When the Music Stops!
A strike brings out a number of sensitive issues in addition to the major point over which it is called, and the public service strike last fall certainly revealed a dark side at this Department.
Daylight Upon Magic: The Royal Tour of Canada — 1939
The title of this absorbing book comes from Walter Bagehot who, a century and a quarter ago, was gently warning his mid-Victorian contemporaries, a propos of the reverential mystique of the monarchy, “we must not let in daylight upon magic”.
The Domestic Battleground: Canada and the Arab-Israeli Conflict
In The Domestic Battleground, David Taras and David Goldberg set out to awaken “the reader to the high stakes that Canadians have in the Middle East conflict and to the importance of the domestic battleground in influencing the policies Canada will pursue”.…
A “New Internationalism”?
Some Canadian governments consider it desirable to encapsulate the thrust of their foreign policy in code words or phrases. Mackenzie King was anxious that his government should be recognized internationally, after the Second World War, as enjoying authority as well as status.…
Parallel Lives
[J.W. Pickersgill and Escott Reid both enjoyed illustrious careers as public servants. Pickersgill at the right hand of Prime Ministers Mackenzie King and Louis St. Laurent before he became a Minister of the Crown, and Reid through 25 years at External Affairs.…
Letters // Correspondance
Bob Burchill’s article in Vol. 8 #2 (“A Funny Thing Happened…”) is a reminder that we all have highly individualized low points in our foreign service assignments which may prompt one to ask oneself the question, what am I doing here?
In Defence of Diversity: Towards the Legitimization of Dissent
The lack of an established channel through which dissenting analysis might reach decision-makers has been highlighted repeatedly in the recent past, most strikingly, in the wake of the Gulf crisis. While it is clearly important that the Department, and indeed the government,…
A bout de papier Presentation Evening
bout de papier held a Presentation Evening in the Crush Lobby on Thursday, 6 June 1991, to provide a much needed opportunity for many of our supporters to meet members of the Editorial Board, particularly, our illustrious Senior Board. It had been…
Operation MoonDip: A Departmental Joint Venture Extravaganza
The Administrative Deputy Minister recently spoke to a modest Departmental audience on the subject: “A Retrospective of the Corporate Review”. For those of you who were not able to attend this highly informative session, the following is an extract from his impromptu…
Vignettes from a Leaner, Meaner Foreign Service
Has the latest round of budgetary cuts affected the capacity of the Foreign Service to deliver programs overseas and provide foreign policy advice to the government? A recent article in the March edition of Playdiplomat, the magazine of policy advice and nudity…
