bout de papier, Vol. 3, No. 1 (1985) — March 1985 // Mars 1985, p. 4
“What are the bugles blowin for?” said
Files-on-Parade.
“To turn you out, to you out,” the
Colour-Sergeant said.
“What makes you look so white, so
white?” said Files-on-Parade.
“I’m dreadin’ what I’ve got to watch” the
Colour-Sergeant said.
“For they’re hangin’ Danny Deever, you
can hear the Dead March play,
The regiment’s in ’ollow square —they’re
hanging him to-day.
They’re taken of his buttons off an’ cut
his stripes away,
An’ they’re hanging Danny Deever in the
mornin”
The personal conduct of foreign service officers has come under increased scrutiny in recent months. Internally, the Department is in the process of drafting a policy on personal behavior abroad and the Code of Personal Conduct will be reviewed in light of the Sharp-Starr recommendations. Externally, the antics of individual officers have been the stuff of headlines with allegations of drug dealing in South America and misuse of passports as well as impropriety in currency exchange in the Levant. Career officers, including an Ambassador, have been recalled. Another Head of Post has left the service as a consequence of an internal investigation. Suspensions have taken place and letters of reprimand affixed as permanent blots on personal dossiers. At home there have been tales of double-dipping and questionable inducements to encourage retirement. A service which has always regarded itself as special, a bit of an elite, has been proved, well, ordinary and exhibiting signs of human frailty.
The culpability of the individuals involved and the circumstances surrounding these cases often appear lost in the riptide of retribution. The cafeteria claque, huddled cosily over their coffee cups, will cluck piously about those who have brought shame and about the sacred trust of service betrayed. For them there can be no consolation. But then, they are usually the same set who take perverse pleasure in the misfortunes of others. They forget Cairo is not Canada. The bursting bombs were in Beirut not Brandon, Brampton or Baie- Comeau.
PAFSO has chosen a different and more courageous course. It has decided to succour, using members monies if necessary, the appeals of those who face disciplinary action from management. The purpose is not to prevent application of the sword of justice but rather to ensure the shield of fair play prevails. The decision is based on the best traditions of British jurisprudence with its guarantees of due process and fair representation. An elite may be honoured for its talent and achievements; it is the size of its heart which gives the measure of its compassion.
Suzanne Mooney has a point. We should heed her cry of despair over the frustrations of dealing from the wrong end of the telex with those faceless factotums unfamiliar with life abroad who mark time between breaks in the comfortable corners of Ottawa’s bureaucracy. She suggests an ombudsman – someone who is versed with foreign service and has the clout to put right the wrongs of life abroad. This Department has a variety of special advisors. Surely management could pluck from the swelling ranks of our emergent ’executive category’ an individual who would fit the bill. Regretfully the creation of the ’new’ Department has resulted in a degree of depersonalization, untypical of Charles Ritchie’s days, of those responsible for amenities abroad. Lack of familiarity can all too readily breed indifference with the plight of foreign service families. As Nancy Adler points out, it is these little things which gnaw especially at the spouse and make miserable the lives of the entire family.
Management is learning lessons from its political masters. Friday evening is the usual time when the contentious appoint ments and announcements are made. In politics this may make some sense – it gives the politicians the weekend to gauge public opinion and to ready their responses. The application of this technique to foreign service is inappropriate. So were the contents of the March I telex to all posts announcing an average increase of 24 per cent to the shelter costs of employees serving abroad. Particularly hard hit are those in the $26,000-$43,000 range who have children. One would have assumed a corresponding increase would have been made to the foreign service premium. Generosity is not a trait generally associated to management.
The new government loudly proclaims to commitment to fairness. Where is the fairness here? Treasury Board has gone on record as saying salary increases this year will be in the range of 3 to 4 per cent. Not so. The premium, post-differential allowance and salary equalization adjustments are based on the average salary increase granted to the public service in the previous year. For 1985 this will amount to 4.78 per cent. In the past two years, salary and shelter cost increases have been in accord with the six and five guidelines. Management says it must catch up with rising costs.
The authors of the new regime might have profitted from a look at Pam McDougall’s recommendation on shelter costs contained in the Royal Commission on Conditions of Foreign Service: “I would advocate housing standards based on local relativity, a percentage decrease in shares across the board (10 to 15 per cent) to take account of the different situations overseas and the abolition of the substandard housing provision.” While the report is still in hand, it is worth repeating Miss McDougall’s first and principal conclusion: “Everything possible should be done to mitigate the adversarial atmosphere that characterizing so many aspects of employer-employee and employee-family relationships.” Management would do well to remind itself that it is one of the largest landlords with its base in Ontario. If Minto or one of the other housing corporations were to raise its rents by 24 per cent the public outcry would be sharp, immediate and outraged. More importantly, Ontario law requires any landlord imposing more than a 6 per cent increase this year to make application to the Residential Tenancy Commission.
A tax on spouses and children may satisfy the pinch-faced, mean-spirited penny-counters but it does little for those responsible for the conduct of our foreign policy abroad. But then those who serve are least able to defend themselves against the ones that sit at home.
While it’s Tommy this an’ Tommy that,
an’ “Tommy, fall be’hind,
But it’s “Please to walk in front, sir,
“when there’s trouble in the wind;
We aren’t no thin red ’eroes, nor we
aren’t no blackguards too.
But single men in barricks, most
remarkable like you,
An’ if sometimes our conduct isn’t all
your fancy paints
Why, single men in barricks don’t grow
into plaster saints;
You talk o’better food for us, an’ schools,
an’ fires an’ all;
We’ll wait for extry rations if you treat us
rational.
Don’t mess about the cook-room slops,
but prove it to our face
For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that,
and “Chuck him out, the brute!”
But it’s “Savior of ’is country, when the
guns begin to shoot.”
Yes it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’
anything you please
But Tommy ain’t a bloomin’ fool — you
bet that Tommy sees!
Rudyard Kipling, Tommy and
Danny Deever from
Barrack Room Ballads
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 3, No. 1 (1985) — March 1985 // Mars 1985, p. 4. Read the rest of this issue →
