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Career Choices
Specialize in Political and Economic Affairs
POLITICAL / ECONOMIC OFFICERS
Beijing, China
" The one great thing about the foreign service is the unpredictability and the fact that there
really is no such thing as a "typical" day. All the best laid plans can fall apart when you
arrive at the office and realize that there is some sort of minor crisis or some last minute
request from Ottawa that needs to be dealt with urgently. A typical day can start with a
breakfast briefing on the general political situation in China for visiting parliamentarians,
followed by a weekly political section meeting where you update your colleagues on your
activities. You're then off to an academic think tank to meet with an expert on social
welfare issues to discuss recent policy developments. At lunchtime, you find yourself
talking shop about the upcoming APEC meeting with diplomats from other APEC
economies. Returning to the office in the afternoon, you draft an analytical report on your
morning meeting (as the morning meeting was only one of many on the same topic.) The
afternoon also sees you participating as a board member in a Canada Fund meeting,
assessing the feasibility of development projects in rural China. After the CF meeting, you
attend an intra-Embassy (political, trade and CIDA) meeting on Canadian environmental
initiatives in China and spend time debating the text of a Canadian proposal on a Canada-China climate change agreement. Before you head home for the day, you touch base with
colleagues at the Consulate in Shanghai to firm up the itinerary of a visiting delegation
(and don't forget to take the logistics file home with you as the Ottawa office of the visiting
Minister plans on calling you at 11PM!) "
London, England
" I have to say that no day around here can be described as "typical". I work on UK foreign
policy and international security issues which means my agenda is very much governed by
what is happening in the world that particular day. Usually I have some idea what to
expect. I'm in close contact with DFAIT divisions in Ottawa to keep track of upcoming
meetings they are preparing for and the main issues they want to compare notes with the
UK on. For example, I might be expecting some preliminary views on an issue such as the
new drugs strategy for Afghanistan ahead of an international donors meeting. I would need
to flag these views to my colleague at the Foreign Office and, in exchange, report back on
UK thinking as well as what they might have been picking up from other donors. This way
we know what to expect at the meeting and where we may need to push our own agenda a
bit more. Or I may have a colleague in from Ottawa for whom I have prepared a
programme of calls in London. Depending on their area of expertise, we may have
meetings with the Foreign Office or Ministry of Defence as well as academics or Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO). The latter communities are very well informed and
connected in London and bring a useful perspective to our work. Then there are the days
when I find out what I'm going to be doing while listening to the morning news. These are
always the most hectic, often the most distressing but sometimes the most stimulating of
days. There was the coup in Pakistan just ahead of the Commonwealth Heads of
Government Meeting in 1999. Lloyd Axworthy lead the Commonwealth Ministerial Action
Group mission to Islamabad in response which we co-ordinated from London. The
summer of 2000 saw 2 Canadians and 2 Brits detained in Belgrade on espionage
charges which required virtually constant co-ordination with the UK until they were
released. Post-September 11 (a day that never seemed to end), escalating tensions
between India and Pakistan have also seen us working closely with the UK as Canada
lead G8 efforts to contain the crisis. It's days like these I'm most grateful they cannot be
described as "typical"."
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