bout de papier, Vol. 10, No. 2 (1993) — Spring 1993 // Printemps 1993, p. 4
Colin Robertson
President
PAFSO
Dear Colin:
I always found that writing the President’s column for bout de papier to be the most difficult part of the job. While the chance to share one’s thoughts with the membership, and other readers, is a wonderful opportunity the pressure to “get it right” is always a little bit stressful. As President, you are expected to “get it right” almost all of the time. Such expectations are impossible to fill, and there are a number of instances where “getting it right” seemed to describe something other than what I was doing at the time.
The column is challenging because it allows you to pursue an agenda, either short-term or long-term, and with luck and a bit of effort, the agenda will reflect the interests of the membership. It will never be bang-on, but with the proper feedback there will be more than enough opportunities to institute the proper course corrections. Keeping in touch with all 1,300 members is impossible. You do, however, have an awful lot of help. The Executive and the Professional staff are in day-to-day touch with the membership and are a good barometer of where people are at. Similarly the PAFSO Reps are an important point of contact and source of information. They, along with the new PAFSO Update, need to keep giving you feedback. That’s their job, yours is to listen and to let them know where you are coming from. You will also start to receive a not inconsiderable volume of mail, mostly from members abroad. These letters are always a gold mine of information and viewpoints. I always read each with care and tried to reply to most. For those that were not, I hope the judgement won’t be too harsh.
Time will be your biggest challenge. The job simply demands more than is available on a part-time basis. On this issue, I have come to the conclusion that the Association should work over the next couple of years towards the establishment of a full-time President. Potential candidates would still come from within the foreign service. Arranging a special Leave Without Pay (LWOP) provision with Personnel, perhaps for one year at a time, should not prove too difficult. Naturally, the Association would have to be prepared to fund that individual at his/her rate of pay. İ am sure that there are a number of our colleagues who would find such a “career break” to be of interest. A full-time President could devote more time to long-term objectives; such as those that were identified in the PAFSO Communications and Political Strategy circulated last fall.
Representing the Association to those outside the “foreign service” family is one of the most rewarding aspects of the job. There are a couple of institutions that we have traditionally concentrated our efforts on, although there remains a great deal of untapped interest across the country in what we have to say. Non-career appointments always provide an opportunity to present our viewpoint to the media and to individual Canadians. Relations with the media are good, but reactive for the most part. We in the Association, as well as our Departments (EAITC and CEIC), however, have not been as successful in capturing their interest and attention on how foreign policy (in its widest definition – going beyond basics) is developed and delivered. Press stories about “post closings” serve to highlight the resource issue but are customarily far off the mark when it comes to the pursuit of priorities. We also need to take into account the changing role of Parliament in the formulation of foreign policy, particularly in the context of Commons and Senate Committees. We have in the past appeared before Parliamentary Committees to present our viewpoint on issues of direct interest to the Association, such as the decision to transfer the social affairs stream to CEIC. Perhaps the time is approaching when the agenda should be widened to respond to other issues, issues that would challenge the management of the foreign service (gender representation at Senior Manager/Heads of Post levels) as well as that of foreign policy. A wider dialogue on issues of interest to our members was one of the basic underlying reasons for our support, in association with the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, for Canadian Foreign Policy/La Politique étrangère du Canada.
Referring back to the agenda that I spoke about earlier, a number of issues of great concern to the membership will be played out in the year to come. Key among them is the question of FS Restructuring which gives us the opportunity to seriously examine the role, responsibilities and (perhaps most importantly) career opportunities for FS Officers in the years to come. A restructured FS category can revitalize the deep seated malaise that currently affects a highly skilled and trained corps of professionals whose career prospects (two levels — with salary caps well below our colleagues in other government departments) are limited at best. The commitment of the department, in consultation with CEIC, to pursue fundamental reform of the appraisal system is another step forward, one which PAFSO has been pursuing for many years. Equally important, the Personnel Branch, under Bill Clarke, is wedded to an open process of consultation on these issues which should be welcomed as a new departure from some of the practices of the past.
With only limited success, the Association has raised with Senior Management the issue of discrimination against our gay and lesbian members.
Discrimination on the basis of sexual preference was specifically dealt with in the last round of contract negotiations, and the department has indicated a willingness to better publicize its security policies in this context in the next reprinting of the Security Manual. The question of benefits under the Foreign Service Directives, despite being raised in the recently completed FDS renegotiation, however, remains outstanding. The government’s position as a whole is that such issues are currently before the courts and that their hands are tied. This is not good enough and the Association should take every opportunity to press on what is essentially the last legalized form of human rights discrimination.
As President, you can look forward to the excellent support of the Executive Committee, the professional staff (Peter, Debra, Susan and Barbara), and most importantly the members. The job will be demanding and the issues will often seem intractable. There may also be times when you start to question the wisdom of having said yes. However, if it was not challenging then it probably would not be worth doing, and if there are not times of self doubt then you would not be making progress. The job is also a lot of fun with the chance to explore new directions. Most of all, the chance to serve our colleagues is an honour, one that I would not have passed up for anything.
So long and good luck.
Respectfully yours,
Donald R. Mackay
Past President
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 10, No. 2 (1993) — Spring 1993 // Printemps 1993, p. 4. Read the rest of this issue →
