Sport in Diplomacy
On October 28, 1987, pursuant to a decision by Cabinet, the Secretary of State for External Affairs formally announced the department’s intention to use sport actively as an instrument of cultural diplomacy. Joe Clark said that sport unites us more regularly than…
The Honours List: Sylvia Ostry and Genji Okubo
Members of the Canadian foreign service have, over the years, received many honours national and international. In the following articles, we look at two persons recently honoured in two different ways. Mark Schacter prepared a piece on Sylvia Ostry on the occasion…
Getting our Message Across
On May 21, 1987, the Professional Committee held an evening seminar on the relationship between the media and the foreign service. Chaired by David Adam, then Chairman of the Professional Committee and now Minister-Counsellor (Commercial) at the Canadian Embassy in Caracas, Venezuela,…
Making the Best of Media Interviews
Shocking is not too strong a word to describe the fact that the Soviet Union has been in firm control of the international communications agenda for some time. Moscow is now associated in many people’s minds with the Peace Conference, several offers…
Coal Fires and Candlesticks: Joining External Fifty Years Ago
What was it like to join the Department of External Affairs 50 years ago?
Pressure points in the Canadian foreign service
A letter arrived a few days before this number of bout was sent to the print shop. Intended as a contribution to our “letters to the editor” section, it was a passionate denunciation of Departmental management and its treatment of the social…
An Interview with James Barros
James Barros is the author of a controversial book, No Sense of Evil, on Herbert Norman. He lives in a row house on a cobble-stone street that looks more Bostonian than Toronto. These past couple of years he has immersed himself in…
Editor’s Notebook
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…
From the President of PAFSO
By the time this reaches print, many of us on the Executive Committee will have moved on. Some of us have been caught up in the inexorable posting cycle and will be reading this far from our bright new offices on Rideau…
Sydney G. Harris
Last summer, on leave at his cottage at Norway Bay, and contemplating his last year as Consul General for Canada at Cleveland, Syd made a comment which could stand as his epitaph: “There is so much to do for Canada in the…
