bout de papier, Vol. 5, No. 2 (1987) — Summer 1987 // Été 1987, p. 34
It is with great sadness that we mark the death, on May 8, of Tom Burns. His many friends in the public and private sectors join in expressing their condolences to his wife Mary and family.
All who knew Tom would echo the words of a former Under-Secretary — “There goes a very good man.” Tom touched a great many lives during his university years at Manitoba and Queen’s, his distinguished career in the federal public service and his years in the Canadian Exporters’ Association and in private business. He will be greatly missed
Tom joined the foreign service in 1948 and served abroad for fifteen years in Switzerland, Sri Lanka, London, Los Angeles, Washington and Geneva. He was Senior Assistant Deputy Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce when he left the public service to serve as President of the Canadian Exporters’ Association for six years. He chaired the Federal Task Force on Trading Houses in 1984. In 1985, he was appointed Special Coordinator for Market Access Consultations on Canada-U.S. trade and the new Multilateral Trade Negotiations, drawing upon his great knowledge acquired when he was a senior member of the Canadian delegation to the GATT Kennedy Round in Geneva.
Tom was a very self-effacing man, which is often the nature of a most competent person. But Tom’s engaging manner and self-effacing nature could not hide the fact that he was one of Canada’s preeminent experts on international trade. Yet he never flaunted this. When working with junior officers and the less-informed (which included most of us), he would put on a quizzical challenging look, raise an eyebrow and begin to very quickly and effectively sweep away your positions and arguments with “Well, I’m only from Plumhollow, Saskatchewan but… (He was actually from Winnipeg). But this Tom always did in a helpful way, his comments tinged with humour and his infectious laugh. You left his office a wiser and better informed individual.
There indeed goes “a very good man”
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 5, No. 2 (1987) — Summer 1987 // Été 1987, p. 34. Read the rest of this issue →
