Canada's New (Conservative) Foreign Policy

[The Bread Guy]

Prime Minister Stephen Harper today announced the establishment of the Office of Religious Freedom within the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, which will be dedicated to promoting freedom of religion or belief around the world. He also announced the appointment of Dr. Andrew Bennett as Ambassador to the Office. The Prime Minister was joined by Jason Kenney, Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, and Julian Fantino, Minister of International Cooperation.

“Around the world, violations of religious freedom are widespread and they are increasing,” said the Prime Minister. “Dr Bennett is a man of principle and deep convictions and he will encourage the protection of religious minorities around the world so all can practice their faith without fear of violence and repression.”

Under Ambassador Bennett’s leadership, the Office – which is now operational – will promote freedom of religion or belief as a Canadian foreign policy priority. The Office will be an important vehicle through which Canada can advance fundamental Canadian values including freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law worldwide.

“Our Government is dedicated to promoting the freedom and prosperity of the people it serves,” added the Prime Minister. We will work with other countries and all people of goodwill, to promote the principles we share.“

Specifically, the Office will focus on advocacy, analysis, policy development and programming relating to: protecting and advocating on behalf of religious minorities under threat; opposing religious hatred and intolerance; and, promoting Canadian values of pluralism and tolerance abroad. Activities will be centred on countries or situations where there is evidence of egregious violations of the right to freedom of religion, violations that could include violence, hatred and systemic discrimination ....

PMO, 19 Feb 13

More on the Office here, and about the Ambassador here:

Dr. Andrew P.W. Bennett

Dr. Bennett is a public servant and academic with an extensive educational background in history, political science, and religious studies. He received a Bachelor of Arts in History (1st Class Honours) from Dalhousie University in 1995, a Master of Arts in History from McGill University in 1997, and a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Edinburgh in 2002. In addition, he is in the process of completing a part-time degree in theology in Eastern Christian Studies at the Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky Institute of Eastern Christian Studies at Saint Paul University in Ottawa.

Dr. Bennett has worked for the Privy Council Office, Export Development Canada and Natural Resources Canada in a wide variety of analytical, research and corporate roles. He has also held roles as Professor and Dean at Augustine College in Ottawa, as a Scholar Expert on the Americas Desk with Oxford Analytica and as a Researcher with the University of Edinburgh’s Institute on Governance where he focused on the process of devolution in Scotland ....

 

[Edward Campbell]

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from iPolitics, is a look at Canadian foreign policy through the lens of former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien's recent, highly partisan, comments:

http://www.ipolitics.ca/2013/03/18/jean-chretien-and-the-golden-age-that-never-was/

Jean Chretien and the golden age that never was

By Fen Hampson and Derek Burney

Mar 18, 2013

Listening to Jean Chretien’s recent partisan swipe to the effect that Canada has lost influence in the world, you might think the country is headed towards skid row. That’s some gratitude, after the Harper government gave Mr. Chretien a lift on a Challenger jet so that he could attend the funeral of his buddy Hugo Chavez.

The claim that Canada is losing its place in the world is an old one. We periodically go through bouts of hand-wringing and self-flagellation about it. It is unbecoming of a nation that still has so much going for it.

Ironically, Mr. Chretien’s own Liberal government was the target of a similar attack when Andrew Cohen published his book While Canada Slept: How We Lost Our Place in the World. Cohen held up the Pearsonian era of the 1950s as the veritable gold standard of Canadian foreign policy, arguing that since those glory days, which were sealed with a Nobel Peace Prize, our power and influence in the world had eroded — including during the 1990s when Mr. Chretien was in charge.

Cohen also criticized Chretien for allowing our military and foreign policy instruments to fall into disrepair.

Prime Minister Harper deserves credit for rebuilding Canada’s military and replenishing our global stock by staying the course in Afghanistan for the better part of 10 years. We also played a key leadership role in the NATO mission in Libya when a Canadian general, Charles Bouchard, was put in charge.

However, the true measure for the conduct of Canadian foreign policy is the manner in which we manage relations with the U.S. On that benchmark, Chretien barely merits a passing grade. Predictable home town applause for tweaking the eagle’s feathers — but no bilateral achievement left in the window. The current government resolved the softwood lumber dispute (left behind by the Liberals) and launched the Beyond the Border initiative. Progress has been slow on the latter but definitely more substantive than the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) press releases from the previous decade.

Like Cohen, Mr. Chretien has an exaggerated reading of Canada’s influence in the past, and a misplaced belief that by reaffirming our faith in liberal internationalism and the UN we can regain some of our former glory.

Although we should not belittle the achievements of Lester B. Pearson, we also should not exaggerate Canada’s global influence in the 1950s and 1960s or the importance of the UN.

During the Cold War, international diplomacy was dominated by the two superpowers — the United States and the Soviet Union. Aside from the Suez crisis of 1956, Canada’s influence was marginal in Berlin, Cuba and the other major crisis points of the Cold War. Our constant nagging also did little to divert the United States from its misadventures in Vietnam, Africa and the Americas.

Nor should we should put much stock in Mr. Chretien’s assertion that Canada has turned its back on the UN after the members of the General Assembly rebuffed our 2010 bid for a seat on the Security Council. We are still one of the major financial contributors to the UN and the work of its affiliated agencies.

But the truth of the matter, like it or not, is that the UN is not a major player in global security in the 21st century. And that has little to do with us or our role in that body. The problem is that the world’s most powerful nations find it increasingly hard to agree on what the UN’s role should be after the very brief post-Cold War honeymoon the organization enjoyed in the early 1990s.

UN Security Council resolutions — once seen as the necessary go-ahead for collective international action — are now sometimes sought before an engagement (Libya) and sometimes after an intervention in order to provide ex post-facto justification (Kosovo). Sometimes an intervention occurs after its sponsors, recognizing the likelihood of vetoes, opt not to seek explicit authorization from the Security Council — as happened with the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

As for the posturing after the fact on Iraq, are we to conclude that situation in Syria — a tragedy fueled by a neutered UN which has seen a loss of civilian life similar to that in Iraq — is somehow better? Or that Canada’s membership on the Security Council would have made a difference? Really? Foreign policy is more about doing than saying. Those who did little should say even less.

The bigger problem today is that we are living in a world of fractured governance and diffuse political authority, as Moses Naim argues in his recent book The End of Power: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being In Charge Isn’t What It Used to Be. New powers like Brazil, Turkey, India and China are also now flexing their muscles on the world stage.

Being in charge isn’t what it used to be — and that applies just as much to the United States and the UN as is does to so-called “middle powers” like Canada.

We’re just going to have to look forward with a realistic sense of what we can do — and stop imagining a golden past that never was.

Fen Osler Hampson is a Distinguished Fellow and Director of Global Security at the Centre for International Governance Innovation. He is also Chancellor’s Professor at Carleton University. He is the author of nine books and editor/co-editor of more than 25 other volumes on international affairs and Canadian foreign policy.

Derek Burney is an Officer of the Order of Canada and a senior strategic advisor to Norton Rose Canada LLP. Mr. Burney is a former Canadian ambassador to the United States (1989–1993) and a visiting professor and senior distinguished fellow at Carleton University.

It isn't belittling Lester B Pearson to remind readers that the foreign policy which he oversaw wasn't his: it was Louis St Laurent's foreign policy ~ from the creation of the UN and NATO to the decision to finesse the peacekeeping resolution through the UN and to play a major role in UN peacekeeping - it was all St Laurent, even after he retired in 1957.

There was a "golden age" in Canadian foreign policy: from the mid 1940s until, about, 1960. It was a result of a combination of people, exceptional people, and a vision (see St Laurent's 1947 Grey Lecture) and wealth (thanks to our strong position at the end of World War II). None of those ingredients exist today, nor did they in the 1980s and '90s.

 

[Edward Campbell]

More on "Canada's New (Conservative) Foreign Policy" in an editorial, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Ottawa Citizen:

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/opinion/Toward+foreign+policy/5924804/story.html

I think Harper is on the right track and I don't think the "picture" is "blurry" at all . It will be much clearer when Harper disbands CIDA, a rest home for less than capable public servants who could not find useful work in e.g. DFAIT, Finance or Industry.

And, in this budget, he has finally done it: folded CIDA (back) into the Department of Foreign Affairs, where it belongs.

Although Foreign Affairs is no longer the home of the "best and brightest" in Canada's public service (they're now in PCO and Finance ~ Foreign Affairs was emasculated in the early 1970s) its civil servants are still excellent when compared to the fluff who populate CIDA. Surely Minister Baird will take a whip to the CIDA people and, metaphorically, cleanse the temple and make foreign aid into a tool of foreign policy, again.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Two interesting, and supportive, comments from two former Foreign Ministers in the Globe and Mail:

Lloyd Axworthy says Ending CIDA is a bold and admirable move;

Barbara McDougall agrees but says In merging aid with foreign affairs, Baird has his work cut out for him.

I agree with both; it is a good great idea and the NGOs and some segments of government will fight like hell to keep aid separate from foreign and trade policies.

 

[Edward Campbell]

And here, from a mainstay of the help the poor, regardless of costs or consequences ~ it's all the fault of capitalism faction, is the counterpoint, in an article in the Globe and Mail entitled Once a leader, Canada disappearing from the developing world. You don't need to read it all; one sentence sums it up: Once a leader, we have become an also-ran, absenting ourselves on critical development issues, cutting aid to the poorest, stalling projects, driving NGOs to bankruptcy and using aid money in the most blatant ways to promote short-term Canadian commercial interests.

As I have pointed out elsewhere, development aid has been, by and large, a monumental failure, for donors and recipients alike, for the past 75 years; of course there have been some exceptions (e.g. The Colombo Plan) but, in general, Dambisa Moyo is right in her controversial but very worthwhile book Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa.

"Development" doesn't just happen because we - and others - throw money at the feet of fools, dictators and charlatans. In fact Dr. Moyo posits that commercial loans, loans which must be repaid, and business investments, which must produce a return, are far better than traditional aid. I suspect she's right and i hope we jump on that bandwagon (with China, amongst others) and provide some real "development" leadership.

 

[Edward Campbell]

...

... greedy, short-sighted Ontario and Québec dairy and egg farmers are doing real, serious economic damage to Canada. Our egg and dairy market management system hurts everyone except a few thousand farmers; it must end, sooner rather than later and I understand that means violence and bloodshed on the streets of Ottawa when the Québec milk and egg producers come to town to protest, as they will. It’s OK, we can stand much rioting, a bit of sabotage, setting fire to parliament (all of which will happen), many injuries and even a few fatalities, to accomplish something useful.

More on the horrid mishmash of failed policies that is supply management in Canada in this article which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/fowl-play-how-supply-management-is-thwarting-canadas-agri-food-industry/article10234073/?page=all

Fowl play: How supply management is thwarting Canada’s agri-food industry

BARRIE MCKENNA
WELLAND, ONT. — The Globe and Mail

Published Saturday, Mar. 23 2013

Jim Lee is standing inside his ominously quiet chicken processing plant.

Running at full tilt, Cami International Poultry Inc. of Welland, Ont., would normally be slaughtering, cleaning and chilling as many as 15,000 chickens a day.

Instead, the plant is closed. All but a handful of Cami’s nearly 60 workers are at home collecting employment insurance. A 1.6-kilometre conveyor belt that snakes through the $5.5-million plant sits idle. A few stray feathers on the floor near the loading dock are the only obvious hint of the plant’s usual vocation.

Cami has operated just three days so far in March and six in February. “It’s frustrating as hell,” said Mr. Lee, 55, a second-generation chicken processor who studied agricultural science at the University of Guelph.

“We have so much potential to go serve the market and we’re being hand-tied. And the worst thing is I’m being punished for doing the right thing.”

The simple answer why the six-year-old factory is running on empty is that Cami can’t get enough live chickens. The Chicken Farmers of Ontario, which parcels out quotas for birds to processors, won’t let him buy more live chickens. And he’s struck out importing more from Quebec, or anywhere else.

Cami’s struggles are a microcosm of what’s wrong with a large swath of Canada’s agri-food industry. Supply management – the system that tightly controls every facet of dairy, egg and chicken production in Canada – is thwarting companies like Cami from doing all the good things Ottawa says it wants from businesses – innovating, exporting and taking risks.

Critics of supply management have typically focused on the high cost paid by consumers. Cami’s predicament demonstrates how lost export opportunities and the stifling of agricultural innovation is harming a much broader swath of the economy. Supply management is sapping economic growth, jobs and productivity, up and down the food chain, not to mention the hit on government revenues.

Canadians may not know what they’re missing. The global market for protein is exploding as the middle class grows in emerging markets such as China, India and Indonesia. And it’s driving demand for milk, cheese and chicken, and to a lesser extent, pork and beef.

The Canadian agricultural sector is severely limited in what dairy and poultry products it can export because of the protectionist regime Canada maintains at home to prop up incomes for an ever-shrinking number of farmers.

Economists say the benefits to farmers pale next to the billions of dollars in lost exports – today, and in the coming decades. Instead, the United States, Australia, New Zealand and the European Union are grabbing a vast market that could be Canada’s.

A land of plenty – and constraint

Canada has all the competitive advantages to be a food-export colossus, including land, climate, feed and genetic technology. But it has consciously decided, through its policy decisions, to forsake the fastest-growing part of the market, lamented Colin Carter, a professor and director of agricultural economics at the University of California-Davis.

“That’s where the action is in terms of economic growth, in these emerging markets,” explained Prof. Carter, a Canadian, and an expert on global commodity markets. “It means there will be a shift in global demand for agricultural products, and trade. And for the most part, Canada is not participating in that market.”

Canadian exports of processed agricultural to emerging markets are stagnant, and aren’t likely to grow in the future because the country isn’t selling what the world is buying, according to Prof. Carter. Global demand for milk products, for example, is expected to grow by 34 per cent by 2021. Demand for chicken is forecast to increase 30 per cent over the same period. Canada’s exports of processed agricultural products, including such items as fresh meat, vegetables and sweeteners, totalled $13.7-billion (U.S.) in 2011, with 80 per cent destined for the U.S. and Japan.

“I’m not harping on what we’ve lost in the past,” Prof. Carter said. “It’s about looking forward and seeing where the opportunities are, and identifying what constraints are in place. And it’s supply management.”

The result is that chicken and dairy production is growing rapidly in countries that don’t manage the supply, such as the U.S., Australia and New Zealand. In Canada, output is completely stagnant – a vivid reminder of the lucrative business Canada is losing out on, Prof. Carter explained.

Canada is still a major player in selling commodities, such as wheat, to the world. But it has a large growing trade deficit in processed agricultural products.

Other countries are getting the spoils, and Canada will forever be playing “catch up,” said Richard Barichello, a professor of food and resource economics at the University of British Columbia.

“It’s very clear where the future lies,” Prof. Barichello argued. “The potential gains from exports are growing, and it’s only a matter of time before it exceeds the domestic market. We’re talking billions of dollars.”

It’s not just theoretical. Mr. Lee’s frustrations hint at the vast lost opportunity for Canada’s agri-food industry. Until a few months ago, Cami had a thriving business selling specially prepared chickens for Chinese and halal grocery stores in the Toronto area. The company hand-slaughters and air chills its birds, and to meet the custom of the fast-growing Chinese-Canadian population, the birds are sold with the head and feet intact.

But Mr. Lee is thinking much bigger. From his plant, located across the street from a shuttered former Stelco Inc. pipe-making factory, he wants to ship chickens as far away as Vancouver, New York City and Hong Kong.

He figures his plant could handle up to five times the number of chickens it now processes, selling so-called “Hong Kong-dressed” chicken to affluent Chinese consumers around the world.

Mr. Lee’s choice of a company name – Cami International – and the location of the plant in the Niagara Peninsula reflect his ambition to tap the export market. “I always thought I would be exporting into the U.S. and into the Asian market,” he said.

But Cami has been stymied on all fronts by a deal struck last year between large processors and the chicken marketing boards in Ontario and Quebec. The deal severely curtailed cross-border shipments of live chickens, virtually shutting out small processors such as Cami. The company’s allotment of chickens fell 70 per cent – to roughly 250,000 kilograms every two months from 800,000 kilograms. That explains Mr. Lee’s empty plant.

Supply management depends on tightly controlling the volume of chickens flowing into the market. Processors can only buy the amount of chickens allocated by their provincial marketing board. Likewise, farmers can only raise and sell their allotted quota of birds. Similar rules prevail in the dairy industry, where supply management also reigns.

A cultural argument

Desperate for a way out, Mr. Lee is suing the Chicken Farmers of Ontario (CFO) and six large chicken processors, seeking millions of dollars in damages, and more chickens. In a statement of claim filed in the Ontario Superior Court, Cami alleges that last year’s supply reallocation agreement violates the company’s constitutionally protected rights to freedom of religion and equality by restricting the chicken available to religious and cultural minorities.

Michael Edmonds, director of communications for the CFO, wouldn’t comment directly on the Cami case, other than to acknowledge that the agency is aware that the company wants more chickens to process. The CFO has not yet filed a statement of defence in the case.

He insisted that the CFO works hard to accommodate specialty markets, including growing demand from Chinese Canadians. “That’s not to say [the system] is without flaws. ... If there are new markets, we will look at ways to meet that demand.”

Mr. Lee’s showdown with the Chicken Farmers of Ontario is symptomatic of the dysfunctional supply-managed farm sectors. Prof. Barichello of the University of B.C. said the rich returns generated in the closed system has led to endless squabbles over the allocation of limited supply.

Prof. Barichello has also documented what he says is a growing concentration among dairy processors – the companies that package and process the raw milk into consumable products. The consolidation trend began in the late 1990s and continued through 2005.

The result is that profit margins have soared among the shrinking cluster of large processors who dominate the market. The result is a widening gap in retail prices that isn’t benefiting farmers, and is clearly harming consumers, according to soon-to-be-published research by Prof. Barichello.

“When we see the high price at retail, it’s not just the farm price that’s gone up,” explained Prof. Barichello, who grew up on a dairy farm still run by his brother in Langley, B.C. “That’s an issue of some concern if we were to face the prospect of exporting.”

Dairy prices in Canada were 115 per cent higher than New Zealand’s between 1983 and 2010, and 23 per cent more than in the U.S., according to a recent report by the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. And the gap is expected to widen sharply over the next decade. For the average family, that represents a penalty of hundreds of dollars a year.

Mr. Lee is now considering some desperate measures to save his plant from closing permanently. He’s applied for a special licence to import U.S. chickens, which he would then process and sell south of the border. He’s also looking at the possibility of importing packaged chicken and vegetables, which are allowed into the country without paying the 238 per cent tariff that shields Canadian farmers.

He points out the obvious irony that these unpalatable options wouldn’t do much to help Canadian farmers, or the Canadian economy.

Mr. Lee is left scratching his head, unable to comprehend why supply management is throttling his business.

“I love being Canadian,” he said. “But I can’t service the people who want my product. I can’t build a business and I can’t help the economy here. It’s asinine.”

"Asinine" is the right word to describe Canada's agricultural policies, and were it not for one single factor - cowardly politicians, Conservative, Liberal and NDP, federal and provincial - this asinine system would have been dismantled years and years ago. It may take "free traders" from the EU* and the TPP to, finally, make Prime Minister Harper or his successor grow some balls and some brains and do what's right for Canada.


_____
* I find it hard to believe I used "free trader" and EU in the same sentence without an  :  The EU is the biggest protectionist cartel in all of human history.

 

[Retired AF Guy]

And God help you if you try to buck the system. If you do this happens:

That’s Outrageous!

Whatever happened to common sense?

Freedom of Eggs-pression?

By Brian Kappler

      The lawmen struck about 9 a.m.  The task force rolled  down County Road  21 in convoy and swooped  down on a tranquil-looking farm. Some of the raiders searched  the whole spread, even the bedrooms, while others  kept an eye on the owner. The contraband was found in the barn: Bootleg eggs.  Outlaw chickens

      This March 23 (2006) drama played out at the farm of Shawn Carmichael, his wife, Paula,  and their six  children near Spencerville in eastern Ontario.  The raid was the work of the gallant egg enforcers of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), the Egg Farmers of Ontario (EFO, former Ontario Egg Producers) and the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP).

      Carmichael was told he faced various charges, including  “unlawful possession of laying hens.”  But just as officials were preparing to haul away his chickens –the egg police say there were 9,000—things got strange. Neighbours arrived, along with members of a local landowners’ group, grumbling that no chickens should be confiscated until Carmichael was convicted of something.

      Around 1 p.m. Carmichael moved a tractor to block the farm exit, and the resulting standoff lasted ten hours.  The inspectors phoned out for pizza. Before it was over “maybe a dozen cruisers and about 20 officers” were called in said Inspector Brent Hill of the Grenville County OPP. All that was missing was a helicopter overhead.

      Finally a deal was reached:  Most of the eggs and chickens were unloaded and released back to Carmichael; the poultry patrollers were allowed to leave. But by then “hundreds” of birds had died from lack of water and fresh air, Carmichael says.

      If this all seems incredible, if you think governments and police should have better things to do, then you don’t know about supply management.  The Carmichael raid was in support of a little-known cartel, like OPEC, of producers, resulting in legal price fixing at the expense of consumers.

      Eggs, chicken, turkey and milk in Canada have been subject for decades to marketing boards.  You need government permission to produce these products commercially.  You get permission by owning quota –in this case, the right to produce and sell eggs within the system—which Carmichael, the outlaw egg man, didn’t have.  Under this “orderly” marketing system, both price and supply are controlled so producers don’t need to compete.  Tariffs keep out almost all foreign competition. The point is to guarantee a profit to producers, and it works well for those who are “in the club” –so well that quota has itself become a valuable commodity, which is bought and sold at up to $175 a bird.  Or in other words, for the right to produce about 25 dozen eggs a year

      That figure comes form Harry Pelissero, general manager of the EFO, which represents quota owners. Canada has some 1,200 such producers, he says, and the EFO speaks for the 400 in Ontario.  Pelissero says his members average 20,000 birds each. (Do the math: That makes them millionaires two or three times over in quota value alone.) The high cost of getting into the business keeps competition down.  Pelissero, a former Ontario legislature member, argues that the quota system guarantees quality and helps with disease management, as well as proving “a reasonable return to the producer, at a reasonable price to the consumer without government intervention.”  The whole system is financed by a levy on eggs, which varies from province to province.  It’s currently about 34 ½ cents a dozen in Ontario.  Of course, this cost is passed on to consumers. 

      In the weeks after the Carmichael raid, the CFIA hit organic food stores around Ottawa, confiscating and destroying eggs from Carmichael’s farm.  The CFIA’s responsibility is food safety, not quota enforcement.  Taras Melnyk, regional operations coordinator for the CFIA, would not discuss any health claims against Carmichael because the investigation is ongoing, but he did say that the CFIA participated in an authorized search conducted after a warrant had been issued by a Brockville judge.

      But Rick Payant, owner of Ottawa’s Natural Food Pantry, scoffed at suggestions of health problems.  Carmichael, he said in an interview, “has been my only egg supplier for 14 years,” without customer complaints.  “He has a high-quality egg at a good price,” Payant said.

      Public demand for organic food may prove to be a weak point for supply management.  Small producers of fresh food are Davids who can fight Goliath, up to a point, because they offer consumer distinctive, nongeneric products.

      The Montreal Economic Institute (MEI), a think tank that generally supports free markets, has harsh words for supply management in general.  In a January press release the MEI noted that whenever government action keeps a price artificially high, consumers will naturally tend to switch to cheaper alternatives.  So if your children grab a doughnut for breakfast instead of an omelette and some milk, supply management may (be to blame?? text smudged here for several words).

      Australia, says the MEI, did away with supply management for milk in 2000; consumer  prices fell, and the industry became more efficient.

      In Canada, Ottawa and the provinces squabble about many things but work together smoothly to protect producers.  Politicians of all parties trip over one another to support the system, because quota holders –their relatives, suppliers and friends—have political clout, while consumers barely even know this whole system exists.

      Carmichael certainly knows.  “I’m a man of conviction,” he said in a telephone interview. “What I’m doing is right. I’m not against supply management, but the way the system works, these are bad laws.  The day they rolled in here, they were judge, jury and executioner! 

      “And if we didn’t challenge bad laws, well, we’d still have black people working on farms as slaves.”

      Marketing boards will persist unless consumers begin to demand a freer, more efficient market in basic foods such as chicken, milk and eggs.  Producers are happy with the status quo, know how to motivate politicians and easily outweigh consumers, who lack lobbying muscle of their own.

      So egg commando units will ride again, stamping out enterprise and competition in the continuing crusade to make the world safe for quota holders.  Makes you proud to be Canadian, eh? 

Article Link

 

[CougarKing]

And, in this budget, he has finally done it: folded CIDA (back) into the Department of Foreign Affairs, where it belongs.

Although Foreign Affairs is no longer the home of the "best and brightest" in Canada's public service (they're now in PCO and Finance ~ Foreign Affairs was emasculated in the early 1970s) its civil servants are still excellent when compared to the fluff who populate CIDA. Surely Minister Baird will take a whip to the CIDA people and, metaphorically, cleanse the temple and make foreign aid into a tool of foreign policy, again.

Reinforcing the points above is this article from the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute (CDFAI)...

CDFAI Vice President and Distinguished Research Fellow, Colin Robertson, explains in The Globe and Mail that CIDA's merger into DFAIT has the potential to be beneficial for both organizations. He argues that bringing the two under one roof can lessen the disconnect between the conduct of Canada’s foreign policy objectives and delivery of development assistance.

Globe and Mail article

COLIN ROBERTSON

The CIDA move's not radical. Canada is just playing catch up

The re-integration of CIDA into Foreign Affairs and International Trade is a sensible move.

Sensible because, notwithstanding best efforts at the senior political level, whether the government of the day was Conservative or Liberal, there has too often been a disconnect in the field in the conduct of our foreign policy objectives and delivery of development assistance.

Also sensible because it will likely require a change in the current culture of CIDA and the capacity of Foreign Affairs to rise to the challenge. Neither is certain. It remains to be seen if they can also overcome tensions between domestic priorities and international commitments in the development sphere.

CIDA emerged during the initial expansionary phase of government in the early Trudeau years from the External Affairs Aid Office. It was intended to operate in the field as a development delivery agency, a bit like immigration selection. Instead, under the direction of Paul Gérin-Lajoie, the former Quebec education minister who served as CIDA president during this period, it developed an arguably independendist personality and a distinct culture.

Operating from its base across the Ottawa River in Quebec, there was no way CIDA would take direction from the striped pants brigade in the Pearson building. Long-term development, argued the prelates at CIDA, should not be subject to short-term diplomatic imperatives.

CIDA officers at missions overseas took their cue accordingly and, armed with separate and substantial budgets that eclipsed those of Foreign Affairs, they could and would often operate independently of the Ambassador or High Commissioner, even though the latter was intended to have overall responsibility. Immigration officers operate on a similar basis but their strict regulatory code is transparent and designed to protect the ambassador from facing invidious local pressures.

At home, CIDA has become the sustainer and often principal source of a plethora of non-government groups, all of which claimed to have development objectives, some of which were not in alignment with government policy.

Letting a thousand flowers bloom can have advantages, but over time these relationships came to resemble that of patron and client. There were a couple of problems with this approach.

First, CIDA became a policy center with a network of clients who, in turn, developed a sense of entitlement.

Second, the direction was not always congruent with our foreign policy. In the development world there is a tendency towards moralism and a disdain for the urgencies of realpolitik.

There were awkward conversations with foreign governments when the NGOs and, occasionally, the CIDA operative in the field, failed to appreciate the distinction between development and interference in the host country’s domestic affairs. This did not advance Canadian interests.

In recent speeches , CIDA Minister Julian Fantino has promised a new direction that would link CIDA programs directly to our trade and foreign policy objectives because “we have a duty and a responsibility to ensure that Canadian interests are promoted.”

CIDA partnerships would be broadened to include business as well as NGOS and multinational organizations. Mr. Fantino had no time for the moralists saying that “this is Canadian money” and that he found it “very strange that people would not expect Canadian investments to also promote Canadian values, Canadian business, the Canadian economy.” Nor would, he said , “NGOs be funded for life” scotching the belief that “CIDA only exists to keep NGOs afloat.”

This philosophical shift is not unique to Canada.

It is supported by an emerging school of thought that argues that after half a century and $2.4-trillion in investment the old approach to aid has not worked. In White Man’s Burden, William Easterly writes that multilateral and national aid agencies are staffed by well-meaning planners who see “poverty as a technical engineering problem that [their] answers will solve” when in reality “poverty is a complicated tangle of political, social, historical, institutional and technological factors.”

Even more radical is Dambisa Moyo, who argued in Dead Aid that aid is the fundamental cause of poverty and therefore eliminating aid is critical to spur growth in ailing African states.

We are not the first government to bring aid back under the direction of foreign affairs or to try to instill a ‘business’ perspective. The British, Australians and New Zealanders as well as other European countries are aiming at the same objective. As Britain’s Aid Minister Justine Green put it this past week, her objective, “for developing countries is an end to aid dependency through jobs.”

To end the turf battles over authority and accountability, former U.S. president George W. Bush brought US AID under the direction of the State Department and established the Millenium Challenge Corporation to address corruption. It added strict accountability measures and good governance conditionality to its grants with the hope that it would become the model for U.S. 21st-century development assistance.

The Obama Administration kept this structure and as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton promised to make US AID the premier development agency in the world. She described development an “indispensable foreign policy tool for advancing American interests and solving global problems.” But judging outcomes is difficult and he jury is still out on whether the approach is working.

The integration of CIDA into Foreign Affairs and the congruence of development and diplomatic policy makes sense and it should help Foreign Minister John Baird put flesh onto his ‘dignity agenda. But it will take much effort.

Hard questions will need to be asked on how and where our foreign aid is spent. The emphasis will need to be on outcomes that visibly advance development as well as Canadian interests. No easy task.

A former diplomat, Colin Robertson is vice-president and senior fellow of the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute and senior strategic adviser to McKenna, Long and Aldridge.

   

I find it interesting that in all the talk about CIDA's merge with DFAIT, that no one in the press so far even mentioned a crown corporation based in Ottawa called the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) or how it would be affected by the merge. While the IDRC was always separate from CIDA to begin with, and is also partially funded as well by the UK government's own development agency (DFID), it still takes up 1.2% of Canada's overall aid budget.

I find Robertson's use of the phrase "let a thousand flowers bloom" as an allusion to China's 1950s "Hundred Flowers campaign" amusing.

 

[a_majoor]

Like many of the other policy platform planks, the Conservatives have some sound foreign policy ideas, but little inclination or appetite to put it in motion:

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2013/03/28/terry-glavin-tories-have-the-ingredients-for-ambitious-foreign-policy-but-no-advocate/

Terry Glavin: Tories have the ingredients for ambitious foreign policy, but no advocate

Terry Glavin, Special to National Post | 13/03/28 10:07 AM ET
More from Special to National Post

The return of the Canadian International Development Agency to the Foreign Affairs fold after a 45-year absence — an event that was strangely almost hidden in the 433-page budget Finance Minister Jim Flaherty introduced in the House of Commons last Thursday — is no small deal. The news certainly set off a good bit of chatter, and happily not all of it has been partisan, predictable and boring.

But what is truly strange is that the astonishing global and historic context of CIDA’s deconstruction has been almost entirely missed. A week prior to Flaherty’s budget speech — which contained no mention, even, of what was up with CIDA — the United Nations in New York revealed something directly related to CIDA’s mandate and legacy, and was a very, very big deal indeed. It’s bigger than the Industrial Revolution.
   
It turns out that the “Third World” isn’t there anymore. The Global South has moved north. Those benighted states we’ve all grown accustomed to calling “developing countries” have been developing so much faster than Europe and North America that they’ve pretty well caught up. Released March 14, the 2013 Human Development Report concludes: “Never in history have the living conditions and prospects of so many people changed so dramatically and so fast.”

Here’s Khalid Malik, the report’s lead author: “The Industrial Revolution was a story of perhaps 100 million people, but this is a story about billions of people.” Here’s just one finding from the report itself: “For the first time in 150 years, the combined output of the developing world’s three leading economies — Brazil, China and India — is about equal to the combined GDP of the long-standing industrial powers of the North — Canada, France, Germany, Italy, United Kingdom and the United States.”

To notice this is not to suggest that CIDA’s mandate is no longer relevant, or that the wretched of the Earth have simply vanished.

Indeed, CIDA’s minister, Julian Fantino, has pledged to maintain international aid and development funding levels, and Ottawa is also promising new legislation to enshrine poverty alleviation as a key objective of a reorganized Department of Foreign Affairs, International Trade and Development.
 
But the world is changing in a very big way. Things are actually getting better, and in what only a few years ago we would have thought of as the most unlikely places — Bangladesh, Bhutan, Rwanda, Ghana, Tanzania, and India. Meanwhile, in the United States and much of Europe, unemployment is on the rise and broad sections of society are buckling under the weight of “austerity” measures. It’s been like that since 2008. That’s bad news. But the good news is that the “south” is rising.

Just days after the UN Development Program released its report, Oxford University released the findings of its own study of trends in extreme poverty in 22 of the world’s poorest countries, home to roughly two billion people, or roughly one-third of humanity. Oxford’s Poverty and Human Development Initiative concludes that if these trends persist the most acute forms of poverty in half of those countries, including Bangladesh, will be eradicated within 20 years.

The world is changing, it’s changing fast, and faster than anyone anticipated. It’s changing for reasons that don’t neatly fit conventional analyses. Certainly, openness to international markets and the abandonment of central-state economic planning has helped enormously. But so have state investments in infrastructure, literacy, democratic innovation, and perhaps most importantly, the emancipation of women.

All of these developments present Canada’s Conservative government with a unique opportunity to articulate a coherent and ambitious foreign policy. Now that the “silo” of CIDA has been breached, and following on last year’s elimination of the vexatious Rights and Democracy agency, little stands in the way, institutionally, of a robust and progressive new approach to foreign policy, trade, development and aid.

The ingredients are there: Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s own signature emphasis on maternal mortality and child health, a focus on the protection of religious minorities, a refusal to equivocate in the defence of Israel and the isolation of Khomeinist Iran, and an integrated approach to aid and trade — often involving contentious corporate partnerships — of the kind pioneered by Hillary Clinton during her command of the U.S. State Department.

There remains a surprising degree of goodwill that Prime Minister Harper can draw upon to secure some degree of multi-partisan consensus on what sort of “values” Canada should be projecting in the world.

Even former Liberal Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy gave his blessing to Ottawa’s CIDA move.

The government’s main weakness: Six years have passed since the prime minister pledged a specific agency to promote democratic development in the world and still no traction. The “Arab Spring” came and went, and with the exception of a useful military contribution to the NATO project in Libya, Canada has been largely irrelevant to the entire phenomenon. Even the New Democratic Party’s Paul Dewar will occasionally imply that some iteration of the Conservatives’ promised democracy-promotion agency would be a very good idea.

The problem is mainly that there are already at least two dozen agencies, programs and budget pockets of one sort or another that are ostensibly given to the purpose — Elections Canada’s overseas technical assistance, Export Development Canada’s anti-corruption program, the Department of Foreign Affairs’ Glyn Berry program and so on.

There’s just no co-ordination, no hand on the tiller, and no cabinet champion. This is embarrassing, stupid, and wrong.

Ottawa should get on with it.

Terry Glavin is an author and journalist whose most recent book is Come From The Shadows.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail is an editorial that makes an important point about Canada in the world ~ we are a pluralistic country with strong cultural values that exclude some practices and beliefs that others might find acceptable:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/editorials/when-something-is-barbaric-call-it-barbaric/article10713368/

When something is barbaric, call it barbaric

The Globe and Mail

Published Wednesday, Apr. 03 2013

Jason Kenney, the federal immigration minister, deserves congratulations for releasing an updated guide for newcomers that refers to certain unacceptable cultural practices as “barbaric.” Those practices include any that “tolerate spousal abuse, honour killings, female genital mutilation, forced marriage or other gender-based violence.” The term “barbaric” is strong, but it leaves no room for misinterpretation. That is the most important issue here.

There is no question that some will be offended by “barbaric” and its connotations of primitive cultures and a lack of sophistication. It is a provocative adjective to use in reference to another culture, especially in Canada, where it does not quite fit with our self-image of a multicultural, all-accepting country that embraces other peoples with open arms.

But there are three overriding points that justify the term’s use. One, the most obvious, is that honour killings, spousal abuse, female genital mutilation and forced marriage are unjustifiable and savagely brutal acts that have no place in Canada. Mr. Kenney is absolutely right about that.

Secondly, these sorts of gender-based cruelties have no place in any country, and Canada is sending a strong message about it. Gender equality is a basic human right, and countries that embrace it as such tend to fare better economically than those that don’t. Not that a basic human right needs economic justification, but Canada is a prosperous and safe place to live, and its attitudes about the rights of women and girls are a critical part of that success.

Finally, the absolute clarity of the government’s position on barbaric cultural practices is a healthy step toward pluralism and away from the illusion of multiculturalism. The latter – a word that gets tossed around liberally in Canada – presumes there is no dominant culture. But that is not true about our country. We are a pluralist society that welcomes other peoples and encourages them to celebrate their unique cultures and traditions but only, as Mr. Kenney’s updated guide also says, as long as they “are consistent with Canadian values such as human dignity and equality before the law.” Anything else is non-negotiable.

Both Minister Kenney (and his officials) and the Good Grey Globe are to be commended for spelling out Canada's values in a clear fashion.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Every once in awhile, the Mop & Pail gets something right and surprises me. Good on them and today's government.

 

[The Bread Guy]

But just to show that pettiness is never in short supply in our foreign ministry, I offer this this, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/baird-demands-gold-drops-canada-from-foreign-affairs-business-card/article2185969/

Baird demands gold, drops 'Canada' from Foreign Affairs business card

DEAN BEEBY
Ottawa— The Canadian Press

Published Friday, Sep. 30, 2011

John Baird has set a new gold standard for business cards.

The Conservative Foreign Affairs Minister demanded – and got – gold embossing on his business cards shortly after being shuffled into the portfolio last May, contrary to government rules.

Mr. Baird then ordered the word “Canada” dropped from the standard design, also against federal policy.

And he insisted that “Lester B. Pearson Building” be removed from the standard street address for Foreign Affairs’ headquarters in Ottawa, thereby erasing the name of a former Liberal prime minister and Nobel Peace Prize winner.

The controversial changes initially provoked resistance from the senior Foreign Affairs bureaucrats who are responsible for implementing policies on government branding.

But in the end, Mr. Baird won a temporary exemption from the rules – and got his way.

A gold-embossed Canadian coat of arms now glistens from his unilingual English business cards, which lack the wordmark “Canada,” a federal branding design that features a small Canadian flag above the last letter ....

The latest ....

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird has joined his cabinet colleague International Cooperation Minister Julian Fantino under the microscope of Parliament’s language watchdog over separate “English only” controversies.

While Fantino is under investigation over a directive for bureaucrats to send him correspondence for review in English only, a new report by Official Languages Commissioner Graham Fraser said Baird’s Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade had violated its obligations under federal language legislation by printing English only business cards for the minister.

Baird had also ordered bilingual business cards, but Fraser’s report concluded that the two sets of cards violated provisions of Canada’s Official Languages Act as well as government branding requirements, under the Treasury Board Secretariat’s Federal Identity Program, to promote the use of English and French in Canadian society.

“Providing bilingual business cards on some occasions and cards in English only at other times does not foster the promotion of linguistic duality in Canada and abroad and does not express the equality of both official languages which is at the heart of FIP objectives and stipulated by the (Official Languages) Act,” said Fraser’s report, dated April 4 and produced in response to a complaint by NDP official languages critic Yvon Godin.

Fraser’s report also recommended that Baird’s department fix the problem by the end of September ....

Postmedia News, 10 Apr 13

 

[GAP]

Fraser’s report also recommended that Baird’s department fix the problem by the end of September ....

The new batch of 10,000 cards should be delivered by then.....

 

[Edward Campbell]

Prof Roland Paris has some very harsh words for Foreign Minister John Baird in this article which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail:
(Caveat lector, I know Prof Paris, and I like him; he's an acquaintance rather than a friend, but he's a thoughtful guy and his opinions are honestly held.)

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/bairds-east-jerusalem-scandal-shows-canada-has-a-mideast-dishonesty-gap/article11257627/

Baird’s East Jerusalem scandal shows Canada has a Mideast dishonesty gap

ROLAND PARIS
Special to The Globe and Mail

Published Tuesday, Apr. 16 2013

Why is Foreign Minister John Baird misrepresenting Canada’s policies on the Mideast?

Last week, Mr. Baird met with Israeli justice minister Tzipi Livni in East Jerusalem. The meeting was controversial because of its location. Israel captured East Jerusalem in the 1967 war and later annexed it. Canada, like most of our allies and the United Nations, has historically regarded that territory as occupied, rather than as formally part of Israel.

Any peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinians will have to address the city’s contested status. Partly for this reason, Canada has maintained a longstanding policy of not meeting with Israeli officials (or accepting Israeli government escorts) in the occupied territories, including East Jerusalem. These guidelines have reflected both Canada’s strong support of Israel and its commitment to international law and a just peace.

Why, then, did Mr. Baird later say that the location of his East Jerusalem meeting was “irrelevant” and that it did not “signal a change in Canadian foreign policy”?

Perhaps he did not know about the policy or did not understand the political implications of meeting an Israeli minister in occupied territory. Either of these explanations might account for his “irrelevant” remark. They might also explain his spokesperson’s breezy justification of the meeting’s controversial location: “As guests, we were pleased to meet our hosts where it was most convenient for them.”

However, neither of these explanations is plausible. Mr. Baird has traveled to the Mideast before and seems to have a particular interest in the politics of the region. It is inconceivable that fundamental facts about the political status of East Jerusalem would have escaped his attention.

It is similarly inconceivable that his officials would not have been informed him of Canada’s longstanding policy regarding meetings with Israeli government officials in the occupied territories, along with the reasons behind this policy.

If we set aside ignorance or negligence as reasons for Mr. Baird’s actions, the remaining explanation is that he knowingly altered Canadian policy and deliberately misrepresented this fact when he was challenged.

As foreign minister, Mr. Baird has the right to change Canadian policy, but he is not entitled to change policy and then to deny doing so. Yet, that is precisely what he seems to be doing.

Although ministerial double-speak is troubling at any time, it is particularly disconcerting when it comes from a government that claims to “speak clearly” in the pursuit of a “principled” foreign policy.

Moreover, the East Jerusalem incident followed Baird’s visit to Bahrain, where he made no mention of that country’s atrocious human rights record – in spite of the fact that both he and Prime Minister Stephen Harper have repeatedly stated that Canada will speak out strongly for human rights, regardless of whether doing so is “popular, convenient or expedient.”

These actions raise important questions about the consistency and purposes of Canadian foreign policy, but the question of honesty is even more fundamental. If Mr. Baird wishes to change Canada’s Mideast policies, he should follow his own government’s injunction to “speak clearly” to Canadians about what he is doing in their name.

Roland Paris is University Research Chair of International Security and Governance at the University of Ottawa. He is currently a visiting professor at Sciences Po in Paris, France. He tweets at @rolandparis.

Prof Paris is right, in my opinion. We have, Canada has, changed its foreign policy and we, our government, should be forthright, even proud of that change and we/it should stop shily-shalying around the issue. The fact is that Canada's policy is now, broadly, that Israel, is in the moral and geo-political right and the Arabs, especially the Palestinians will have to adapt to Israel's own definition of its own borders. The new policy is justifiable on moral, strategic and historical grounds. Put simply there are no "partners for peace" for Israel in the Middle East; the Arabs, especially the Palestinians, don't want "peace" as we might understand that word ~ they want Israel to disappear. Their aim has no foundation in history or politics; Canada is correct to reject it on common sense grounds.

But our government, the government run by the political party I support, is trying to be too cute by half. It is dishonest and unbecoming.

 

[CougarKing]

Having seen first hand how effective career diplomats can be when I was working in a grad. school coop for the Consulate General of Canada in Chongqing, China, last year, I agree with Gar Pardy's view of Bruno Saccomani. Knowledge of the local culture and language is critical in as high a position as ambassador; one prime example of a career foreign service officer is our former ambassador to China, David Mulroney, who speaks Mandarin fluently and has served in Canada's Consulate General in Shanghai, our trade office in Taipei, Taiwan, before heading our embassy in Beijing. Mulroney was instrumental in furthering Canada-China relations, through such activities such as preparing the groundwork for the PM's state visit to China last year as well as the success of the Canada-China Business Council in promoting mutual investment between the two countries.

National Post link

Mountie in charge of Harper’s personal security detail to be appointed Canada’s ambassador to Jordan

The Mountie who heads Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s personal security detail will be appointed Canada’s ambassador to Jordan.

The appointment of RCMP Supt. Bruno Saccomani will likely raise eyebrows in the diplomatic community and prompt questions from opposition parties about why the job isn’t going to a career diplomat.

Saccomani is held in high regard by Harper for how he bolstered the security detail in recent years into a more modern unit with better trained RCMP officers, more funding and better protective equipment.

The government also believes his background in security — including a previous five-year-stint as a liaison officer at Canada’s embassy in Rome that brought him to various countries in the Middle East — will stand him in good stead in Jordan.

That country is a critical nation in the region, as the civil war continues to rage in neighbouring Syria and thousands of refugees flee to camps in Jordan.

Marc Lortie, former Canadian ambassador to France, said in an interview Wednesday that two things are critical for an envoy: relevant experience and a “special connection with the powers that be” — such as the prime minister.

On both counts, he said, Saccomani is qualified for his new posting.

“This fellow served in an embassy before. He was connected to international affairs through his security work,” Lortie said. “What are we looking at in this region? First and foremost, security issues. Refugee issues. Those types of things. And it seems we’re touching all the bases with this type of fellow.

“I don’t know him personally but with the background that I see, I believe that he’s going to do a fine job.”

But former Canadian diplomat Gar Pardy questioned whether Saccomani would have the skills necessary to navigate the extremely complex and sensitive minefield that is the Middle East.

“I’m flabbergasted,” Pardy said. “It worries me just because you want somebody who understands that part of the world. You need someone who has a sense of how things work over there.”

Pardy said this was the first time he has ever heard of a Mountie being named an ambassador, and he noted that as a superintendent, Saccomani isn’t among the most senior of ranks in the RCMP.

“This borders on the peculiar,” Pardy said.

Although diplomatic postings often go to career foreign service officers, governments sometimes turn to key players — such as former B.C. premier Gordon Campbell as envoy to Britain and former Manitoba Premier Gary Doer to the post in the United States.

Some appointments are unexpected, such as when former prime minister Jean Chretien appointed his director of communications, Peter Donolo, as consul general in Milan, and sent television news personality Pamela Wallin to the same post in New York City.

Lortie said the government should not restrict all its appointments to career diplomats.

“We have to look outside of the foreign service when you reach the level of ambassador to see who is best qualified to serve the interests of the government of Canada.”

But NDP foreign affairs critic Paul Dewar said the ambassador’s position in Jordan is critical given the country’s key role in the Middle East.

Dewar said the government will have to explain how Saccomani’s appointment is not patronage, and why there was no one in the foreign service able to fill the position.

“How was this person selected?” Dewar asked. “And were there no other qualified candidates for this job? I really question this appointment.”

In addition to being Canada’s top envoy to Jordan, Saccomani will also assume ambassadorial responsibility for Iraq — where Canada recently announced it is opening a diplomatic mission.

The new Canadian charge d’affaires based in Iraq, Stephanie Duhaime, will report to Saccomani.

Saccomani is a virtual unknown to most Canadians. The only glimpse they might have seen of him in newspaper photos or TV images was when he and his fellow Mounties were protecting Harper at public events.

He is the officer in charge of the Prime Minister’s Protection Detail, the unit that provides security protection for Harper and his family in Canada and as they travel throughout the world.

Last year, Saccomani’s name surfaced in the media after a leaked report revealed that some Mounties within his unit had complained in an internal review of his management style. They alleged he was an overly domineering boss who created a workplace environment in which some members of the team felt intimidated.

However, the prime minister’s office immediately rallied to his defence and some members of his unit have praised his leadership.

RCMP Insp. Pierre Menard, who currently works in the detail, said Saccomani helped turned it into a “world-class protective unit” — even though it meant his persistent push for more funding “wasn’t always well received by our superiors.”

“He truly had the vision of providing the best service to the prime minister and his family,” he said. “But he didn’t have time to lose for poor performers or people who are not doing the job they are supposed to do.

“So sometimes he was quite direct, saying ‘Listen, you’re not doing your job and that’s the way it is and you’re going to have to change. Perform better or leave.’ And obviously that created some issues.”

In his most recent annual performance review, dated March 28 and obtained by Postmedia News, Saccomani receives glowing praise from his manager.

“Within the detail, Supt. Saccomani has brought the level of professionalism to an all time high,” said the report. “Supt. Saccomani is a courageous risk taker who has placed the care of his client and members above his own personal well being.”

Saccomani has a lengthy career in the RCMP dating back to 1985 when he started work as a patrol officer in British Columbia.

In the mid-90s, he moved to Ottawa to work as a bodyguard on Chretien’s security detail.

In 1997, he was assigned to the embassy in Rome and was responsible for co-operating with other countries in international criminal investigations — a task that brought him to 11 nations including Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan.

Eventually, after a similar stint at the Canadian embassy in Thailand, and as a senior investigator in Ottawa, Saccomani was transferred in 2006 to the prime minister’s protective detail.

He quickly rose through the ranks and became its head in 2009.

 

[GAP]

good call

 

[Remius]

I think the PM has on occasion made some bad appointments.  Time will tell if this is one of them...

 

[CougarKing]

When the writer of this article below mentions the relatively small size of actual foreign service officers in DFAIT, he means about 400 of various ranks. While the article below mentions 1,350 as the size of the PAFSO, the difficulties of expat life as experienced by diplomats (mentioned in the article below) only apply to those 400+ who serve overseas; the others among the 1,350 should be staff in other divisions of DFAIT based in Ottawa and other parts of Canada.

While interning with our consulate in Chongqing, China, the vice-consul corrected a coop work report by me for my grad. school. in which I wrongly described the foreign service as having "legions" of foreign service officers across our diplomatic missions across the world.

She corrected me in saying there are actually only about 400 CBS (Canada-based staff) or Canadian citizens who serve as diplomats and trade commissioners at our various embassies, high commissions, consulates and trade offices across the world (around 170+ diplomatic missions). The reason behind this small number is because most of these CBS are supported by thousands of local staff from the host country or LES (locally engaged staff).

These LES locals are NOT Canadian citizens but are often paid higher than their counterparts in the host government's agencies that have similar positions; the tasks these LES members do varies from translation, to being a liaison to local counterparts, to various administrative, trade, immigration (visas) and public outreach work. Some of these LES members who attain more senior ranks are even sent to Ottawa (e.g. DFAIT's Bisson Centre) for further training.

To give you a sense of the size of the LES:CBS ratio, consider our consulate in Chongqing. When I was there, there were 11 people working in the Consulate: 2 Canadians (the Consul and Vice-Consul), and 9 local staff (4 local trade commissioners, 2 trade commissioner assistants, 1 public affairs officer, 1 admin officer and 1 driver).

Compared to smaller consulates, the main embassy in Beijing has about 300 people, of which about 80-90 were CBS and Canadians from other government agencies such as Immigration Canada and CIDA, supported by around 200 plus LES. (plus the CF military attaché and the MPSS detachment)

link

Why don’t diplomats get the respect they’ve earned?

iPolitics Insight

Last month the membership of the Professional Association of Foreign Service Officers (PAFSO), Canada’s working-level diplomats, voted overwhelmingly in favour of job action. The 1,350 members of this occupational group, who have been without a contract since June 2011, are now in a legal strike position.

While this situation has been getting some coverage, to date the actions undertaken by PAFSO members have been largely symbolic: working-to-rule, refusing overtime and ignoring their BlackBerries outside of office hours. An “electronic picket” affecting e-mail communications has been deployed to automatically alert Canadians and international officials to the possibility of delays in responding to correspondence.

There has been no wholesale withdrawal of service, and PAFSO has shown itself to be anything but rigid or uncompromising. When the Boston Marathon was bombed on April 15, all job actions at the Canadian Consulate-General in that city were suspended immediately.

So, what’s causing all the discontent and why is it important?

Foreign Service Officers play a critical role at home and abroad in advancing the security, prosperity and well-being of all Canadians. Yet their work is largely unappreciated. Diplomacy remains a mystery to most Canadians, and diplomats are rarely accorded the respect enjoyed by soldiers or aid workers.

This may be attributed in part to PAFSO’s relatively small size, to the lack of a vocal national constituency (unlike the case of the Canadian Forces) and to apathy on the part of journalists, academics and opinion leaders. The elimination of domestic outreach programs by DFAIT’s senior management and the related centralization and control of all public communication in PMO/PCO has contributed as well.

Diplomacy also has a serious image problem. In the public mind, to the extent that they are thought of at all, diplomats tend to be seen as a pampered elite living high off the hog at taxpayer expense. Dithering dandies.

That negative stereotype is often invoked by diplomacy’s detractors. Like most stereotypes, however, this one is far off the mark. Given the stakes at play, we’re overdue for a reality check.

One of the less celebrated outcomes associated with the WikiLeaks ‘Cablegate’ episode of 2010-11 was the window it opened into the inner workings of the world’s second oldest profession. In some 257,000 U.S.-origin classified dispatches, diplomats were shown to be hard at work, pursuing interests, advocating policies, building relationships and projecting values, in major capitals and to the ends of the earth, 24/7. Innovative thinking, entrepreneurship, street-smarts and granular local knowledge permeate the entire corpus.

The government appears prepared to force PAFSO members into the embrace of increasingly serious and disruptive job action, in hope that that this will elicit widespread public and media condemnation of the ‘spoiled diplomats.’

Had these been Canadian cables, the story would have been much the same. Readers would have encountered brokers, guides and cultural interpreters, including:
•Political officers developing networks, performing analysis, gathering intelligence and assessing policy;
•Trade commissioners promoting goods and services and soliciting inward investment;
•Consular officers assisting citizens by replacing passports, offering travel advice, arranging repatriations and medical care, visiting prisoners and organizing evacuations from disaster areas or conflict zones, and;
•Immigration officers interviewing and recruiting new Canadians, issuing student and visitor visas, and working with airline staff to identify illegal migrants and false documentation.

Essential and exciting pursuits, to be sure, but a far cry from easy street.

Even under the best of circumstances, it can be tough to balance family life against the requirements of the job. Foreign Service Officers are ‘rotational’, subject to regular assignments abroad. Spouses frequently are unable to work on overseas postings, and may have difficulty finding employment, or even collecting unemployment insurance, when they return home. This can lead both to lost income and career development problems.

Children have to change schools, leave their friends, make new ones and adjust to different educational systems and languages. Some thrive. Others fail.

Overseas moves may be exciting once, but over the course of a career they can be exhausting. In the face of relentless downward pressure on the terms and conditions of service abroad, allowances are tumbling, rent ceilings are being lowered, commutes are getting longer and incentives are disappearing. An increasing number of administrative and logistical tasks — moving arrangements, finding accommodation, providing furnishings — are no longer being provided by the employer and are falling upon families — that is, if families can come. More and more diplomats are going abroad unaccompanied, where they may face personal risks (Afghanistan), sleep in tents (post-earthquake Haiti) or come home to a pre-fab container jammed into a heavily guarded compound (Pakistan).

In short, this is challenging, complex, often difficult and — remembering Glyn Berry, Chris Stevens and Anne Smedinghoff — increasingly dangerous work. But it must be done. Social media and digital technologies, while useful tools, can never replace the value added by direct human contact and on-the-ground connectedness.

The Government of Canada should be doing everything in its power to support its employees on the front lines. Alas, this is not the case. Years of underinvestment, exacerbated by over $300 million in cumulative cuts imposed on DFAIT by the 2012 federal budget, have severely degraded the work environment.

Add to that what amounts to bad faith bargaining and the lingering absence of a contract, and all elements are in place for a perfect storm of labour unrest.

Still, PAFSO is hardly the radical fringe. Its leadership recognizes that these are hard times everywhere and is not seeking an unreasonable settlement. Significant concessions have been offered on severance pay (agreement to its elimination) and across-the-board wage increases (acceptance of something in the range of 1.5 per cent per year).

PAFSO is firm, however, in its insistence that the matter of providing equal pay for equal work be addressed squarely in any settlement. Many Foreign Service Officers are today receiving substantially less in compensation than the members of other, non-rotational occupational groups (economists, commerce officers, lawyers) who are doing exactly the same or similar work, often in the same division. This differential varies from several thousand to tens of thousands of dollars per year, and the spread is growing. Morale and collegial co-habitation have suffered accordingly.

The government remains intransigent, if not hostile. Treasury Board has rejected the non-binding recommendations of the independent Public Interest Commission. It refuses even to discuss the issue of comparative compensation. The employer appears prepared to force PAFSO members into the embrace of increasingly serious and disruptive job action, in hope that that this will elicit widespread public and media condemnation of the “spoiled diplomats.”

Such tactics are most regrettable. Recall, for instance, the disastrous inefficiencies, administrative overhead and management confusion which attended the efforts first to remove, and then to restore the trade department within the foreign ministry in 2004-06. Based upon that experience, the recent decision to integrate CIDA into DFAIT would have been difficult at the best of times. The disaffection engendered by the contract dispute can only worsen the prospects for a successful merger.

At the end of the day, all of this is particularly unsettling because in an age of globalization, diplomacy and development assistance must be more intimately and seamlessly intertwined. We live on a small planet beset by a host of perils — climate change, environmental collapse, diminishing biodiversity, pandemic disease — none of which are amenable to military solutions. Our best hope lies in addressing these challenges through knowledge-based problem-solving and complex balancing, backed by dialogue, negotiation and compromise.

In other words, security is not a martial art. Diplomacy, not defence, is the best way forward. Yet unless and until our diplomatic capacity is unbound — not constrained or debilitated — the foreign ministry will never perform anywhere near its potential. Canada’s place in the world will slide further.

Diplomacy’s decline has been in train for decades, but the current situation represents a new low. The continued battering of the Foreign Service is inimical to the national interest. To advance the prosperity, security and well-being of Canadians, the government should return immediately to the bargaining table with a mandate to reach a fair and equitable settlement.

The Foreign Service, and the country, deserve no less.

 

[Brad Sallows]

>Our best hope lies in addressing these challenges through knowledge-based problem-solving and complex balancing, backed by dialogue, negotiation and compromise.

And motherhood and apple pie.  Shorter version: "Our best hope lies in addressing these challenges through analysis and diplomacy."  Duh.

 

[Edward Campbell]

While, very broadly, I support Daryl Copeland's views on why (and how) traditional diplomacy almost always fails, I am not convinced that a bigger foreign service is the answer. A better foreign service would certainly be welcome, but the problems with the public service, broadly, are long standing and, I suspect, institutionalized by now. Making a just adequate service larger does not, it seems to me, address the problems with implementing Canadian foreign policy.