Diplomat
Diplomat's Latest Posts
Creating perfect smiles
Words that describe Canadian volunteers overseas — modest, polite, friendly, empathetic, inclusive, thoughtful, but most of all good friends and partners. These were the words that inspired Kimit Rai to found Canadian-led surgical group Operation Rainbow Canada (ORC) in 1998. The mandate of ORC is to provide free cleft lip and palate surgery to impoverished […]
Supply management: an antiquated barrier to trade
The Conservative government of Stephen Harper has made it increasingly clear that international trade is one of its top economic priorities. Whether through expanding existing trade agreements (such as building on NAFTA) or negotiating new deals with the European Union, Japan, Korea, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Ottawa is placing ever-growing emphasis on trade deals as […]
A pugnacious Putin, an assertive Russia
Vladimir Putin began a Feb. 8 op-ed in The Washington Post with the following statement: “True democracy is not created overnight. Society must be ready for democratic mechanisms. The majority of the population must feel they are citizens and be ready to devote attention, time, and effort to participating in the process of government.” The […]
Preventing a slaughter of refugees
Camp Ashraf was created in an Iraqi desert by several thousand Iranians, who in 1980 fled from the terror unleashed on them across Iran by Ayatollah Khomeini. Supporters of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), founded in the 1960s by leftist university students, they had actively opposed the regimes of the shah and the […]
The case for Scottish independence
Scotland will hold a referendum in 2014 on independence as mandated by the Scottish National Party in its 2011 election platform. This is an edited transcript of the arguments for independence as articulated by the SNP. Size matters Some have suggested Scotland’s too small to be independent. Not so. The size or population of a […]
Andrew Scheer: master of the House
Andrew Scheer is Canada’s youngest-ever speaker of the House. For a kid who grew up in Ottawa and skipped classes at Immaculata High School (formerly on Bronson Avenue) to watch Question Period on Parliament Hill, it almost seems like destiny. But for the member for Regina Qu’Appelle (his wife is from Saskatchewan), life is […]
Changing lives in Lesotho
Lesotho persistently has the world’s third highest rate of AIDS, decimating the population’s social and economic structures. Imagine the loss of productivity. This tiny land-locked mountain kingdom, entirely surrounded by South Africa, illustrates the development challenges of the aftermath of such devastating death rates (23.6 percent of its people are infected) which include poverty, increasing […]
Hitting the slopes for Aboriginal health
The Ottawa Diplomatic Association’s annual ski day is a win-win. Diplomats have a chance to enjoy a pleasant afternoon on the slopes with fellow diplomats and their families, and the event raises funds for a good cause in Ottawa. As it did last year, the ODA will once again donate the proceeds from Ski Day […]
Major liberal reform lures investment to Belarus
Strengthening economic relations between our countries is one of the major objectives of the Embassy of Belarus in Canada. Belarus is well known as a country of marvelous natural beauty and original culture. However, Belarus has recently also acquired status for the economic policy the country has adopted. The model of economic development Belarus has […]
Britain: the Olympics in a time of austerity
On July 6, 2005, at Raffles City in Singapore, the International Olympic Committee announced that London had won the bid for the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The competition had been strong, including bids from Madrid, Moscow, New York and Paris. There was jubilation in London and across the United Kingdom. One of the world’s most dynamic, […]
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