Here’s why Joly says Canada’s foreign service needs a reboot – National | 24CA News
Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly is promising a plan by this fall for a foreign-service reboot through which diplomats can have a greater grasp of the languages and subjects related to their postings.
“Ensuring that we have a modernized diplomacy, fit for purpose — fit for the 21st century — is crucial,” Joly mentioned in a speech to Canadian ambassadors in Ottawa Wednesday morning.
“Ahead of us is a once-in-a-generation challenge, and how we will respond will define the next decades.”
The minister is promising an implementation plan by Sept. 1 on a reboot to how Global Affairs Canada hires individuals, manages its workers and inner programs and prioritizes assets.
The transfer comes because the world is beset by new conflicts, local weather change and rising authoritarianism, and following a collection of embarrassing incidents and evaluations inside Global Affairs Canada.
Last fall, a public-service commissioner discovered the division broke federal guidelines by selling an government who slapped and pushed her workers.
A report final August by the University of Ottawa’s Centre for International Policy Studies discovered simply 23 per cent of diplomats in positions that require a overseas language really met the proficiency necessities, a compliance charge that drops to 18 per cent amongst these with executive-level positions.
And in a months-long Senate research, present and previous diplomats testified that Canada doesn’t adequately prioritize having foreign-service officers or commerce commissioners specialise in a area, language or subject. Instead, Global Affairs Canada shuffles them between a wide range of roles in Ottawa and world capitals.
Meanwhile, the division suffered a hack final 12 months that Ottawa attributed to Russia.
Joly mentioned she has tasked the division with updating its cybersecurity, in addition to the way it helps diplomats and overseas workers employed to work in missions overseas.
“Ensuring they feel supported, heard, valued is needed to improve our workplace culture. We know that there’s a need to revamp recruitment and training to increase diversity,” she mentioned.
“We need to invest in our workforce. Our people are our ears and eyes on the ground.”
Joly launched a 30-page report referred to as the Future of Diplomacy, which notes Canada has a relatively small presence on the United Nations and in what she calls “strategically important countries.”
The report doesn’t specify which embassies and missions might obtain new diplomatic postings.
The Indo-Pacific technique launched final fall didn’t embrace a pledge Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had made weeks earlier to rent roughly 60 new diplomats in that area.
But Joly did say that Canada can have extra specialised diplomats.
“We will increase our policy expertise in key areas such as climate change, energy and critical minerals, (artificial intelligence), cyber and digital policy,” Joly mentioned.
“We will build a stronger capacity to anticipate and manage Canada’s response to prolonged crises.”
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