bout de papier, Vol. 15, No. 1 (1998) — Spring 1998 // Printemps 1998, pp. 43–44
AS FAR AS EVER THE PUFFIN FLEW, by
Frank Petrie, Vantage Press, Inc., 1996,
353 pp. $21.95
Reviewed by John Treleaven
Puffins are interesting birds. They are the provincial birds of Newfoundland and Labrador. Their beauty attracts tourists from Europe and Japan every summer. Their impact on the tourism industry exceeds that of whale watching. Every outport is home to puffins who each winter migrate, but just over the horizon to the Grand Banks. There is rich Newfoundland humour in the title which came from a discussion the author had with Don Jamieson, then Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce, many years ago in Kuala Lumpur — “Frank, you and I have come a long way; I am talking geographically. If we were any farther from Newfoundland, we would be on our way home again. Frank, we have gone as far as the puffin ever flew.”
This is a celebration of the life and career of a well-traveled public servant who clearly enjoyed coming to the office every day of his professional life. I think Frank enjoyed the writing as it once again took him through an era of momentous historical change, his friendships and travels. The author in his own words has written “a relatively minor player’s recollections and thoughts on people and events that played a role in developing the global economy that is encompassing us today.”
This is an important book. It represents one insider’s view of an era which transformed this country from dependence on trade protectionism to embracing the philosophy and promise of free trade. Frank played a part in this transformation from the vantage point of the GATT Secretariat and later our Mission to the GATT. In Ottawa, a series of trade policy related assignments was followed by positions from which he worked in support of the export development objectives of Canadian companies. He offers incisive comments on many of the Ministers he served from George (You Can’t Do Business Sitting On your Ass) Hees, Mitchell Sharp, Jean Luc Pepin, Donald MacDonald, Alistair Gillespie, Michael Wilson, Don Jamieson, Jack Horner, Ed Lumley, Herb Gray and Gerry Regan to name a few. In tracing his route through a 35-year career it is entirely true to character that Frank Petrie should wish to join the school of autobiographers who write to share rather than to take credit for accomplishments in his time.
From his early days in Newfoundland the book describes how he left “the rock” to join the Canadian government. Prior to joining the federal government Frank worked for two years in Australia for the Department of External Territories, where he met his wife, and for a short while with Canada Packers in St. John’s. Joining DND, he moved to National Revenue and then after winning a competition moved to the International Trade Relations Branch of the Department of Trade and Commerce.
There followed two postings in Geneva, once to the GATT Secretariat and once to our Mission, a secondment to the PCO, and a variety of policy related jobs in the Department. As Director of the Pacific, Asia, and Africa Branch, Frank began in earnest his travels with Ministers, with increasing focus on the trade development objectives of Canadian industry. After a posting to Sydney as Consul General, he moved into the private sector to become President of the Canadian Exporters’ Association (now the Alliance of Canadian Exporters and Manufacturers) where he played an equally important role advocating for the private sector.
Throughout his journey Frank provides evidence of the impact that one “public servant” can have on the great and not so great issues of the day, the success of Canadian companies in the international marketplace, and the enormous amount of work yet to be done for this country to reach its full potential.
With the publication of this book, Frank Petrie joins a small but an important list of our colleagues who have taken time to record their experiences for a wider world — Arthur Andrew, Charles Ritchie, Escott Reid, Arnold Heeney, James Manion, Mike Pearson, George Ignatieff, John Kneale, Hugh Keenleyside and David Reece, to name a few. Each has added to the understanding, both within the government and with the public, of the complex world in which Canada must work to achieve its national objectives, and the contribution of government to this achievement.
As Far As Ever the Puffin Flew helps answer the question, posed so often by business people, as to why public servants stay in the public service. The substantive challenges offered by the work are unequaled. The foreign service in particular offers the opportunity to work with some of the best and brightest not just in Canada but around the world.
In the early pages, I was put off by what I thought was an underlying theme of the book “the world and I”. I was wrong. As I read on, I found I could not put it down. While many biographers write to take credit for shaping events, the author has written this book to give credit to people with whom he had worked to achieve success. In this book, Frank has taken the time to remember the hundreds of people who have helped him.
Many of the people and the incidents which form the texture of the author’s story are from the professional life I know well. This will be the case with all readers of bout de papier.
But this book deserves study by a far wider audience than just you and I. “Puffin” should be mandatory reading for our Ministers and perhaps particularly for our colleagues in Treasury Board for whom understanding the demands of the Foreign Service life has always been a challenge. As the sociologists say, we in the foreign service are engaged in very “high context” work. Our ability to succeed depends directly on our success in generating support for Canadian interests and positions from people abroad both from our natural allies and from those who have no inherent reason to support us.
Frank Petrie brings his story to a close with a series of observations of the future world Canada and Canadians are constructing for themselves. “It will be a major task in the twenty-first century for the world community to develop common outlooks and views about this shrinking world of ours.” Frank spent his career doing this —one relationship at a time. He encourages us to do the same.
View the original scanned pages →
Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 15, No. 1 (1998) — Spring 1998 // Printemps 1998, pp. 43–44. Read the rest of this issue →
