bout de papier, Vol. 5, No. 3 (1987) — Fall 1987 // Automne 1987, p. 4
Rotationality. It is the central feature of the foreign service. It is the pivotal element that differentiates the foreign service from its partner domestic service. It accounts for the bulk of our management dilemmas and is the source of our most visceral frustrations. This year, rotationality has claimed its usual toll of targets among the PAFSO executive. It has also claimed the editor of bout de papier, Colin Robertson.
Colin has made a signal contribution to PAFSO and to the emergence of bout de papier as a first-rate professional journal. He assembled the senior editorial board and gathered contributions beyond the foreign service community. Thanks in part to a tolerant attitude towards fiscal restraint on the part of the PAFSO Executive, he converted an association newsletter to a professional journal, building incrementally upon the accomplishments of his predecessors. It was a job superbly done. We wish him well in Hong Kong and await his return to the editorial board.
With rotationality comes the inevitability of change. New editorial board members will take the places of David Adam, Herb Fraser and Neil Reeder. There will be additions to the senior editorial board, already representative of the finest accomplishments of the Canadian foreign service. Over the course of the next few months, new contributors will emerge with articles, commentaries and reviews on a variety of topics both timely and arcane. We welcome new ideas, suggestions and contributions.
And while change will come, bout de papier has now reached a point of confident maturity. Among its roles, in effect, is ensuring that this journal does its share in meeting the communications needs of all members in ways which PAFSO requires. In a rotational foreign service, communication is critical. If discussion at the recent Annual General Meeting is any indication, there is a pressing need for more communication among members and greater timeliness in getting information to those outside the capital region. There is also a desire for a focussed debate on the professionalism of the foreign service and meeting the challenges that face us. bout will play its part.
The face of the foreign service has changed enormously in recent years. At the time of PAFSO’s formation, some twenty years ago, few questioned the need for a foreign service or the quality of the Canadian diplomatic corps. The Prime Minister was a former colleague, and the “mandarinate” was well salted with External veterans. Since the heady days of Centennial Year the foreign service has been buffetted by a series of shocks and after-shocks. Our role has changed; Departmental structures have evolved; personnel policy has been bounced around, re-shaped, re-cast and re-visited; and Governments have come and gone with new ideas both good and bad on how to structure the foreign service to meet the perceptions of the public.
As a professional institution, the foreign service has come under heavy and sustained assault. Yet it’s as difficult to blame our politicial masters as it is to gather sympathies from the rest of the public service. We have an atrocious collective image and too few friends to spring to our defence. We have allowed ourselves to rest on past achievements, and we have failed to grow with time. As proud as we are of the acquired traditions and accomplishments of the foreign service, we need new roots anchored in contemporary realities. Part of bout’s task will be to present those realities, as interpreted by PAFSO members, critical observers and interested partners.
As proud as we are of the acquired traditions and accomplishments of the foreign service, we need new roots anchored in contemporary realities.
The Annual General Meeting was a step in the right direction. It was larger than past sessions, indicating an interest in association matters that augurs well for the future. There was solid support for the PAFSO Executive and endorsement of “going public” on issues central to association concerns, especially patronage appointments. A healthy degree of group solidarity was balanced by the presentation of a diversity of views on issues dear to us all.
Past executive boards have been hesitant, even reluctant, to become involved in what they perceived as management issues. As an organization, we have remained aloof from commenting or negotiating on personnel questions or organizational reforms, except as they affected a limited range of negotiable rights. We have paid a price for timidity and vacillation. In refraining from protesting decades of discriminatory hiring practices, we have exposed ourselves to guilt by acquiescence and the consequences of necessary but unpalatable remedial measures. By failing to state clearly, frankly and openly our concerns over such issues as patronage appointments, we have, until recently, been accused of sour grapes.
If PAFSO has now come of age, how do we explain this mildly frightening transmogrification? The tangible factors seem to predominate. Contract settlements that have left our members behind other comparable bargaining units. Diminishing prospects for promotions. Delays in contract negotiations and a failure on the part of Treasury Board to bargain reasonably or in good faith. Declining job satisfaction in positions where the ravages of austerity and fiscal restraint have hobbled effectiveness. The declining attractiveness of a life abroad in the age of AIDS and a weak dollar. And there are others.
Some have characterized this transformation as a drift towards radicalization. But this term conjures up ideological or political connotations that are still inappropriate to a highly non-political service. Militancy is an equally unsatisfactory description, although many would argue that we are ready for a J.C. Parrot or a Bob White. Let’s call it stridency, or self-assurance. Whatever the term, its chief manifestation may well be a less deferential attitude on the part of FSO’s, combined with a more structured insistence that a professional service merits a professional partnership between management and labour. bout de papier, to re-cycle an old phrase, is both part of the problem and part of the solution. As a magazine dedicated to objective and impartial analysis of foreign service and diplomacy, we intend to focus on timely areas of controversy and difficulty. And our contributors will no doubt comment with alacrity on the state of PAFSO, the diplomatic service, the Government or foreign policy. For these articles presenting our problems with naked brutality, we offer no apologies in advance. But we are also an agent of our association, in favour of a forward-looking, outwardly-oriented organization that can help find the solutions to the dilemmas of a modern, effective foreign service. We are an agent of communication and information, not only within PAFSO but on behalf of PAFSO, to a wider world with a limited appreciation of the foreign service and an ingrained disposition for doubt.
In the months ahead we hope to offer a balance of reflection, controversy, analysis and provocation, in two languages and unilingual cartoons. On behalf of the editorial board and the senior editorial board, I express thanks for continued PAFSO support, appreciation to our outgoing editor and confidence for the future of a lively journal.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 5, No. 3 (1987) — Fall 1987 // Automne 1987, p. 4. Read the rest of this issue →
