Jim Bartleman dedicates his book on his life in the Canadian for- eign service to his colleagues and ”œtheir long suffering families.” He chronicles his career from the time he had black hair and a thirst for adven- tures through six continents and nine postings to a time when he had become a ”œsomewhat battered, white haired dinosaur, all too ready to waste the time of his officers by telling sto- ries of his life in years gone by.” He makes clear the impact which a foreign service career can have on spouses and children, and the key role and sacri- fices they made in following him around the world.
Bartleman describes his book as that ”œof witness or bit-player to many of the seminal events affecting Canada’s foreign relations in the latter third of the twentieth century.” The book is full of wit and self deprecation and the trauma of depression which plagued the later part of his career. It is also an interesting read and shows Canada as a land of opportunity where someone from such humble begin- nings can rise to the pinnacle of the Canadian foreign service as diplomatic advisor to the prime minister and assistant secretary to the Privy Council Office for Foreign and Defence Affairs. Bartleman qualifies the 1985 change in Canadian law which permitted his mother to regain the Native status she was stripped of when she married his father, a white, as ”œa highlight of my life and a definition of my identity when I was granted recognition at that time as an aboriginal Canadian.”
Before going any further I have a confession to make: Jim Bartleman and I were classmates in Foreign Affairs, having both joined in 1966. Our careers rarely crossed paths except in later years, but many of Bartleman’s experiences mirror my own. I first recall meeting Jim when he came into my office in the Langevin Building and told me he was replacing me the following Monday, something which Personnel had not seen fit to inform me about. He also told me about him- self and his background, which was different from any of our colleagues in the class of 1966. We both spent part of the fall of 1966 at the UN General Assembly, but at different times and in very different roles. He was an advisor to a chain-smoking member of the Canadian delegation on the Fourth Committee. I served as executive assis- tant to a brilliant but somewhat logis- tically challenged Ambassador George Ignatieff. We both watched in fascina- tion the debates in the Canadian dele- gation between the foreign minister Paul Martin Sr. and the newly elected Pierre Elliott Trudeau on Canada’s position on China.
I did not attend the diplomatic reception described by Bartleman where the Canadian host and several others were so inebriated that they were on their hands and knees. Nor have I ever witnessed such an event. Bartleman attributes this party as one of the reasons Pierre Trudeau was so dismissive of Canada’s foreign service after he became prime minister.
Bartleman recounts his adventures on his first posting to Colombia where his biggest challenge was deal- ing with the Canadian ambassador and his wife, sleeping with a loaded pistol under his pillow to ward off criminals. Bartleman’s second posting was to Bangladesh to open Canada’s first high commission there after the war of independence split East Pakistan from West Pakistan. Here he encountered poverty on an almost unimaginable basis and worked hard with his CIDA colleagues to ensure the delivery of Canadian food aid and other aid projects.
Bartleman went on to the Canadian Mission to NATO in Brussels where he served as ”œgeneral dogsbody and backup officer to the ambassador on the crisis of the day.” Bartleman met and married his wife Marie- Jeanne, during this posting and two of their three children were born there.
Bartleman’s first post as ambassador was to Cuba. President Castro would come to the Canadian residence to meet visitors and in the case of Agriculture Minister Eugene Whalen to upbraid him for complaining about the conditions in his guesthouse. The Cubans also poi- soned the Bartleman’s family dog, lead- ing Jim to protest to the Cuban foreign ministry to ”œcall off your goons.”
Bartleman’s chapter on his posting to Israel is interesting as he sets out the challenges faced by any Canadian diplo- mat going there: members of the Jewish and Arab communities in Canada threatened to ruin his career if he ”œdid not toe their mutually exclusive lines.”
The inner workings of government
Keep track of who’s doing what to get federal policy made. In The Functionary.
The Functionary
Our newsletter about the public service.
Nominated for a Digital Publishing Award.
In October 1990 Bartleman returned to NATO as ambassador. He describes how he learned of the deci- sion to withdraw our troops from Lahr, Germany and was told he should not question the decision. This was a far contrast from the debate inside the new Trudeau government in 1969 about the level of our commitment to NATO and the role played by the then ambassador to NATO, Ross Campbell, in limiting their reduction to 50 per- cent. But the Cold War was over and there were other more pressing demands for Canadian forces in Bosnia, Somalia and elsewhere. By the 1990s the prevailing view in Ottawa was that Canadian ambassadors have no role in policy formulation, they simply carry out instructions, often from very junior officers. The tragedy is that so many of them fall into line without so much as a whimper!
Bartleman devotes less than six pages of his book to the four years he spent working directly with Prime Minister Chrétien (1994-1998). (He is already writing a separate book on this period called ”œRoller Coaster ”” My Years with Jean Chrétien” which will provide an inside look at policy forma- tion and the big issues such as fish war, Zaire, Bosnia, globalization etc.) Bartleman notes that real power and often the day-to-day management of foreign policy issues shifted from the ministers at Foreign Affairs to the prime minister and his staff in PCO.
Bartleman describes the onset of his depression which would eventually force him to leave the PCO and seek a less stressful job as High Commissioner to South Africa. In the spring of 1998, I was coming to the end of four eventful years as minis- ter/deputy chief of mission in Paris and had hoped to return to Ottawa. However Ottawa proposed that I go to South Africa. At the time, Jim Bartleman was considering going to Berne, Switzerland. We talked about other options he had in getting back to Europe. However he decided that life in Berne would be too quiet, so he opted to go to South Africa, and we went to Berne. I have often wondered what would have happened had I gone to South Africa and been faced with the terrible physical attack which Jim endured there, and how he might have fared better in Berne.
Bartleman recalls that his depres- sion worsened in South Africa and that following the savage attack by an intruder at his hotel in Cape Town, he ”œplunged into a deep pit of post-traumatic shock that left him with an overwhelming desire to die.” The government offered to cross-post him to Australia to make a new start. He found that writing his memoirs, Out of Muskoka, and the current book proved to be therapeutic magic for his depres- sion. He enjoyed Australia except for the attitude many Australians have toward their Aboriginal peoples.
Less than a year into his posting in Australia, Bartleman was surprised when Chrétien offered him the post of ambassador to the European Union and advised him to take it. With his wife’s blessing, they decided to make their third move in three years. He found that Canadians and Europeans were drifting apart and he tried to reforge the ties which had been ”œso badly neglect- ed by both sides throughout the 1990s.” Early in 2002 Bartleman was appointed the first Aboriginal lieu- tenant governor of Ontario, a post which he has occupied with distinction and innovation in support of the Native communities of the North.
His book is well worth reading and should help inspire young Canadians to join the foreign service and gives insights to others as to what the real work of diplomats involves at home and abroad.
