Bilateral Agendas: Canadian Foreign Policy on the Ground

With a thirty-year career in the Canadian Foreign Service serving, amongst other roles, as the Canadian High Commissioner to Pakistan, the Ambassador to Algeria, the Deputy High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, the Director General of the Bureau of International Security and Arms Control in the Department of External Affairs, and Assistant Deputy Minister for Policy in the Department of Nationa. [...] The development of our ties with the Francophone countries… represents a new and valuable dimension of Canadian diplomacy.”3 The translation of these statements of intent into action first took the form of a systematic effort to strengthen Canada’s bilateral relations with France, and led by the end of 1965 to the conclusion of a framework agreement on cultural relations and to the establishment o. [...] From the very start, the Tunisian government displayed understanding and sympathy for the positions and prerogatives of the federal government in the long series of disputes engaging Ottawa, Quebec and Paris in the international institutions and organizations of the Francophonie. [...] On the other hand, the Al- gerian government saw in the internationalization of la Francophonie little more than a device of the French government to retain its influence over its former colonies.28 Algeria was thus a non-participant, at least officially, in the affairs of the Francophone community of nations and thus of no help to the Canadian government in bolstering its positions in the Ottawa-. [...] The reasons given at the time are interesting: “the need for Canadian rep- resentation in the region has been recognized for some time, particu- larly because of the frequency with which Middle Eastern affairs are discussed in the United Nations and because of the importance to the free world of maintaining peace in this strategic area.”3 In the official history of the Department of External Affai.