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Foreign Affairs committee Grand finale.
February 12th, 2024Committee meeting
Peter M. Boehm
Foreign Affairs committee Yes, you can certainly make that argument. The point is, if you look at the demographic trends in Africa, as you know, it's going to be exponential in terms of population and in terms of need. There is a real role for Canada there. I would add that we are in a unique position
February 12th, 2024Committee meeting
Peter M. Boehm
Foreign Affairs committee It's hard to navigate all of that. The four current deputy ministers have a great deal of experience in international affairs. I'm talking about the deputy minister of Foreign Affairs and the deputy minister of International Trade. In fact, he worked at the Department of Finance
February 12th, 2024Committee meeting
Peter M. Boehm
Foreign Affairs committee I can offer an opinion on that as an individual. I think locally engaged staff are very important to our government operations outside of Canada. However, each case is different, because they are normally citizens of other countries. There are also a lot of Canadians who have a
February 12th, 2024Committee meeting
Peter M. Boehm
Foreign Affairs committee Thank you.
February 12th, 2024Committee meeting
Peter M. Boehm
Foreign Affairs committee Sure. I'm delighted that you would pick a quotation that was taken from a committee that I was chairing.
February 12th, 2024Committee meeting
Peter M. Boehm
Foreign Affairs committee We have embarked, in the Senate, on an Africa study. I know work is going on within the department. I know Mr. Oliphant is directly involved in that. We thought it would be useful to look at that, so we are going to do a deep dive. We have just started. As you know with your ow
February 12th, 2024Committee meeting
Peter M. Boehm
Foreign Affairs committee Mr. Bergeron, thank you for your questions and your kind words. This is really a problem in the department. When we talk about recruitment, we should receive, ab initio, training in an official language, either English or French. That practice has been discontinued over the year
February 12th, 2024Committee meeting
Peter M. Boehm
Foreign Affairs committee The report has to be approved by the Senate. After that, we're waiting—
February 12th, 2024Committee meeting
Peter M. Boehm
Foreign Affairs committee I thought these problems only existed in the Senate.
February 12th, 2024Committee meeting
Peter M. Boehm
Foreign Affairs committee Okay. We were into the generalist versus specialist discussion. In our travels and fact-finding studies in other countries, we discovered that Canada is by no means alone in this. You can have a specialist, for example, on arms control or on nuclear safety, which can get very sp
February 12th, 2024Committee meeting
Peter M. Boehm
Foreign Affairs committee I often get asked that by the academic institutions. Once we launched the report, I went to the Norman Paterson School here and then to the Munk School in Toronto as well, and there are many young people who are eager to get in. With the foreign service exam in the past, all you
February 12th, 2024Committee meeting
Peter M. Boehm
Foreign Affairs committee You're absolutely right. Diplomacy does have a role there. In fact, the Canadian trade commissioner service predates the creation of the old Department of External Affairs—it goes back to the 1880s—so, at most of our missions abroad and certainly at headquarters, there is a compo
February 12th, 2024Committee meeting
Peter M. Boehm
Foreign Affairs committee As you know, I'm not with the government. At some point, the government will have to respond to our report, and that is not one of our recommendations. There's a reason that it's not one of our recommendations. I think you can have designated ambassadors for different functions.
February 12th, 2024Committee meeting
Peter M. Boehm
Foreign Affairs committee Thank you, Mr. Oliphant. As you noticed, we didn't make a specific recommendation on resource allocation. It is really up to the government, the minister and the department how you want to do that. I referred in my remarks to the 10-year dearth of new hires. As a result, you ha
February 12th, 2024Committee meeting
Peter M. Boehm