et immigration. Son superbe rendement dans ce rôle exigeant a révélé ses talents d’organisateur et de négociateur, qu’il s’agisse d’assurer le suivi de la crise des otages tchétchènes ou la liaison pour la réunion du G-8 à Kananaskis, d’agir en qualité de personne-ressource pour la visite d’Équipe Canada en Russie en 2002 ou d’améliorer de manière radicale les logements et le moral du personnel à Moscou. Son travail exceptionnel et son approche positive font de lui un très digne lauréat de ce prix.

… taken together the “multidimensional” chara of the nominations reflec
well the Service as a whe and a remarkable collectic skills and dedication. JUDGES

The Right Honourable Joe Clark presented the evening’s first award to Christopher Alexander.

Vice-President for Government Relations for the TD Financial Group and a former PAFSO Award recipient, Mr. Scott Mullin presented David Manicom with an Award.

David Manicom a été choisi comme lauréat d’un prix de l’APASE cette année pour son travail exceptionnel depuis qu’il a joint les rangs du service extérieur en 1989, comme en témoigne en particulier sa plus récente affectation à Beijing, où il agit depuis 1999 comme directeur de programme adjoint et de directeur des Opérations à la Section de l’immigration. En sa qualité de directeur des Opérations du bureau des visas du Canada à l’étranger qui vient au deuxième rang en importance et en visibilité, David gère plus de 100 employés recrutés sur place. Il est responsable d’un budget de 600 000 $, ainsi que de l’émission de plus de 70 000 visas de résidence temporaire et de 25 000 visas d’immigration.

David’s outstanding management skills and innovative initiatives have enabled this high-profile post to meet targets, eliminate backlogs and greatly improve processing times. His personal engagement, communications skills and analytical turn of mind have been critical to advancing Canada’s political and humanitarian objectives abroad and to the development of new immigration and refugee protection legislation in Canada. And while managing all of this, David has also managed to publish two books of award-winning poetry. This Award is offered in recognition of David’s many talents and abilities — the best of what the Foreign Service can offer.

… these nominees make us extremely proud to be Canadian and they would
be successes anywhere. JUDGES

David Manicom

This is a moment of great pleasure for me this evening, to be among you. I am honoured and humbled. Looking around this room I have only one thought: there is some sort of mistake, they got the wrong guy.
There are various awards in the civil service, but this is the only one I really want. And now I have it. I’m delighted. I guess I should

Service can offer. immediately announce my retirement. Somewhere in the world, always, the Immigration service is at work. Right now it is g a.m. in Beijing. 120 members of the visa section are dealing with hundreds of visa cases involving the fates of hundreds of people. These colleagues are Canadian, and they are Chinese. They are also expats from any different countries. We can find someone on our visa section to provide you with service in 28 languages, including Uigha, Finnish, Arabic, Russian and Tagolog. They are a magnificent team. They are doing the real work… All of the honour belongs to them…. What I really am is a visa officer. Not just a visa officer, because it is a wonderful calling. Our files are people. We deal in dreams and disappointments, ambition and fraud, brilliance and lies, day in and day out. The people want to come to Canada. I sometimes think, and dare to hope, that they want to come to a place where holy warrior is an oxymoron, where there is no city shining on a hill, where the truths aren’t black and white, and where perceptions have some explaining to do.” DAVID MANICOM

Monsieur Claude Laverdure, conseiller diplomatique du Premier ministre.

I sincerely want to thank Jim Fox, the Director General of the South Asia Bureau and Jim Junke the Director of the South Asia Division who nominated me for this Award. I am grateful as well to my High Commissioner, Konrad Sigurdson and my colleag Brian Burton, who supported the nomination ani have been a constant source of encouragement of work on Afghanistan. A very special thanks to my f PAFSO members and the panel who selected me: of this year’s recipients. For me, it felt peculiar to I recognised in this way for doing something that. There are many colleagues, friends and family mi behind the scenes who make it possible for us to best in the Foreign Service.”

Eileen Olexiuk

Eileen Olexiuk has been selected for a PAFSO Award in recognition of the exceptional initiative, analytical skill and unflagging dedication she has demonstrated in her work in Afghanistan since September 2002. Until Eileen’s arrival in Islamabad in September 2002, Canada had only dealt with that country remotely from Islamabad. Eileen undertook to develop a rich network of contacts on the I in circumstances of extreme difficulty.

Sa capacité d’ouvrir des portes lui a permis d’interagir avec les dirigeants futurs de l’Afghanistan et a abouti à l’élaboration de nouvelles initiatives dont font partie de multiples organismes et ministères du gouvernement du Canada. Ce degré de coopération sans précédent se reflète dans la décision du Canada de lancer son plus vaste programme d’aide bilatérale au développement et d’envoyer quelque 3 000 soldats à la mission de la Force internationale d’assistance à la sécurité (FIAS). Bref, Eileen a joué un rôle crucial pour que toutes les parties en cause travaillent en collaboration et contribuent à ce que l’avenir de l’Afghanistan soit riche de promesse.

Efforts were made by the Awards Committee to reach Ms. Olexiuk, by phone, in Kabul. Mr. Peck read the following e-mail message from Ms. Olexiuk:

“Bob, I am just on the way to Kabul where phone calls are virtually impossible. Landlines are totally dysfunctional. I have a handheld satellite phone for emergencies (but have to be outside with the antenna pointing in a southerly direction in order for it to receive and transmit). While in Kabul I use a mobile and my office is the back seat of a car. OK, OK, I know that sounds bad but it is true. Mobile phones rarely work indoors there because the network is so oversubscribed it is difficult to get a signal. No one I know has ever been successful in receiving a call from Canada.” Wendy Gilmour, DFAIT Peacekeeping, accepted the award from Claude Laverdure on Eileen’s behalf. Before reading Eileen Olexiuk’s acceptance speech, Ms. Gilmour made the following remarks:

“I feel somewhat of a fraud standing up here tonight. In particular, and I haven’t told this to Eileen, it is partly my fault that she is not here. It is our insatiable appetite for her reporting, the fact that the Minister of National Defence will be going to Kabul in less than two weeks, that we have approximately 1800 Canadian troops who will be landing in Kabul in less than two months and any other number of demands on her time that both my division and the Asia Pacific Branch have said, ’I’m sorry Eileen, you can’t come back’. So, I’m sorry Eileen.

I had the great pleasure to observe Eileen in action when visited Afghanistan in March of this year. She is really a phenomenon to behold. I could only have hoped that I might have had some pictures here tonight to really demonstrate what mean but you have to imagine Eileen with a scarf over her head and around her shoulders, clutching about 14 briefcases, sending some of the most insightful and excellent reporting that think we see on any type of a basis in the foreign service.”

The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) Strategic Recce Team in Kabul, Afghanistan. Left to right: Wendy Gilmour, DFAIT Peacekeeping; Major-General Andrew Leslie, Commander LFCA; Rolando Bahamondes, CIDA, Canadian High Commission, Islamabad; Eileen Olexiuk, Counsellor, Canadian High Commission, Islamabad; Hafeez Yakooba, Interpreter; and Lieutenant Colonel Dennis Thompson, NDHQ Peacekeeping.

Receiving this award has made me reflect a little on the meaning of morality in foreign policy. And if there’s one point I’d like to make tonight, that would be it. Most people think of morality and diplomacy as being nodding acquaintances at best. How much more moral can a diplomat be than the country he or she represents.
Diplomacy is supposed • the nomin

Ron Willson

to be all about real politics. Certainly the penalty for naïveté is high out there in the real world. Yet our great privilege is to represent a country which is profoundly decent and caring. The International Criminal Court, for example, represents the coming together of our values diplomatic skills. While not reli I’ve found that growing up in

Award this year. about all the moral compass I’ve ever really needed…. My first job when I came to Ottawa many moons ago was for Public Works knocking ice and snow off the roofs of the Parliament Buildings. So you could say I’ve come down in the world. But tonight I feel on top of the world.” PAN MIChA

Ron Willson, actuellement en affectation à Abuja, zu Nigéria, se voit décerner un prix de l’APASE pour l’ensemble de sa carrière exceptionnelle de 27 ans au sein du service extérieur et, plus particulièrement, pour son travail exceptionnel dans des circonstances extrêmement difficiles au Zimbabwe, de 1999 à 2002. Durant son affectation à Harare, Ron a dû relever de nombreux défis, des nondations aux élections en passant par la guerre civile, une situation politique qui allait de mal en pis, la pauvreté toujours grandissante, l’écroulenent des services governmentaux et les ravages du SIDA. Ron a su relever ces défis grâce à son expérience, à son jugement infaillible et son impressionnante faculté d’adaptation. Tis work throughout the three-year period was jutstanding, whether covering meetings of the Abuja group and the G-8, organizing and directing Canadian observer eams both at parliamentary and presidential elections, or dealing with ›otentially explosive consular cases. His concern for the people of limbabwe was always evident and the broad range of contacts he devel- ›ped gave him a perspective “unique among his peers”.. Ron is described is “an exceptional political officer, a nurturing mentor and a compassionate human being”. For all of this he is being honoured with a PAFSO

Retired Heads of Mission Association (RHOMA) Prize / Prix de l’Association des chefs de misson à la retraite (ACMAR)

’I applaud RHOMA for having established this prize, which is designed to encourage more and br writing by Foreign Service officers. I urge all officers on posting, in partic political officers, to take time out fri their busy schedules of preparing ministerial visits, of squaring the PI budget, of answering e-mails that ask about their mission’s contribution to the greenhouse effect, to get back to the basics: meet with people, talk to them, observe; think about things carefully; and then pen your uniquely Canadian perspective.

Nicholas Coghlan

I would appeal above all to the policy Chaque année, I ors de la cérémonie de remise, l’ACMAR décerne un prix pour le shapers back in Ottawa to give those reports from the field the attention they deserve. By all means give CNN, the BBC, Donald Rumsfeld and the Ambassador of the USA (no offence meant, if by any chance either of them is in the room tonight…) a careful hearing, but put them firmly into second place, behind our own foreign service officers. In a word, let our foreign policy be made in house, by Canadians…. In conclusion, my warmest ci of the Canadian Foreign Service Officer Award. I don’t know who they are, but if past performance by the PAFSO Awards Committee is anything to go on, they are surely deserving of tonight’s recognition. Let them be an inspiration for the rest of us. NICHOLAS COGHLAN

jointe. Le lauréat ou la lauréate reçoit un exemplaire encadré de son article, accompagné d’un prix en espèces de 500 $. Le prix a pour objet de promouvoir le maintien de l’excellence en rédaction dans le service extérieur et se veut un incitatif supplémentaire aux contributions à bout de papier.

President of the Directing Group of RHOMA, and former High Commissioner and Ambassador to 10 African missions during his career, Marc Faguy announced this year’s award recipient Nicholas Coghlan. The winning article “In Arabia Felix” appeared in Vol. 19-4. Former bout de papier editor, Carol Markham accepted the prize on Nicolas’ behalf and read his acceptance speech.

Honourable Mention went to Denise Jacques for her article “Hunting Hemingway” that appeared in Vol. 19-1. The Selection Committee was comprised of retired ambassadors, George Grande, John Harrington and Bob Clark. Ingratulations on tonight’s winners

Remerciements spéciaux à nos commanditaires

Nous tenons à remercier nos commanditaires, ministres, ambassadeurs et diplomates qui jouent un rôle important dans le succès constant du programme de prix de l’APASE. Nous savons gré en particulier aux commanditaires suivants qui ont fournis des prix pour les tirages : Albert at Bay Suite Hotel, Allan Bonner Communications Management, Dominique Levesque designer-couturier et VIA Rail Canada. Les succulents et irrésistibles chocolats à chaque table étaient une gracieuseté de Tradex Mutual Funds.

We would also like to acknowledge the sponsorship of Inniskillin. Leona Tanko, Export Manager for Vincor International, made the special presentation to the PAFSO Award recipients of a magnum of Inniskillin Ice Wine, hand-signed by co-founders Donald J. .P. Ziraldo and Karl J. Kaiser. Inniskillin, also provided wines for each course of the special menu prepared by NAC Executive Chef, Kurt Waldele.

Menu du dîner
2002 Inniskillin Pinot Grigio
Niagara Peninsula VQA
Boston Lettuce, Crispy Artichokes,
Grilled Asparagus, Oven-reduced Tomatoes
Laitue Boston, tomates cuites au four,
fanes d’artichauts et asperges cuites
2000 Inniskillin Founders Reserve Pinot Noir
Niagara Peninsula VOA
2000 Inniskillin Founders Reserve Chardonnay
Niagara Peninsula VOA
Poached Pacific Salmon with a Dill Remoulade
Seasonal Vegetables and Roasted Potatoes
Saumon du pacifique étuvé, servi avec rémoulade
à l’aneth et accompagné de légumes de saison
et de pommes de terre rôties
2001 Inniskillin Gold’Oak Aged’ Icewine
Niagara Peninsula VQA
Tangy Lemon Tart with Soft Caramel
Tarte au citron acidulée, coulis de caramel
Fina
Gra

Award winners with Leona Tanko, Export Manager, Vincor International.

The full text of the Award récipient’s speeches can be found on the PAFSO Website: www.pafso-apase.com. Follow the link to PAFSO Awards. Pour obtenir le texte des allocutions d’acceptation, voir le site Web de T’APASE : www.pafso-apase.com et cliquez sur le bouton « Prix de T’APASE