Honourable senators, first, I think it’s appropriate as I speak about foreign affairs and our experience to, again, acknowledge the descriptions that Senator Batters gave us this afternoon and the importance of our history, culture and heritage as we continue to forge domestically and internationally.

I rise today to speak to the twelfth report of the Foreign Affairs and International Trade Committee, entitled More than a Vocation: Canada’s Need for a 21st Century Foreign Service.

As I prepared for this study, I reflected on the number of new graduates and Canadians over the past three decades that I have counselled about careers in the Foreign Service. I was pleased to do this and listened to their successes, failures and challenges over the years. I also felt fortunate over the years to have visited and learned from many embassies, high commissions and consulates on how they operate and operate uniquely in a number of countries. In my other field, it was a very important part of international travel with and for large groups.

I have to admit that, candidly, a deep, deep dive into the inner workings of the Canadian government bureaucracy was not the kind of study I had anticipated when I was fortunate enough to join this committee. But in the hands of our capable chair and deputy chair, I had every faith that this was a timely and worthy study. I was happy to have that faith justified. This work was and is essential, timely and urgent. I welcome all senators to view the complexity, the size and the structures that exist presently in the Foreign Service. This is a huge first step.

As Senator Boehm mentioned in his comments, it has been more than 40 years since a substantive examination of Canada’s foreign services has been undertaken. To give some perspective, when the Royal Commission on Conditions of Foreign Service was undertaken in 1981, Russia had just invaded Afghanistan, the EU was known as the European Economic Community and had recently welcomed its tenth member — Greece — and China had the eighth-largest economy in the world — one place behind Canada. All that is to say, colleagues, that the world has changed in the last 40 years. A deep and thorough assessment of our foreign services was long overdue.

Domestically, Canada has undergone its own demographic shifts, too. This includes the changing of traditional family roles, and that is one of the areas I would like to touch on here today. Dual-income households are no longer the exception but the norm. It is common for both partners to have careers — often rewarding ones. This makes a career in the Foreign Service very challenging for many. It’s why Recommendation 23 of our report states:

The Government of Canada should undertake a complete modernization of the Foreign Service Directives to ensure that they are adapted to the current and evolving realities faced by Canada’s public servants and their families, including with regard to issues related to diversity, inclusion and accessibility. In particular, the Foreign Service Directives should recognize the diversity of family composition, including the realities of single and/or unaccompanied individuals. The modernization of the Foreign Service Directives should also aim to simplify administrative procedures and remove excessive administrative requirements.

Foreign service directives, or FSDs, are a package of allowances and benefits for Canada-based staff working abroad. We heard many times in our study that these FSDs need to reflect the current makeup of the Canadian family if they are to support those working abroad as intended. The tag line of this report, after all, is “More than a Vocation.” This is not the kind of job you leave at 5 p.m. and return to the next day. It’s really a lifelong commitment of serving. As the Professional Association of Foreign Service Officers, or PAFSO, so effectively put it in their testimony, “This commitment affects not just Foreign Service officers, but also our partners, children, extended families . . . and even our pets.”

On our fact-finding missions abroad, we heard numerous first-hand examples of spouses putting careers on hold or changing their career trajectory entirely so they could be posted to the same mission. The problem is not exclusive to Canada, of course, and was discussed with officials and colleagues from the U.S., Germany, the U.K. and Norway during our very important travels. Sometimes it is just the nature of the job, but that is not a reason for inaction.

In their brief, PAFSO noted that the issue of spousal support has largely not changed since the McDougall report in 1981, despite the drastic changes in family incomes and more women and mothers entering the workforce. Staff overseas shared — with a great deal of hope — some examples of what they are managing just to visit their spouse a few times, to move and to find schooling. Some examples were frankly heartbreaking. Witnesses suggested more innovative practices like developing a mechanism to enable accessible job sharing for qualified dual‑service couples, support for telework and spousal allowances among other possible supports and solutions.

I hope this and subsequent governments take this issue seriously as too many qualified, talented individuals could not consider this career without these supports for their families and loved ones.

Shifting focus, colleagues, I’d like to also elaborate on one other area of our report, that being Recommendation 16, which states:

Global Affairs Canada should maintain a Legal Affairs Bureau and a Legal Advisor at the Assistant Deputy Minister level within the department.

This should seem to be a no-brainer. Canada has played an outsized role in the world over the last century because of what we’ve done to help create a rules-based international order. The department’s legal bureau played a leading role in diplomatic successes such as the Convention on the Law of the Sea; the advancement of human rights — especially children’s and women’s rights; the early development of environmental law, including the 1987 Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer; and the advancement of legal accountability for atrocity crimes, culminating in the establishment of the International Criminal Court. Just pause and think about these examples for a moment and their impact. Without the leadership of the people in the bureau, some of these important victories might not have been won.

Despite the many foreign policy contributions of Global Affairs Canada lawyers over the years, the committees heard, via submitted brief, that the department’s senior management has, at times, questioned the value of maintaining a functional legal affairs bureau, thinking it would become more cost-effective for the Department of Justice to take on the legal duties of Global Affairs Canada. This, colleagues, would be a mistake. I believe that everyone in this chamber thinks that true experience does not come from reading texts but, rather, from being out there and experiencing the world first-hand. This is the strength of the department’s legal bureau. They are not only lawyers but also diplomats who have accumulated international and multilateral experience from earlier postings in assignments with legal responsibilities and through international negotiations. This has enabled them to make contextual connections that deepen their ability to find good solutions.

Given how much sanctions and international legal frameworks such as the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice have been in the news in the past year as well as the increasing complexity of cases before these bodies, it is all the more important that we retain and even strengthen the bureau. I should note that the Foreign Affairs Committee will be having a meeting on our international legal commitments this week when, no doubt, this recommendation will be discussed.

There is so much more, colleagues, that I could touch on today, but these are two crucial recommendations that stood out to me in this report. It was a great pleasure working with my colleagues on this. I was proud to serve in the committee and in our travels each day.

The past experiences of the chair and deputy chair added tremendous value to this study.

I take time to really think about this: the work of committee, why we do what we do and who leads what. This work under the leadership of our chair and his capable staff member Christina Cail was as deep and rich as it was because of the global connections and relationships of their office — full stop. We did not have to start at square one in the four countries we visited. I was very proud to be Canadian and on this committee, and to have follow-up conversations after our visits. We also navigated an in-person field trip to Global Affairs Canada, or GAC, while we were here in Ottawa. With great empathy, we sat in the rooms and gained a much deeper understanding of the work of GAC during the pandemic and multiple global crises that impact Canadians in every corner of the world every day. Visiting our colleagues in their offices internationally permitted discussion we could not have had otherwise.

This study and experience were so much more than a look at federal bureaucracy. It was a look at the face Canada will present to our rapidly changing and shifting world. This past century has been good for our country on the international stage. Today’s change is rapid; the world is unstable and fragile. We have to be ahead of the curve. Our global prominence is challenged, and it should be.

Moving forward, skills and structures need to be very different than in the past. This report provides an excellent blueprint for Global Affairs Canada to ensure just that.

As I close, I’m reminded of a few things. This report, the government response to it, the actions taken with respect to it and the awareness of all senators of its contents are critical.

I repeatedly hear about how important our committee work is. Some describe it as the heart of the Senate’s work. This year, I participated in three studies. Some were very triggering. They were fulsome and difficult at times, but they were all very important, and we look forward to seeing the actions that dominate as a result of them. I am cautiously hopeful that we will get timely responses from the government and much-needed collective action.

Honourable senators, yes, Canadians are following this work and looking for the actions. On December 12, shortly after the Foreign Service report was shared in the Senate, I received an inquiry via email. Gail and her family, which includes young university graduates, indicated that the GAC report generated much discussion in her home and with colleagues. They reached out with good questions about recommendations 8, 11 and 21. For them, this led to discussion within their family on the challenge for and seeming inability of institutions to change — an almost impossible task.

I spoke with this family and share this conversation with them as a reminder of the importance of the work we do and, more importantly, our accountability to that work. Thank you, meegwetch.