Graduation Address

"Convocation Address" (23 October 1988): 1-18. (UA Case 69, Box 3).

President Downey
Fellow Alumnae
Distinguished Guests
Members of the 1988 Graduating Class
Ladies and Gentlemen

It is a great honour and a pleasure to receive the degree of Doctor of Laws honoris causa from my Alma Mater of U.N.B, and to be invited to deliver this Convocation Address.

To graduate from University, or to receive an Honorary Degree are important milestones in our lives. For you, it means the beginning of your professional careers. For me, it means the closing years of mine. So we are both here on serious business and I am honoured to be with you in this class of 1988.

A convocation address is also serious business because it involves a very special audience. Namely, all you who have passed through the best education process our society is able to provide and who will be an active part of that society, contribute to its development and, in due course, take over its leadership. As our society and our civilization become more complex, the challenges facing a graduating class become ever greater. Your class of 1988 faces many more complexities than did mine of 1950, so I wish you all success in meeting the challenges before you.

Ideally, a Convocation Address should inform and inspire. It should also be memorable. In my case, when I was in your position thirty-eight and a half years ago, the Convocation Address was delivered by a gentleman from Britain who spoke to us at length – at great length – about Britain’s socialized medical plan which was rather a new thing in those days but not particularly relevant to our immediate future. I have long since forgotten the speaker’s name or the substance of his speech. But it was certainly memorable as the most boring speech I have ever heard!

Therefore my challenge today is to spare you a similar experience and memory. I hope you will find my remarks informative, or at least interesting. I shall be flattered if you find them inspiring. If, in addition, you find them memorable I shall be impressed – and a bit nervous as I recall my own experience just mentioned, as well as a comment of our former Prime Minister, McKenzie King, who is alleged to have said, “I have only made one speech in my life that was memorable – and I have lived always to regret it”.

In choosing a subject of this speech I though of talking about Asia, where I have spent over half of my years of government service, or about the Department of External Affairs and how I got into it, or perhaps about the conduct of diplomacy or Canada’s foreign relations. I decided to mention all of these things, but mainly I want to speak about Canada, where it stands in the world and how the world perceives it. I want to impress on you how lucky we all are to be Canadians, and how proud we should be of our country, of what it has accomplished and of what YOU are going to help it accomplish over the coming years.

It is common amongst some in Canada to wonder whether Canada has an identity, to conclude that we don’t and then to search desperately for a definition of what we are. We are probably the only country in the world that indulges in so much self-doubt, self criticism, and short-selling of ourselves. But I, for one, have never had any doubts or questions about being a Canadian or about what we are as a nation. If I can inspire you with the same sentiment I will consider my task today well done.

A former Ambassador to Canada astutely observed to me a peculiar Canadian phenomena of frequent griping and asked why we pronounced the name of our founders, Samuel de Champlain, in that manner. He thought it would be more appropriate for us to pronounce it “Samuel de Complain”! This same Ambassador also gave his own pretty good definition of Canada as a “solution in search of a problem”.

By that, of course, he meant that in terms of the problems of his and other countries we seem to have none. We are not over-populated, we have lots of space, we have a high degree of prosperity, and a high standard of living. We have extraordinary political and economic freedoms, we have impressive safety nets of social welfare, we have friendly neighbors, and no historic enemies. We have gained enormous respect, liking and even the envy of the rest of the world. We have a political system that has provided us with domestic peace and has served us well and virtually unchanged for 121 years – something very few other countries in the world can claim.

We tend to take all this for granted, and fail to recognize or appreciate what we have accomplished from the time our forbears came to this country to develop a new society amongst unexplored lands and rivers, vast forests and plains, a very harsh climate, and far, far from home. Within a short period of time, historically speaking, farms and communities were established; roads and railroads were built on a geographic scale never before attempted, let alone accomplished. Cities began to grow and soon a nation was formed and began to develop and flourish.

We contributed immense human sacrifices in all the years of the two world wars and in Korea. In the process, we learned much about collective security, diplomacy and international cooperation. At home, despite vast distances and harsh climate, despite the diverse linguistic, cultural, religious and racial backgrounds of our people, we developed a nation and a society that can boast one of the world’s highest standards of living and excellent systems of road, rail, air and water transportation. We have a truly superb telephone and telecommunications system which I think is the best in the world. (Unfortunately, I can’t say the same of our postal service or our passenger rail service). We have achieved world recognition in music, literature, and the arts. We have build a society that upholds democratic values and not just talks about them, a society that is remarkable tolerant and impressively humane, generous and concerned about those less fortunate than we are and one that has contributed much to world peace.

These are tremendous accomplishments. But it does not mean that we have reached perfection as some of us, secure and comfortable in our northern fastness, are apt to feel as we preach to our neighbors and friends around the world how they should run their societies in our image despite their problems about which we have no experience, often little knowledge and usually even less understanding.

We certainly have not achieved perfection – far from it. We have come a long way, but we have still a long way to go to improve our society, to reduce unemployment, to provide fair treatment to our native people, to solidify our bilingualism, to provide equal opportunities for all, and to protect our environment. We trade and cooperate well with the rest of the world but we have trouble managing trade and cooperation between our own provinces. We have not yet resolved our problems of regional economic disparities, nor how we can best finance necessary social services and reduce – if not eliminate – poverty in our midst. We have trouble delivering our mail and we have yet to learn to cope effectively with problems of narcotic and chemical substances. These are challenges you will face as you take us further on the road of national development.

I consider myself fortunate and privileged to have a career as a Canadian public servant and a diplomat of Canada, working to establish relationships with other countries that have helped provide us peace, security, prosperity, and a respected place in the world. I have been doubly fortunate in that I achieved a personal goal of my undergraduate days – to enter the Canadian Foreign Service which was coming then into a period of post-war expansion. In 1949, along with a few other UNB classmates, I tried the requisite examinations. We all passed the written ones without much difficulty - a credit more to our professors perhaps than to ourselves. But we failed the oral interview boards the next spring because, we were told, we were "tough minded young Maritimers who would not do well in the Federal Public Service”!

Well that was a challenge I could not leave untested! The next year while engaged in graduate studies at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, I tried again and wrote my exams in the State House in Boston. I passed these and the next spring - in 1952 - I was invited to an oral board at the Canadian Consulate General in New York City. Perhaps following what some might call a typical Maritime trait, I almost did not respond, selling myself short, feeling that having once failed I would likely fail again and could not possibly succeed in a competition with the allegedly brighter candidates from Upper Canada. But then I thought, if I do not go, I will always wonder what would have happened if I had gone. Not wanting to be forever burdened with that troublesome question, I went.

Luck and coincidence went with me. That very week Time magazine had carried a story about the British Foreign Service and its very rigorous examination procedures which included two tough essays describing yourself first as a critic would do, and then as an admirer would do. When the board members asked me to explain orally and briefly how I would describe myself in both these categories, I prefaced my substantive reply by saying, "You gentlemen must have been reading Time magazine". They all blushed; I think I embarrassed them into accepting me.

That year of 1952 was important in my life. I had already earned my Master's degree and was well on my way to earning a Ph.D. I was already married and was considering a possible academic career - and in fact tried and liked it as a teacher of Canadian History at the UNB summer school. But my ambition for diplomatic service – plus the certainty of a regular pay cheque - won out and I began what proved to be a most stimulating and satisfying career. Initially, like so many of my colleagues at that time, I hoped for assignments to fascinating capitals such as Washington, London, Paris, or Moscow, where we thought all the action was. After two years of training in various sections of the department, I was invited, to my then surprise and to my subsequent everlasting pleasure and satisfaction, to go to Tokyo and learn Japanese. This led to a life-time involvement with Asia - initially a 6-year assignment in Japan, followed by subsequent assignments of three years in India, two in Cambodia, five more in Japan and, then recently three years as Ambassador to China. In between these assignments, I was lucky to have various interesting jobs at headquarters including four years in charge of our relations with Latin America in which area I am currently once again involved.

These were worthwhile years, for I was able to see and learn about Asia and other parts of the world as few others have had the chance to do, to be privileged to represent Canada in those countries, and to contribute in a small way to the development of our international relations and to our well respected international posture. I was also privileged to meet and serve with a great number of very fine Canadian and foreign colleagues.

This experience also enabled me, as a Maritimer, to become, in a sense, a full Canadian and to see our country in all its dimensions both internally and from an off-shore vantage point of view, to realize our faults but also to admire and be intensely proud of our positive features. Canada is not a great power but we have much influence and we have played a very significant role in international affairs. I assure you our Maple Leaf is admired and respected in all the countries of the world, to the extent that foreign tourists like to wear one to ensure friendly treatment in other lands.

Although geographically a very large country, in terms of population, economic and military power we are not large. But as a middle power of our size we are probably the most multilaterally involved nation in the world. We are an active member of the United Nations, of the Commonwealth, of Francophonie, of NATO and of the Economic Summit. We are an active Observer in the Organization of American States and in the Association of South East Asian Nations. We are an ally of the United States for the defense of North America and we have enormous and exceedingly broad, close and very friendly relations with that country. Japan is our No. 2 trading partner. China is our 5th. We have close relations with Western Europe and have shared in its collective defense for half a century. We have correct and friendly and growing ties with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. We are very much involved with the Caribbean, with Africa, with South Asia, with Central and Latin America.

Increasingly, we are becoming a valuable trading partner with many countries of the world, not only in basic resources - "rocks and logs" as some people say - but also in sophisticated technology, satellites, aircraft, communications, nuclear reactors. We have played am effective role in every international peacekeeping or truce observation activity. We spent 20 years doing this in Indo-China. We were similarly involved in Africa and in India. We continue to be so involved in Cyprus and the Middle East. Most recently we have played this role in Afghanistan; we are now involved in similar activity between Iran and Iraq and we have offered our services in Central America. We are one of the world’s most generous providers of economic development assistance, food and humanitarian relief.

We developed this position gradually, sometimes when the international community thrust responsibilities on us, as in the case of Indo-China, sometimes as a result of our own initiatives as in the case of the Middle East after the Suez crisis. We have had to balance our positions in the light of attitudes of other countries and in the light of our own priorities, and to develop our own methodology of diplomatic practice.

I recall from my early days in the service that as practical problems of diplomatic procedure arose we would often ask the British and Americans how they dealt with such issues and then adopted our own ways which might be similar to one or the other or an amalgam of both, or on occasion something completely different. By the 1960’s we had pretty well developed our own style and such search for guidance and counsel was resorted to less and less.

Over the years, we Canadians have developed and applied skills of negotiation, of compromise and the discovery of pragmatic solutions which not only have been helpful on the international scene but have also been beneficial and relevant in dealing with our domestic problems. Our efforts to achieve compromise and pragmatism have led some observers to call us dull and to tell a joke asking "why does a Canadian cross the road?" and answer "to get to the middle". But I think this talent for compromise is a great national asset which many other countries could well use more of.

When you consider that we began to conduct our own external relations only about 60 years ago, the expansion of our international relations and activities has been rapid and dramatic and has placed increasing demands on our human and financial resources. In the current atmosphere of financial restraint and "downsizing" (to use popular bureaucratic jargon) we face difficulties in adequately fulfilling all of our obligations. From time to time, we have had to adjust our priorities and close some embassies or be unable to open others where we are urged to do so. The quality of Canadian participation in our diplomatic transactions and multilateral institutions has always been high and well respected and I hope that resource pressures will not result in an inability to maintain high standards.

It is popular to criticize the public service as lazy, inefficient and a waste of taxpayers’ money. But let me tell you that this is a myth. There may well be a certain percentage of drones and clock-watchers, as in any organization, but in my experience Canada s public servants - certainly in the Foreign Service - are extremely dedicated, loyal and hard working, giving far more than is specifically required. For those in the diplomatic service this can also include attendance at innumerable dinners and cocktail parties for which we have a motto of "we have but one liver to give to our country".

Although we Canadians are very much involved with the rest of the world, we are nevertheless very much a North American society. We will always share our piece of geography with our very large southern neighbor and it is natural that we will always be greatly influenced by that dynamic society. There is no zipper on the 49th parallel that we can zip open and float off in some sort of splendid northern isolation. But we are different from our neighbor and we want to maintain that difference.

In our foreign relations as we develop our multilateral contacts - our windows on the wider world - which make us less vulnerable to influences from the south, we will always have to take carefully into account the actions and attitudes of our big neighbor. Some Canadians like to criticize that our foreign policy is "made in Washington". At times it may seem that way because our two societies have similar values and outlooks and often we share the same views and concerns on world affairs, but there have also been differences which have been discussed frankly with our American friends and have been manifested in formal policy alternatives, as for example in regard to China or Cuba or in Central America. Therefore it is incorrect to say that we have no independent foreign policy; it is quite the contrary for we do have a policy that is made in Canada by Canadians and for Canadians.

We will always be extremely interested and often involved in everything that happens in the United States, but we must also maintain and increase our contacts with, and our knowledge of, the rest of the world. I hope therefore that our high school and University curricula will place more stress on international study of foreign languages so that we can exploit our many advantages - not least of which is our bilingual character which we must develop further - to enhance our trade and other relations in the great markets and among the great populations of the world. I also hope that Canadian businessmen and entrepreneurs will become more active in trading with, and investing in these areas which will contribute to our prosperity and to maintaining our distinct society.

We have real, tangible and long term interests in the rest of the world. When other parts of the world become troubled with conflict, coups d’état, revolutions or civil wars, Canadians often press the Government "to do something" to correct such faults and recreate such areas in our own image, or to cease and desist all relations with countries whose domestic or international policies do not meet with our favor. We must remember, however, that while we have influence, there are limits as to what we can accomplish. We should always keep those limits in mind just as we should always keep in mind the practical realities of situations and the nature of our real long term interests and how best we can serve them.

These same cautionary restraints should also guide us in our relations and public comments about the United States. We should always keep in mind that whether we like it or not, the United States is our best friend, our closest neighbor, our most important trading partner and our security umbrella. But we must also remember it is also a complex society and a super power with its own international agenda and its own domestic and foreign policy imperatives which can be quite different from, and perhaps even in opposition to, ours - a fact which any Government of Canada must always take careful into account in the development of our own policies.

In this context, I am reminded of the pertinent comments made by Mr. John Homes, a former Canadian diplomat and as astute observer of Canada-USA relations. When speaking a few years ago to the Americas Society in New York, he noted the Canadian tendency to lecture our American friends about various matters. He recalled words attributed to a former President of Mexico, Porfirio Diaz who once said, “Poor Mexico – so far from God and so close to the United States”. He paused, then added “I tell my Canadian friends we should pick on somebody our own size”!

My time is nearly up. I have not said anything very profound but I hope I have touched on a few aspects about our country, its place in the world and the path we should follow in the future that will give you food for thought. I hope I have interested some of you to join the Foreign Service and participate in the challenging task of guiding our ship of state through international waters. Your contribution will be meaningful, interesting and satisfying and I can guarantee that you will rarely – if ever – have a dull day. In over 36 years I had only one!

I hope you did not find this speech too long. President Downey did not impose any time limit on me, so if you do think it was too long you should blame him - not me, (you can see that I have not spent 36 years as a government bureaucrat for nothing!)

It is customary, I guess, to conclude this kind of speech with some ringing, inspiring words of advice about how you should face the future in whatever careers you select. I am not here to preach so I will say only these few things as I wish you again all possible success and satisfaction in your future careers:

-Whatever job of work you do, try to do it well and take pride in it.

-Take pride in your society and country and contribute to them.

-Don't take yourselves too seriously and don't be overly impressed with pomp, ceremony or impressive titles - even that of "Ambassador".

-Remember the adage: "those who care don't matter; those who matter don’t care".

-As you advance in your careers be considerate of those you pass by on your way up - if for no other reason than you may need them on your way down!

-Follow the advice of my boxing coach at UNB, Amby Legear, about winning and losing. He said, “When you win, act as if you are used to it; when you lose act as if you enjoyed it”.

-Especially, respect the truth and don’t tell lies. Remember the words of Sir Walter Scott “Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive”.

-Keep a good sense of humor – if you can’t laugh about things you can only cry.

-Above all be yourself and have a good time!

Thank you.