bout de papier, Vol. 31, No. 2 (2021), p. 3
IN MARCH LAST YEAR, I wrote “A Letter to the Future,” my contribution to the last issue of bout de papier before we put this magazine on hiatus, just as the COVID-19 crisis overtook us in Ottawa. By the time you read this relaunched version, we will have marked a full year of social distancing, working from home, mask-wearing, closed borders, and devastated lives and livelihoods. Words like “lockdown,” “Covidiot,” and “anti-masker” have become part of our everyday vocabularies, and I still can’t remember to unmute myself on Zoom. In all this, our friend and colleague Michael Kovrig has now spent more than two years in arbitrary and unjust detention in China, with no release in sight.
As one popular internet meme put it, the expression “hindsight is 2020” now seems like a dire warning from the future. There’s no denying that from the COVID-19 public health crisis — and its especially devastating impact on diverse communities, psychological health, and small businesses around the world — to the continued threat of climate change, and what we hope are turning points in the movements for racial and social justice, 2020 has transformed us in ways we could not have anticipated. And the fluctuations are not over yet. Change is likely to be the only certainty in our lives for some time to come.
The international consulting company McKinsey calls a COVID-19 “landscape-scale crisis,” which has generated exceptional uncertainty and increased stress and anxiety that have caused people to focus with tunnel vision on the present. Landscape-scale crises can cause equally large-scale traumatic responses in societies as enforced isolation disconnects people from their normal sources of social and emotional support. It’s not uncommon for earlier traumas to resurface at both the societal and individual levels. Under such circumstances, humans have a deep need for meaning, transparency, and guidance. As I noted in my “Letter to the Future,” everyone is seeking certainty, but unfortunately, there is still little to be had.
We’re all asking when this pandemic will end, and there is some light at the end of the tunnel. As I write this, governments across the world are rolling out vaccination programs. At the same time, new variants of the virus are emerging, leading to increased travel restrictions and quarantine measures in Canada and elsewhere. Uncertainty about the effectiveness of the vaccines, how they will be administered to Canada-Based Staff and families abroad, and how the new public health measures will be applied, adds to the stress of the situation.
For many PAFSO members, this uncertainty comes after an exhausting year in which they worked around the clock, at missions abroad and at headquarters, at home and in their offices, to keep critical operations running and serve Canada and Canadians. This magazine contains some examples of the outstanding work performed in response to the pandemic. However, the beneficiaries probably don’t know that a significant number of the people helping them have been separated from their families since the crisis began, and even more have not been able to see friends or extended family at all since last spring or even before. Fear and exhaustion are starting to take their toll, but the members of Canada’s professional Foreign Service continue to act with competence, compassion, and genuine care for each other as well as for those we serve.
There is no question that Foreign Service Officers have been hampered in their pandemic response efforts by decades of erosion to our systems and structures. Much of our work, as consular, trade, political, immigration or development officers, relies upon relationships and contacts that take time, effort and personal connection to build. Canada is a G7 nation but we rank 18th in terms of diplomatic representation, well behind Argentina and the Netherlands, with only 1,000 or so Canada-Based Staff abroad in normal times. Many of our embassies and consulates are staffed by only 1-3 Canada-Based Staff, supported by dedicated locally-engaged personnel, which causes problems when anyone has to leave. At the same time, our bureaucratic infrastructure is bloated and lacks the agility to respond effectively to the current new and dynamic environment, including by providing appropriate administrative and health and safety support to staff abroad.
At PAFSO, all our instruments, including the revitalized bout de papier, are dedicated to reaffirming the value of a dynamic foreign policy, delivered by a strong professional Foreign Service, in these difficult times. Although our members have done extraordinary work under adverse circumstances, we would do even better with the right tools, resources and respect.
It’s not easy to be optimistic when there are still so many uncertainties ahead of us. But in this year of unprecedented challenge and change, the Foreign Service community has pulled together to work through the crisis under incredibly difficult conditions. In this time of flux, I remain sure of one thing: the role and contribution of the professional Foreign Service will be significant in whatever is to come.
Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 31, No. 2 (2021), p. 3. Read the rest of this issue →
