TRUMP’S MAN IN OTTAWA
U.S. AMBASSADOR PETE HOEKSTRA ON HIS PRIORITIES FOR THE JOB
LIKE OIL AND WATER GRAPPLING WITH THE CLIMATE CRISIS WHILE FUELLING THE ENERGY ECONOMY
‘I’M THEIR FIRST OFFICIAL MEETING’ SÉBASTIEN CARRIÈRE ON THE JOYS OF BEING CANADA’S CHIEF OF PROTOCOL
DEFENCE: POLITICAL UNREST WORLDWIDE
WE EXAMINE THE RESURGENCE OF COERCIVE POWER AROUND THE GLOBE
The BRICs+ are determined to build an alternative that may supplant the role of the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency.
COP30 takes place in Belém, Brazil, Nov. 10 to 21 and Canada has a chance to take a leadership role.
22 ‘CANADA HAS WHAT
NEEDS’
The president and CEO of the Business Council of Canada discusses the country’s global reputation and need for trade infrastructure updates.
The South African high commissioner says cuts to his country’s development assistance from the U.S. amount to the “weaponization of health diplomacy and humanitarian assistance.”
The grand Duchy of Luxembourg opened its embassy in Ottawa in June 2025. The deputy prime minister was in town to inaugurate it.
The first country in the world to accept cryptocurrency as legal tender wants to help others do the same.
It’s been 30 years since Armenia opened its beautiful embassy next to the Rideau Canal in Ottawa.
As U.S. ambassador to Canada, Pete Hoekstra is on his second posting as a political appointee for U.S. President Donald Trump.
54 ‘I’M THEIR FIRST OFFICIAL
Sébastien Carrière, Canada’s chief of protocol, is a foreign head of mission’s first official meeting.
62 OTTAWA’S
Souriya Omani has been dean of the diplomatic corps since June 2024 and has been a diplomat for more than 40 years.
A WORLD OF UNREST
We are witnessing the erosion of traditional constraints and the resurgence of coercive power as a central instrument of international relations.
84 GOALS AT ODDS
Canada wants to continue to be an energy superpower and lower carbon emissions at the same time. Is it possible?
88 ODA CUTS ARE ‘HUGE’
Randeep Sarai, secretary of state for international development, talks about global cuts to official development assistance and his ideas on involving the private sector.
92 A POPULOUS POTENTIAL TRADE PARTNER
Pakistan is the planet’s fifth most populous country with a consumer market of 255 million. The high commissioner says it’s time for Canada to pay attention.
THE NEW NORTH
Canada, Denmark and the Arctic Council: co-operation in a shifting Arctic landscape.
102 WRITING THEIR OWN MINING STORY
Members of the Tłı̨chǫ Nation have found a way to work with mining companies to the benefit of all.
108 A BLUEPRINT FOR DIGITAL DEMOCRACY
This is Canada’s moment to lead in global governance in the digital era.
112 BACK TO INDIA
Chef Joe Thottungal’s culinary tour of India has so far taken about 150 Canadians to his home and exposed them to all of South India’s gastronomic delicacies.
118 PLATING WITH STACKS
From hors d’oeuvres to dessert, stacks often prove to be just the trick in making a recipe a winner.
Single-vintage and single vineyards are on the rise, as is Meunier as the “Pinot of choice.”
126 CANADIAN CULTURAL YEAR-END TRADITIONS
A roundup of year-end traditions and fun across the country
130 DIPLOMATIC CONTACTS
An A to Z list of all the embassies and high commissions representing their countries in Canada
134 NEW ARRIVALS
Meet the new ambassadors and high comissioners to Canada.
139 GOOD DEEDS
Japanese Ambassador Kanji Yamanouchi recognizes Canadians' contributions to the bilateral relationship.
142 EVENTS
A photographic journey of events held across the country
President
Abdel Karim Awwad
Editor
Jennifer Campbell
Publisher emeritus
Donna Jacobs
Contributing writers
Ülle Baum
Margaret Dickenson
Janet Dorozynski
Fen Osler Hampson
Peter Simpson
Prateek Sureka
Tłıc̨hǫ communications team
Joe Varner
Robyn Waite
Alexia Wilkinson Naidoo
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Cover photo
Ashley Fraser
Digital marketing manager
Razieh Motiei
Contributing photographers
Mohammed J. Alsaber
Ülle Baum
Jonathan Barker
Brigitte Bouvier
Ashley Fraser
David Kawai
Parto Nouri
James Park
Peyman Pouraaly
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Editorial
Jennifer Campbell, Editor Jcampbell@diplomatonline.com 613-291-2901
Website www.diplomatonline.com
As publisher of Diplomat International Canada, it gives me great pride to share that following our relaunch, we have received overwhelmingly positive feedback from our readers. Diplomats, government officials, business leaders and communities across Canada and beyond have told us how much they value the impact of our articles and the role this magazine continues to play in bridging cultures, policies and perspectives.
Since its inception in 1989, Diplomat International Canada has been a trusted connector — linking foreign embassies with the Government of Canada, Canadian institutions and business communities while fostering dialogue with counterparts around the world. Today, as our world faces renewed uncertainty and complex global challenges, the importance of diplomacy, communication and mutual understanding has never been greater.
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Here’s to many more years of excellence, connection and celebrating Canada’s role on the world stage.
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Abdel Karim Awwad Publisher, president & CEO
Diplomat International Canada Magazine
Canadian Academy of Protocol & Event Management awwad@diplomatonline.com
It’s hard to believe we’re already on Issue 2 of the newly revamped Diplomat magazine. In an ever-changing global landscape, we try to choose stories that are timeless, but try as we might, we always end up having to adjust and update on the fly.
Our cover story this time is an interview with U.S. President Donald Trump’s man in Ottawa. Pete Hoekstra describes himself as “not a party guy” so it was surprising to him when Trump asked him to head Republicans’ Michigan campaign. He initially told the would-be president “no,” before being talked into it. Knowing there would be a reward if he pulled off a win in the battleground state, Hoekstra and his wife, Diane, started thinking about diplomatic posts they might enjoy. They landed on Ottawa. A little more than four months into his posting, the ambassador warmly welcomed the Diplomat team to his residence and was generous with his time — exceeding the planned time by more than 40 minutes. He also took us on a tour of the residence, showing off his favourite views and some of his treasures.
Also in this issue, we cover the BRICs+ countries and their alternative global payment systems; Armenia and its embassy building; Pakistan and its trade potential; South Africa on the effects of aid cuts; Luxembourg and its new embassy; Morocco and its potential for co-operation; and the Arctic and its growing importance.
We also write about a diamond mining company that is co-operating with its Indigenous neighbours and we interview Goldy Hyder on what Canada needs to do to compete. We feature chief of protocol Sébastien Carrière and we examine how Prime Minister Mark Carney can keep building Canada as an energy superpower while also tackling climate change.
Finally, our popular diplomatic listings are back. There’s much more so take it all in. I hope you enjoy this issue.
Jennifer Campbell Editor, Diplomat International Canada Magazine
The BRICs+ are determined to build an alternative global payments system that will weaken and may supplant the role of the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency.
By Fen Osler Hampson
Trump’s trade wars are not only accelerating the demise of the post-Second World War global trading regime, they’re also catalyzing the most serious challenge yet to America’s financial hegemony.
The challenge comes from the rise of BRICS+ and their determined efforts to build an alternative global payments system that will weaken, if not supplant, the role of the traditional Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT) — the main network used for international payments — and the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency.
Why does this matter? The dominance of the U.S. dollar is a pillar of American economic and global influence because it allows the United States to shape international financial activity and enforce sanctions on countries it opposes. Most global financial transactions pass through U.S. banks, giving the government leverage over foreign financial institutions and payment systems such as SWIFT. This power means the U.S. can block money flows to and from targeted countries, as seen with the sanctions on Iran in 2012 and Russia in 2022 after the invasion of Ukraine. In short, the U.S. has weaponized its currency as a powerful tool that can protect its interests, national security and diplomacy in a way few other countries can. But perhaps for not much longer.
There is little doubt that Trump’s punitive tariffs on many developing and emerging economies have deeply alienated their political elites and the broader public. The consequences of being effectively shut out of the U.S. market is exacting a huge toll on their export-led growth and development model. This is accelerating efforts, which preceded the Trump administration, to reduce dependence on Western-controlled markets.
Reeling from the effects of 50 per cent tariffs on many of its key exports to the U.S., India is intensifying its efforts at regional integration via the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) while strengthening its bilateral trade ties with
China and Russia. Once one of America’s top suppliers of steel, iron and aluminum, Brazil is looking to new trading partnerships with its fellow BRICS+ members. Similarly, China, which has borne its own share of Trump’s tariffs, is ramping up its Belt and Road initiative to develop trade and investment corridors that stretch throughout Asia, Africa and Latin America.
As the BRICS+ grouping expands to include new full members, such as Egypt, Ethiopia and Indonesia, and forms new partnerships with more than a dozen countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America, the gravitational pull of this group will inevitably grow. Diversifing supply chains and expanding intra-bloc trade networks will foster self-sustaining economic growth, anchored by the rapidly growing middle class in these emerging markets.
However, the most profound change will not just be experienced in trade diversion away from the U.S., but also in the financial payment systems and instruments that support it. Aspirations for a single BRICS currency, similar to the euro, have yet to be realized and are still a long way off. However, BRICS countries are moving towards a sophisticated multi-currency payment system anchored by gold and digital assets to facilitate crossborder financial transactions and bypass reliance on the U.S. dollar. If successful, this new framework will allow cross-border trade to occur in national currencies, which are weighted against each other in part by the stock of each nation’s gold reserves.
Much like the use of the gold standard in monetary arrangements in the latter half of the 19th century and the early 20th century, and in post-Second World War monetary arrangements until 1971 (when president Richard Nixon took the U.S. off the gold standard), gold acts as a currency stabilizer. It helps to ensure fixed
exchange rates and price stability, while also lowering the risk that a financial crisis in one country will destabilize the entire system.
A similar logic is at play now in BRICS+ efforts to wean themselves from reliance on the U.S. dollar. However, the creation of alternatives to the use of the dollar is being aided by the advent of blockchain-based digital currency platforms. These offer real-time settlement for cross-border trade while lowering costs and dramatically reducing exposure to counter-party risk — a fundamental improvement over legacy payment systems such as SWIFT, which are slow and cumbersome by comparison. The emergent BRICS Bridge payment platform uses digital currencies and smart contracts for reliable, transparent and rapid settlement of cross-border commercial transactions.
In addition, the BRICS+ New Development Bank (NDB), formerly known as the BRICS Development Bank, which was established in 2015, has become a multi-billion-dollar
settlement hub, providing liquidity and investment for BRICS+ countries independent of traditional institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which are dominated by Western countries. China’s Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS) is also emerging as a rival to the SWIFT payments system, connecting thousands of banks and supporting seamless multi-currency transactions with the potential to evade Western sanctions and oversight.
As the BRICS+ countries accumulate gold reserves as a stabilizer to underpin their financial systems, the gold market is also shifting towards China, Russia and India as they increase their holdings and bypass London and New York wholesale trading hubs. The accumulation of gold reserves by these countries is also increasing their influence over gold prices while reducing their dependence on Western markets. These developments promise to give the BRICS+ bloc more leverage generally in commodity markets, further undermining traditional Western dominance.
To be sure, despite these developments, the road to a genuinely independent BRICS-based reserve currency remains uncertain. One of the reasons is that China’s economy is so large that it dwarfs its fellow BRICS members, creating obvious tensions. India is reluctant to be dominated by its longstanding historical rival, despite the recent thaw in Sino-Indian relations. Those concerns extend to Brazil, which is not about to submit its sovereign currency independence to the Chinese yuan. The most enthusiastic supporters of a BRICS currency are Russia and Iran, as these two countries are the most exposed to Western sanctions, which are stifling their economies and exports.
But that is not say there hasn’t been progress, as demonstrated by initiatives such as Project mBridge,
a collaboration between central banks from China, the United Arab Emirates, Thailand and Hong Kong to develop a multi-central bank digital currency which, if successful, would create a blockchain-based, cross-border payment platform enabling national digital currencies to be traded seamlessly and allow participating countries to bypass U.S. restrictions on SWIFT.
However, the long-term implications should be clear. As BRICS+ trade and financial networks grow, accelerated by Trump’s draconian trade restrictions and outright hostility towards many of these countries, American leverage over global financial markets, which is anchored in the primacy of the U.S. dollar as the world’s principal reserve currency, will weaken.
The creation of alternatives to the use of the dollar is being aided by the advent of blockchain-based digital currency platforms. These offer real-time settlement for cross-border trade while lowering costs and dramatically reducing exposure to counter-party risk — a fundamental improvement over legacy payment systems such as SWIFT, which are slow and cumbersome by comparison.
The West’s ability to impose economic sanctions will correspondingly erode as countries conduct their trade in non-dollar denominated currencies. As OilPrice.com reports, already, more than a fifth of global oil trades are now conducted in non-dollar currencies. The dollar’s share of global foreign exchange reserves is also steadily declining as BRICS+ central banks diversify their holdings into gold and other assets as noted by the Atlantic Council’s “Dollar Dominance Monitor.” It goes on to point out that, while the dollar’s dethronement is not imminent, competitive pressures from BRICS+ and ongoing de-dollarization are unambiguous.
Trump’s tariffs have opened Pandora’s box. By accelerating trade fragmentation and rolling up the mat to imports, he is forcing the world’s fastest-growing economies out of the Western orbit. His policies are creating powerful incentives for the creation of a parallel economic system and financial and payments architecture anchored in the BRICS+. The consequences
will be felt in a re-ordering of global markets and supply chains as demand for a financial payment system that is not based on the dollar grows. While internal frictions and rivalries have slowed, full monetary integration in the BRICS+, the growth of their economies, coupled with digital innovations and usage of an alternate global payment system, promises to erode Western hegemony and eventually the dollar’s power.
Long after Trump has left the stage, his legacy may be two parallel economic and financial systems: one based on the declining economies of the West and the other on an interconnected group of emerging economies, many of which are in the Global South, which have turned their ambition for economic, political and financial independence into reality.
Fen Osler Hampson is Chancellor’s Professor and a professor of international affairs at Carleton University and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
COP30 takes place in Belém, Brazil, Nov. 10 to 21 and Canada has a chance to take a leadership role.
By Robyn Waite
When Prime Minister Mark Carney was governor of the Bank of England, he gave what Caroline Brouillette called a pivotal and revolutionary speech on climate change and financial stability. Later, Carney went on to write the book Values, which describes the climate crisis as existential and proposes radical changes to build a better world for all. Given Carney’s international reputation as a proponent of getting to net zero, Brouillette, executive director of Climate Action Network Canada, says “there will be a lot of hopeful eyes on [Carney]” at COP30.
Brouillette and other climate activists such as Keith Stewart, senior energy strategist with Greenpeace Canada and part-time instructor at the University of Toronto, have a clear vision for how Carney, representing Canada, should show up. They want to see him step up on the international stage, especially now, considering that “we are seeing others like the U.S., United Kingdom and the Dutch retreat at a moment where what we need to see is more leadership not less,” Brouillette says.
More specially, they want Canada to stand firm on its climate action plan, and “strengthen it, rather than caving to the oil industry demands to weaken it,” Stewart says.
Brouillette also wants to see investment, noting that “Canada should be renewing its next international climate finance commitment for 2026.” To meet its fair share contribution — internationally agreed spending targets — “would represent a tripling of [Canada’s] current commitment,” Brouillette says. Addressing youth unemployment by building up the skills Canada needs for its long-term economic resilience is one area she says should be funded.
Recognizing that traditional sources of funding for climate action, such as resources coming from official development assistance budgets are drying up, Stewart
is “looking for Canada to support the global solidarity levies and global tax reform” more generally. At COP28, the Global Solidarity Levies Task Force was launched as a multilateral initiative to introduce feasible and scalable levies on undertaxed polluting industries to finance climate and development action. Beyond fully implementing and further strengthening Canada’s climate plan and investments, Stewart and Brouillette say the country is well positioned to be a world leader in what is called a “just transition.” The latter means moving towards a low-carbon, sustainable economy in a way that is fair, inclusive and equitable and that puts the quality of life of workers, communities and countries affected by the changes first.
Robyn Waite, PhD, is an independent consultant in global health and the founder of the Global Sentinels Movement. (globalsentinelsmovement.net).
The president and CEO of the Business Council of Canada says the country has a good global reputation and lots of resources, but it badly needs trade infrastructure updates and less red tape for businesses.
By Jennifer Campbell
Goldy Hyder has been president and CEO of the Business Council of Canada since October 2018.
Prior to that, he worked for Hill+Knowlton Strategies, a global strategic communications firm, first as a vicepresident and general manager in the West, and then as president and CEO in Ottawa. He’s a member of the advisory board and executive committee of the Century Initiative and served for six years as chair of the board of the Ottawa Senators Foundation. He spoke to Diplomat magazine’s editor, Jennifer Campbell, about everything from Canada’s productivity lag to how to sell to Canada’s strengths.
Diplomat magazine: Tell me about your organization and its members.
Goldy Hyder: The Business Council of Canada represents approximately 170 CEOs. They would be about 75 per cent or so Canadian-headquartered companies, the other 25 per cent — because we do believe in having voices at the table from other countries, and not just the United States — [are foreign-headquartered.] We have some members from Japan and India, for example. The combined impact is, they’re 50 per cent of the Toronto Stock Exchange. They employ well over two and a half million Canadians. They are very multinational and very multisectoral. So, it’s a humbling perch from which to speak on behalf of our members, because they really are in the Canadian economy and for all the political rhetoric and populist rhetoric about big businesses, the reality is that they created our economy.
The purpose [of the Business Council of Canada] is very clear. It is, at a macro level, to create a competitive Canada.
DM: When it comes to what Canada needs to do to support business, what keeps you up at night?
GH: The expectation when that question is asked is that it must be the U.S. And I tell them, you’re really, really close, but the answer is actually us. I am being kept up at night because I’m more concerned about whether we have it in us to do more than just emotionally respond to the moment, but actually seize it, to take control of our own destiny by addressing the fundamentals of our country and what it means to be sovereign.
Do we have it in us to get past the fact that we have a lot of diversity in our country, 10 different provinces, three different territories, two different languages?
Multiculturalism? Can we go beyond where we have been? Is it in us to to really build Canada — to build the trade-enabling infrastructure that needs to be built? I often joke that it is easier to change the constitution in Canada today than it is to build an infrastructure project. We need to really look inward, look at ourselves, and I am proud of the response that Canadians have had. I’m grateful, frankly, to [U.S. President Donald Trump], because he has managed to do what nobody has been able to do — he has united Canadians, East and West, French and English. Canadians want action. So now we need to deliver on that, and that’s what’s keeping me up at night. The emotion is there, the will is there, the desire is there. The political rhetoric is aligned. The measurement is in the execution. It is in the outcomes. It is not in the intentions.
DM: Your recent report — Selling to our Strengths — says we have a chance to increase our energy, agriculture and critical mineral exports, but says Canada lacks the export infrastructure — both physical and regulatory. Can you explain what you mean by that?
GH: Canada has what the world needs. Anywhere I go, people say, ‘You are a blessed country, both for human resources and natural resources, but we question whether you can get it to us.’ Recently, the Germans came, the Japanese came, the Koreans came, even the Greeks came. They all said, 'Hey, we’d love to buy
more energy from you.’ But [Canada doesn’t] have the infrastructure — we have to nationalize a pipeline to get it built. The world notices these things. That kind of uncertainty is what currently exists.
Our report is saying, on the one hand, money goes where it grows and policy infrastructure is about making sure Canada can compete on the taxes for corporations, but also for employees, that Canada can compete for regulations. No one is asking for no rules, but if all you do is pancake regulation after regulation, it’s difficult to see a project’s end. America is our ally and our friend, but it’s also our competitor, and their policies on taxes and regulations are better.
When it comes to mining, we’re just too slow. We need to be way faster. We talk about critical minerals like they’re available in an aisle at Shoppers Drug Mart, but they’re not. They’re in the ground.
On the infrastructure front, the conversation has been hijacked by pipelines. This isn’t just about pipelines. Canadians need to know that when we’re talking about infrastructure, it’s roads, railways, airports, ports and digital infrastructure. Getting that infrastructure right and doing it in a policy framework that gives you confidence, certainty and predictability is the goal that we seek.
Part of our message to government has been: It’s more important that you create the right policy infrastructure, and a little less important that you tell everybody what the five big projects are.
DM: On energy, you advocate for strong and resilient supply chains within North America. Can you get into a little more detail on that?
GH: We are blessed to share a continent [with Mexico and the United States.] We need to invest more, not just in [the U.S.] We need to figure out a stronger bilateral relationship with Mexico. It’s a country of 130
million-plus people. We have not had long-standing strong economic and diplomatic bilateral relations with Mexico. It’s almost been episodic, so I was pleased to see [Foreign] Minister [Anita] Anand and [Finance] Minister [François-Philippe] Champagne go down there. Obviously, the prime minister will follow soon. [Editor’s note: Prime Minister Mark Carney did go after this interview and Hyder was part of the delegation.]
We in the business community have never let that relationship lapse. We have worked through the challenges, including times where I think, some Canadian political leaders made it tough to do that. The message around the supply chains is that economic security is national security. We need to make sure we never get caught again without vaccines, masks, ventilators and, beyond that, semiconductors and other things we need. We need to leverage all of North America and that means we need infrastructure as well. One of the messages that we promote, and we do it in partnership with our Mexican business counterparts, is that our goal is to make North America and keep North America No. 1 — that the competition is not between America and Mexico and Canada.
The political rhetoric is aligned. The measurement is in the execution. It is in the outcomes. It is not in the intentions.
DM: Have you been consulted on how Canada should deal with U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war?
GH: We’re very pleased that this government shows the respect to Canada’s large employers, understands their role, understands that they are here to grow their businesses, but also that they believe in Canada. They want to invest in Canada. We’ve had a government for the previous decade that put pretty much all of the emphasis on values. We’re not suggesting values don’t matter in foreign policy or trade policy, but, all things being equal, we’re in a realpolitik world. Our message has been we need to lean in more on the interest-based approach to our foreign policy and our trade policy. We believe we can do it by celebrating and championing democracy, the rule of law, fair play, sharing the prosperity and having partnerships with our Indigenous and labour groups and others. I think this government has every intention to see these things happen.
“We need to lean in more on the interestbased approach to our foreign policy and our trade policy. We believe we can do it by celebrating and championing democracy, the rule of law, fair play, sharing the prosperity and having partnerships with our Indigenous and labour groups and others.”
The evidence is showing that a lot of the things we’ve been talking about have unfolded. For example, that counter tariffs would be a bad idea, that we have to accept that tariffs are part of the new dynamic. Now we have to engage with Mexico and we do need to review and renew the Canada-U.S.-Mexico trade deal.
DM: What is your take on our critical minerals industry? We keep hearing that we have lots of resources, but are we exploiting them enough? Should we be more advanced on the production side than we are? What can government do to help?
GH: In fairness, this is a global problem. There is almost nowhere you can point to where mining is easy, where
you get permitting quickly. It’s a complicated business to begin and one that definitely requires a lot of patient capital. It requires physical labour, it requires innovation, a lot of research and development, a lot of investment in innovation and it requires consensus-building with the Indigenous communities.
I think we have a chance to be a world leader in the best practices of mining if we hear each other and bring people together to create consensus.
DM: What is Canada’s best chance to hit its emissionsreduction targets?
GH: The cleanest form of energy is nuclear. Canada is a nuclear superpower that can help decarbonize the world with more nuclear plants. The world needs about 1,000 nuclear plants and Canada is going to be key to that. And if you don’t want nuclear, LNG becomes the bridge as you await the viability of renewables. LNG becomes a transitory fuel that reduces emissions for all of those countries, particularly in Asia, that are not only keeping coal plants, but building new ones. I do think Canada can help the world decarbonize by effectively targeting those countries that are running, operating and building coal plants by getting them our energy.
DM: Similarly, when it comes to diversifying trade, what parts of the globe should we be concentrating on?
GH: Actually, it’s the opposite. I think we need focus. What I hear from my members is that we’ve leaned heavily on the CUSMA, and it’s clear that that’s going to continue to be an attractive market so long as the investment climate is what it is today and we’ve had recently several billion dollars worth of investments take place the United States, because, shared capital has only one purpose and that is: ‘Where do I go to grow?’
When you look around the world, what is Canada’s calling card, beyond the fact that we share a border with the United States? It needs to be that we’re a reliable partner. We are a partner that gives you not just access to
the United States, but we give you access today directly through our trade agreements, to over 1.5 billion people. And when Indonesia or ASEAN or India come along, it will be plenty more than two billion people. So the message has to be that investing in Canada is not investing in a country of 40 million people.
We need to attract investment into Canada, because that’s one of the ways to diversify. When you look at the world, Canada has 15 free trade agreements that reach 51 countries. It’s not a lack of access to markets that has been the issue. The issue has been the lack of investing in those markets. [My members are saying that] we don’t need more trade agreements — what we need to do is take advantage of the agreements that we have.
[My members say] the previous government put a real emphasis on an Indo-Pacific strategy, [but] Asia is where there’s a middle class that’s growing. Asia has the young population and Asians need the things Canada has. So if I had to put a list together — not to make enemies everywhere else in the world — the reality is that Asia is the best region in which to grow, in which to diversify, because you have a large customer base. You have countries that are building out their infrastructure. The way they’re going to get there is with investment and
Canada has know-how, Canadian technology and the Canadian brand.
DM: You advocate for a national trade infrastructure strategy. What would you want to see in that?
GH: The reality is that it’s infrastructure that’s causing Canadians the tensions and stress that they’re feeling on affordability, on gridlock, on crime — all of these sentiments that you’re feeling have to do with infrastructure.
First, we need to get the policy infrastructure right. If you have a country of 41 million people today, but the last time you expanded your highway system or built another rail system or expanded your port was when the country was 30 million people, you can see the misalignment.
Of course, there’s this gridlock on the streets of big cities. We’ve added millions of people and had the same roads with the same lanes. In fact, in some cases, we’ve taken away space with bicycle lanes. We have to keep up with the growth.
Canadians need to recognize our population growth is the only reason we’ve had GDP growth, and this year we’re going to shrink. Take, for example, the role of ports.
They are import terminals and they are export terminals. If we will have the same size import terminal that we did a decade ago, the odds are [that goods are] sitting on a ship waiting to dock, to get onto a train, to get into a truck to be driven to your store. This structure gridlock is the reason you’re feeling the anxiety that you are on so many things, including affordability issues. Infrastructure on housing is a regulatory problem.
DM: Your report suggests the government appoint trade envoys to work directly with regional ambassadors to build relationships and advance trade and investment opportunities identified by the Canadian government. Is this not what the Trade Commissioner Service already does?
GH: Of all the things that I’m happy I’m paying taxes for, it’s our Trade Commissioner Service. Anywhere I go around the world, they are professional, knowledgeable and they have the right intentions to be collaborative. They understand the market in which they’re operating, and they seek to be constructive supporters and a partner of Canadian businesses to enter new markets. I want to see continued support for our Trade Commissioner Service.
[In addition], it is our view that if Canada wants to trade more with its allies and partners, it’s going to require a deliberate effort to market and advertise itself abroad. The idea behind the trade envoys is to create a special team approach that would use its expertise and networks to unlock emerging opportunities and grow market share in traditional and non-traditional markets.
DM: Canada’s productivity continues to lag. In your recent report, you recommend a federal advanced research projects agency, but doesn’t that create a redundancy with the National Research Council (NRC)?
GH: While the NRC is moving in the direction of partnering with industry, its work is very diversified,
“What is Canada’s calling card, beyond the fact that we share a border with the United States? It needs to be that we’re a reliable partner. We are a partner that gives you not just access to the United States, but we give you access today directly through our trade agreements, to over 1.5 billion people.”
and the innovative drive and industrial partnerships have yet to be fulfilled or haven’t yet produced concrete results.
Last year’s decision to delay the creation of the new Canada Innovation Corporation to 2026-2027, and the recent decision to reprofile Sustainable Development Technology Canada under the NRC, have limited the private sector’s ability to work with government on bestin-class research and to create a competitive advantage for Canadian firms through commercial technologies.
We must move with urgency and focus on delivery. The agency we are recommending in our report would be
focused on applied science exclusively in energy, mining, transportation and agri-food fields.
I would also note that other countries that Canada competes with have developed advanced research agencies with specific mandates to support the competitiveness of companies in sectors where the country has comparative advantage. The UK and South Korea have recently set up advanced research agencies to support their broader industrial strategy goals.
DM: The chair of Deloitte Canada recently told me about a program that the previous government introduced. It hired entrepreneurs from the business world and put them on a task force that was set up to help entrepreneurs navigate the 1,100 federal and provincial funding programs available to them, but that are mired in paperwork and red tape. But when COVID hit, that all those entrepreneurial minds were moved to the COVID file, which was a good place for them at the
time. He wasn’t criticizing that move — after all, it was a crisis. But now, it looks like a good example of where Canada could have gone, but didn’t. Thoughts?
GH: I think this is a moment for us to take a hard look at service delivery if all these programs exist. Why do we need 1,100 of them? How can we consolidate? How can we prioritize?
The separate issue is that you want to simplify things — one project, one review. We’re one country, not 10 or 13. We need a situation where if the B.C. government says yes, then the Canadian government says yes. These things are more more likely albatrosses to getting us to where we need to go at a time in which we need to sprint.
DM: On working to remove interprovincial trade barriers, are you heartened by what’s happened and happening?
GH: Most Canadians don’t realize that what a trade barrier amounts to is, first of all, a cost to them, and, in effect, it represents a tariff. So here we are losing our minds over the tariffs that are being imposed upon us by a third party [the U.S.], and we’ve imposed them on ourselves for decades. This is a moment in which they have to be removed. I see all the goodwill, all the intentions, all the [memorandums of understanding] being signed, but the territoriality still exists in various places. I think Canadians need to be forceful in their local areas and demand that these things come down.
I don’t have an answer to whether I’m happy or not because I haven’t seen enough yet. If we really understood the threat that we face, we would have eliminated those immediately, especially because there’s no growth happening in the country and interprovincial trade barriers are responsible.
I’m hoping Canadians keep up the pressure, and I want to acknowledge the work of those premiers who led the charge. I’m hopeful we'll get there, but it’s not fast enough.
By Robyn Waite
The last issue of Diplomat covered the deadly effects of U.S. President Donald Trump’s USAID policy. At the time, the shock and pain of drastic and abrupt cuts to foreign aid were still stinging. Fast forward six months, and what has happened is coming into focus. We now know that stop-work orders issued by Trump on Jan. 10, 2025, for a 90-day foreign aid grant review, were merely the start of a process to withdraw the majority of U.S. funding for global health, development and humanitarian programming. Since, there’s been been a mass termination of contracts for life-saving projects, a clawing back of nearly $8 billion USD in funds already previously appropriated by Congress, thousands of
jobs lost in the U.S. and abroad, and denial of the consequences from Trump and friends working to obliterate decades of progress in global development, diplomacy, public health and human rights.
One country that has been hit particularly hard by the “weaponization of health diplomacy and humanitarian assistance” is South Africa, according to South African High Commissioner Rieaz Shaik. On top of already pausing, and then proceeding to cut most aid, on Feb. 7, 2025, the White House released a statement titled "Addressing Egregious Actions of The Republic of South Africa," stating that “as long as South Africa
continues these unjust and immoral practices that harm our nation,” the “United States shall not provide aid or assistance to South Africa.”
Additionally, as a world hub for research and development, particularly for HIV and tuberculosis (TB), cuts within the U.S. to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) have likewise meant that South Africa is feeling the blow more brutally than other countries.
Shaik says the Trump administration is imposing “genocide tariffs” on his country in reaction to two issues.
“The United States administration has a belief that South Africa as a government is engaging in acts of genocide against the White Afrikaans population,” Shaik says, adding that it is also lashing out at South Africa because his country has taken Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and the people of Gaza to the International Criminal Court (ICC).
“Anyone who visits South Africa would be able to see for themselves that the charge that we are committing genocide against the Afrikaans people is preposterous and has no basis,” Shaik says, adding that South Africa “has a solid [ICC] case [against Israel] and we believe that all the recent data that is emerging from the genocide in Gaza will favour our case and charge.”
What also worries Shaik is a return of racist doctrines and gender discrimination. Indeed, with what little funding from the U.S. remains for global health programming around the world, scopes of work with implementing partners have been changed to explicitly omit “gender and diversity, equity and inclusion ideology,” as well as advocacy, communications, civil society participation and rights. Yet, decades of public health evidence show that tailoring responses and services to key populations, as well as engaging
We now know that stop-work orders issued by Trump on Jan. 10, 2025, for a 90-day foreign aid grant review, were merely the start of a process to rip away the majority of U.S. funding for global health, development and humanitarian programming.
civil society and communities in health systems and solutions reaches the most people, while limiting barriers to access and improving community acceptability of public health interventions. Focusing on human rights, people-centered approaches and care, as well as raising awareness and participation of the people you intend to serve doesn’t just improve health outcomes for people and communities, it supports equity and ethics.
Shaik says, “The rest of the world cannot wait… I think for a while many of us could not believe what was unfolding before us… but I think there is an understanding now that the world is shifting and that what we are seeing is real and we have to deal with the consequences.”
“There will be significant obstacles now with the cuts to funding,” Shaik says. Initial analysis has identified a shortfall of at least $430 million USD in South Africa’s health budget, and losing these dollars impacts the lives of those in need of care, those who worked in U.S.supported health-care delivery or research roles, and those in need of care in the future who will miss out on new knowledge or tools in the fight against epidemics such as HIV and TB.
“These three levels are being impacted by funding cuts,” he says, adding that South Africa was hardest hit by the AIDs epidemic and that U.S. funding through The United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) supported the massive roll out of antiretrovirals (ARVS), ultimately controlling the disease at that time.
In a recent research article in SciELO South Africa journal, Lyle Murray and Francois Venter report that “with the assistance of PEPFAR, the number of people living with HIV who access antiretroviral therapy (ART) has increased from close to zero in the early 2000s to approximately 21 million in 2023, resulting in a 70 per cent reduction in HIV-associated mortality and an 80 per cent reduction in the acquisition of new HIV infections.” With cuts to PEPFAR, complementary mechanisms such as the Global Fund, and other health programs in the country, the risk of resurgence of disease is real, with modelling analysis conservatively estimating more than 600,000 HIV-related deaths and 500,000 new infections by 2034.
In terms of jobs lost and service disruption in South Africa, a UNAIDS report found that more than “8,000 skilled health-care workers have lost their jobs, multiple clinics have closed and essential services such as HIV testing, treatment and prevention have been significantly reduced, with ongoing retrenchments reported across the country.”
Another analysis looking specifically at impact on research sites by the Treatment Action Group and Doctors Without Borders reported that “South African academic and research institutes could lose about 30 per cent of their annual income and may be forced to lay off hundreds of staff as a result of U.S. funding cuts.” Even more worryingly, the report explained how “there is growing concern about the potential collapse of TB and HIV research and development capacity in South Africa with direct implications for people living with HIV and TB in South Africa — and globally, given the substantial contributions of South African research centres to advancements in TB and HIV prevention, treatment and care worldwide.”
Having an understanding that “we are living in the time of the beginning pandemics,” Shaik shared deep concern about the impact of Trump-led funding cuts,
With cuts to PEPFAR, complementary mechanisms such as the Global Fund, and other health programs in the country, the risk of resurgence of disease is real, with modelling analysis conservatively estimating more than 600,000 HIV-related deaths and 500,000 new infections by 2034.
not just for his own country, but for the world. He explained that his government is committed to taking action to mitigate the impact on South Africans and to move past “successive donor dependency.”
“We must grapple with this challenge and find ways to bridge this [funding] gap” he says.
Looking to the future, Shaik sees two paths forward that countries are already starting to take. Either a path of “competitive nationalism” or “networked multilateralism.” He explained how the world order as we’ve known it for the past 80 years is over, speaking to how the U.S. has
long been a critical supporter and driver of international co-operation and multilateralism, but now has clearly “withdrawn from that perspective.” He went on to explain how some countries, “like, for example, the United Kingdom,” which recently announced sharp cuts to its investments in official development assistance to fund defence, were emboldened by the U.S. and are charting down the course of competitive nationalism. However, he remained hopeful that “countries still committed to a multilateral view of the world could come together within the institutions that exist and create coalitions for the good.”
“Our world [needs to find] global solutions to global problems… We must never go back to the times where our national perspective trumps global concern,” Shaik says. “We have to find a way to keep working together.”
He thinks and hopes Canada will subscribe to a networked multilateralism approach over competitive nationalism.
“We are seeing Canada trying to grapple with domestic issues in a way that still contributes to the global common good; and we in the Global South are very encouraged by that approach as we think that is the correct approach,” he says. As a middle power, Shaik thinks Canada “has an enormous role to play, especially since the U.S. is creating this [funding and ideological] gap.” He wants to see Canada stay the course of ambitious investment in global health and development assistance, continue to promote global co-operation in science and technology and double down on building the capacity to deal with emergencies to come in the [future].
In response to a request for an interview, Global Affairs Canada provided a statement from Shanti Cosentino, director of communications for International Development Secretary of State Randeep Sarai, stating that “in a challenging global development landscape, the Government of Canada is firmly committed to supporting those who need it most.
We are investing in health, poverty reduction, human rights, and inclusive, sustainable development — not only because it’s the right thing to do, but because a stable, equitable and prosperous world is in Canada’s national interest.” She concluded noting that “clearly, this cannot be business as usual. Resources are scarce and need to be invested for maximum impact. It is more important now than ever to be strategic in where and how we invest, focusing on security and economic partnerships, advancing mutual interests, becoming more agile and ensuring that our assistance is responsive to both humanitarian needs and long-term development goals.”
Robyn Waite, PhD, works as an independent consultant in global health and as a campaigner and community co-ordinator. She is the founder of the Global Sentinels Movement (www.globalsentinelsmovement.net).
The grand Duchy of Luxembourg launched its embassy in Ottawa in June 2025. The deputy prime minister was in town to inaugurate it.
By Jennifer Campbell
Canada is the only G7 country that doesn’t have an embassy in Luxembourg. That’s in spite of the fact that Luxembourg opened an embassy late last spring in Ottawa after 80 years of diplomatic relations. Previously, Canada was covered for Luxembourg by a diplomat posted to the United States. Canada’s ambassador to Brussels covers Luxembourg, a 2,586-square-kilometre land-locked country in Western Europe bordered by France, Belgium and Germany.
On hand for the Ottawa embassy’s opening — which took place on the occasion of the Grand Duke’s birthday — was Luxembourg’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Xavier Bettel, who served as Luxembourg’s prime minister from 2013 to 2023. He said in spite of not reciprocating the establishment of an embassy, he thinks Canada does have an interest in having a strong relationship with Europe.
“I told [my Canadian counterparts] that Luxembourg isn’t just a small country — small by size, but it’s important and a big country by economy and by partnership. And we have the G7 countries in Luxembourg, except Canada,” Bettel said. “I think it’s also a strong symbol. We may be the last European country to open here, so they can be the last of the G7 countries to open in Luxembourg. But it’s their choice. I have to respect [that]. It’s not always easy to open an embassy.”
Foreign Minister Anita Anand made an unexpected visit to the launch reception.
“It’s an absolute pleasure to be here with your this afternoon to welcome Luxembourg to our Ottawa family,” Anand said.
“We are going to build our relationships with countries, partners and allies around the world. This moment in time is witness to a changing and stressed geo-strategic environment, where issues related to defence and security, not to mention economic survival and affordability, are at the top of mind for us all. It is this moment, when we are thinking about our domestic needs and values, that our relationships could not be more important.”
Anand said she decided to attend the launch at the last minute to underline the point that Canada is there for Luxembourg just as Luxembourg is there for Canada.
“This moment in time is witness to a changing and stressed geo-strategic environment, where issues related to defence and security, not to mention economic survival and affordability, are at the top of mind for us all.”
“Canada will continue to develop our trans-Atlantic links and we should note that Luxembourg is itself the seventh highest performer in terms of foreign direct investment here as well,” Anand said. “So there are already economic liaisons and we will fortify them as well.”
Anand said she also wanted to share that the opening of the embassy in Canada marks the beginning of a new era in Luxembourg-Canada relations, and she wanted to emphasize that Canada will continue to place importance on its economic, defence and security ties with Europe.
“As we celebrate 80 years of partnership between our two nations, we will continue to pursue economic cooperation and celebrate our people-to-people ties for generations to come,” she said, recalling a special trip to Luxembourg with her aunt and uncle when she was a young girl.
Rob Oliphant, parliamentary secretary to the foreign minister, applauded the Luxembourgers for establishing an embassy in Ottawa.
“It does make a difference having an embassy here,” Oliphant said. “It makes a difference to have a centre where we can gather for increased investment, trade, diplomatic relations, people to people ties and increased cultural diplomacy.”
He said that while the story of the Dutch Royal Family taking refuge in Canada during the Second World War is well known, Luxembourg’s Grand Duchess Charlotte’s family also took refuge in Canada — for them, Montreal was a safe-haven after Germany invaded their country in 1940.
Luxembourg is the planet’s richest country per capita thanks to its strong financial and banking sector, a favourable tax environment that attracts international business, its small population and skilled, educated, multilingual workforce. As such, the country also boasts a high quality of life, and free education, health care and public transport.
Canada and Luxembourg’s relationship is long-standing. In 2024, merchandise trade between the two countries was $249.6 million, leaving lots of room for growth, and, as Anand noted, Luxembourg is one of the largest European sources of foreign direct investment in Canada. In 2024, FDI stock from Luxembourg represented $22.3 billion.
In his remarks, Bettel said it was important to find likeminded partners such as Canada in a world where international law isn’t always respected, pointing to the Russian invasion of Ukraine as well as the situation in Palestine.
Speaking to the media after the official speeches, Bettel said the decision to open an embassy in Canada was not a response to the November 2024 election of U.S. President
Donald Trump as the decision had been made before that. He added that the appearance of Anand at the reception was an indication of how important Luxembourg, and indeed Europe, are to Canada.
“[The establishment of an embassy] is not against the U.S., it’s just to show that together, we can do things and I hope with the U.S., too,” Bettel said.
He said he expects Luxembourg’s investment focuses in Canada might include the defence industry as well as forestry, tourism and culture.
He says Trump’s election has been a wakeup call for many countries in terms of depending on too few trading partners.
“It’s new partners, trusted partners,” he said. “We saw it in Europe with gas from Russia and microchips from China. As European continent, we were always dependent on someone else. And Canada is a big country, too, and I think it’s important to have a strong industry, to have a strong economy, but also not to be dependent on one partner. This is what we learned from the lessons of the last 10 years.”
That said, he does hope to continue to have good relations with the U.S.
“It might be more complicated and more unpredictable, but it would be an error to say we have nothing in common with the United States,” he said. “We need to find a way to have a win-win situation for all the partners, but we should avoid giving the feeling to the Americans that we don’t want to work with [them]. They are partners, and they would stay partners.”
Malta is another EU country that established an embassy in Ottawa in 2024. Canada’s diplomatic relations with Malta are handled by the embassy in Italy.
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The Central American country was the first in the world to accept cryptocurrency as legal tender and now it wants to help others do the same.
By Jennifer Campbell
Salvadoran Vice-President Félix Ulloa has a message for Canadians: Digital currency is something to consider. Ulloa was in town to attend the Canadian Blockchain Consortium’s second annual policy summit and to visit his newest grandson, who was born in Canada to his Canadian-born daughter. But though blockchain has whole summits dedicated to it, Ulloa still thinks countries outside his own need more education on the matter.
“The whole world is moving in the direction of the digital economy,” Ulloa said during an interview at the Embassy of El Salvador. “We realize that even though we have this conference about digital assets, the level of acceptance at the governmental level of the digital economy is very low.”
He said he met two MPs — one Conservative and one Liberal — and they both agreed that the Canadian government needs to move forward on digital currency.
“Salvador took the leadership in 2021 when we adopted bitcoin as a currency,” he said.
El Salvador’s move has not been without controversy and the drama continues to play out after the International Monetary Fund’s $1.4 billion bailout in hopes that Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele would drop his cryptocurrency policies, but Bukele appears to continue to allow its use as a currency.
Ulloa explained that the deal was that El Salvador had to pass a law saying Salvadoran retailers and business people don’t have to accept bitcoin as a currency, and the second condition is that taxes can’t be paid with bitcoin.
The vice-president says El Salvador has a lot of information on digital assets it can share with Canada, calling it “one of the most strict and secure financial systems for cryptocurrencies.”
Salvadoran Ambassador Ricardo Alfonso Cisneros Rodriguez agrees.
“We actually are the only [ones with] real experience about bitcoins in the world. And we can have a win-win situation with Canadians, where we can they can learn from our experience on what is the best practice, on regulations for digital assets. Why not work together to build this?”
At this point, Canada and El Salvador have limited trade relations. Decades ago, El Salvador was among the world’s top exporters of coffee, but coffee production was reduced during the civil war era when government moved to other agricultural commodities and industrialization. Coffee production has shrunk to less than one million tonnes today from four million to five million tonnes in its heyday.
“Coffee is no longer our main export at product,” Ulloa explained. “Now we have the sugar cane. But our main source of foreign currency is tourism. We got more than four million international tourists last year. We were past any country in the region. Even Costa Rica never gets more than three million.”
Ulloa credits the dramatic decrease in the homicide rate for the increase in tourism. While El Salvador used to be known as the “murder capital of the world,” Ulloa says its rate — disputed by some activists — is now 1.9 murders per 100,000, down from 103 per 100,000, putting it lower than Canada’s rate of 1.91 per 100,000 in 2024. The lower rate in El Salvador is thanks to gang crackdowns with about two per cent of the adult population being incarcerated in 2023 and due process being questioned by human rights groups.
El Salvador has come up with a debt purchase arrangement with JP Morgan bank that will allow it to invest $10 million per year over the next 20 years on conserving and cleaning the Lempa River.
“This is a good achievement in taking care of the environment,” he said. “We are also replanting the coffee
plantation because, as I said, agriculture was abandoned by the previous government. We are replanting and recovering 20,235 hectares of coffee all over the country. They will create a micro-climate and will preserve the under-soil.”
When he delivered a speech to the nation in 2023, Bukele declared a war against corruption, Ulloa says. The previous year, he had declared a war on guns.
Since then, Ulloa says, El Salvador has gained membership in the GAFILAT (Financial Action Task Force of Latin America), which has produced encouraging reports on the state of corruption in El Salvador.
Meanwhile the country has made the news as the site of CECOT, a 40,000-capacity prison facility the El Salvador government built to house alleged gang members. But in U.S. President Donald Trump’s second term, it has also become home to hundreds of Venezuelan migrants deported by the U.S.
Ulloa is proud that the U.S. put faith in the now-tight security of the country's prisons as there was a time when prisoners escaped easily from Salvadoran jails. Asked if CECOT taking prisoners from America gives his country a black eye in the West, he says: “People need to be educated.”
He says Canada has a travel warning against his country while the U.S. doesn’t. In spite of that, thousands of Canadians are travelling to the country. About 100,000 members of the Salvadoran diaspora also live in Canada.
“For me, it’s like my second homeland,” Ulloa says. “My mother died here. My brother and sister live here. My two kids live here. We want to have long-term relations between the two countries. We feel we are part of helping Canada to build this beautiful country.
Strategically located in the heart of Southeast Asia, Malaysia’s competitive advantage in a number of industries makes it the trade partner of choice.
Traditionally, the world’s largest producer of tin and rubber (extractive industries and agriculture), Malaysia has transformed itself into a manufacturing and services-driven economy. In 2024, manufacturing and services contributed approximately 82 per cent of the country’s GDP.
trade between Malaysia and Canada, significantly reducing trade barriers and, in most cases, eliminating tariffs altogether. The CPTPP facilitates and promotes two-way trade, as does the highly anticipated Canada-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement.
Malaysia’s robust growth, its progressive trade practices, and its investments in green energy and the digital economy make it an ideal partner for Canada’s own trade outlook. The goods and services offered by Malaysia are not in competition with Canada’s own products and services, but are complementary to them.
Though Malaysia remains a key player in many agricultural sectors (natural rubber, palm oil, cocoa), it is more wellestablished these days in the manufacturing and services sector. Its competitively priced goods make it a sought-after partner in the global trading ecosystem, with electronics and semiconductors at the top of the list – items that are an integral component of Canada’s tech, automotive and aerospace industries.
Other areas of interest include optical and medical equipment, surgical and non-surgical gloves, EMS, chemicals and chemical products, with reciprocal interest in Canada’s agri-food, aerospace and machinery, among others.
The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement on Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) has further strengthened the advantages for
Malaysia’s trade with almost all nations of the world, its position as a gateway to ASEAN, its political and economic stability, efficient supply-chain connectivity, as well as the sound policies put in place by successive governments have enabled the country to seek collaborative arrangements with its partners, resulting in an ultimate win-win situation when it comes to trade. The launch of LNG Canada, with significant Malaysian interest, bears witness to this synergy.
IS NO LONGER A BARRIER TO TRADE, particularly with Malaysia’s location on one of the world’s busiest shipping routes.
Increased accessibility to Malaysia’s one-stop centre for all things trade, MATRADE, is now available in Canada through the newly opened MATRADE Ottawa office. Drop in for a chat!
Armenia and Canada are celebrating 30 years since Armenia opened its beautiful embassy in the Golden Triangle neighbourhood of Ottawa. Canada has been a steadfast supporter of Armenia’s transition to a democracy.
By Jennifer Campbell
It was 30 years ago that the Armenian diaspora in Canada banded together to buy a historic building with a great view of the Rideau Canal. Today, the Armenian government owns the building, which serves as a diplomatic mission and a home for all Armenian Canadians.
Anahit Harutyunyan has represented Armenia, the only South Caucasian state with a resident ambassador in Canda, since 2019.
“It’s an exciting year because we’ll be celebrating the 30th anniversary of the establishment of our embassy,” she says. “In 1995, this beautiful building was purchased by our community and gifted to the government of Armenia to celebrate the recovery of our independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union.”
She says her government is proud of the Spanish colonial revival mansion. It was built in 1907 and remodelled in 1922 by architect W.E. Noffke. In the 1950s, it was occupied by a Royal Canadian Air Force division. Uruguay and Hungary have used it as their embassies in the past, but Armenia has done so for the past 30 years.
“[The building] symbolizes the independence of Armenia,” Harutyunyan says. “It symbolizes the diaspora’s involvement and care of the Republic of Armenia. It’s a great milestone to celebrate.”
In 2008, the building secured heritage status from the City of Ottawa and every year, the embassy takes part in Open Doors Ottawa, which allows people to go in and look around.
“Around 600 people visited our embassy this year, because it’s part of the history of Ottawa,” Harutyunyan says, adding that having heritage status is an important though onerous responsibility.
A statue out front, which represents Armenia’s newly established statehood, features a tulip to represent
Ottawa. The tulip was also a trademark subject of Armenian-Canadian photographer Malak Karsh. The sculpture boasts a maple leaf in appreciation of Canada giving refuge to thousands of Armenian refugees in the early 1920s.
Harutyunyan says her country has excellent relations with Canada, noting that Canada opened its embassy in Yerevan in 2023 and that it’s the only one in the Caucasus region.
“Before, [Armenia] was covered from Russia,” the ambassador says, adding that the establishment of an embassy in Yerevan demonstrates Canada’s appreciation for Armenia’s democratic development.
She says Armenia is also grateful Canada recognized the Armenian genocide in 2004. “Recognition is an important step in prevention.”
Harutyunyan is working hard on strengthening trade ties as well. Armenia is interested in collaborating with Canada in mining for investment, but also for know-how and advice on corporate social responsibility. Armenia’s deputy minister of territorial administration and infrastructure was to visit in October and meet with federal and provincial officials as well as mining executives.
“We have quite a wealth of resources, especially copper molybdenum,” Harutyunyan says. “But we’re just getting started in this sector.”
She says Canada is diversifying its trade and so is Armenia, which has a very educated STEM workforce. “IT is booming in Armenia,” she says.
Wine is also an important commodity. “Wine production in Armenia dates back 6,000 years,” she says, adding that Ontario and Quebec carry Armenian wines, but
the best wineries concentrate on quality rather than quantity and, unfortunately, the Canadian liquor chains want to stock their many stores.
Exclusive wine offerings should contribute to what the ambassador says is an already-booming tourism sector.
“Armenia is very welcoming and the tourism infrastructure is quite developed,” she says. “It has three UNESCO heritage monastic complexes and 250,000 historical monuments. We have eco-tourism and health tourism, such as dental care, cosmetic surgery and reproductive fertility. We have competitive prices and very high quality.
“Once you’re there, you’ll want to go back.”
As U.S. ambassador to Canada, Pete Hoekstra is on his second posting as a political appointee for U.S. President Donald Trump. Hoekstra is still surprised when Trump answers his phone calls.
By Jennifer Campbell
The start of Pete Hoekstra’s diplomatic career was, as he describes it, “rough.”
He’d just been posted as U.S. President Donald Trump’s man in the Netherlands and thought it would be a gentler, maybe even easier, gig than being a member of the U.S. Congress.
“I thought moving into a diplomatic post would be a different atmosphere, but it’s as rough and tumble as politics is,” he says with a laugh.
The Netherlands, where he was called out for making inaccurate anti-Muslim statements for which he later apologized, was one thing, but now he’s posted to Canada, a country whose governments have banned U.S. liquor from their shelves and many of its citizens have informally boycotted travel to visit their closest neighbour. And Trump is rolling out policies worldwide that are making its allies angry and no doubt keeping his diplomats up at night, as they try to figure out the how to deal with said allies in the delicate world of diplomacy.
Asked if his posting in Canada is as “rough and tumble” as the one in the Netherlands, he says: “Are you kidding? Oh, yeah, absolutely.”
But, he says it’s not better or worse than his first posting.
“There were issues in the Netherlands and there are issues in Canada,” says Hoekstra, sitting next to his
wife, Diane, at Lornado, the U.S. ambassador’s residence in Ottawa. “I work for the president and there was a mission that we had and that we had to focus on in the Netherlands and there’s a mission that we have to focus on here in Canada and those don’t necessarily always align with the country that you’re in.”
That said, he had high government officials from the Netherlands coming to him later and saying that they should have listened to him.
“It’s tough for them to say, because what it means is, ‘We really should have listened to Donald Trump’,” he says. “The agenda that I was promoting on behalf of the president was that they needed to spend two per cent on NATO. And the Dutch laughed, and the Dutch media laughed and they said, ‘Really? You think the Russians are going to cross the border in their tanks?’”
Hoekstra countered saying that they had promised to spend two per cent of their GDP on NATO and he emphasized Trump’s point was that if they were prepared, the Russians wouldn’t invade.
Another priority was to fight Nordstream 2.
“The question was ‘Do you really want to become energy-dependent on Russia?’ And they would laugh and
say, ‘the Russians will never cut off our gas — you just want to sell American natural gas to the Dutch and Europe.’ And what did we find out? The Russians did cross the border in their tanks, and Russia did cut off gas to the Dutch and other parts of Europe.”
The third priority was to understand and underline the threat from China.
“[On] that one, the Dutch were pretty much aligned with us,” Hoekstra says, adding that China has gutted Europe’s automobile industry. They recognized the threat from China to their economic and military and national security, so they worked with us on those types of things. One of the things you learn is that the president was fairly insightful in terms of the agenda that he put in place and the Europeans didn’t like and they didn’t like the American embassy promoting that agenda. [Trump is] always confident in his agenda, but after his experience in the first term, he’s even more confident than he was eight years ago.”
Hoekstra served as a member of Congress, representing Michigan’s 2nd District, for 18 years, from 1993 to 2011,
during which time he opposed abortion rights, gay adoption rights, gay marriage and gun control. He is also listed as a contributor to the “mandate for leadership” section of the Project 2025 document, according to the Guardian newspaper.
The ambassador, who ran the Republicans’ successful campaign in Michigan in 2024, says the president asked him to do a job he didn’t want to do.
“The Michigan Republican Party was a disaster,” Hoekstra recalls of the situation not quite two years ago.
“We had disastrous leadership. We had no money, we were deeply divided, and it was just an awful situation. And I was never a party guy. I mean, I would make my contributions, and I functioned within the party, but that was not my strength.”
When Trump called and asked him to run the election campaign, he said no. As Trump tells it — Hoekstra remembers it a little differently — he spoke to him a little longer and Hoekstra was eventually convinced.
“The election is seven months later, right?” Hoekstra says, returning to the story. “And nothing had improved. We still had no money. I don’t know how many times the president came to Michigan — he might have been there 25 or 30 times.”
At one point, Trump told him that if he won Michigan, good things might happen.
“That’s not exactly his quote, but it’s one I can give you. His real quote was even better, but I’m comfortable with that one.”
Hoekstra later heard that the day before the election, the Trump team gathered and said they were pretty confident about all the battleground states — except Michigan. But Trump said he’d just talked to Hoekstra and he’d said they were going to win.
Hoekstra served as a member of Congress, representing Michigan’s 2nd District, for 18 years, from 1993 to 2011 during which time he opposed abortion rights, gay adoption rights, gay marriage and gun control.
“The team was skeptical,” he says. “On election day, they got together again and Newt [Gingrich] called me at 4:30 p.m. and I told him it all looked pretty good. ‘We’re doing well with union members, we’re doing well with African American voters, we’re doing well with Muslim voters’ and we’d put a lot of effort into all of those groups.”
After they delivered Michigan and Trump won the election and was in a position to reward his stalwart supporters, Hoekstra says that he and Diane, to whom he’s been married for 50 years and with whom he has three children and three grandchildren, identified Canada as one of their preferred assignments.
“A couple of weeks later, I had the opportunity to meet with the president and I said I think I’d like to be your ambassador to Canada and within two and a half or three hours, he had a Truth Social post saying Pete Hoekstra is going to be the next ambassador to Canada,” he says.
As he tells that story, his colleague, Ariel Pollock, spokesperson for the ambassador, recalls that at that time, she was on her way to the Halifax International Security Forum and was in an airport on a moving walkway when one of her team members sent the Truth Social post. “I almost tripped,” she says, because they didn’t expect an announcement so soon.
Asked why they wanted Canada, Hoekstra and his wife name several reasons. Hoekstra, who was born in Holland but moved to the United States as a child, is from Michigan, so he knew Canada well.
“[And], I had an aunt and an uncle who lived in Richmond, [B.C.], Diane’s sister lived in Smithers, [B.C.] and we’ve been there,” Hoekstra says. “I had an aunt who lived in Lethbridge and I had an aunt in Thunder Bay. People say ‘You’ve been to more places in Canada than I have.’ Diane had an uncle who was a pastor in St. Catharines. There’s a lot of linkages along with being a politician representing the state of Michigan. You have the auto industry, the Great Lakes issue and water issues, [so I thought] this would be a great assignment.”
He notes that for the U.S. diplomatic corps, Canada is one of the top five or six places one can be sent, naming the U.K., France, Japan and Italy as others.
As the ambassador to Canada, he hosted a congenial, if downsized, July 4 event and when he received Diplomat magazine at the residence, he was equally warm, personally greeting the team from the steps of the residence.
His wife Diane soon appeared from the pretty sunroom, where the two enjoy a multi-million-dollar view of the Ottawa River and eat dinner when it’s just the two of them. Otherwise, they dine in the spacious formal dining
room on the south side of the residence. The two offered a tour of the residence after the interview, showing off some personal treasures and agreeing to selfies.
Regarding Trump, Hoekstra admits he’s always surprised when the president answers his call.
“He takes my calls, but when we’re there with Carney, sitting around the resolute desk are [Commerce Secretary Howard] Lutnick, [Treasury Secretary Scott] Bessent, [Secretary of State Marco] Rubio and [VicePresident] J.D. [Vance] — those are the people who have a great relationship with the president. Lutnick is one of his long-term friends, his close friends. Obviously, he’s become very close to Rubio and J.D. But yes, he takes my calls. I’m still amazed every time he does — and thankful.”
Asked what his mission in Canada is, Hoekstra is clear.
“[Trump] said ‘We’re redoing our trade relationships,’” Hoekstra recalls.
Trump’s analysis of the U.S. is that it’s in crisis and he wants to rebuild the economy and raise more revenue through trade.
“It’s not just Canada, it’s not just Europe, it’s not [just] Japan,” Hoekstra says. “The view is we’ve been taken advantage of with our trade relationships for years and that’s jeopardizing the future of our citizens, our prosperity. So [Canada has] to help us work through this transition. Canada is a key ally, a key trading partner in all of this. We need to work through this. This is for American prosperity, and we believe in prosperity for likeminded countries.” On top of that, the ambassador says, there’s the obligation to build up the allies’ militaries and capabilities. The war in Ukraine and the situation in the Middle East led Trump to tell his NATO allies that they no longer need two per cent, they need five.
“The threats are bigger,” Hoekstra says. “We’ve got to make up for lost ground. You can’t identify a need 14 years ago and not do anything and then still say two per cent is good enough.”
Hoekstra’s third priority is with respect to fentanyl. He says the U.S. is losing 50,000 people a year to the drug. “We’ve got to get borders under control,” he says. “We want immigrants coming into America. A lot of us are immigrants. But we want to do this from a managed
Diane and Pete Hoekstra often enjoy cheese and crackers with a glass of wine on the rooftop deck at Lornado, their residence. | Photo: Ashley Fraser
As the ambassador to Canada, he hosted a congenial, if downsized, July 4 event and when he received Diplomat magazine at the residence, he was equally warm, as he personally greeted the team from the steps of the residence.
standpoint. We don’t want to lose 50,000 people a year. [People are] a valuable resource for America, and it’s just wrong that we have 50,000 people a year dying of fentanyl. Canada has the same issue proportionally.” The government of Canada Health Infobase reports 7,146 “apparent opioid-toxicity deaths” in 2024, which was 17 per cent lower than in 2023.
Hoekstra says when he wakes up in the morning, those are the kinds of things he figures he needs to work on — economic, military and security issues.
He says his mission in Canada also includes opportunities in critical minerals and the Arctic, for example, but he says it really all boils down to prosperity, safety and security.
When asked how he would explain Donald Trump’s style to Canadians who have a hard time understanding it, he
says: “There’s lots of things I would like to say. There’s only certain things I can say.”
He says the transition Trump is taking the U.S. through is “hard,” but the U.S.’s $37 trillion of debt isn’t sustainable.
He was in Congress in the 1990s when the U.S. balanced the budget under then-president Bill Clinton.
“Did we like Bill Clinton? No, but we found out we could work with him. Newt Gingrich and Clinton developed a mutually respectful relationship and we got some great things done. But it was hard. It’s the same situation we have today. Getting back to a balanced budget and significantly reduced deficits is not going to be easy. Reestablishing global security is not going to be easy. Our Western military allies are in shambles.”
With respect to the state of the long-time friendly relationship between Canada and the U.S., Hoekstra says the U.S. has always been clear on what it wants, and it’s been more than fair with Canada.
“Canada has the best tariff relationship with the United States of America of any country in the world — it’s not
the second best, it’s not the third, it’s not the fourth, it is the best deal of any country in the world.”
Asked if he thinks there will be a reduction anytime soon, he says, “Reduce to what? Donald Trump has said we are going to impose tariffs on every country. You’re at 5.6 per cent now — five per cent is not a bad place to be.”
When he says 5.6 per cent, he’s quoting Canadian figures that average the total tariffs, which range from 50 per cent on steel and aluminum, to 10 per cent on energy exports. The bulk of Canadian exports are tariff-free because of the Canada-United StatesMexico agreement (CUSMA or USMCA south of the border), although the U.S. has imposed an exemption on aluminum, steel and automobiles and light trucks. There’s also a 50 per cent tariff on semi-finished copper products, but it only applies to the value of the copper content, not the whole product.
On CUSMA, he suggests a review is imminent. He was right; the review has since begun.
“The U.S. will formally kick off, from our standpoint, the process to begin the review of USMCA,” he says. “It doesn’t mean it will be extended or renewed. It will be reviewed. The Canadians have made it relatively clear that they’re rethinking everything.”
He says Canada continues to indicate that it doesn’t accept the spirit or underpinnings of the agreement, as demonstrated by Canada’s ban on certain products coming from the U.S. — liquor, for example.
“That doesn’t fall within USMCA, but that’s what the Canadians have done,” he says. “Procurement policies by provinces you know, pretty much saying, ‘Don’t buy American.’ That is not in the spirit of USMCA. [Canada has] laid open a whole series of things that it’s questioning. [Canada has] to come back to us and tell us what it wants.”
Hoekstra isn’t emotional about the trade relationship. And he advises all parties should approach it that way.
“From my perspective, these are business decisions,” he says. “If you want to make them emotional decisions, that’s your business. All I know is that if you’re making emotional business decisions, you don’t always make the best decisions. I do know in real estate that if you buy a house on emotion, most likely in three to five years, you will regret it. If you make a decision purely on a rational basis, it’s less likely that you will regret it in the future.”
Hoekstra worked for Herman Miller and remembers that if they lost an Apple contract to one of their competitors, they wouldn’t boycott the company that didn’t choose them. Instead, they would work really hard to get that business back.
He says he doesn’t mind Buy Canadian; his country does Buy American, but boycotting U.S. products is a different thing — it’s saying “We’re not going to do business with you anymore.”
He says Canada is also now questioning the whole military strategy of interoperability and interchangeability.
“It’s saying we’re not going to buy F-35s anymore,” he says, adding that the Canadian military keeps coming back and saying it’s the best plane for the best price and notes that Canada makes all kinds of parts for them. “They’re testing the concept of interchangeability and interoperability, which has been a hallmark of providing security for North America.”
He notes that if Canada is flying F-18s and needs some parts it can’t get, it can call the U.S. for them.
“[Canada was] an initial partner in the F-35, you invested in the design, you have a whole bunch of companies in Canada that make parts for every single F-35 and
North American Aerospace Defense Command fighter jets fly in formation in support of an operation over Alaska. Pete Hoekstra says the future of NORAD depends to some degree of what Canada decides about its own defence procurement. Photo: U.S. Air Force.
we appreciate and welcome the partnership and we are more than willing to share in the success of that program,” he says. “Every F-35 has Canadian parts on it. And we do this for a lot of different things.”
Canada and the U.S. created the North American Air Defence Command (NORAD) in 1958 as a binational command, centralizing operational control of continental air defences against Soviet bombers. The agreement has 11 principles and has been reviewed, revised and renewed regularly since then, redefining the mission as one of aerospace warning and control of North America in 1996. Ten years later, a maritime warning mission was added.
With Canada seeking defence procurement deals elsewhere, however, NORAD’s future may be in question.
“A lot of the stuff depends on the decisions Canada is going to make,” Hoekstra says, adding that he thinks the Golden Dome project — a proposed missile-defence system in which Canada has expressed interest — will be sourced from North America. “This is something Canada is opening up to question as to what our relationship will be to provide security for the North American continent. If they’re opening up [their defence] procurement process, it’s going to be really, really hard for us to do
“The threats are bigger,” Hoekstra says. “We’ve got to make up for lost ground. You can’t identify a need 14 years ago and not do anything and then still say two per cent is good enough.”
Golden Dome together, which is probably, in many ways, an outreach or the next step of NORAD.”
Asked what Donald Trump sees as the U.S.’s place in the world, the ambassador says he sees America as a major source for good in the world.
“Who’s leading on Ukraine? It’s the U.S.,” he says. “The president is taking unbelievable risk, meeting with Putin and these types of things, and taking a lot of criticism, [but he wants to] end this war. He is solutions-based. The whole economic revival — lower taxes, innovation, investment and these types of things — it’s about growing the economy in the West, starting with growing the economy in the United States. And I think he would say Canada can be a partner in this.”
On Canada’s sovereignty, Hoekstra says he respects it.
“I don’t talk about it,” he says, regarding the president’s frequent statements that Canada should become the 51st state. “I know how it developed and I’m just better off not talking about it because I have very strong feelings. Does debating how we got to the 51st state make us more prosperous, safe or secure? No. It’s important to people who care about it, but I’m not going to engage with it.”
Asked about the state of democracy in the U.S., Diane, seated beside the ambassador, scoffs and asks “Are you crazy?”
Hoekstra responds first by saying maybe she should take the question, and then by asking about the state of democracy in Canada.
He says his mission in Canada also includes opportunities in critical minerals and the Arctic, for example, but he says it really all boils down to prosperity, safety and security.
“We’re going through a transition time and we readily admit that,” he says. “The kinds of change that America needs to go through, they are tough.”
He says the suggestion that democracy is under threat is a “red herring” and “Russian hoax.”
“I lived through this in 2016 and 2017,” he says, when the suggestion was that Trump was a “stooge” for the Russians. “The threat to our democracy is what some of these people in our intelligence community did undermining a legitimate election of a president in 2016 — [James] Comey, [James] Clapper, [Michael] Hayden, [John] Brennan — even raising the possibility of this Russian hoax, which they all knew was totally a fake and a phoney, and undermining a president and distracting him from his agenda for a whole bunch of his first term. And America paid a price for it. Those were the real threats to democracy. I hope these people are held accountable.”
Regarding the actions of the president, he says he is “taking very aggressive, bold” actions.
“Some of them are being challenged in the courts,” Hoekstra admits. “The process is working exactly the way that it should. And if there are things that are decided that the president doesn’t necessarily agree with or wishes they went the other way, he abides by the court ruling. So it’s working fine — and democracy is hard.”
He says diplomacy is also hard because it involves people on both sides who are passionate about the outcomes.
“I am passionate about having a great outcome in terms of the U.S. and Canada on safety, prosperity and security and that’s really, really hard work,” he says. “I find it really hard to focus on people who say ‘We can’t talk about that because Donald Trump isn’t really nice to us.’”
Hoekstra says he moves on from people like that, and seeks out people who want prosperity, safety and security for the U.S., North America and the rest of the world.
Jennifer Campbell is Diplomat magazine’s editor.
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Sébastien Carrière, Canada’s chief of protocol, is a foreign head of mission’s first official meeting after they arrive and he tells them not to be shy in getting in touch. They aren’t.
By Jennifer Campbell
Sébastien Carrière says there are no typical days at his job and that’s one of the reasons he enjoys it so much.
As Canada’s chief of protocol, he manages the official and state visits of the governor general, the prime minister and portfolio ministers. He also manages state and official visits from visiting dignitaries to Canada. His job further involves overseeing official events and working on summits, such as the G7 Canada recently hosted at Kananaskis, Alta., and official visits involved in international events, such as the Olympics, World Cup or Expo, if Canada were playing host. Finally, his office oversees issues relating to the entitlements and special status granted to foreign diplomats in Canada. That includes nearly 8,000 diplomatic agents across 189 diplomatic missions country-wide, including 134 embassies and high commissions in Ottawa.
“The diplomatic corps services division is the daily front-line of these operations, which includes administering the accreditation programs and delivery of special outreach and public diplomacy events for the diplomatic corps,” the office's website reads. Translated, that means Carrière and his team members attend as many events hosted by the diplomatic corps in Ottawa as they can, and deal with any issues that arise during a diplomat’s time in Canada.
When he’s in Ottawa, Carrière says a typical day will start with an “ops
meeting” at which deputy ministers and their senior managers gather for about 15 minutes to go over what’s going to “hit” them that day.
“[After that,] there is often a meeting with a new ambassador,” he says. “As you know, every time a new [head of mission] arrives, I’m their first official meeting, usually a day or two after they’ve landed. At those meetings, they present their copies of credentials and we go over the rules here and get to know each other. I give them advice and so on and then they get briefed by the team on all things diplomatic corps.”
Then there’s the usual sort of inbox stuff and doing your work as a manager in the public service, as well as meetings with staff to go over issues. There might be a planning meeting for an upcoming visit — there’s a lot of those as well.”
He says he often has an impromptu meeting with an ambassador or high commissioner who “just pops in” to discuss an issue.
“I try to make myself available. They all have my cell phone number. I tell them not to be shy — and they aren’t,” Carrière says, laughing. “I try to see them the same day, if I’m around, if I can’t, I’ll offer a phone call or a meeting the next day.”
His job further involves overseeing official events and managing summits, such as the G7 Canada recently hosted at Kananaskis, Alta., and official visits involved in international events, such as the Olympics, World Cup or Expo, if Canada is playing host.
In addition, there can be a lunch or a dinner or a reception — or sometimes all three. He tries to attend as many national days — and even other receptions — as he can.
“I only miss a national day if I’m travelling with the prime minister or governor general or I’m on leave,” he says. “It’s a great opportunity for me to catch up with people. We talk about something, and it’s sorted out in 30 seconds, or I get back to them the next day with the answer. It saves everybody a lot of meetings and phone calls and so on.”
When a new ambassador or high commissioner arrives in Canada, there’s always someone from the office of protocol to greet them at the airport, but that usually isn’t Carrière.
“Some of the [heads of mission] like the Africa group, when they know a new [head of mission] is coming, they like to go out to the airport and greet them,” he says, adding that the ASEAN and Arab groups also do that. “I think that’s a lovely tradition that they have in those two regional groups.”
Carrière’s previous posting was as ambassador to Haiti — an interesting challenge, but in an impoverished country, what many might call a hardship posting — and chief of protocol was the job he sought after that.
“I asked for this job and I wouldn’t take no for an answer,” he says, adding that his son attends university in Montreal and his daughter headed that way this autumn to start college. “I really like being a diplomat and when you’re the chief of protocol, you’re a full-time diplomat. You’re always engaging with the world, but you’re at home. I could have a meeting with an ambassador from Asia in the morning, and then one from Africa in the afternoon, and then discussions with the whole planet at a reception later that night. So it’s the ultimate diplomatic posting.”
He likes the contact with the diplomatic corps. After all, he was part of one in his previous postings to Senegal (2005 to 2008), Morocco (2018 to 2019) and, finally, as ambassador to Haiti from 2021 to 2023.
Of his postings, he says there are few places in Africa that are nicer to live and where Canada is more appreciated than Senegal. He says Morocco is a “fantastic place to work” and a gateway to Africa and there are close cultural connections through the French language. And, being ambassador to Haiti was an immense honour, especially when he was there during unstable times. His best friend across the street growing up in the Fabreville neighbourhood of Laval, Que., was Haitian, he has a Haitian uncle and Carrière worked full-time on the Haiti desk for several months following the earthquake in 2010.
“When [the posting] came up in 2020, I raised my hand,” he says. “A couple of weeks before I got there, they killed the president in his bedroom.”
Carrière’s wife and children remained in Canada for his two-year posting, but were able to visit off and on until he, as ambassador, had to make the difficult decision to cancel all family visits for Canadian diplomats posted there. Yet, ultimately, he says he’s proud of the work he and his team did there.
And he’s proud of what his team now does at headquarters.
“Diplomacy is about people, but diplomacy is also a contact sport, and it’s about knowing people and meeting people and building relationships,” he says.
“I really like being a diplomat and when you’re the chief of protocol, you’re a fulltime diplomat. [...] I could have a meeting with ambassador from Asia in the morning, and then one from Africa in the afternoon, and then discussions with the whole planet at a reception later that night. So it’s the ultimate diplomatic posting.”
“Your first interaction with somebody should never be you asking them for something, or to support this candidacy and so on and so forth. You need to build a relationship — get to know people, get to know their family and and then when there’s business to be done, you’re starting from a completely different place.”
Asked how many world leaders he’s met since he took on this job in 2023 at the age of 49, Carrière quickly says “a lot of them.” After all, when there’s a visit, it’s his job to co-ordinate the overall planning and execution of the visit with a massive team in Ottawa, including folks from the Department of National Defence, the RCMP and Global Affairs Canada.
“The team here is just extraordinary — on the visit side, on the diplomatic corps side as well,” he says. “That’s another
Sébastien Carrière, Canada’s chief of protocol, says his is the ultimate job for a person who really likes being a diplomat because “you’re always engaging with the world, but at home.” | Photo: Ashley Fraser
reason why I wanted this job. We have this incredible team of dedicated professionals that are so good at their job. It’s amazing.”
He says his initial greeting for a visit sets the tone for the entire thing.
“I take it very, very seriously and we take great care in planning our greetings, our arrivals,” he says. “We always have a greeting party. We’ll have a federal minister, sometimes two. Depending where we are, we might have the provincial premier. In Calgary, Danielle Smith was there there for almost all the greetings of the G7 and other invited leaders. We’ll have municipal leaders. We’ll have Indigenous leaders, and sometimes we’ll have RCMP and the Red Serge, which brings the greeting to a whole other level.”
Carrière greets the dignitaries at the bottom of the stairs from the plane, introduces himself and welcomes them to Canada. Then he introduces them to the rest of the greeters and lets that unfold, after which, he gets them to their hotel. “And then I’m there the next morning,” he
laughs. “With these visits, you plan, plan, plan, but then the visit happens, and all hell breaks loose and you just have to adapt. Maybe the president wants to walk back to the hotel after the meet-and-greet at the embassy. You have to be ready for that. You have to read your client. My job is to give that visitor the best experience they can have. They love it when you give them space.”
Carrière’s first official visit was with Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, who was the “sweetest man you’ve ever met.” In this case, the Canadian officials at the next stop asked Carrière to stall because they weren’t quite ready for the president.
“This is where I come in with my stalling superpowers — you get to chit chat, but with presidents and prime ministers,” he says.
His second visit was with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whom he’s hosted several more times since then. He remembers being at a business roundtable about the reconstruction of Ukraine with then-prime minister Justin
Trudeau and Zelenskyy at the Royal York Hotel in Toronto and being greeted by protesters who were not Trudeau fans.
“I’m waiting at the bottom of the elevators, and the president comes down, we walk out, and there are two doormen from the hotel holding the door. You’ve got Trudeau waiting in his motorcade; you’ve got the demonstrators yelling and shouting and making noise and all the people in the lobby cheering Zelenskyy on. He walks about three feet from the door and slams on [his] brakes and he turns around and goes and shakes the doormen’s hands and thanks them. This man is at war with Russia and under pressure like none of us can even imagine and he stops and thanks the doormen. I could speak for an hour about how much I respect the president of Ukraine.”
Carrière says he also has a lot of time for French President Emmanuel Macron, who he says is a lover of people. He also treasures meeting Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as well as South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.
“Ramaphosa negotiated the end of apartheid under Mandela,” Carrière says, refering to former South African
“I take it very, very seriously and we take great care in planning our greetings, our arrivals,” he says. “We always have a greeting party. We’ll have a federal minister, sometimes two. [...] We’ll have municipal leaders. We’ll have Indigenous leaders, and sometimes we’ll have RCMP and the red surge, which brings the greeting to a whole other level.”
president Nelson Mandela, a one-time political prisioner and anti-apartheid activist. “He’s just a giant.”
He also mentions the honour of hosting King Abdullah II of Jordan, who visited Ottawa in July.
Carrière is suitably diplomatic about U.S. President Donald Trump’s envoy to Ottawa.
“He’s got a special job,” Carrière says. “He’s in the media limelight. I’d be one of the few people who know what that’s like. As ambassador to Haiti, I would tweet about
finding good mangoes at my local grocery store and get interview requests.
“I wish all the best to Ambassador Hoekstra, who wants to do right by the Canada-U.S. relationship. He’s very close to the president and that’s exactly what this bilateral relationship needs.”
Carrière says when the two men are together, it’s obvious how close Trump and Hoekstra are.
“I saw it at the White House and I saw it in Calgary,” he says.
When it comes to declaring a person persona nongrata (PNG), that is at the discretion of the minister, but Carrière has to implement PNGs and last year there were two — the Indian high commissioner and the Ugandan high commissioner.
“You just have to adapt. [...] You have to be ready. You have to read your client. My job is to give that visitor the best experience they can have. They love it when you give them space.”
“We work with them on making sure that they depart in an orderly, timely, safe and dignified manner,” he says. This also ensures that any Canadian diplomats who may be declared PNGed (these things are often reciprocal) receive similarly appropriate treatment. “Then, the next day, we start working with the chargé to make sure the mission carries on.”
He says PNGs are “the nuclear option” and are extremely rare. Normally, the department consults with the sending state and suggests that it’s time to recall the diplomat in question and they do. PNGs invoke the Vienna Convention.
Carrière’s first language is French, having grown up in Laval, Que., which makes him a good candidate for
his other responsibility — being the prime minister’s personal representative or sherpa to the Francophonie. It’s a duty he took on in April 2023 while he was still ambassador to Haiti.
He says there is a summit every two years, a ministerial meeting every year and in between there are permanent council meetings that are the governance organ of the organization.
“Our sherpa has [usually] been an ambassador to a Francophone country and sometimes it’s someone at headquarters,” he says. “In a normal day, there’s almost always a Francophonie discussion or meeting. The role
is something that’s very near and dear to my heart. It’s a great honour to have been named to this position by prime minister [Justin] Trudeau and Prime Minister [Mark] Carney.”
Asked if his job has changed in the transition from Trudeau to Carney, he says it’s been interesting because at one point, he was in Europe with Trudeau and then three weeks later, he was there with Carney.
“I’m learning to read Mr. Carney and I’m still chief of protocol,” he says with a laugh. “They are both really warm people.”
Jennifer Campbell is the editor of Diplomat magazine.
Otmani has been dean of the diplomatic corps since June 2024 and has been a diplomat for more than 40 years.
By Jennifer Campbell
Twenty-seven years representing her country’s interests abroad, more than 40 years in the Moroccan foreign service, and now, one year as dean of the Ottawa diplomat corps: To say Souriya Otmani has done it all in diplomacy isn’t an exaggeration.
“It is a kind of record in diplomacy, isn’t it?” the affable ambassador says of her more than four-decade career when interviewed by Diplomat magazine at Morocco’s handsome Range Road embassy, which has been renovated inside to feature many Moroccan architectural elements. “I can proudly say that being a Moroccan woman diplomat for decades, I have been able to witness the amazing and progressive steps made by Moroccan women in diplomacy. Diplomacy is no longer an area reserved for men.”
Otmani started in diplomacy at a time when there were few women. Today, there are 20 women representing Morocco around the world in such capitals as Paris, Madrid and Berlin. There are many other Moroccan women serving as consuls and consuls-general. Indeed, they make up 43 per cent of the staff members at the ministry of foreign affairs in Morocco.
During her years abroad, the ambassador served as deputy head of mission in Vienna and Stockholm; as consul-general in Montreal and as ambassador in Prague and, now, Ottawa. However, being a diplomat wasn’t her first career choice, which was to be a lawyer.
“But I was kindly advised by my father to apply for a position within the prestigious ministry of foreign affairs,” she explains. “I did so and I never regretted it since diplomacy opens great and enriching horizons. Of course, our job it is very demanding and can be very stressful, too, but at the end of the day, it is very gratifying and rewarding. The key qualities diplomats must have are passion and patience.”
Young Otmani graduated from the faculty of law at Mohammed V University in Rabat and worked for the
department of education before joining the foreign ministry. Women’s rights soon became something for which she fought.
“Over several years of my career, I did focus on integration of women into development policies, which was, and still is, among the top priorities of the Moroccan government’s strategies and policies,” she explains. “I had the opportunity to visit many rural, mountainous and urban areas and regions in Morocco to launch, monitor, implement and assess a huge range of socio-economic development projects that benefit women and were funded by several United Nations multilateral agencies.”
She also worked closely with various associations and institutions promoting women’s rights.
“Women in my country are so brave and resilient and they know that though we have achieved some significant progress, there are still many important challenges to take up.”
One of those challenges is that of domestic violence against women.
“It is one of the most challenging scourges Moroccan society still faces,” she says.
In Morocco — and Morocco isn’t alone in this — 57 per cent of women, or 6.1 million women aged 18 to 65, have experienced physical, psychological, sexual and economic violence, according to a 2019 governmental survey. That’s down from 61.8 per cent at its height.
The ambassador points out though that the digital world has further complicated matters by giving assailants another forum.
“All countries in the world, including the Western ones, face similar challenges, but perhaps at different levels. According to World Health Organization, 30 per cent of women are impacted by violence,” Otmani says.
Forty-four per cent of Canadian women over the age of 15 report they’ve experienced intimate partner violence.
The Moroccan government has adopted laws and programs designed to combat violence against women and there’s a governmental policy to eradicate violence against women and girls by 2030. The policy includes prevention, protection, support and legal action. But she says gaps still exist.
“We should raise awareness among our fathers, our husbands, our brothers and our sons that no violence should be permitted or committed against mothers, wives, sisters and daughters,” Otmani says. “We should work on the change of mentality, even with judges and prosecutors, with the students at school and through the media.”
For her part, the ambassador’s husband, Merouane Sadqi, has always been supportive of her career. “It is important for women in diplomacy to have the support and the assistance from the spouse and the family members,”
she says, adding that their 19-year-old daughter, Sara, is studying communications at the University of Ottawa, with a view to becoming an actress.
Ambassador Otmani says her previous experience in Canada probably helped in securing her position as ambassador to Canada as she’d already served here before.
“It means you are familiar with the environment, the institutions and the people and it helps you gaining time in your diplomatic endeavours,” she says.
She came to Ottawa as ambassador on June 29, 2018, and became dean in June 2024. An ambassador becomes eligible for the deanship when they are the longest-serving resident diplomat in the corps. There are several ambassadors who arrived before her, but many of them are dually accredited to the U.S. and based there, and two others didn’t want the deanship. Yemeni Ambassador Jamal Abdullah Al-Sallal is dean of the Arab group of ambassadors and to take on the overall deanship, he would have had to leave that role, which he didn’t want to do. Former Lebanese ambassador Fadi Ziadeh was also eligible, but he was expecting to return
[Souriya Otmani] came to Ottawa as ambassador on June 29, 2018, and became dean in June 2024. An ambassador becomes eligible for the deanship when they are the longest-service diplomat in the corps.
to Lebanon so he didn’t want to take on the deanship. He has since left Ottawa.
The dean speaks for the entire diplomatic corps on matters of diplomatic privilege and protocol and often represents the diplomatic corps at state functions. The job also involves attending multiple functions every week — the dean is invited to almost every diplomatic reception in Ottawa, and some outside the capital as well.
Relations between Morocco and Canada are “strong, friendly, and based on long-standing shared values and people-to-people ties,” the ambassador says.
Having marked 63 years of diplomatic relations, she says both countries have worked to expand co-operation across various sectors, with growing exchanges in trade, education and innovation.
“Looking ahead, there is great potential to deepen this partnership even further by building a more ambitious trade and investment agenda, expanding sectoral cooperation in clean energy, AI [artificial intelligence], digital innovation, agriculture, mobility and by promoting joint efforts to support peace, stability and sustainable development in Africa and in the Sahel region.”
Two-way trade between Canada and Morocco in 2021 was $1.14 billion, making it Canada’s 32nd largest export market. As Canada looks to diversify its trade, there’s room to grow that, yet negotiations on a free trade agreement have been stalled since 2012.
“It’s true, however, bilateral trade remains solid, driven by exchanges in agriculture, fertilizers, mining and agrifood,” Otmani says. “As a stable, reliable and competitive gateway to Africa and the Middle East, Morocco can help Canadian businesses expand their regional presence. We believe that reactivating the trade dialogue — through sectoral forums, working groups and institutional cooperation — would unlock significant new opportunities for both sides.”
Morocco is also looking to attract investment from Canada with strong momentum in sectors such as aeronautics, renewable energy, offshoring, digital innovation and green mobility.
The ambassador says Morocco’s offshoring industry is a particularly dynamic success story, with competitive hubs in Casablanca, Rabat and Tangier serving global clients in IT services and digital operations.
“Similarly, Morocco’s leadership in renewable energy and green hydrogen has drawn significant foreign investment and positioned the country at the forefront of energy transition efforts,” she says, adding that there
are great opportunities for Canadian companies to invest in Morocco, in areas such as artificial intelligence, clean energy, advanced manufacturing, agro-tech and digital industries.
At the same time, Moroccan investors are increasingly interested in investing in Canada’s critical minerals, clean-tech and innovation sectors.
What Canadian doesn’t know someone who’s visited Morocco in the past few years? Tourism is a key sector of the Moroccan economy, representing seven per cent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) and 840,000 direct jobs. In 2024, the country received 17.4 million visitors — a new record and up 20 per cent compared to the previous year. In addition, Morocco was Africa’s top tourist destination in 2024. Canada remains a potential growth market, due to its strong cultural and linguistic ties. A full 126,000 Canadians visited Morocco last year, a 14.4 per cent jump over 2023 numbers. In the first four months of 2025, there was an impressive 35 per cent increase compared to the same period last year.
The Canadian government advises travellers to Morocco to exercise caution, but the ambassador says that has not significantly impacted its tourism.
As Canadian consumers demand products made elsewhere than the U.S., Morocco’s agricultural sector has become increasingly attractive. In 2024, Morocco’s agricultural exports to Canada accounted for approximately $437 million, primarily in fresh citrus fruits, vegetables and a growing range of processed agri-food products.
Otmani says there is ample potential to further expand these exports while the opportunities for Canada include sharing its world-class expertise in irrigation technologies, precision agriculture, climate-resilient farming and agro-tech innovation.
When it comes to natural resources, Morocco controls 72 per cent of all phosphate rock reserves in the
At the same time, Moroccan investors are increasingly interested in sectors in investing in Canada’s critical minerals, clean-tech and innovation sectors.
world, making it an important player in electricvehicles [EV] battery production. The country has been developing its integrated automotive industry and is now positioning itself as a regional hub for clean mobility and EV battery technology. Several major Chinese companies — including Gotion High Tech — are currently developing giga factories and associated supply chains in Morocco.
The United Nations considers Western Sahara, a territory often marked as grey on maps, as a nonself-governing territory. It has a presence in the area in the form of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara. Morocco maintains the territory as its own.
“In 1975 — Spain, the occupying power of so-called Western Sahara — retroceded this territory to Morocco under the Madrid Accords,” Otmani says in explaining the Moroccan perspective. “Since then, Algeria, driven by personal interests and an outdated Cold War ideology, has created, hosted and financed the separatist group 'Polisario,' which is now recognized for having links with terrorist groups operating in the Sahel and other conflict zones. It was Morocco, confident in its rightful claim, that requested the inclusion of the Sahara on the list of non-self-governing territories at the UN in 1963, with the sole purpose of recovering its Saharan provinces. Since then, the UN Security Council has been seized by this matter.”
In 2007, Morocco proposed what it calls an “initiative of autonomy status for the Sahara region, within the exclusive framework of Morocco’s sovereignty
“We want Canada, now rather than later [...] to dare to step out of its comfort zone and give frank, full and open support to Morocco’s bold autonomy plan.”
“While the conflict has lasted for 50 years, remaining neutral no
longer serves the situation in this region of the world.”
and national unity,” which Otmani and the UN ambassador both characterized as “a pragmatic realistic, lasting, political solution based on compromise.” A total of 118 UN member countries have supported it, including former colonial powers such as Spain, and two permanent Security Council members, namely France and the United States.
As part of her job, Ambassador Otmani is lobbying hard for Canada to declare its position.
“We want Canada, now rather than later, which, like the majority of countries in the world, does not recognize either the ‘Sahrawi Arab Democratic
Republic’ or the ‘Polisario,’ to dare to step out of its comfort zone and give frank, full and open support to Morocco’s bold autonomy plan,” she says. “While the conflict has lasted for 50 years, remaining neutral no longer serves the situation in this region of the world.”
A large contingency of African Union and Middle Eastern countries also supports Morocco.
On its human rights record, the ambassador points to the King’s 2004 creation of the equity and reconciliation commission, which was intended to address “the dark page of human rights violations in
Morocco’s recent history, to understand it fully and then close it for good.”
She says there are still “aspects” that “need improvement,” and yet, Morocco “is praised globally, especially by UN human rights bodies, for its security and justice reforms.”
In response to questions about the fact that while the human rights of Moroccans seem to be improving, premarital sex and homosexuality can still be punished by six months to three years in jail, and criticism of the King can also lead to imprisonment, the ambassador says they’re working on it.
“In ancient nations attached to their traditions, religion and beliefs that are steeped in history, it is not difficult to change things when needed, as long as time is given and the pace respects necessary caution,” she says. “In the cases you mention, the laws aim more to sanction public display and provocation than the acts themselves. Moroccans’ private lives are strictly respected, and unlawful entry into a private home is a criminal offence. Like public breaking of the Ramadan fast, it’s not the act itself that is forbidden, but [rather] doing so in public. In all cases, the law protects public space and order.”
Jennifer Campbell is the editor of Diplomat magazine.
We are witnessing the erosion of traditional constraints on state behaviour and the resurgence of coercive power as a central instrument of international relations.
By Joe Varner
From Europe to the Indo-Pacific, the international system is experiencing a sustained phase of geopolitical instability. In the Arctic, accelerating climate change has opened new maritime routes and resource frontiers, intensifying strategic competition among Arctic and non-Arctic states while heightening the potential for military deployments and contested claims. In Europe, the confrontation between NATO and the Russian Federation over Ukraine
has intensified, characterized by substantial increases in military assistance, large-scale territorial operations and overt nuclear signalling that are redefining the regional security architecture.
In South Asia, India faces dual security challenges: An enduring conflict with Pakistan along the “line of control” in Kashmir and a protracted militarized standoff
Although these crises are geographically dispersed, they share a defining characteristic: the erosion of traditional constraints on state behaviour and the resurgence of coercive power as a central instrument of international relations. We take a look at the many flashpoints.
with China across the disputed Himalayan frontier. In the Indo-Pacific, China’s increasingly assertive posture has precipitated multiple concurrent crises. Taiwan is subjected to continuous military pressure and the persistent threat of a forcible reunification, while the South China Sea has emerged as a focal point of maritime confrontation, with Chinese forces engaging in repeated clashes with Philippine units over the Spratly Islands and harassing Japanese patrols near the Senkaku Islands. On the Korean Peninsula, North Korea has expanded its nuclear and missile capabilities and deepened its strategic alignment with Russia, heightening the risk of escalation and nuclear brinkmanship.
In the Middle East, Iran and Israel are approaching the threshold of direct interstate conflict, driven by nuclear proliferation dynamics, proxy warfare and evolving
regional alignments that have undermined previous deterrence frameworks. Beyond these principal theatres, disputes such as the contest over Ethiopia’s Grand Renaissance Dam, Venezuela’s territorial claims on Guyana, and the intensifying competition for influence across Africa and Latin America further illustrate the diffusion of great power rivalry to a truly global scale.
Although these crises are geographically dispersed, they share a defining characteristic: the erosion of traditional constraints on state behaviour and the resurgence of coercive power as a central instrument of international relations. We take a look at the many flashpoints.
Once dismissed as a frozen backwater, the Arctic has rapidly transformed into a theatre of strategic rivalry among the world’s major powers. As climate change accelerates the retreat of sea ice, new shipping lanes — most notably the Northern Sea Route along Russia’s Siberian coast — are becoming viable for extended periods of the year, offering a shortcut between Europe and Asia that could fundamentally rewire global trade patterns. At the same time, the region’s vast untapped reserves of oil, gas, rare earth minerals and fish stocks are attracting
intensified commercial interest and raising the stakes of territorial disputes.
For Russia, the Arctic is both a security buffer and an economic lifeline. Moscow has systematically re-militarized the region over the past decade, refurbishing Cold Warera bases, constructing new airfields and radar sites, and fielding advanced weapons systems such as the Bastion coastal defence missile and the S-400 air defence network. The Northern Fleet — headquartered on the Kola Peninsula — remains the cornerstone of Russia’s nuclear second-strike capability, hosting a substantial proportion of its ballistic missile submarines. As Western sanctions have strangled other sectors of its economy, the Kremlin has doubled down on Arctic energy development and is positioning itself as the gatekeeper of emerging polar trade.
The U.S., Canada, and European NATO members are increasingly alarmed by Russia’s posture. Washington has begun re-investing in icebreaker capacity, Arctic-capable surveillance aircraft, and prepositioned equipment, while Canada is modernizing the North Warning System and expanding patrol capabilities through initiatives such as the Nanisivik Naval Facility. Norway has upgraded its northern garrisons and reinforced its role as NATO’s Arctic frontline state. The prospect of Chinese involvement —
under Beijing’s self-declared identity as a “near-Arctic state” — has added further complexity. Through its Polar Silk Road strategy, China has invested in Russian energy projects, purchased stakes in Greenlandic mines and conducted scientific missions widely viewed as dual-use reconnaissance.
Beyond military competition, legal and political friction is growing over the interpretation of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), particularly as countries submit overlapping claims to the extended continental shelf. Canada, Russia and Denmark all assert sovereignty over the Lomonosov Ridge, a resource-rich expanse beneath the central Arctic Ocean. Meanwhile, questions over freedom of navigation loom large as Russia insists that the Northern Sea Route constitutes internal waters, and Canada maintains that the Canadian Northwest Passage is sovereign Canadian territory, a position that not even the United States accepts.
The Arctic is also emerging as a laboratory for hybrid and grey-zone tactics. Russian maritime harassment of Western research vessels, unannounced naval exercises and electronic warfare incidents have all increased in frequency. Infrastructure sabotage — such as unexplained fibre optic cable disruptions and pipeline leaks — are
increasingly being scrutinized as potential acts of statesponsored coercion.
Climate volatility, combined with the accelerating militarization and resource scramble, make the Arctic an under-appreciated fault line in the global security architecture. As great power competition intensifies, the high north is no longer a periphery — it is a strategic front where deterrence, economic ambition and sovereignty claims converge. The challenge for NATO and Arctic Council members is to secure their interests without triggering a destabilizing cycle of escalation in a region where miscalculation could have outsized consequences.
The confrontation between NATO and Russia, driven by Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and the alliance’s expanding commitments to contain further aggression, has become the most dangerous flashpoint in Europe since the Cold War. The war in Ukraine has drawn NATO into unprecedented levels of military assistance — training, intelligence, advanced weapons — while exposing Europe’s eastern flank to constant escalation risks. Along the northern flank, Norway, Sweden and Finland have reinforced their defences to counter Russian submarine and air activity in the Arctic and the high north, areas
critical to NATO’s strategic deterrence and maritime security. Russia has also expanded troop deployments and fortified positions along the Finnish border, heightening tensions with NATO’s newest member. Russian fighter incursions along with drone incursions in Estonia, Poland, and Romania have forced NATO nations to establish a new air defence mission named Eastern Sentry.
In the Baltic region, NATO, including Canada, has surged forces in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, where the fear of a Russian incursion remains acute and permanent brigades are now on high readiness. The Suwalki Gap, a narrow land corridor linking Poland and Lithuania, is widely viewed as the most vulnerable point in the alliance — a chokepoint that, if seized, could sever the Baltic states from NATO reinforcements. Moscow has further escalated by deploying nuclear-capable missiles to Kaliningrad and forward-positioning tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, explicitly signalling its willingness to leverage nuclear threats.
Climate volatility, combined with the accelerating militarization and resource scramble, make the Arctic an under-appreciated fault line in the global security architecture.
Canadian and American soldiers at Fort Greely, Alaska. Master Sailor Dan Bard, Combat Camera
Romania and Turkey have expanded naval patrols and air defences in the Black Sea, seeking to blunt Russia’s maritime power projection and protect crucial shipping corridors. Meanwhile, the proximity of Russian missile and drone attacks on Ukraine to NATO territory in Poland and Romania has repeatedly raised fears that a misfire or deliberate provocation could drag the alliance into direct conflict.
At the same time, Moscow has intensified its hybrid warfare campaign — cyberattacks, disinformation, economic pressure, and sabotage — as it aims to fracture European unity, undermine public confidence and disrupt critical infrastructure. Russia’s repeated nuclear threats, including warnings about the potential use of tactical weapons if NATO crosses red lines in Ukraine, have added a dangerous layer of brinkmanship that raises the stakes of every escalation.
From the Arctic Circle to the Black Sea, this sprawling frontier has become a continuous zone of friction, where conventional buildups, nuclear signalling and hybrid attacks are deeply entangled. Any miscalculation — whether a skirmish on the Baltic border, a clash in the Black Sea or an escalatory strike in Ukraine — could spiral
rapidly into a broader conflict between nuclear-armed adversaries, testing the cohesion and resolve of NATO and reshaping Europe’s security landscape for a generation.
The Middle East has remained a critical flashpoint defined by the enduring hostility between Israel and Iran, whose rivalry had shaped the region’s security architecture for decades. At the centre of this confrontation lies Iran’s nuclear ambitions, which Israeli leaders view as an existential threat. Despite years of sanctions and sabotage, Tehran advanced its enrichment program and stockpiled near-weapons-grade uranium, culminating in the recent U.S.-Israeli strikes that crippled Iran’s main facilities. Yet thoughts persisted that Iran retained undisclosed enrichment sites, leaving the region on edge and Israel poised to strike again if nuclear reconstitution is detected.
Iran has projected power through a sophisticated web of proxy militias, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, Shiite factions in Iraq and Syria and the Houthis in Yemen. These groups enabled Tehran to harass Israel and U.S. interests without direct confrontation while also entrenching its influence in the Arab world. Recent military operations
significantly degraded this network, but the proxies remained a potent tool for asymmetric retaliation and regional disruption.
Relations between Iran and its Sunni Arab neighbours are equally fraught. Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates regard Iran as the primary destabilizing force and increasingly align with Israel to counter its influence. This convergence produced the Abraham Accords, which normalized Israeli ties with several Arab governments and marked a historic realignment of regional alliances. Saudi Arabia recently signed a security pact with Pakistan to ensure its security through Pakistan’s nuclear deterrent. For Tehran, these agreements represented strategic encirclement and further evidence of a U.S.-backed coalition intent on containing Iranian ambitions. The reimposition of snapback sanctions led by the European Three (E3) has served as a backdrop to what may be Iran’s first testlaunch of an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) capable of reaching all of western Europe.
The Strait of Hormuz serves as a lifeline and a lever of coercion. Roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil flows through
this narrow chokepoint, and Iranian military planners repeatedly threaten to close it in response to Western pressure or attacks. Any move to disrupt shipping would likely trigger a broader conflict with devastating economic consequences, making the strait an enduring tripwire in the confrontation between Iran and the West.
Overlaying all these tensions is a layer of great power competition. The U.S. remains committed to Israeli security and freedom of navigation, while Russia and China have positioned themselves as alternative partners for Tehran. Moscow relies on Iran to help sustain its war in Ukraine and presence in Syria and to challenge U.S. influence in the Middle East, while Beijing carefully balances its energy dependence on Gulf states with its growing ties to Iran. This multipolar contest ensures that any escalation between Israel and Iran risks drawing in rival powers, amplifying the stakes of any crisis in the region.
The rivalry between India and Pakistan has remained one of the world’s most enduring flashpoints since the 1947 partition of British India. Born of mutual suspicion and fuelled by competing national identities, the conflict
crystallized around Kashmir, a contested region both countries claim in full, but control in part. The dispute sparked three major wars — in 1947-1948, 1965 and 1999 — as well as countless skirmishes and crises that repeatedly threatened to escalate into full-scale conflict.
The most significant transformation of this rivalry came in 1998, when Pakistan conducted nuclear tests, formally declaring itself a nuclear power. India had been a nuclear weapons state since 1974. Since 1998, the risk of conventional clashes spiralling into nuclear escalation has overshadowed every military confrontation. The 2001–2002 standoff and the 2019 Balakot crisis demonstrated how quickly incidents such as terror attacks or airstrikes could bring both nations to the brink of war.
Most recently, in early spring of 2025, India and Pakistan were again drawn into their gravest confrontation in a generation. The crisis began after co-ordinated terror attack in Kashmir killed dozens of Hindu tourists. In response, India launched precision strikes against militant camps and suspected Pakistani military positions across the Line of Control. Pakistan retaliated with artillery barrages and airstrikes. Over several tense days, both sides elevated their nuclear alert levels and exchanged threats of escalation. The U.S., supported by European and Gulf partners, intervened diplomatically and brokered a fragile ceasefire agreement that halted active hostilities before the situation
crossed the nuclear threshold. Today, the Line of Control in Kashmir remains heavily militarized, with frequent artillery exchanges and infiltration attempts by militants crossing from Pakistani territory. India accuses Pakistan of supporting Islamist militant groups as proxies to destabilize Jammu and Kashmir, while Pakistan portrays its stance as backing self-determination for Kashmiris under Indian rule. These competing narratives keep the region tense, despite occasional ceasefire agreements and confidence-building measures.
Beyond Kashmir, the two states compete for strategic influence across South Asia. India’s growing economic and military power, combined with deepening ties to the U.S. and other Quad partners, has heightened Pakistan’s sense of encirclement. Islamabad, in turn, has drawn closer to China, relying on Beijing for military modernization, economic investment and diplomatic backing — particularly through the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which New Delhi views with suspicion. The enduring hostility between India and Pakistan ensures that the Kashmir frontier remains a perennial flashpoint with global implications for crisis stability and nuclear risk.
The long, rugged frontier between India and China has been one of Asia’s most persistent and unforgiving flashpoints, shaped by colonial-era legacies and enduring
strategic rivalry. The core dispute centres on their undemarcated border, known as the Line of Actual Control (LAC), which stretches over 3,400 kilometres across the Himalayas from Ladakh in the west to Arunachal Pradesh in the east. Both nations inherited competing territorial claims after the 1947 Indian independence and the 1949 Chinese revolution, setting the stage for repeated clashes.
Tensions first erupted into open war in 1962, when China launched a massive offensive across the western and eastern sectors, decisively defeating Indian forces and occupying large tracts of disputed territory. Although Beijing withdrew from some areas after declaring a unilateral ceasefire, it consolidated control over Aksai Chin, a high-altitude plateau that India still claims as part of Ladakh. This conflict left deep scars in Indian strategic thinking and cemented mutual distrust that has never fully dissipated.
Periodic standoffs followed, including major confrontations at Sumdorong Chu in 1986 and 1987, the Doklam plateau crisis in 2017 and the most serious violence in decades in 2020, when Chinese and Indian troops engaged in brutal hand-to-hand combat in the Galwan Valley. That clash left dozens dead and marked the first fatalities along the frontier since 1975, demonstrating how quickly local incidents could spiral into broader confrontation. In the years since, both countries have poured dual-use infrastructure, troops, armour, artillery and air assets into the high Himalayas, transforming the LAC into a heavily militarized frontier.
Beyond the territorial disputes, the rivalry is driven by each side’s desire to protect strategic lines of communication, maintain favourable terrain and project influence over neighbouring states. India views China’s close partnership with Pakistan and expanding footprint in the Indian Ocean — through the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and Belt and Road investments — as part of an encirclement strategy. Beijing, in turn, sees India’s deepening ties with the U.S., Japan and Australia under the Quad framework as a counterweight to its regional ambitions.
This mix of unresolved claims, infrastructure competition and strategic mistrust ensures that the Himalayan frontier remains a volatile flashpoint. Despite periodic rounds of military talks and confidence-building measures, the potential for sudden clashes persists, with each side determined not to yield ground or appear weak. As both militaries entrench their positions, the risk of miscalculation and escalation across the world’s highest battlefield remains a grave concern for regional stability.
The confrontation between China and Taiwan has remained a constant and threatening flashpoint in the Pacific. Rooted in the unresolved legacy of the Chinese Civil War, the split began in 1949 when the defeated Nationalist government retreated to Taiwan while the Communist Party established the People’s Republic of China on the mainland. Since then, Beijing has insisted that Taiwan is an inseparable part of China, vowing to achieve unification — by force if necessary.
For decades, the situation remained frozen in a tense stalemate. Taiwan evolved into a vibrant democracy with
a separate identity, while China’s military modernization transformed the balance of power. The Taiwan Strait Crises of 1995–1996 and 2022 underscored how quickly tensions could flare into near conflict. In the first, Beijing fired missiles near Taiwanese ports to intimidate voters ahead of elections; in the second, large-scale missile launches and naval encirclements followed U.S. congressional visits to Taipei, demonstrating China’s willingness to escalate.
Taiwan’s small offshore islands, including Kinmen, Matsu and the Pratas Islands, sit close to mainland China and are especially vulnerable to blockade or rapid seizure in a crisis. The Pratas Islands — located in the northern South China Sea — are particularly strategic, serving as a forward observation post and logistics hub for Taiwan. Their location at the crossroads of major sea lanes gives them outsized significance as a potential staging area or flashpoint in any broader conflict.
The flashpoint has intensified further as the U.S. deepened security and economic ties with Taiwan, providing advanced arms and reaffirming commitments under the Taiwan Relations Act. China has responded with increasingly explicit threats, including warnings that any move toward formal independence could trigger an invasion. The People’s Liberation Army has rehearsed blockade scenarios and amphibious operations, signalling readiness to enforce Beijing’s claims by force.
Today, the Taiwan Strait is a heavily militarized corridor where miscalculation or crisis could quickly escalate. Taiwan’s security is also linked to Japan’s strategic environment, as any conflict across the Taiwan Strait would threaten vital sea lanes, bring Chinese military operations to Japan’s southern approaches, and likely trigger obligations under the U.S.-Japan alliance framework. The island sits at the centre of great power rivalry, with profound stakes for regional stability, global supply chains and the credibility of American security guarantees in Asia. As China accelerates its military buildup and Taiwan strengthens its defences, the risk of confrontation remains uncomfortably high.
The South China Sea has become a volatile flashpoint between the Philippines and China, centred on Beijing’s sweeping claim to nearly the entire region under its socalled Nine-Dash Line, which an international tribunal ruled in 2016 had no legal basis. The dispute is most acute in the Spratly Islands, where China has built fortified artificial islands and military outposts to assert control over contested waters.
The Philippines maintains its largest outpost on Thitu Island (Pag-asa), a symbol of its sovereignty and a frequent target of Chinese maritime harassment, including coast guard blockades, water cannon attacks, and swarming by militia
vessels. Chinese forces have also tried to disrupt Filipino resupply missions to the BRP Sierra Madre, a grounded ship garrisoned by Philippine marines at Second Thomas Shoal.
Beyond sovereignty, the stakes are strategic: The South China Sea is a critical corridor for trade, energy, and undersea cables, and a key battleground in the broader great power rivalry between the U.S. and China. Washington has expanded military co-operation with Manila under the Enhanced Defence Co-operation Agreement (EDCA), seeking to strengthen deterrence and help contain Chinese naval forces within the so-called First Island Chains. In parallel, the U.S. has begun deploying Typhon missile systems — capable of firing Tomahawk and SM-6 missiles — to the Philippines, while Japan and Australia have increased their maritime patrols and are co-ordinating plans to host or support similar advanced strike capabilities to counter Chinese naval movements. China has bristled at the U.S. deployment of the Typhon system and threatened the Philippines with military and economic retaliation.
As Beijing continues to militarize the Spratlys and pressure regional claimants, the risk of clashes — whether over Thitu Island, resupply operations or freedom of navigation patrols — remains high, with consequences that could ripple across the Indo-Pacific.
The East China Sea is an increasingly tense flashpoint between China and Japan, centred on the disputed Senkaku Islands — known as Diaoyu in China — which are administered by Japan, but claimed by Beijing as historic territory. The uninhabited islands sit atop rich fishing grounds and potential energy reserves and lie close to critical sea lanes.
China has regularly sent coastguard ships and maritime militia to challenge Japanese control, leading to near-daily confrontations and warnings. Airspace tensions have also risen as Japan scrambles fighter jets in response to patrols near the islands.
Beyond sovereignty, the dispute is part of the broader strategic rivalry in the Western Pacific, where Japan works closely with the U.S. to deter Chinese expansion. Tokyo has strengthened its defences in the Nansei Islands, expanded coastguard capabilities, and signalled that any Chinese move to seize the Senkakus would trigger the U.S.–Japan security treaty.
As China builds up naval and air power in the East China Sea, the risk of miscalculation or collision — whether by coastguard vessels or fighter aircraft — remains a persistent threat to regional stability.
The Korean Peninsula remains one of the world’s most menacing flashpoints, defined by the Korean War and the unresolved standoff between North Korea and the U.S.-South Korea alliance. Pyongyang has developed an increasingly sophisticated nuclear and missile arsenal, including intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of striking the U.S. mainland and shorter-range systems that threaten South Korea and Japan.
North Korea’s frequent missile tests, military provocations along the Demilitarized Zone and threats of pre-emptive nuclear use have kept the peninsula in a near-permanent
state of crisis. In response, the U.S. has expanded deployments of strategic bombers, missile defence systems and naval forces to reassure allies and deter aggression.
Japan and South Korea have also deepened security co-operation despite historic tensions, co-ordinating missile defence and intelligence sharing as Pyongyang’s arsenal grows. Meanwhile, China and Russia have backed North Korea diplomatically and economically, using the regime as both a buffer against U.S. influence and a lever in broader great power rivalry. North Korea has supplied Russia with artillery shells and rockets for the war in Ukraine, while Moscow has reportedly provided advanced military technology, including nuclear-powered submarine components and satellite assistance, to bolster Pyongyang’s weapons programs.
This volatile mix of nuclear brinkmanship, alliance commitments and competing spheres of influence ensures that any miscalculation — whether a missile launch or border clash — could quickly escalate into a regional or even global crisis.
The dispute between Venezuela and Guyana over the oil-rich Essequibo region is a historic source of friction and has become a flashpoint in northern South America. Venezuela claims nearly two-thirds
of Guyana’s territory, citing colonial-era boundaries it never recognized, while Guyana insists the border was settled by an 1899 arbitration award.
Tensions have escalated in recent years as major offshore oil discoveries by ExxonMobil and other companies have transformed Guyana into an emerging energy power. In late 2023, Venezuela held a controversial referendum to formalize its claim and threatened annexation, prompting Guyana to mobilize its security forces and seek international support.
The U.S., the Caribbean Community and Brazil have backed Guyana’s sovereignty and warned Caracas against military action. While both sides agreed to talks brokered by regional leaders, Venezuelan troop buildups and aggressive rhetoric have kept the risk of confrontation alive.
China and Russia have expanded their economic and security ties across Latin America, with Beijing investing in infrastructure projects in Guyana and Moscow maintaining close relations with the Maduro government, complicating Western efforts to isolate Caracas diplomatically.
This simmering territorial dispute now intersects with broader regional rivalries over energy, nationalism and influence in the Caribbean basin, making the Essequibo one of the most combustible unresolved borders in the Western Hemisphere.
The construction of Ethiopia’s Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the Blue Nile has created one of Africa’s most tense and consequential disputes. Ethiopia views the dam as a critical national project to generate electricity and drive development. In contrast, Egypt, which relies on the Nile for about 90 per cent of its freshwater, sees the GERD as an existential threat to its water security.
Sudan has been caught in the middle, concerned both about potential impacts on its own water flow and the dam’s safety, while also expecting benefits from cheaper power and regulated flooding. Years of negotiations have failed to produce a binding agreement on filling and operating the reservoir.
As Ethiopia has proceeded with filling the dam, Egypt and Sudan have issued repeated warnings, with Cairo at times threatening that “all options are on the table.” The crisis has fuelled regional mistrust, military posturing and fears that water scarcity could trigger conflict in an already volatile region.
This flashpoint underscores how competition over transboundary water resources is increasingly intertwined with national security, economic development, and geopolitical rivalries in Northeast Africa.
Taken together, these flashpoints underscore an international order under acute strain, wherein the mechanisms of deterrence are eroding and the thresholds for escalation are becoming perilously low. Strategic competition among major powers is magnifying regional conflicts, as enduring alliances
and rivalries rooted in the Cold War era intersect with contemporary contests over technological leadership, energy security and spheres of influence. The convergence of conventional military deployments with nuclear capabilities — from Eastern Europe to Asia — has heightened the risk that miscalculation or inadvertent escalation could precipitate crises beyond the control of any single actor. Simultaneously, emerging powers are increasingly prepared to challenge the authority and commitments of established states, while governments across regions are confronting the reality that longstanding diplomatic norms and multilateral institutions are frequently inadequate to restrain revisionist ambitions or deter coercive behaviour. In this environment, the stability of entire regions now depends on the capacity of states to manage provocations without triggering open conflict, and on the ability of leading powers to delineate credible red lines that preserve deterrence and the possibility of negotiation.
Joe Varner is the author of Canada’s Asia-Pacific Security Dilemma , deputy director of the Conference of Defence Associations and a senior fellow of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and the Center for North American Prosperity and Security in Washington, D.C.
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Canada wants to continue to be an energy superpower and lower carbon emissions at the same time. Is it possible?
By Robyn Waite
A common answer from Prime Minister Mark Carney is “both.” When he referred to U.S. President Donald Trump as a transformative president, he was asked whether he meant that in a good or bad way. He responded “ying and yang — there’s both.” When asked which version of Mark Carney he would be — the one who wrote the book Values: Building a Better World for All or the one behind the Liberal Party’s “Canada Strong” campaign — he said “both.” And when describing how he would lead Canada towards becoming an energy superpower, he explained to CTV how Canada can do both — get barrels of oil and gas to market and lower carbon emissions. With Canada’s economy, national unity and the planet all at risk, the
issue of how to make Canada an energy superpower will be a tricky one for the Liberals to get right.
According to Caroline Brouillette, executive director of Climate Action Network Canada, “economics and physics require him to pick a path.” The physics imperative is related to the limits of the planet and atmosphere. “Canada is feeling the impact of climate change” Brouillette says, “which is more costly and more devastating for Canadians every year — whether we’re talking about heat waves, storms and floods, or wildfires… We know that continuing to extract and burn fossil fuels is at the root cause of these accelerating climate disasters.”
“Canada is feeling the impact of climate change” Brouillette says, “which is more costly and more devastating for Canadians every year — whether we’re talking about heat waves, storms and floods, or wildfires… We know that continuing to extract and burn fossil fuels is at the root cause of these accelerating climate disasters.”
Canadians have felt and seen the impact of everincreasing climate-related disasters or extremes, and the hard data bears that out. In 2023, Canada experienced the most destructive wildfire season ever recorded, and 2024 marked the warmest year in measured history. While the entire globe is experiencing the effects of climate change, the Government of Canada’s website notes that “Canada is warming at roughly double the global average rate.”
On the economics front, Brouillette explains how “we are seeing the world move to clean technologies at an accelerated pace.
“We are at a key moment where Canada risks missing the boat on the [renewable energy] economic opportunity and [could] really lose its competitiveness in a rapidly transforming global economy if we choose to further entrench ourselves in the extractive business models of the past.”
Simon Donner, climate scientist and professor at the University of British Columbia, made a similar observation on CBC Radio’s The House.
“If you look to countries in Europe, they are all moving much faster [on clean energy] than Canada,” Donner says. “One of our concerns is making sure Canada is prepared for the economy of the future.”
Not only could Canada miss out on an emerging economic and skill-development opportunity, but there is also a legitimate risk that further investments in fossil
The fossil fuel industry is increasingly being seen as a place to strand assets.
“Do you want to bank on an expansion of fossil fuels at a time when there is going to be a drop in demand for oil and gas — and soon?” asks Keith Stewart, senior energy strategist with Greenpeace Canada and parttime instructor at the University of Toronto. “It’s about to plateau between now and 2030 and then it’s going to drop — and if you are building a new pipeline, you know it’s not coming online till 2030.”
Still speaking on The House, Donner made a similar remark saying that for any “proposal to build a new oil pipeline, the question we need to ask is will we need this in 2040? We want to make sure we are investing in the economies of the future and not economies of the past.”
Even Carney himself has spoken about the risks of continued investments in fossil fuels. In a 2015 speech he made when he was governor of the Bank of England, he identified “transition risks” as one of three types of risk to financial stability from climate change. Transition risks essentially reflect the risk of making ultimately useless infrastructure investments in assets such as oil, gas and coal because these greenhouse gas-emitters
are no longer needed or wanted sources of energy. The case Carney was making at the time was that with the inevitability and worsening of climate change, “policy action to promote the transition towards a low-carbon economy could spark a fundamental reassessment” of capital and value, thereby leading to clean-energy options reigning supreme in the eyes of markets and consumers. In his book Values, published seven years after he gave that speech, Carney continued to speak to climate change passionately, detailing its consequences and clearly identifying its cause — emissions, mixed with perverse incentives and short-term decision-making horizons.
These warnings are not just coming from climate activists and Carney though. The International Energy Agency (IEA), which “works with governments and industry to shape a secure and sustainable energy future for all,” said in 2021 that “to have a fighting chance of reaching net zero [emissions] by 2050 and limiting the rise in global temperatures to 1.5 C … a total transformation of the energy system [is required.]” It said Canada must move from a system dominated by fossil fuels into one powered predominantly by renewable energy and it explicitly recommends in its Net Zero by 2050 Roadmap that, beyond projects already committed as of 2021, there be no new oil and gas fields approved for development. While the IEA recognizes the immense challenge of such an energy transition, it also notes the huge potential benefits to the economy, planet and human prosperity and well-being.
It was in 2015 that countries around the world, including Canada, came together and adopted the Paris Agreement, which is a legally binding international treaty on climate change that kickstarted multilateral efforts to limit global warming to 1.5 C. This target is widely accepted as critical to avoid the most severe impacts of climate change. If the planet warms more than 1.5 C, the risks and damages will be catastrophic, with more frequent and intense heatwaves, forest fires, floods, hurricanes and droughts — all leading to loss of life, homes, health, livelihood, food security and biodiversity, to name a few. Despite this globally agreed target however, according to the United Nations Environment Programme, the world is currently on track to see “a devastating temperature rise of 2.6 C–3.1 C in this century.”
To do its part to limit global warming, the federal government publicly committed to a national greenhouse gas emissions-reduction target of 45 to 50 per cent below 2005 levels by 2035. But Donner says it is highly unlikely Canada can meet these targets and he is especially concerned now that Carney’s government has “been removing existing climate policies such as the consumer carbon price.
“And, we don’t yet know about the strengthening of policies like the industrial pricing system,” Donner says. “It is still remotely possible [we can hit our targets], if we were aggressive in the implementation of all of the announced policies under the previous government, and we went ahead with the advice of our Net Zero Advisory Body and others like the Canadian Climate Institute to tighten the industrial pricing system… but it’s going to take a lot of political will and effort in negotiating with the provinces.”
Indeed, national unity challenges with Alberta where the oil and gas industry is strongest, as well as a tariff and ideological war with Canada’s neighbours to the South, may be pushing decision-makers in the wrong direction when it comes to taking climate action. While there is much that remains to be seen in Carney’s energy
strategy, there are clear indications of efforts to expand the reach of Canada’s oil and gas industry. Carney is now lauding the potential of liquefied natural gas (LNG). After a trip to Germany and Latvia at the end of August, he said expansions to ports in Montreal and Manitoba, which could ship LNG, could be among the first projects fasttracked under the Building Canada Act — and expanding the port in Montreal was, as was a project in British Columbia to double LNG Canada’s production. These projects and investments however, run in stark contrast to the IEA roadmap to Net Zero by 2050, and to Carney’s own past positions. In Values, he states that “net zero isn’t a slogan, it’s an imperative of climate physics.”
When Carney published Values, he could only try to influence decision-makers. Now, however, as prime minister, he is a decision-maker.
“Carney’s role in the past was to try to make sure other decision-makers had the information they needed so that hopefully they would do the right thing,” Greenpeace’s Stewart says. “He is now the decision-maker in this country though, and he needs to do the right thing.”
Brouillette, however, thinks Carney is taking a passive approach and leaving it to the markets, which will let well resourced fossil fuel lobbyists and the politicians they have swayed “determine the future of the Canadian
economy at a moment when we should be thinking about resiliency for the long term.”
While the economic and geopolitical pressures within and outside of Canada might feel daunting and a worthwhile sacrifice for easing up on climate action progress and commitments, Stewarts says, it’s costlier long-term.
The costs of sticking with the oil industry are much higher than the benefits in the long term, says Stewart. “In the short term and for some very specific communities, the costs [of moving away from oil and gas will be] high. [We can] help with that and it is not an impossible problem to solve.”
Brouillette adds that a just transition is needed to make sure communities currently heavily reliant on the fossil fuel industry aren’t left behind but rather supported to reskill and successfully launch emerging clean industries. Because, as Donner says, despite what one hears from the U.S., the world is shifting towards low-carbon technologies, and Canadians need to make sure the country is taking the advantage of that.
Just in the remaining months of 2025 alone, Carney has many decisions ahead with an upcoming budget, list of projects in the national interest, and participation at COP30 (the United Nations Climate Conference). While Pathways Alliance, representing Canada’s six largest oil sands companies, declined to participate in an interview for this article, what climate defenders such as Stewart and Brouillette want to see is clear. They want Carney to stand firm on a climate action plan and to prioritize a just and rapid transition off fossil fuels by creating a strong policy and actively shaping markets with public investments in clean energy and climate resiliency and action. Canada’s ecological and economic systems depend on it.
Robyn Waite, PhD, works as an independent consultant in global health and as a campaigner and community co-ordinator. She is the founder of the Global Sentinels Movement (www.globalsentinelsmovement.net).
Randeep Sarai, secretary of state for international development, talks about global cuts to official development assistance and his ideas on making a dollar stretch by involving the private sector.
By Jennifer Campbell
When he was elected in 2015, the first question Liberal MP Randeep Sarai asked on the floor of the House of Commons was to the then-minister of international development.
“Fiji had been hit with a cyclone and my riding of Surrey Centre has a very strong Fijian-Canadian diaspora,” recounts Sarai, who is now himself in charge of that portfolio as secretary of state (or junior minister) of international development. “I was able to ask for and
eventually get $1 million for the repair of the 5,000 homes that were wiped out.”
Now that he’s the one in a position to allocate the kinds of funds he was asking for 10 years ago as a brand new MP, he calls it a “full circle” story.
Sarai says the job has its humbling moments in the sense that he hears of terrible hardships in other parts of the world that make problems Canadians might experience seem minuscule by comparison: Canada helping single moms and widows empowered to not only sustain themselves, but to make enough money to send their children to school and have a shelter over their heads, for example.
“I think that [empowerment] part is really key, whether it’s through trades and skills, sometimes it’s through small stuff, like helping them get micro-loans and be able to start their businesses,” he says. “It’s everything from getting a few goats and chickens to actually getting solar power to develop a business or opening a coffee shop or becoming a wholesale roaster. I’ve seen all of it.
I’ve seen farmers really get empowered by simple things like learning how to prune a coffee plant better to triple their yields. Or seeing crops be 90 per cent more yielding because of organic composters that Canada helped build and provide.”
Sarai admits he comes to the job at a difficult time, when many countries are nixing official development assistance and others are reducing budgets to redirect spending to their militaries.
He says the United States’ withdrawal of funding from USAID — which accounted for 27 to 35 per cent of official development assistance (ODA) globally — is a tremendous loss that one no one country can fill.
“It’s huge,” he says. “What we’ve read and seen from other humanitarian agencies is that it [could] affect the lives of 14 to 20 million people — cause death and severe poverty. I think with the long-term ramifications of things like the spread of AIDS and HIV, if immunizations and medicines are not given, the global impact on that spread and the consequences might be much larger than that. It’s a very, very dangerous situation. [But] I’m an optimist. I think [about what UN Ambassador Bob] Rae said: ‘When there’s a crack, there’s always light,’ so we have to find that light in the crack.”
He also insists that with financing and development, a lot can be done.
“I think private capital, pension funds, engineering companies and large multilaterals want to help, want to develop and they have money to be made at the same time,” he says. “But they want to be protected, hedged against currency fluctuations and that’s where countries like Canada and some of our European allies can step up. We can give a small amount to get a lot more by giving a development bank some money to protect and hedge and then for $1, we can get $10 of capital.”
“I think private capital, pension funds, engineering companies and large multilaterals want to help, want to develop and they have money to be made at the same time,” he says. “But they want to be protected, hedged against currency fluctuations and that’s where countries like Canada and some of our European allies can step up."
He says he’s still encouraging the Americans to thaw their freeze of ODA funding. And he’s proud that his government remains committed to it. In response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff war with Canada, Prime Minister Mark Carney said of international co-operation and free trade: “if the U.S. no longer wants to lead, Canada will.”
Sarai says he commends Carney and his government for keeping the commitment to development and humanitarian assistance. “Though we do have to watch our finances as a whole,” he notes.
As such, he does expect to have to reprioritize, so instead of being part of every multilateral assistance or development
program, Canada may have to focus and, as mentioned, also seek private capital to keep doing what it has been. At one time, the Liberal government chose 25 countries of focus for development programming, but that policy approach has now shifted and Sarai sees novel approaches, such as the aforementioned involvement of private capital, as part of its future programming.
Taking the example of Tanzania, he notes that Barrick Gold is the largest taxpayer in Tanzania and also a partner of the Tanzanian government. So Canadian programming could help the 25 or 30 villages surrounding a Barrick enterprise get better access to water, access consistent power through solar, receive vocational training, and more, to allow them to become Barrick employees eventually, and then have access to important benefits such as health care, including vaccinations, sexual reproductive rights and more education.
“We can multiply the results Canada gets from taxpayer dollars by using the private sector as well,” he says. “We can show that where Canada comes, Canada does a great job — it provides development, it improves the area and it creates jobs,” he says.
Asked about the priority of rights and livelihoods for women and girls, Sarai says it’s simple.
“Fifty per cent of our population is women and the other 50 per cent appreciate women,” he says. “When we see women’s rights being violated or tampered anywhere in the world, it hurts every Canadian. When you see young girls in other countries going through very early pregnancies, abandonment or not getting the medical care they need in a timely manner, it’s very troubling and we’ve seen that society is better when women are educated and have the hygiene and opportunities they rightfully deserve.”
India, for example, is much more stable in terms of its birth rate and it accomplished that with education, which then, in turn, also increases the country’s productivity.
Sarai was in Ghana announcing support for training Ghanaian youth in June, an experience he called “eye opening” — partly because it was his first time in Africa. The program trains women as welders and these women are getting jobs in what has traditionally been a man’s field.
“There’s a very high employment rate for those women and they felt very empowered,” he says. “That was the program that I witnessed, but there were also mechanics, truck repair and a host of different vocational training.”
When he was at Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance (an international organization that works to improve access to new and underused vaccines for children living in the poorest countries) in June making a commitment for 500 million vaccines, he said he heard from civil society as well as from Bill Gates, who was “very thankful” for Canada’s vaccine commitment for preventable diseases.
“Every civil society [group] will always want more, and I always want more from them as well. For society to work well together, you need government, civil society groups, NGOs, as well as the private sector all to do well and all to
“We can multiply the results Canada gets from taxpayer dollars by using the private sector as well,” he says. “We can show that where Canada comes, Canada does a great job — it provides development, it improves the area and it creates jobs,” he says.
contribute. And when you have that, you have the best society hands down.”
When he was Tanzania and Ethiopia, he announced $25 million to support technical and vocational training. In Tanzania, he met young women who suffered from a condition called fistula, which is a hole between the birth canal and the bladder or rectum caused by prolonged labour and leading to incontinence, among other issues. He recalls the look on their faces on finding out the condition is preventable, and treatable.
“These women were abandoned and culturally they thought they were cursed,” he says. “Canada funds hospitals that treat them. Seeing that some women can have great lives again [had a big impact.]”
Other women were impregnated young and abandoned by the fathers. They and their own families were getting an education and learning vocational skills.
“They’re getting an education, their children are getting an education. They’re learning vocational skills, they’re actually working, and they’re feeling good about themselves,” he says.
The secretary of state, who is a lawyer by trade and father of two girls, also spoke about the famine in Gaza. He said 100 trucks are going in a day, but 500 trucks need to be going in to fill the needs.
“We’ve committed $30 million more for food and essentials needed there and we’ve sanctioned those that have been calling for the elimination of
the people of Gaza,” he says. “We have worked with our counterparts. We have given more aid. We are continuing to work with the Israeli government and others like Qatar and the United States to call for a ceasefire.
“We are doing whatever we can. Unfortunately, it’s a lot on the Israeli government right now.”
Just like his first question in the House of Commons, many of the announcements Sarai has made since taking on this portfolio have involved funding that helps mitigate the effects of climate change.
“Whether that’s farmers facing droughts, watersheds washing away, or having mudslides,” he says, “there are also economic [considerations.] It’s not just about the environment and having better air quality, which is very important and much needed, but it’s also [addressing the] economic consequences.”
Obviously, mitigating climate change is beneficial to Canada as well as to any developing country, and that’s the case for all ODA.
“We believe global development is not just beneficial for [developing countries], but also for the world, including Canada,” he says. “So, we will continue to invest, but with that investment, we might be more diversified [just as we have to be with trade]. In the development world, we will also help Canadian companies — whether it’s resources, trade, energy [or] Canadian infrastructure companies and engineering companies that are building infrastructure around the world. We will help them build those supply chains, finance those supply chains, and do whatever else is needed so Canada is in a better position and we won’t have to face challenges like we’re facing this year with our U.S. trading partner.”
Jennifer Campbell is Diplomat magazine’s editor.
Pakistan has a growing middle class and is hungry for things Canada produces.
By Jennifer Campbell
Pakistan’s high commissioner has one important message for Canadians: Pakistan is the world’s fifth most populous country — and that also makes it one of the largest consumer markets on the planet.
And yet, Canada has a trade imbalance with the country, which sent $453 million worth of exports to Canada in 2024 while Canada sent only $221 million worth of goods to Pakistan.
“It is highly in favour of Pakistan,” says Pakistani High Commissioner Muhammad Saleem. “I would urge Canadian exporters to explore the Pakistani market and to increase their exports. We are the fifth largest population and consumer market in the world. When you are talking about diversification, you should be looking for populous countries where you can sell.”
In terms of opportunities, he says Pakistan has a growing middle class and it is hungry for information and communication techonolgy equipment, as well as agricultural products such as lentils, chickpeas, soy beans and other pea pulses, rape seed, iron and steel, chemical wood pulp, newsprint and coniferous wood.
Barrick Gold has a copper and gold mine in Pakistan and Canada’s JCM Power has a wind power-generation cleanenergy project in Sindh province.
“I am trying to make inroads and attract more Canadian firms to Pakistan,” Saleem says. “We have established a Special Investment Facilitation Council. This office works within the office of the prime minister. Their job is to co-ordinate the licences, permissions, certificates and facilitation of foreign investors at provincial level, local level and federal level.”
Saleem, who notes that Pakistan is also a good route to five Central Asian republics, said this council has identified several sectors of focus, including commercial scale agriculture, ICT, mines and minerals, energy, oil and gas, infrastructure projects and defence production.
“We are open to foreign investment and we are happy that there is a lot of interest. Our biggest investor may be China, but there is a lot of interest from U.S. companies, too. And a lot of Western European countries are already doing business in Pakistan.”
In addition to the establishment of this council, Pakistan has also made reforms to make it easier to do business in the country, including the digitization of business laws and establishment of dedicated committees for reform implementation. The goal is to create a more transparent, efficient and secure environment in which local and foreign investors can do business.
Asked about his priorities for his posting, Saleem says his job is to enhance relations from what they were when he arrived. He previously served in Canada as deputy high commissioner from 2015 to 2019 when he and his family went to Tanzania for his first head-ofmission posting.
“Relations are very good, but they need to be further strengthened,” Saleem says. “That’s why ministerial and head of state visits [are important]. They create a lot of activity and substance. When a visit is planned at the prime ministerial level, you have to prepare certain agreements — memoranda of understanding.”
On that front, the two countries are working on a foreign investment protection agreement. So far, there has been no proposal toward a free-trade agreement from either side. Indeed, Saleem is working with Global Affairs Canada and the Trade Commissioner Service to send a business delegation to Pakistan in November 2025, during which the Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement talks will take place.
These things can take a few years, however, because agreement is required on the final text, then ratification and finally the coming into force of the ratified agreement.
On the political front, Saleem was pleased that Pakistani Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammad Ishraq Dar met with Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand on the sidelines of the ASEAN Regional Forum on July 10 in Kuala Lumpur. And he’s keeping an eye out for future meetings. The UN General Assembly and ASEAN Summit are also coming up and if both leaders attend these events, he hopes bilateral meetings will be held. Further, he hopes to facilitate ministerial visits to Pakistan from Canada and vice-versa.
Although he doesn’t call it an irritant, Canada has a travel advisory to Pakistan and Saleem admits it’s not helping. It warns Canadian travellers to “exercise a high degree of caution” due to the threat of terrorism, regional violence, civil unrest, sectarian violence and kidnapping. It advises avoiding all travel to Pakistani places that are near the borders with Afghanistan, Iran, China or India, and names some other regions to avoid, including certain sectors of Karachi.
He counters saying “the major business centres like Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad” are safe for business. “As we speak, there are foreign business delegations in Pakistan. Why are these people going? It does have a negative impact, but [travel advisories] are revised very frequently by Global Affairs Canada.”
Nevertheless, Pakistan does receive about 100 professional mountaineering expeditions every year.
Meanwhile, the well-educated Pakistani diaspora in Canada numbers more than 300,000. Many Pakistanis are business people and professionals such as engineers and chartered accountants, bankers, ICT experts, lawyers and medical doctors.
India-Pakistan relations came to a head after an attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir on April 22. India claimed armed groups backed by Pakistan were responsible, though the government denied that. India retaliated in early May, targeting nine sites with what it called terrorist infrastructure. The conflict, dubbed the worst since 1999, left more than 70 people dead from missile, drone and artillery exchanges before a ceasefire was established.
“Pakistan-India relations had a very rough patch in the first four days of May,” the high commissioner said. “There was a ceasefire mediated by friends of Pakistan and India, and after that, the situation is calm, but the statements coming from the Indian government and leadership are not very helpful for relations.
“Diplomats are supposed to talk and resolve issues through dialogue, and we are open to dialogue,” he continues. “And Pakistan has been saying all along for the 78 years of the Kashmir dispute, that the political dispensation in the disputed region has to be decided with the free and fair plebiscite by the inhabitants of that place under the [United Nations].”
These things can take a few years, however, because it requires agreement on the final text, then ratification and finally
the coming into force of the ratified agreement.
He says there are 10 million people in Indian-occupied Kashmir and 4.5 million people in Azad Jammu & Kashmir and another two million in Gilgit-Baltistan in Pakistan.
“It is for the people of the disputed region to be given the chance to have a referendum or plebiscite that is promised to them by the UN Security Council resolution, and these have to be implemented. It is for the UN Security Council to get this resolution implemented, and Pakistan has said that this has to be done as per the UN promises.”
When it comes to combating terrorism, the high commissioner says that ever since the terrorist attacks on the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001, Pakistan has been “declared” a non-NATO ally in the fight against terrorism while Afghanistan was identified as a significant site for the Taliban. He says Pakistan has faced the consequences of a long history of instability in Afghanistan.
Speaking during a week when flooding continued to pummel Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province, affecting four million people, Saleem states the obvious: Pakistan is one of the world’s most vulnerable countries to climate change. He says the monsoons can also affect agriculture, further endangering humans.
“Because climate change is a global phenomenon, there are efforts at the United Nations level, and we are very active on that file, on the Paris Accord and Cancun Conference, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and UN Framework Convention on combating desertification and also we are regulated by the IndiaPakistan Indus Waters Treaty since the 1960s.”
Saleem says his country is also innovating in this battle. “We are making dams — mega-dams,” he says, referring to the Diamer-Bhasha dam on the Indus River and the Dasu hydropower dam, which are currently under construction. In addition, there are a number of small check dams, which help prevent erosion and promote vegetation, being planned in the south of the country.
Canada, Denmark and the Arctic Council: co-operation in a shifting Arctic landscape
By Alexia Wilkinson Naidoo
The Arctic, once a remote frontier, has emerged in the past year as a critical arena for geopolitical, environmental and economic activity. Melting ice has opened new, but highly unpredictable, shipping routes and the region’s vast natural resources have drawn the attention of global powers. The Arctic Council, a consensus-driven forum of eight Arctic states (Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the United States) is a key structure for co-operation on climate, biodiversity and sustainable development. But now with the U.S. policy shift under President Donald Trump, Russia’s aggression in Ukraine and China’s ambitions in the North and beyond all putting pressure on regional dynamics, the council’s work is arguably more important than ever.
In May 2025, Denmark assumed the council’s chairship from Norway, taking on a critical role in a turbulent global landscape. Interviews with Danish Ambassador Nikolaj
Harris and Robert Sinclair, Canada’s senior Arctic official at Global Affairs Canada, highlighted a number of shared priorities.
When he started in the ministry 24 years ago, Denmark’s ambassador says the Arctic was not a hot topic.
“But the dynamic in the world has changed,” Harris says. “The international rules-based order is under pressure. We see an assertive China and an aggressive Russia, with an unjust war in Ukraine. And we also see a change in climate and the melting of the ice. So you see opportunities for sea routes, but also extraction of critical raw materials, natural resources and so on. This has led to increased competition between the U.S. and its allies on one side and Russia and China on the other.” For Denmark, the Arctic has become a strategic priority. Its 2025 diplomatic work in the area
aims to strengthen multilateral co-operation, protect sovereignty and address climate and Indigenous concerns.
Denmark’s chairship, building on Norway’s 2023-2025 tenure, has an ambitious agenda. “The Kingdom’s chairship will focus on advancing sustainable development and economic empowerment of Indigenous people in the area,” Harris says.
Denmark ensures Arctic communities, especially Indigenous groups, lead and benefit from development through projects tailored to local needs and informed by Indigenous knowledge. It supports economic growth — from hunting and fishing to mining, tourism and renewable energy — with a strong focus on green initiatives such as wind power to mitigate Arctic warming. The “blue bioeconomy” promotes sustainable aquaculture and seaweed farming. Denmark will strengthen monitoring of melting sea ice, address the Arctic’s rapid warming — at four times the global average — and promote ecosystem monitoring, combining scientific data with Indigenous insights. These efforts are a part of Denmark’s 2025 “diplomatic super year,” encompassing not only leadership of the Arctic Council, but its EU presidency, UN Security Council seat and Nordic-Baltic
Eight chairship. The Nordic-Baltic Eight includes Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Sweden and Norway along with Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
Canada was one of the founding members of the Arctic Council when it was established through the signing of the Ottawa Declaration in 1996. One of the values it set forward was the inclusion of Indigenous voices as permanent participants. The six Indigenous organizations are the Aleut International Association, Arctic Athabaskan Council, Gwich’in Council International, Inuit Circumpolar Council, Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North and the Saami Council.
Denmark ensures Arctic communities, especially Indigenous groups, lead and benefit from development through projects tailored to local needs and informed by Indigenous knowledge. It supports economic growth, from hunting and fishing to mining, tourism and renewable energy, with a strong focus on green initiatives.
“We had an anniversary year just recently, and you could even say that Canada pushing for a role for Indigenous peoples at the Arctic Council was one of the first international concrete steps towards reconciliation domestically,” Sinclair says. “We recognize that we have a long-term abiding interest in the success of the Arctic Council, and that we recommit to the Arctic Council in Arctic foreign policy, including by increasing the funding for what we call the Global Arctic Leadership Initiative.”
Canada’s 2024 Arctic foreign policy allocates $1 million to this initiative to advance Indigenous rights, environmental protection and sovereignty. Sinclair highlighted the Council’s contributions, such as agreements on search and rescue, oil spill preparedness and scientific co-operation.
Those priorities remain, but in 2025, the Arctic Council is navigating more complex tensions than ever. “We believe that the Arctic Council is a very important institution that includes and involves all Arctic states, and provides a table where you can meet and discuss common challenges,”
Denmark will strengthen monitoring of melting sea ice, address the Arctic’s rapid warming — at four times the global average — and promote ecosystem monitoring, combining scientific data with Indigenous insights.
Harris says, noting challenges arising from Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Russia’s invasion disrupted Arctic Council operations, prompting the other seven members (Canada, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland and the U.S.) to pause high-level co-operation with Russia. Sinclair noted that “business as usual” with Russia is not possible, and it is for Russia to create conditions for restored co-operation.
However, Norway resumed technical working groups in 2024, and included Russia, to maintain the Council’s functionality — a move Denmark praised. This pragmatic approach, as Harris explained, supports this limited engagement to address shared challenges such as climate and biodiversity, while condemning Russia’s
actions. Russia’s strategic interests — control over the Northern Sea Route, resource extraction and military buildup on the Kola Peninsula — conflict with Western priorities, and its growing reliance on China complicates governance. Denmark aims to sustain this momentum, focusing on non-military security issues such as climate, economic development and Indigenous empowerment, as mandated by the 1996 Ottawa Declaration establishing the Arctic Council.
Trump’s re-election also added complexity. His March 2025 claim that the U.S. acquisition of Greenland was an American security necessity drew objections from Denmark and Greenland. And his repeated references to Canada as the “51st state” spurred significant pushback from Canadians. His skepticism of multilateral forums, seen in past rejections of council declarations mentioning “climate,” challenges consensus within the group. In addition, U.S. cuts to Arctic research funding, critical for monitoring warming, may prompt other member states to fill gaps, ensuring science-based decisions endure. Sinclair noted Canada’s concerns over
U.S. sovereignty rhetoric, but highlighted the Americans’ overall commitment to the council, and to Denmark’s leadership of the organization, as a stabilizing force.
China’s observer status, with interests in resources and the Polar Silk Road, raises concerns about dual-use research and Sino-Russian ties. Denmark and Canada advocate cautious, transparent engagement, leveraging China’s scientific contributions while safeguarding Arctic governance. These responses reflect Denmark’s chairmanship strategy to adapt to a shifting landscape, maintaining the council’s role as a co-operative platform.
Canada and Denmark are key Arctic partners. “The kingdom is a neighbouring country. We share the longest maritime border in the world. We even share a small land border on Hans Island. And I see a mutual interest in increasing our co-operation,” Harris says. Denmark’s focus during its chairship of the council aligns with Canada’s Arctic foreign policy, emphasizing Indigenous-led development and climate action.
Sinclair noted Canada’s concerns over U.S. sovereignty rhetoric, but highlighted the Americans’ overall commitment to the council, and to Denmark’s leadership of the organization, as a stabilizing force.
Denmark’s Arctic defence investments complement Canada’s sovereignty efforts, with a Danish defence attaché in Ottawa since February 2025 strengthening NATO ties. In addition, a 2024–2031 Arctic package, valued at $3 billion, funds satellite capabilities, ground sensors, long-range drones and three Arctic ships.
Denmark’s green economy initiatives, including renewable energy and sustainable marine industries, strengthen trade and climate collaboration with Canada through the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) and the June 2025 EU-Canada Summit commitments on green technologies and critical minerals. Canada’s trade diversification, spurred by U.S. policy shifts and the prime minister’s visits to Europe, create opportunities for Denmark and Canada.
Denmark ensures community-led development in mining, tourism and renewables and is aligned with Canada’s support for science-driven policies. Denmark will use Arctic Council working groups to monitor climate and biodiversity, integrating Indigenous knowledge, with Sinclair noting their role in conservation agreements.
"The Arctic Council is back in business, if you will, and really re-energized,” Sinclair says, signalling confidence in Denmark’s leadership and the organization’s critical role. The Danish ambassador was equally optimistic about the council, as well as about Canada-Denmark ties, which are rooted in shared values. Through this partnership, Canada and Denmark can guide the Arctic toward a sustainable, inclusive future.
Alexia Wilkinson Naidoo is a journalist and consultant in Ottawa, and has held leadership roles in strategic engagement in the private and public sectors, including at Global Affairs Canada. She covers Canadian and international politics, business, technology and arts and culture.
Officials involved in the Diavik Diamond Mine in the North Slave region of the Northwest Territories are working with the Tłıc̨hǫ people to ensure all are involved in environmental practices and good engagement. |
Members of the Tłı̨chǫ Nation have found a way to work with mining companies to the benefit of all. This is their story.
By the Tłı̨chǫ communications team
Mining in the Tłı̨chǫ region adds a relatively new chapter to the Tłı̨chǫ story.
Today’s generations of Tłı̨chǫ work to balance tradition with modern realities through the Tłı̨chǫ Agreement — the first combined comprehensive land claim and self-government agreement in the Northwest Territories.
For centuries, the Tłı̨chǫ of the Northwest Territories have relied on an intimate knowledge of the land and its wildlife to survive. They have lived a yearly cycle following traditional trails in birchbark canoes, travelling into the barren lands to harvest the caribou herd, and returning to live below the tree line through the long northern winter until warmth and spring returned, existing on the land all the while.
From the earliest days of diamond mining, through the decades of operations, the Tłı̨chǫ have been involved in environmental practices, good engagement, participation agreements (formerly known as impact benefit agreements, or IBAs) and training and development. They have also held hundreds of jobs directly with diamond companies and with other companies providing services to the mines. But it hasn’t always been easy. It has meant working together with diamond mine companies to find approaches that suited all parties.
As diamond mining jobs became plentiful, so did opportunities for
service companies to support the industry. When the Tłı̨chǫ agreement was signed, the companies that provided services to the mines were brought together as the economic development arm of the Tłı̨chǫ government, ultimately forming the Tłı̨chǫ Investment Corporation.
Negotiated by the Dogrib Treaty 11 Council, the government of the Northwest Territories, the federal government and the Tłı̨chǫ Nation ratified this modern treaty in 2005. It provides and defines certain rights relating to lands, resources and selfgovernment. Highlights pertaining to resources include:
• The creation of the Tłı̨chǫ government;
• Ownership of 39,000 square kilometres of land located between Great Slave Lake and Great Bear Lake, including surface and subsurface rights;
• The ability to define its membership, known as Tłı̨chǫ citizens;
• Jurisdiction over lands and resources in the Tłı̨chǫ traditional territory;
• The establishment of the Wek’éezhíi Land and Water Board and the Wek’éezhíi Renewable Resources Board;
• A share of mineral royalties from the Mackenzie Valley.
More recently, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act received Royal Assent, immediately coming into force in Canada on June 21, 2021. Although
the law is focused on government engagement, it also significantly affects the resource industry. Free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) describes processes that are free from manipulation or coercion, informed by adequate and timely information and occur sufficiently prior to a decision that Indigenous rights and interests can be incorporated or addressed effectively as part of the decision-making process. The goal is to secure the consent of affected Indigenous peoples. Even before this law was in effect however, successful resource companies and projects have proceeded thanks in large part to their early and productive engagement with Indigenous communities, governments and businesses.
Along with their experience of mining in the past and planning for the future, the Tłı̨chǫ members’ perspectives
When the Tłı̨ch ǫ agreement was signed, the companies that provided services to the mines were brought together as the economic development arm of the Tłı̨ch ǫ government, ultimately forming the Tłı̨ch ǫ Investment Corporation.
and strategies for mining include the following:
1. There are mineral resources in the NWT, and specifically, on Tłı̨chǫ lands.
2. Infrastructure to support exploration, development and operations is needed — beyond ice roads to the diamond mines.
3. The capacity to support mining exists after decades of diamond mining in the form of skilled people (many of them Tłı̨chǫ), corporations that serve the industry (many of them Tłı̨chǫ) and physical assets specific to the mining industry exist locally (many of them Tłı̨chǫ.)
The Tłı̨chǫ have been planning for their future security and industry and have invested years of work into mining as an important aspect of their sustainable economy. In January 2025, the Tłı̨chǫ government and Tłı̨chǫ Investment Corporation co-hosted the second annual Tłı̨chǫ Night to bring industry, government and companies together to develop relationships and plans.
The Tłı̨chǫ government also officially launched the Tłı̨chǫ Minerals Data Portal through a webmap interface and announced it was working with industry and government
to collect more geoscience data and build up the collective knowledge of the economic mineral potential on Tłı̨chǫ lands. The government also shared its goal of developing its own Tłı̨chǫ minerals management policy by year end, with input from industry and governments to build a best-in-class system for incentivizing investment in responsible mineral development, in order to maximize opportunities for citizens.
A high-priority goal of Tłı̨chǫ pursuits in recent years has been to maintain traditional Tłı̨chǫ culture and values. That hasn’t always been easy. The first Tłı̨chǫ experience with mining was in the 1950s, with the uranium mining that began at Kwetı̨ı ɂ aà (Rayrock), an area 145 kilometres northeast of Yellowknife, in the heart of Tłı̨chǫ lands. The site was abandoned for decades following the mining operation from 1957 to 1959. Land, wildlife and people have been significantly impacted by contaminants left behind by this operation, which closed with no remediation or reclamation, and the use of that land was lost to the Tłı̨chǫ for the past 65 years. In short, it was not a good experience and its effects and cleanup continue.
In fact, in 2015, the Kwetıɂaà Elders Committee (KEC), which was established in 2010 as an advisory group for the remediation efforts, and the Tłı̨chǫ Research and Training Institute (TRTI) conducted a traditional knowledge study titled “The Trees All Changed to Wood: Remembering Rayrock Uranium Mine.” The study combined Western science with elders’ traditional knowledge of the land’s historical and current conditions. Afterwards, advanced remediation activities began to stabilize the site for long-term monitoring and prepared it for a more rigorous approach, and Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada is now preparing for the final closure and remediation activities at Kwetı̨ıɂaà (Rayrock). Learnings taken from this report, combined with the dramatically more positive experience gained working with the diamond mining industry in the NWT, represent the extreme variance of experience with mining. The Tłı̨chǫ have been working with both.
Trust had to be built and earned with all Indigenous groups local to the prospective diamond mining when those companies arrived in the territory in the mid-1990s. The shift from the “mining means damage” experience of Rayrock to “mining is the economy we need” is most reasonably attributable to the decades of positive social and economic engagement of the diamond mining companies with the Tłı̨chǫ. Several key differences have been woven together in practice and history to demonstrate that mining could happen responsibly. These differences included:
• Engaging with traditional land users and Indigenous communities rather than appearing suddenly and starting a project without consultation or consent;
• Making safety rather than extraction the priority;
• Negotiating economic benefits with Indigenous groups rather than the company offering compensation to individuals;
• Offering more economic benefits and participation, both directly and indirectly;
• Engaging Indigenous business, along with participation agreements resulting in broader distribution of benefits;
• Promising infrastructure, such as winter roads, that are mutually beneficial and fulfilling the promise;
• Extracting and processing diamonds through physical rather than chemical means, and better discussing the process early on, as trust was being established.
An engineer present in the Diavik Diamond Mine’s earlier days shared that the Tłı̨chǫ language described “tailings” as toxic sludge. He speculated this understanding stemmed from the Rayrock days. With ongoing discussion, that understanding changed to better match what a diamond mine’s tailings pond would be — meaning a non-radioactive, generally chemically neutral and non-destructive water with various sizes of crushed kimberlite (the diamondbearing rock). This made way for the understanding that tailings were manageable and water quality in the ecosystem could be maintained.
This shared engagement seems to have created a foundational shift in Tłı̨chǫ perspective on the potential for positive mining projects. The Tłı̨chǫ benefited significantly as well, with participation in project development through to production, and finally to
closure. This was widely acceptable to the Tłı̨chǫ, regulatory bodies, governments and the resource companies themselves. All saw the potential for responsible mining being integral to the economy of the self-governing Tłı̨chǫ nation.
For those Tłı̨chǫ who were not directly employed at the mines, or by companies providing services to the mines, the benefits were present in other forms. Royalties, revenues and other similar benefits that were negotiated in the benefit agreements increased the resources and services available to each Tłı̨chǫ community, and for each Tłı̨chǫ individual. By 2019, the Northwest Territories was ranked the 13th most favourable global mining jurisdiction, based on mining executives’ perceptions in response to the Fraser Institute’s annual survey. In short, there were many wins for companies, Tłı̨chǫ and other northern Indigenous groups, and this meant the territorial and federal governments had billions in revenue with which they could work. Notably, the Tłı̨chǫ government maintains a commitment to developing and supporting sustainable, environmentally responsible employment opportunities for Tłı̨chǫ citizens.
The work done by the Tłı̨chǫ government, in combination with its economic development arm — the Tłı̨chǫ Investment Corporation — has generated multiple wins for the Tłı̨chǫ and the mining industry, which will, in turn, benefit the entire territory by retaining and using the mining skills and capacity built by Tłı̨chǫ citizens over the last decades. In turn, working directly with the Tłı̨chǫ people represents a head start for proponents. The Tłı̨chǫ government has outlined an engagement process to facilitate companies’ exploration and development. For proponents working in Mǫwhı̨ Gogha Dè Nı̨ı̨tłèè (the Tłı̨chǫ boundary of Tłı̨chǫ surface and sub-surface rights), a key tenet is the Tłı̨chǫ stated desire for proponents to build relationships with them. In 2022, the Tłı̨chǫ government published Weghàà Ełeyatıts’eedı, detailing several means of engaging.
Along with clarity for proponents and all involved in maintaining FPIC principles, obvious benefits for the nation include ongoing work for the large, skilled workforce becoming available when diamond mines enter closure phases. Keeping this workforce in the territory means economic stability for Tłı̨chǫ and others in the region, with communities more likely to remain intact. Working together at the earliest possible opportunity should also help early planning and permitting proceed as efficiently as regulations allow.
In the near-term, this style of working together makes more win-win situations possible. With an already developed, and developing workforce, as well as experience in providing appropriate and specific training and development, Tłı̨chǫ citizens are more ready to provide local services that have grown in response to the development. Leadership positions for Tłı̨chǫ are more likely as well, with the leadership path already walked by many, especially those in existing mining and mine service operations. A pool of experienced Tłı̨chǫ supervisors and superintendents exists, as do active training and development programs focusing on professional roles in projects, environment, finance and health and safety.
Federal income tax paid by Tłı̨chǫ citizens is directed back to the Tłı̨chǫ communities in which they reside and revenue generated by companies also benefits all through revenue sharing agreements and various taxes that support local communities. With all the capacity, and the hoped-for contributions of governments to infrastructure, larger-scale economic development becomes more practical. With regional-scaled development, benefits multiply. The sustainable, longerterm outlook for the region is that Tłı̨chǫ, and the larger region itself, will become more attractive to resource companies.
By Prateek Sureka
As the digital era reshapes economies, societies and security landscapes worldwide, the need for effective global digital governance has never been more pressing. With Canada hosting the 2025 G7 Presidency, the country stands at a pivotal moment — it’s Canada’s chance to shape co-ordinated multilateral digital policies
that foster trust, innovation and economic prosperity. Digital governance is no longer a secondary issue; it is central to geopolitical strategy, trade and democratic resilience.
At a time when technological fragmentation threatens global co-operation, Canada’s leadership can offer a unifying vision, bridging divides and championing responsible digital practices. Canada can contribute meaningfully to a multilateral response, ensuring ethical artifical intelligence (AI) adoption, advancing secure digital infrastructure and promoting inclusive growth.
This moment demands bold, forward-looking leadership. As the growth of AI, cybersecurity threats and crossborder data flows outpace existing regulatory frameworks, Canada has an opportunity — and responsibility — to help shape international norms that balance innovation with economic growth and ethical oversight.
Digital governance refers to the rules, policies and frameworks that shape how technologies such AI, data flows and cybersecurity systems operate across borders. As next-generation technologies — from quantum computing to generative AI — transform economies and societies, international co-operation is essential to ensure these systems are secure, inclusive and ethical.
However, global digital governance faces significant challenges, including fragmented regulations across different countries, creating barriers to innovation and trade, cybersecurity threats and AI risks, requiring coordinated oversight, and data sovereignty concerns, complicating international co-operation.
This is an opportune moment for our nation to lead. By aligning global digital trade policies, advancing responsible AI governance and deepening security
Digital governance refers to the rules, policies and frameworks that shape how technologies such AI, data flows and cybersecurity systems operate across borders. As next-generation technologies — from quantum computing to generative AI — transform economies and societies, international co-operation is essential to ensure these systems are secure, inclusive and ethical.
alliances, Canada can help shape a cohesive international framework that promotes innovation while reinforcing democratic norms.
Canada has long been a champion of digital innovation and a respected voice in multilateral forums, with policies that promote secure data flows, AI ethics and open markets. Its dedication to responsibly accelerating digital innovation is highlighted in part by its endorsement of the Hiroshima AI Process in 2023, alongside the G7 Leaders, which established voluntary guidelines for advanced AI systems as well as the recent appointment of the country’s first minister of artificial intelligence and digital innovation.
Now is the time for Canada to deepen its role, moving from participant to pioneer. Digital governance is no longer a niche policy area — it is the foundation of economic competitiveness, democratic resilience and national security. Canada’s leadership must reflect that urgency.
As digital technologies transcend borders, so must the policies that govern them. Canada is well-positioned to spearhead a new era of international digital co-operation. To lead, Canada should build deeper alliances with global partners to align digital trade, privacy and AI standards; champion regulatory interoperability to reduce fragmentation and enable innovation across borders, and
position itself as a convenor of democratic digital norms — a counterweight to authoritarian models of digital control.
By scaling these efforts, Canada can help shape a global digital order that is open, rights-based and innovationfriendly.
Canada’s early investments in AI ethics and governance give it a unique edge. As the world grapples with the risks and rewards of generative AI, Canada can lead by example, not just in innovation, but in responsible innovation. To do so, Canada must lead the development of global AI governance frameworks that prioritize transparency, accountability and human rights, institutionalize digital oversight mechanisms such as algorithmic impact assessments and riskbased classification systems that can be adopted internationally, and invest in AI literacy and workforce development to ensure Canadians — and Canadian values — shape the future of intelligent systems.
Canada’s Directive on Automated Decision-Making, Voluntary Code of Conduct for Generative AI and participation in the Council of Europe’s AI Convention position it as a trusted partner in setting global
benchmarks. But to lead, Canada must go further by embedding these principles into trade agreements, development aid and international standards bodies.
As cyber threats escalate and supply chains fracture, Canada must treat digital infrastructure as a strategic asset, one that underpins national resilience and global competitiveness. Canada must expand investments in semiconductors, quantum computing and trusted digital infrastructure to enhance resilience and reduce supply chain vulnerabilities, embed cybersecurity into infrastructure planning, treating it as a foundational enabler of digital progress, and lead international efforts to develop shared cybersecurity protocols, threat intelligence frameworks and joint deterrence strategies.
This requires strong collaboration with the private sector, including cloud, AI and cybersecurity leaders. Canada must position itself as a global hub for secure digital infrastructure, offering trusted platforms and services to allies and partners navigating similar risks.
Canada’s leadership must be measured not only by technological advancement, but by how equitably that
progress is shared. As digital transformation reshapes economies and societies worldwide, Canada has an opportunity — and responsibility — to champion inclusive innovation on the global stage. Canada must bridge the digital divide by expanding access to connectivity, digital skills and tools for underserved communities, at home and through international development partnerships. It must empower startups and small and medium enterprises as engines of inclusive growth, ensuring they have access to global digital markets and innovation ecosystems and it must promote digital equity in multilateral forums such as the G7, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development and United Nations, advocating for policies that prioritize accessibility, affordability and representation in digital governance.
Digital inclusion is not just a domestic imperative; it’s a global one. By embedding equity into its digital policies and exporting inclusive models abroad, Canada can help shape a digital future where no one is left behind and where innovation uplifts all communities, not just the connected few.
Canada’s leadership in digital governance is not just an
opportunity, it is a necessity. As host of the G7 Summit 2025, Canada must seize this moment to shape global digital policies that foster trust, innovation, and shared prosperity.
By collaborating closely with industry, Canada can drive responsible AI governance, strengthen digital infrastructure and champion inclusive digital growth. The time to act is now; not just to engage, but to lead the conversation on global digital governance.
As the global digital landscape evolves amid rising geopolitical tensions, Canada’s role becomes even more critical. The TECH7 Joint Declaration, developed in collaboration with industry as part of Canada’s G7 presidency, offers a bold vision for a trusted digital future.
Canada’s credibility as a digital leader will not be measured words, but by action. Let’s seize this moment to shape a digital future that is open, secure and inclusive.
Prateek Sureka is the executive vice-president of government relations and strategy at TECHNATION.
Chef Joe Thottungal’s culinary tour of India has so far taken about 150 Canadians to his home state of Kerala and beyond and exposed them to all of South India’s gastronomic delicacies.
By Jennifer Campbell
The music is loud, percussive, joyous and unrelenting. Drums and cymbals set the beat and horns come in to break up the hypnotic rhythm. The 11 musicians — part of a panchavadyam group always made up of at least five musicians playing five different instruments — play at the side of an urban road in Thrissur, seat of the Thottungal clan.
Next to them is a pillar with a sign that reads “Thottungal” in an all-caps serif font. The affable chef stands next to it and it’s clear he’s home, and in his element. It’s the 10th day of a 17-day culinary tour of his homeland of South India that he’s helping to guide.
The tour started in Bangalore and Thottungal has already explained to a group of 20 Canadian and two Briton travellers that as the bus moves further south, he gets more excited because soon, he’ll be in Kerala, a southwestern state of India and the place where his parents and one of his three brothers still live. The other two brothers live in Canada and help to run his growing empire of restaurants — first Coconut Lagoon and more recently, Thali.
As the tour participants break for a late lunch and settle in their hotel in Thrissur, Thottungal has gone to be with his parents, his mother, Mary, 75, and his father, Joseph, 80. Tonight, he’ll sleep in the home he grew up in and wake up to breakfast prepared by his mother, the woman whose masala spice mix he took to Ottawa more than 24 years ago to launch his first restaurant.
The panchavadyam greets visitors on the roadway as they disembark from the bus and acts as the head of the procession into the property, set back about 300 metres from the road. Outside the home, there’s a dining area delineated by colourful drapery for the party the Thottungals are hosting as part of the tour.
Thottungal’s ancestral home is an oasis in an urban setting and it’s surrounded by acres of food-bearing trees, including palms, with bright green peppercorn vines growing up their trunks.
“When I tell people in Ottawa that there are peppercorns growing in my parents’ yard, they can’t fully understand,” Thottungal says.
There are luscious jackfruits hanging from their trees and papaya trees in the distance. Cashew nuts, green chilis, coconuts and bananas — some of Kerala’s 350 varieties — grow here, too. The Thrissur region is verdant and warm, full of plantations and a magnet for tourists — Indians and foreigners alike — looking for a little getaway.
“This is green chile, and this is lime,” Thottungal says, pointing to plants in his homestead’s garden before he points out a big bowl of freshly picked cashews.
As she walks around the plantation, Mary Thottungal talks about her son’s success and how proud she is of him. In his halting English, Joseph expresses similar sentiments as does Joe’s brother, Anoop.
“He went to Canada and set up all these things,” Anoop says. “He put his all in, risked everything and now it’s doing well. It is very tough to do what he’s done. It took a lot of hard work and determination. We are proud of him.”
Thottungal’s
ancestral home is an oasis in an urban setting and it’s surrounded by acres of food-bearing trees, including palms, with bright green peppercorn vines growing up their trunks.
Thottungal and his mother offer a tour of the property, with Mary cracking a coconut with the skill of a woman clearly does it every day of her life. The fruits of the coconut play an indispensible role in South India’s distinctive cuisine.
Thottungal has invited his aunts and uncles from both sides of his family, and any of their children who live within the area and he’s arranged for a buffet of Kerala delicacies, including locally caught sardines and karimeen fish baked in a banana leaf — it’s an “en papilotte” treatment, Indian style. There is parotha, a flaky unleavened bread typical of the region, and the ever-present coconut-based chutneys — coriander, coconut and tomato — and pickles.
It’s a joyous occasion. Thottungal’s jubilant mood is partly because he’s hit the highlight of this tour and also because he’s just published his second cookbook, My Thali, after the success of his first, Coconut Lagoon. There’s a copy of it on the coffee table in his parents’ home. The next day, the tour will go to Viswajyothi College of Engineering & Technology, where Thottungal serves on the board of directors and is a proud and influential patron of the culinary arts program.
Thottungal began doing this trip eight years ago, and has continued to do so most years, with a break in 2021 and 2022 due to the pandemic. The inaugural trip, in 2015, concentrated on the Cochin area, but over the years, he and the team from Bestway Tours have refined and expanded it, sometimes adding visits to some North Indian cities. Thottungal has since concluded, however, that he’d rather confine tours to where he’s most comfortable, and those are the states of Karnataka and Kerala.
The 2023 tour starts in Bangalore, and features mostly two-night stays in a trajectory that winds its way from
the Taj Bangalore, a swish five-star hotel near the airport in the capital of Karnataka state and a visit to a craft brewery and restaurant that produced poppadum bowls the size of half-beachballs, to Mysore, which was the capital of the Kingdom of Mysore between 1399 and 1947. Mysore is one of two cities on the tour, with Cochin being the other. Besides Thrissur to see the Thottungals, the tour generally confined itself to five-star eco-lodges in the mountainous terrain between Bangalore and Cochin. Wildlife on view included elephants, birds and highly mischievous macaque monkeys. On the final evening of the tour, guide Charls Gnanaraj — who bends over backward to accommodate the guests’ every whim, including sending tuktuks on beer runs and taking travellers to specific markets and boutiques to get the best deals — buys saris and dotis for the travellers and all don them for a final feast at a posh restaurant overlooking the water in Cochin.
The hills in Munnar in the Western Ghats mountain range in Kerala are steep and undulating, with rows and rows of bright green shrubs (they’re trees, actually, that are kept
Jonathan Barker short so the tea leaves remain young and non-bitter.)
Attached to the Munnar Tea Museum, the Kanan Devan Hills Plantation is the largest tea estate in South India and the largest employee-owned tea company in the world. It just achieved a carbon neutral and net negative emission status, something for which many of the resorts on the tour were striving. There were efforts to reduce the amount of laundry they do and to eliminate plastic by creating their own water filtration systems and filling and reusing glass bottles for guests.
Tea may seem instinctively native to India in North Americans’ minds, but it began as an import. It was brought to this area in the early British Colonial Raj era to rival China’s monopoly in tea production.
Tea came to Munnar thanks to a Briton named James Daniel Munro. He was visiting the region to settle a border dispute in the 1870s and fell in love with the landscape, which must have looked quite different before the tea plants carpeted the countryside. He decided the Kanan Devan Hills looked good for crops and he brokered a lease with the landlord and established the North Travancoure
Land Planting & Agricultural Society in 1879. The group started experimenting with crops and eventually landed on tea as the most promising. The Kanan Devan Hills Produce Company was founded in 1896. It still operates today, alongside a tea museum and gift shop.
Today, India is the second-largest producer of tea worldwide and a full 70 per cent of it remains in India for the local population to consume, usually with spices, warm milk and sugar. At this plantation, they make white, green, and black, red and brown teas, the former with the youngest leaves on the tree, before they have fully opened. Processors dry them immediately to stop them from oxidizing. Black, red and orange teas are dried at 104 C.
Tea pickers can be seen high in the hills, harvesting leaves and putting them in large mesh bags they carry on their heads. They are unionized and therefore receive relatively fair wages and have decent working conditions.
Nothing says India like spices and Kerala grows many of the typical ones. A stop in Thekkady took the tour
to the Green Park Spice Plantation where they grow cinnamon (the proper bark kind, not the curled sticks of cassia cinnamon sold in Canadian grocery stores), green and black cardamom, peppercorns, coriander, nutmeg, cloves, bay leaves and cocoa.
The tour guide at this family-owned plantation is full of spice wisdom and knowledge.
“Cardamom will only grow at more than 2,500 metres above sea level,” he tells the group — something that doesn’t surprise the travellers as most of the time in this state has been spent in picturesque hills. He also imparts some good advice on spices. Whole dried spices, he said, will last for upwards of 10 years while ground spices last six months.
Cloves on the vine are yellow in colour, but look like their dried counterparts in shape. Vanilla vines, which climb up other trees, were growing throughout the plantation.
Also surprising to some was the fact that white, green, red and black peppercorns all come from the same plant. Green peppercorns are harvested and treated in two ways: some are dried in air-tight, heated chambers, allowing them to keep their green colour, others are dried in sunlight, which turns them black, giving us the ubiquitous black peppercorns. Red peppercorns are green ones that have ripened on the vine. They are dried again in airtight conditions so they keep their colour. Dried in the sun, they too will yield black peppercorns. White peppercorns might be the most labour intensive. They are seeds from the middle of red peppercorns with the red pulp removed before they are dried. To remove the pulp, workers put red peppercorns in water and allow the pulp to decay.
“They’re all the same plant, processed differently,” the guide says, adding that pepper vines need support trees to climb up. Jackfruit is a good choice for them, he adds. The guide points out some red ants, which he notes
are actually pollinators for peppercorn and cardamom plants. The other perhaps surprising pollinators of pepper plants are the monsoon rains that come in June, July and August.
Cocoa, while not native to India, has become an important crop. Cadbury buys Green Park Spice’s cocoa yields.
The members of the family that owns the plantation follow Ayurvedic practices, as do many in Thekkady, where unique Ayurvedic massages are also available and reasonably priced. At the end of the plantation tour, before a visit to the spice gift shop, the family offered a spice-filled home-cooked lunch, served on banana leaves instead of plates and eaten in the Kerala way — with one’s hands, the right one only.
Throughout the tour, Thottungal offers cooking demonstrations, sometimes with other chefs, sometimes on his own. He imparts gems of tips to the travellers, most of whom enjoy cooking and want to learn from the master.
Every recipe begins by making a masala — in this case always a dried spice mixture that ends up giving curry its distinctive taste. In a kitchen in the treetops of Wayanad, deep in the Indian rainforest and a 3.5-kilometre trip up a winding dirt road only accessible by Jeep, Thottungal is making a fish dish, a chicken curry, a raita and some poppadums.
This masala has cardamom, cinnamon, coriander, star anise and cloves and Thottungal says it’s similar to his except he doesn’t use coriander. He also says many chefs have no real set recipe.
“We don’t measure in our cooking,” Thottungal says. “Our moms and grandmothers never measure. They take a pinch of this and a pinch of that.”
Next comes roasting or tempering the spices. As the flavours develop in the pan, it’s time to remove them. He grinds them into a powder using a mortar and pestle, but he admits most commercial kitchens now use an electric grinder with stone inside.
“When you’re cooking with meat, leave the bones because they add flavour,” he says. “We don’t add stocks and things so the bone marrow adds a lot.”
To start the curry, he tempers the spices in coconut oil until their aromas release or, if there are mustard seeds, until they start to pop.
Another tip: Adding salt to onions will make them sweat faster. And another: “Don’t discard the stems from cilantro — use them. The stems have good flavour.”
To make the fish dish, he uses mahi mahi and the leaves of the pepper plant. He cuts a slit into the filet to form
a pocket and he stuffs it with a paste made of shallots, green chilis, lime juice and black pepper and tops it with some turmeric. Then he places the fish in the pepper leaves and gently cooks it in a clay pot, finishing with some coconut milk. The process is similar for the curry.
Thottungal presents cooking classes in Coorg, Wayanad, Munnar and Thekkady, often collaborating with the resort chefs, but always adding his signature twist. On the penultimate day of the tour, the travellers visit Nimmy Paul, who is known as South India’s Julia Child and offered a cooking demonstration, followed by a multicourse meal.
Behind her demo kitchen, a glassed-in bookcase boasts Thottungal’s first cookbook and he added his second to her collection during that visit.
Joe Thottungal’s trips take place most winters between February and March. Contact Bestway Tours & Safaris for details.
By Margaret Dickenson
When it comes to plating, I am fascinated by stacks, whether I encounter them while dining out or use them in my own culinary creations. Ingredients arranged in a layered structure create visual interest and signal a notion of complexity. These presentations ignite curiosity and reveal subtle flavours and combinations of textures.
From hors d’oeuvres to dessert, stacks often prove to be just the trick in making a recipe a winner.
I have introduced an unusual quartet of simple ingredients to design a dramatically original dish. Together, these elements offer a myriad of flavours, textures, colours and shapes, while the “stack” presentation contributes to the artistry and immediate appeal. Serve it as a main course for brunch or lunch or even for a light dinner.
INGREDIENTS
• 3 cans escargots (4 oz or 115 grams drained weight)
• 3 tbsp (45 ml) butter
• 1 ½ tsp (8 ml) finely chopped fresh garlic
• 1 ½ tsp (8 ml) peeled and grated fresh ginger root
• 1 tbsp (15 ml) beef bouillon powder
• Crushed black peppercorns, to taste
• 1 cup (250 ml) orzo
• 1/3 cup (80 ml) soft garlic butter, divided
• 4 portobello large mushroom caps (4 ½ inches or 11 cm)
• 7 oz (200 g) fresh spinach leaves (stems removed)
• 1 tsp (5 ml) garlic infused olive oil
• 3 tbsp (45mL) Zesty Ginger Mayonnaise*
INSTANT GOAT CHEESE SAUCE
• 5 oz (150 g) soft unripened goat cheese
• ½ tsp (3 ml) chicken bouillon powder
• ½ cup (60 ml) hot water
GARNISH (OPTIONAL)
• 8 fresh chive stems
1. Drain and rinse the escargots; drain well again; check for and discard any pieces of shell.
2. Melt butter in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add garlic and ginger; stirring constantly, cook for 1 minute.
3. Add escargots; sauté for another minute; sprinkle with beef bouillon powder and crushed black peppercorns; cook for 2 or 3 minutes stirring frequently. Cover, remove from heat and allow escargots to rest about 10 minutes to absorb flavours.
4. Cook orzo in an abundant amount of salted boiling water over medium heat until al dente (about 7 to 8 minutes); drain well. (Makes about 2 1/2 cups or 625 ml.)
Toss with 2 tsp (10 ml) garlic butter. If necessary, add salt to taste; set aside.
5. Meanwhile, to make the Instant Goat Cheese Sauce, break up goat cheese in a small bowl. Dissolve chicken bouillon powder in hot water; gradually whisk in only a sufficient amount (6 tbsp or 90 ml) into the goat cheese to form a smooth creamy sauce. (Makes about 4/5 cup or 200 ml.)
6. Using a spoon, carefully scrape out the gills from the underside of the portobello mushrooms. (Note: Avoid damaging the sides of the caps.) Rub all surfaces of mushroom caps with the remaining soft garlic butter.
7. In a couple of large nonstick skillets over medium heat, with top side down first, sauté the portobello mushroom caps on both sides, seasoning them with salt and crushed black peppercorns. Cook until barely 2/3 done; remove from heat. (Note: mushroom caps should be rather firm.)
8. Heat spinach leaves in a microwave oven for a matter of seconds only to soften slightly. (Spinach should still look fresh.) Season with salt and crushed black peppercorns, drizzle with garlic-infused olive oil and toss.
9. *To make ¼ cup (60 mL) of Zesty Ginger Mayonnaise, whisk together ¼ cup of mayonnaise, 1 tsp (5 ml) of peeled and grated fresh ginger root and ¼ tsp (1 ml) of granulated sugar. Drizzle 2 tsp (10 ml) of Zesty Ginger Mayonnaise over the interior of each inverted mushroom cap before placing an equal amount of the spinach into each of the 4 mushroom caps.
10. Top with warm orzo (about 1/3 cup or 80 ml per cap); crown with heated escargots.
11. Drizzle escargots with the Instant Goat Cheese Sauce. Garnish each serving with 2 fresh chives arranged artistically in an “X” formation across the top of the stack.
This seriously tasty hors d’oeuvre features smoked oysters superbly lacquered with a touch of Hot Mustard Glaze and perched on grated zucchini already enticingly drizzled with Soy Wasabi Mayonnaise.
INGREDIENTS
• 12 to 15 cocktail spoons
• 1 can smoked oysters (can size: 3 oz or 85 g)
• ½ medium zucchini, whole (weight: 7 oz or 200 g)
• ¼ tsp (1 ml) each of black and toasted white sesame seeds
• Dill for garnish
HOT MUSTARD SAUCE
• 2 tbsp (30 ml) dried mustard
• 2 tbsp (30 ml) granulated sugar
• 2 tsp (10 ml) hot water (not more)
• 1 tsp (5 ml) lemon juice (not more)
SOY WASABI MAYONNAISE
• 1/3 cup (80 ml) mayonnaise
• 2/3 tsp (3.5 ml) each of soy sauce and sesame oil
• 1/3 tsp (2 ml) each of granulated sugar and wasabi paste
GARNISH
12 to 15 small tender sprigs of fresh dill weed
PREPARATION
1. To make the Hot Mustard Sauce, in a small bowl, stir together all sauce ingredients until very well blended. (Makes 3 tbsp or 45 ml.) Note: Only a small portion is required for this recipe. Store the remainder in a wellsealed jar and refrigerate. (The Hot Mustard Sauce will keep for a month; the Soy Wasabi Mayonnaise, for up to two weeks.)
2. To make the Soy Wasabi Mayonnaise, in a small bowl, whisk together all appropriate ingredients until well blended. (Makes 1/3 cup or 80 ml.)
3. Shred zucchini on the coarse side of a box grater. (Makes about 1/2 cup or 125 ml of longish zucchini chips.) Toss with sesame seeds; set aside.
4. Rub just a “drop” (i.e., 1/16 tsp or 0.3 ml) of Hot Mustard Sauce in bottom of individual cocktail spoons. Add about 1 1/2 tsp (8 ml) of the grated zucchini to each spoon; drizzle with (1/2 tsp or 3 ml) of Soy Wasabi Mayonnaise.
5. Shortly before serving, drain oysters well and allow to rest briefly on a paper towel. Rub each oyster with just a “spot” of Hot Mustard Sauce and place one oyster on top of the Soy Wasabi Mayonnaise garnished zucchini in each spoon.
6. Garnish each oyster with a small tender sprig of dill weed.
7. Arrange filled spoons on a serving tray accompanied by an empty container to catch the empty spoons.
Apricot Garlic Chicken is one of my earliest creations from our days in Moscow, several decades ago when ingredients there were desperately limited. Nevertheless, chicken and garlic, plus fabulous apricot jam from Georgia, were always available. The addition of sautéed shrimp undoubtedly heightens the sophistication and appeal of the recipe.
INGREDIENTS
• 4 single chicken breasts or thighs, boneless with skin (each 150 g)
• 1/4 cup (60 ml) Lightly Spiced Flour
• 1 to 1 1/2 tbsp (15 to 23 ml) vegetable oil
• 1 to 1 1/2 tsp (5 to 8 ml) finely chopped fresh garlic
• 3 to 4 tbsp (45 to 60 ml) apricot jam
• 3 cups (750 ml) cooked rice recipe of choice
• Fresh herbs and/or edible flowers
SHRIMP GARNISH (OPTIONAL)
• 8 large shrimp (fresh or frozen), unpeeled, but deveined
• 2 to 3 tsp (10 to 15 ml) garlic butter
• Salt and crushed black peppercorns, to taste
WHITE WINE CREAM SAUCE
• 2 1/2 tsp (13 ml) instant chicken bouillon powder
• 1 1/3 tsp (7 ml) sandwich mustard
• 1 cup (250 ml) hot water
• 1 1/2 tsp (8ml) finely chopped fresh garlic
• 1/3 tsp (2 ml) peeled and grated fresh ginger root
• 1 1/3 tbsp (20 ml) butter
• 2 tbsp (30 ml) all-purpose flour
• 2 2/3 tbsp (40 ml) white wine
• 1/3 cup (80 ml) heavy cream (35 per cent fat)
• 2 tsp (10 ml) cognac (optional)
PREPARATION
1. To make Lightly Spiced Flour, mix together 1/4 cup (60 ml) of all-purpose flour, 1/3 tsp (2 ml) of curry powder, 1/4 tsp (1 ml) of crushed dried tarragon leaves and salt, plus a pinch of all of the following ingredients: crushed black peppercorns, garlic powder, ground nutmeg and dried mustard powder. Dust chicken with Lightly Spiced Flour.
2. Heat oil in a heavy large skillet over medium heat. Add chicken, skin side down; cook until golden brown; turn over. Note: Chicken is only turned once.
3. Spread top browned surface of chicken, skin side, with
garlic and then apricot jam. Be careful not to allow garlic or jam to fall onto surface of skillet as they burn easily.
4. Once second side is golden brown, cover skillet immediately and reduce heat to low, a gentle sizzle. If necessary, add a touch of water.
5. Cook until chicken is fork tender and juices run clear — about 15 to 20 minutes. If desired, sprinkle lightly with salt.
6. Meanwhile, if garnishing with sautéed shrimp, peel shrimp leaving tails attached; rinse and drain well.
7. Just before serving, in a medium skillet over medium heat, sauté shrimp in garlic butter, seasoning with salt and crushed black peppercorns. Sauté shrimp until just barely cooked. Immediately transfer shrimp to a plate to avoid overcooking.
8. To serve, arrange 2 sautéed shrimp artistically on top each portion chicken. (Note: If desired, cut chicken thighs into 2 pieces and arrange them in a stacked formation.) Place the Apricot Garlic Chicken on a bed of rice. Garnish with fresh herbs and/or edible flowers. Drizzle plates with white wine cream sauce.
1. Dissolve chicken bouillon powder and mustard in hot water.
2. In a small saucepan, sauté garlic and ginger in melted butter over medium heat for about 1 minute; blend in flour and cook for another minute. Whisking constantly, add bouillon mixture and wine; whisk until smooth.
3. Reduce heat to medium-low; continuing to whisk constantly, add cream and bring sauce to a simmer. Allow sauce to simmer gently for a couple of minutes; remove from heat; stir in cognac.
What makes this recipe irresistible? First, imagine extra light waffles layered generously with luscious folds of sliced smoked salmon. Then, add touches of Zesty Ginger Mayonnaise, dollops of sour cream and more.
INGREDIENTS
• 4 single waffles (recipe follows)
• 2 tbsp (30 ml) Zesty Ginger Mayonnaise, divided
• 1/2 cup (125 ml) thick sour cream, divided
• 6 oz (175 g) sliced smoked salmon, divided
• 2 cups (500 ml) tender salad leaves such as arugula
• 1/3 cup (80 ml) vinaigrette, a mustard herb type
GARNISH
• 2 tsp (10 ml) capers, well drained
• Sprigs of fresh dill or chive stems
• Edible flowers, optional
PREPARATION
1. To make the mayonnaise, whisk together 1/4 cup (60 ml) of mayonnaise, 1 tsp. (5 ml) of peeled and grated fresh gingerroot and 1/4 tsp. (1 ml) of granulated sugar.
2. Carefully cut waffles horizontally in half and keep the halves together in matching pairs.
3. Working with the bottom slice of each waffle pair, drizzle a touch of Zesty Ginger Mayonnaise (1/2 tsp or 3 ml) over central area and add a dollop (1 1/2 tsp or 8 ml) of sour cream. Top with 1 oz (30 g) of smoked salmon and another dollop of sour cream.
4. Then add the top slice of each waffle pair on top to close the sandwiches. Crown each waffle sandwich with another dollop of sour cream and finally a rosette with ¼ of the remaining smoked salmon.
5. For each individual serving, secure one waffle sandwich in position on an individual dinner plate with a touch of Zesty Ginger Mayonnaise and sour cream (to act as glue). Add 1/2 cup (125 ml) of salad leaves to each plate.
6. Drizzle salmon rosettes, salad and plates lightly with mustard herb vinaigrette. Garnish with capers, fresh herbs, and if desired, edible flowers. Serve promptly.
EXTRA LIGHT WAFFLES
• ½ cup (125 ml) cake flour
• 2 tsp (10 ml) granulated sugar
• 1 tsp (5 ml) baking powder
• 1/4 tsp (1 ml) salt
• Pinch of baking soda
• ½ cup (125 ml) water
• 1 tbsp (15 ml) egg yolk
• 1 tbsp (15 ml) melted butter
• 1½ tsp (8 ml) vegetable oil
• 1 tbsp (15 ml) egg white, beaten until foamy
1. In a large bowl, sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and baking soda.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together milk and egg yolk. Add to flour mixture and whisk thoroughly.
3. Whisk butter and oil into the batter, and then the egg white.
4. Pour batter as required into a preheated waffle iron; close lid and cook until done (e.g.waffle iron beeps or steam no longer is being emitted from waffle iron).
“Always popular” definitely describes this tempting signature dessert, which is quickly assembled just before serving.
Lemon curd can be “tricky” to make and may be too aggressive in flavour. I have developed a technique that is easy and failproof; and by using equal portions of lemon and orange juice, along with a touch of grated lemon zest, the resulting lemon curd charms the palate.
INGREDIENTS
PHYLLO SQUARES
• 2 sheets phyllo pastry
• 2 tbsp (30 ml) unsalted butter, melted
• 2 tbsp (30 ml) granulated sugar
LEMON CURD CREAM FILLING
• ½ cup (125 ml) heavy cream (35% fat), chilled
• 2 tbsp (30 ml) icing sugar (first addition)
• 1 1/4 cup (300 ml) lemon curd (personal recipe or commercial)
VELVETY LEMON CURD
2 eggs*
2 egg yolks*
1/2 cup (125 ml) granulated sugar
1/4 cup (60 ml) fresh lemon juice, strained
1/4 cup (60 ml) orange juice, strained
1 tsp (5 ml) grated lemon zest
1 tbsp (15 ml) butter (unsalted), soft
GARNISH (OPTIONAL)
• 2 tbsp (30 ml) Icing sugar
• 1 ½ oz (45 g) bittersweet chocolate
PREPARATION
1. Place one sheet of phyllo pastry on a clean work surface with long side in horizontal position; brush with melted butter. Lay another sheet on top of first and brush with butter. Cut phyllo horizontally into 3 equal strips and then vertically into 4 equal portions to produce 12 “squares.” Each square is made up of a double thickness of phyllo pastry and is almost “square” in shape. Sprinkle top of phyllo squares evenly with granulated sugar. The phyllo squares may be prepared up to 10 days in advance and stored in a cool dry place.
2. Transfer phyllo squares, sugar side up, to parchment paper-lined baking sheets. Bake in a preheated 400 F (200 C) oven until golden and crisp — about 2.5 to 4 minutes. Remove from oven; carefully transfer phyllo squares to wire cooling racks. Note: 3 phyllo squares are required for each of the 4 servings.
3. To make the Lemon Curd Filling, beat cream in a medium-sized chilled bowl with chilled beaters until cream begins to thicken. Add icing sugar; continue beating until firm peaks form.
4. Place Velvety Lemon Curd in a second medium-sized bowl, if necessary, and beat briefly to reduce the stiffness. With a rubber spatula, carefully fold whipped cream into lemon curd and combine thoroughly to produce a Lemon Curd Cream Filling. The recipe makes about 2.5 cups or 625 ml). If not using immediately, refrigerate.
5. Just before serving, drop 1 tsp (5 ml) of Lemon Curd Cream Filling onto the centre of each plate to hold the phyllo in position. Add one phyllo square, sugar side up. Top with 1/4 cup (60 ml) of Lemon Curd Cream Filling and spread evenly.
6. Repeat process adding a second phyllo square and another ¼ cup (60 ml) of Lemon Curd Cream Filling.
7. Crown with the third phyllo square to create the Napoleon.**
8. If desired, dust the plates with icing sugar and garnish each Lemon Phyllo Napoleon with chocolate flakes or drizzles of melted chocolate.
9. For best results, serve promptly so the phyllo pastry remains crisp.
**Note: For smaller portions, use only 2 phyllo squares (omitting the second phyllo square) and add 1/3 cup (80 ml) of Lemon Curd Filling between the phyllo squares to create each Napoleon.
1. In a medium size bowl, whisk together eggs and egg yolks until smooth.
2. In a small saucepan over medium-high heat, combine lemon and orange juices, sugar and lemon zest. Stir until sugar is dissolved and mixture comes to a boil.
3. Gradually and in a steady stream, whisk hot juice mixture into beaten egg mixture. Pour this combined mixture into saucepan.
4. Place saucepan over medium-low heat, add butter and whisk*** constantly until mixture is thick and bubbling (about 4 to 5 minutes).
5. Remove lemon curd from heat and immediately transfer to a bowl to avoid overcooking.
6. If not using until later, place cooled lemon curd in an airtight plastic container and store refrigerated for up to a week.
*Note: If a slightly thicker lemon curd is desired, use 3 eggs and 1 yolk; however, the final product is less velvety.
***Tip: During the final minutes of cooking, stir the mixture with a heat proof rubber spatula moving it more effectively away from the sides and bottom of the saucepan. This assists in judging the thickness of the mixture more accurately and avoids overcooking.
Single-vintage and single vineyards are on the rise, as is Meunier as the “Pinot of choice.”
By Janet Dorozynski
Champagne: It’s a storied region at a critical moment. Faced with navigating a changing climate, evolving global markets and shifting consumer expectations, the region is not only adapting, but innovating to deliver wines of complexity and sense of place. I have travelled to the region for the annual release tastings over the past few years and become more impressed with every visit. Here are a few of my observations.
One of Champagne’s most defining transformations has been stylistic. Drier styles of brut nature and low dosage cuvées, mostly made by récoltant-manipulants (RMs) — those who grow their own grapes and make their own wines — have become less austere, with greater balance
and precision. This is due in part to warmer growing seasons, lower yields and better vineyard practices, but also the result of longer lees aging, better base wines, greater amounts of perpetual reserve wines and restrained sulphur use.
According to Tom Hewson, Champagne correspondent for Decanter magazine, “The top wines are more complete, riper and less reliant on the makeup of dosage liqueur than ever — not least rosé champagne, which boasts a diversity of style and broad quality that more than merits its continued rise in popularity.”
Oak aging, once shunned, is used increasingly and judiciously for base wines to add subtle tannins roundness and mouthfeel.
SINGLE-MINDEDNESS AND “WHAT’S OLD IS NEW AGAIN” Single-vineyard, single vintage (even when not on the label) and site specific storytelling is on the rise. This is especially the case among the new generation of producers. From my latest discoveries of sibling collabs at Maison Gamet and Domaine Crété Chamberlin, there is a clear emphasis is on vinifying separate plots, or blending parcels, to capture the unique nuances and personalities of each.
Pinot Noir no longer takes a back seat to Chardonnay and many Blanc de Noirs are crisp and refreshing, with citrus replaced by red berry and apple fruit for richness and depth.
If you are really dialled into the new champagne scene, your Pinot of choice is Meunier — no Pinot prefix needed, thank you — which is what the cool kids are drinking these days.
We have also seen the revival of heritage grape varieties: Arbane and Petit Meslier at Tarlant, Bollinger and Drappier, and plantings of newly approved hybrid Voltis at Leclerc Briant and others, as a way of future-proofing and increasing Champagne’s biodiversity.
While there is still more talk than action about the impact of climate change, concern is shifting from messaging to measurable action. Everything is up for examination: Packaging, bottle weight, the need for gift boxes, with increased attention to creating a more sustainable Champagne production system after years of reliance on synthetic pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers. Champagne Telmont has committed to a full organic transition by 2031, while Ruinart has undertaken a large-scale vitiforestry
experiment, planting five kilometres of hedges and trees in its vineyards to improve the overall ecosystem.
It is also a new era for Champagne tourism. Investment in high-end hotels and restaurants are translating luxury in the bottle into the region. Sara Underdown, Australian writer and founder of VINE & BUBBLE, points out that producers and houses are offering alternative experiences from traditional Maison visits, such as the “wild Champagne immersions focused on nature and terroir, with a luxury edge,” offered at Pierre Paillard, Cédric Moussé and Alexandre Bonnet.
Champagne’s future isn’t solely about bubbles, but about balance, making bold decisions and biodiversity. The best Champagnes do more than sparkle; they speak.
Janet Dorozynski is a writer, a wine and spirits judge and a contributor to the Oxford Companion to Wine. She holds the Wine & Spirits Education Trust Diploma (WSET) and is a WSET-certified educator.
From Grande Marques to Grower, a few more of Janet Dorozynski’s favourite champagne producers:
• Élise Bougy Chetillon de Haut Blanc de Blancs Grand Cru Extra Brut
• Champagne Marie-Copinet Nos pas Dans... l’argile, NV
• Pierre Gerbais Grains de Celles Extra-Brut NV
• Dehours et Fils Terre de Meunier Extra Brut NV
• Guiborat Prisme 19 Grand Cru Blanc de Blancs Extra Brut
• Huré Frères Invitation Brut NV
• Remy Leroy Mer Sur Mont Blanc de Quatre Cepages 2016
• Nowack La Tuilerie Extra Brut Blanc de Blancs LV
• Piper Heidsieck Rare 2008
• Louis Roederer Collection 242
• JM Sélèque Quintette Chardonnay 5 Terroirs
• Vilmart & Cie Grande Réserve 1er Cru NV
A round-up of a series of end-of-year fun across the country.
By Peter Simpson
Across borders, the end of one year and start of another brings families together for cultural traditions. Canada has its own year-end, family-friendly cultural traditions and, being a land of immigrants, many of these traditions were created elsewhere but have grown roots here. What follows is a list of a few of those traditions, from coast to coast.
Un-Silent Night: An EPIC Holiday Sing-Along! Choir! Choir! Choir!
Nov. 23 (other dates across Canada)
National Arts Centre, Ottawa
Choir! Choir! Choir! has been touring the world for a few years now and the duo’s Un-Silent Night is becoming a tradition in many cities. The Toronto-based pair of Nobu Adilman and Daveed Goldman turn their audiences into choirs and prove that everyone sounds good when singing in a large group. With their own arrangements in hand, they’ll teach the audience “a mix of holiday classics and seasonal pop gems,” and then lead the mass sing-along. (Watch their popular videos on YouTube to get a sense of how they work.)
Adilman and Goldman will be touring their holiday singalong across Canada and the United States in November and December, and all dates are on their website, choirchoirchoir.com
Tickets (for Ottawa) nac-cna.ca
Dickens’ A Christmas Carol
Nov. 27 to Dec. 28
Neptune Theatre, Halifax
From Charles Dickens, a giant of English literature, comes the classic tale of hubris and gratitude. The ghosts of Christmas past, present and future visit the avaricious Ebenezer Scrooge on Christmas Eve, as the family members of his steadfast employee, Bob Cratchit, give thanks for what meagre provisions they have.
This stage production stars Rhys Bevan-John and Simon Henderson, and is adapted and directed by Jeremy Webb. It promises “zippy dialogue, impressive physical comedy and lively audience participation” for a show that has become “a tradition for generations of Nova Scotian families.”
Tickets: neptunetheatre.com
The Messiah
Dec. 5 and 7
St. Catherine of Siena Church, Hamilton, Ont.
The soaring sounds of Handel’s epic choral work is performed by the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra and the Elgar Bach Choir.
There will be many live performances of Handel's Messiah during December, with at least three in Toronto alone, and another at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa. Wherever you are in Canada, there’s a good chance there’ll be a performance near you.
Tickets (for Hamilton): hpo.org
Elf in Concert
Dec. 20 to 21
Victoria Symphony
Royal Theatre and McPherson Playhouse, Victoria
Will Ferrell’s North Pole man-child has managed to climb off the movie screen and into the annual traditions of many families. Here, the 2003 movie leaps from the small screen of home TV to the big screen behind the stage, as the Victoria Symphony plays John Debney’s score live.
Tickets: rmts.bc.ca
The Nutcracker Dec. 5 to 31
Four Seasons Centre, Toronto
James Kudelka choreographs Tchaikovsky’s
The Nutcracker ballet in a year-end favourite marking its 30th year in Toronto. The costumes are resplendent, the National Ballet of Canada is world-class, and the entire show is a rich feast for the senses.
“Squabbling siblings Marie and Misha are attending a Christmas party at their country home when their mysterious Uncle Nikolai arrives bearing gifts,” the show notes say. “These include a beautiful nutcracker doll for Marie, who takes it to the nursery that night. Then the
magic begins. The clock strikes 12, the Christmas tree grows to enormous proportions and Marie and Misha embark on a fabulous journey that teaches them to get along.”
Fun fact: With the score of the Nutcracker, Tchaikovsky first included a tiny keyboard known as a celesta, which plucks the “twinkling theme” of the dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.
The Nutcracker is performed across Canada, including at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, Place des Arts in Montreal and elsewhere.
Tickets (for Toronto), see national.ballet.ca
Salute to Vienna
Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra
Jan. 1, 2026
Jack Singer Concert Hall, Calgary
This afternoon performance of the Salute to Vienna New Year’s Concert with the Calgary Philharmonic will mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of composer Johann Strauss.
This “selection of soaring overtures, arias and duets ... captures the essence of Vienna’s Golden Age, including the Blue Danube Waltz.”
The performance will feature conductor Michael Zehetner, with soprano Szilvi Szendy, tenor Péter Laki, the EuropaBallet St. Pölten, Strauss Symphony of Canada and International Ballroom Dancers.
Another Salute to Vienna on the afternoon of Jan. 1 takes place at Places des Arts in Montreal, with the Strauss Symphony of Montreal and conductor Christoph Campestrini, with soprano Katarzyna Dondalska and tenor Gergely Boncsér.
Tickets (Calgary) calgaryphil.com
Tickets (Montreal): placedesarts.com
Kiwis Can’t Play the Violin Symphony for Kids
Jan. 25, 2026
Winspear Centre, Edmonton
While not a tradition (not yet, at least) Pierre Rivard’s heartwarming Kiwis Can’t Play the Violin promises family fun on what could be a grey, cold day in Alberta. Set to a score by Emilie Lebel, it gets its world premiere here, played by the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra.
The story follows Kiwi, who wants to somehow obtain a violin and join the orchestra, “overcoming challenges and learning about the wonders that encouragement can accomplish.” The Symphony for Kids series is designed as the “ideal child-sized introduction to orchestral music.”
Tickets: winspearcentre.com
In the deep dark of Canadian winter, there’ll surely be a day when the family just wants to stay at home, and that may be the day for a short story that is about as Canadian as can be. Roch Carrier’s beloved tale of childhood woe is about a small-town Quebec boy who, like most young Quebec children, loves the NHL’s Montreal Canadiens. Imagine his dismay when this “Habs” fan is forced to wear a jersey of his hated Toronto Maple Leafs.
At only 11 minutes in length, it’s perfect for a quick family interlude, or even while in the car driving to another event.
Listen: cbc.ca/player/play/audio/1.2879891
Peter Simpson grew up in Eastern Canada and, as a boy, slept on a Boston Bruins pillowcase.
AFGHANISTAN
His Ex. M. Hassan Soroosh Y. 240 Argyle Ave., Ottawa, K2P 1B9
Tel: (613) 563-4223 contact@afghanembassy.ca
ALBANIA
Her Ex. Artemis Malo
302-130 Albert St., Ottawa, K1P 5G4 Tel: (613) 236-3053 embassy.ottawa@mfa.gov.al
ALGERIA
His Ex Noureddine Sidi Abed
500 Wilbrod St., Ottawa, K1N 6N2 Tel: (613) 789-8505 info@embassyalgeria.ca
ANDORRA
His Ex. Joan Forner Rovira
2-United Nations Plaza, 27th Floor, New York, NY 10017 Tel: (212) 750-8064 contact@andorraun.org
ANGOLA
His Ex. Agostinho de Carvalho dos Santos Van-Dunem 2100-2108 16th St., NW, Washington, D.C., DC 20009 Tel: (202) 785-1156/7/8 info@angola.org
ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA
His Ex. Sir Ronald Sanders 3234 Prospect St. NW Washington, D.C., DC 20007 Tel: (202) 362-5122 embantbar@aol.com
ARGENTINA
Her Ex. Josefina Martinez Gramuglia 81 Metcalfe St., 7th Floor, Ottawa, K1P 6K7 Tel: (613) 236-2351 Fax: (613) 235-2659 ecana@cancilleria.gov.ar
ARMENIA
Her Ex. Anahit Harutyunyan 7 Delaware Ave., Ottawa, K2P 0Z2 Tel: (613) 234-3710 armcanadaembassy@mfa.am
AUSTRALIA
Her Ex. Kathleen Logan
50 O’Connor St., Suite 1301, Ottawa, K1P 6L2 Tel: (613) 236-0841 consular.ottawa@dfat.gov.au
AUSTRIA
His Ex. Andreas Rendl
445 Wilbrod St., Ottawa, K1N 6M7 Tel: (613) 789-1444 ottawa-ob@bmeia.gv.at
AZERBAIJAN
Mr. Vasif Cingiz Oglu Abutalibov 1203-275 Slater St., Ottawa, K1P 5H9
Tel: (613) 288-0497 reception@azembassy.ca
BAHAMAS
His Ex. Vergeneas Gray 415-99 Bank St, Ottawa, K1P 6B9 Tel: 613-232-1724 ottawa-mission@bahighco.com
BAHRAIN
His Ex. Shaikh Abdulla Alkhalifa 3502 International Dr. NW, Washington, D.C., DC 20008 Tel: (202) 342-1111 ambsecretary@bahrainembassy.org
BANGLADESH
Mr. Kazi Russel Pervez 1100-350 Sparks St., Ottawa, ON K1R 7S8 Tel: (613) 236-0138 mission.ottawa@mofa.gov.bd
BARBADOS
His Ex. Gline Arley Clarke 470-55 Metcalfe St., Ottawa, K1P 6L5 Tel: (613) 236-9517 ottawa@foreign.gov.bb
BELGIUM
His Ex. Karl Dhaene 820-360 Albert St., Ottawa, ON K1R 7X7 Tel: (613) 236-7267 ottawa@diplobel.fed.be
BELIZE
His Ex. Lynn Young 2535 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington, D.C., DC 20008 Tel: (202) 332-9636 belize@oas.org
BENIN
2124 Kalorama Road NW, Washington, D.C., DC 20008
Tel: (202) 232-6656 ambassade.washington@gouv.bj
BHUTAN
His Ex. Pema Lektup Dorji Permanent Mission of Bhutan to the UN
343 East 43rd St., New York, NY 10017 Tel: (212) 682-2268 bhutanmission@pmbny.bt
BOLIVIA
Mr. Raul Alejandro Aguilar Bejarano 415-130 Albert St., Ottawa, ON K1P 5G4 Tel: (613) 680-5730 / (613) 422-1312 bolivia@bolivianembassy.ca
BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA
His Ex. Aleksandar Bogdanic 17 Blackburn Ave., Ottawa, ON K1N 8A2
Tel: (613) 780-9090 info@ambasadabih.ca
BOTSWANA
His Ex. Mpho Churchill O. Mophuting 1531-1533 New Hampshire Ave. N.W. Washington, D.C., DC 20036 Tel: (202) 244-4990 (Ext 215) info@botswanaembassy.org
BRAZIL
His Ex. Carlos Alberto França Embassy of Brazil
450 Wilbrod St., Ottawa, ON K1N 6M8 Tel: (613) 237-1090/294-4530 (24h) brasemb.ottawa@itamaraty.gov.br
BRUNEI DARUSSALAM
Ms. Suzianti Abdul Latip
395 Laurier Ave. E., Ottawa, ON K1N 6R4
Tel: (613) 234-5656 ottawa.canada@mfa.gov.bn
BULGARIA
His Ex. Plamen Georgiev Georgiev
325 Stewart St., Ottawa, ON K1N 6K5
Tel: (613) 789-3215 Embassy.Ottawa@mfa.bg
BURKINA FASO
Mr. Idrissa Nenin Soulama
48 Range Rd., Ottawa, ON K1N 8J4
Tel: (613) 238-4796 ambassade.burkina@ambabf-ca.org
BURUNDI
Mr. Evariste Ngendankengera 81 Metcalfe St., Suite 500 Ottawa, ON K1P 6K7
Tel: (613) 569-6666 ambabuottawa@gmail.com
CABO VERDE
Permanent Mission of Cabo Verde to the United Nations
27 East 69th St., New York, NY 10021
Tel: (212) 472-0333 capeverde@un.int
CAMBODIA
His Ex. Chhea Keo
Permanent Mission of Cambodia to the UN
327 East 58th St., New York, NY 10022
Tel: (212) 336-0777 camemb.un@mfa.gov.kh
CAMEROON
His Ex. Ngole Philip Ngwese
170 Clemow Ave., Ottawa, ON K1S 2B4
Tel: (613) 236-1522 office@hc-cameroon.ca
CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC
2704 Ontario Rd., NW, Washington, D.C., DC 20009
Tel: (202) 483-7800 centrafricwashington@yahoo.com
CHAD
His Ex. Bouroumdou Naloum 802-350 Sparks St., Ottawa, ON K1R 7S8
Tel: (613) 680-3322 info@chadembassy.ca
CHILE
His Ex. Juan Carlos Garcia Perez De Arce
1413-50 O’Connor St. Ottawa, ON K1P 6L2
Tel: (613) 235-4402 ecanada@minrel.gob.cl
CHINA
His Ex. Di Wang
515 St. Patrick St., Ottawa, ON K1N 5H3
Tel: (613) 789-3434,3513,8422/7623769 (24h) chineseembassy.ca@gmail.com
COLOMBIA
His Ex. Carlos Arturo Morales Lopez 1002-360 Albert St., Ottawa, ON K1R 7X7
Tel: (613) 695-0152 ecanada@cancilleria.gov.co
COMOROS
His Ex. Issimail Chanfi
Permanent Mission of Comoros to the UN 418-866 UN Plaza, New York, NY 10017
Tel: 212-750-1637 Fax: 212-750-1657 comoros@un.int
CONGO
His Ex. Appolinaire Aya 105-1400 St. Laurent Blvd., Ottawa, ON K1K 4H4
Tel: 613-790-1416 info@ambassadecongocanada.org
CONGO, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC
His Ex. Joska Kabongo Ngoy 18 Range Rd., Ottawa, ON K1N 8J3 Tel: (613) 230-6582 / 291-1957 ambardcongocan@rogers.com
COSTA RICA
His Ex. Germán Serrano García 1002-275 Slater St., Ottawa, ON K1P 5H9 Tel: (613) 562-2855 embcr-ca@rree.go.cr
CÔTE D’IVOIRE
His Ex. Bafetigue Ouattara 201-2713 Lancaster Rd., Ottawa, ON K1B 5R6 Tel: 613-236-9919 info@canada.diplomatie.gouv.ci
CROATIA
His Ex. Vice Skracic 229 Chapel St., Ottawa, ON K1N 7Y6 Tel: (613) 562-7820 croemb.ottawa@mvep.hr
CUBA
His Ex. Rodrigo Malmierca Diaz
388 Main St., Ottawa, ON K1S 1E3 Tel: (613) 563-0141 Fax: (613) 563-0068 embacuba@embacubacanada.net
CYPRUS
His Ex. Stavros Hatziyiannis 1002-150 Metcalfe St., Ottawa, ON K2P 1P1 Tel: (613) 563-9763 ottawahighcom@mfa.gov.cy
CZECHIA
His Ex. Martin Tlapa 251 Cooper St., Ottawa, ON K2P 0G2 Tel: (613) 562-3875 ottawa@mzv.gov.cz
DENMARK
His Ex. Nikolaj Harris 450-47 Clarence St., Ottawa, ON K1N 9K1 Tel: (613) 562-1811 ottamb@um.dk
DJIBOUTI
His Ex. Mohamed Siad Douale 1156 - 15th St. NW, Suite 515 Washington, D.C., DC 20005 Tel: (202) 331-0270 embassy@djiboutiembassyus.org
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
His Ex. Jose Alfonso Blanco Conde 1605-130 Albert St., Ottawa, ON K1P 5G4 Tel: (613) 569-9893 embadomcanada@mirex.gob.do
ECUADOR
His Ex. Esteban Jabier Crespo Polo 230-99 Bank St., Ottawa, ON K1P 6B9 Tel: (613) 563-8206 eecucanada@cancilleria.gob.ec
EGYPT
His Ex. Ahmed Hafez
454 Laurier Ave. E., Ottawa, ON K1N 6R3 Tel: (613) 234-4931 egyptembottawa@gmail.com
EL SALVADOR
His Ex. Ricardo Alfonso Cisneros Rodriguez
209 Kent St., Ottawa, ON K2P 1Z8 Tel: (613) 238-2939 elsalvadorottawa@rree.gob.sv
EQUATORIAL GUINEA
His Ex. Crisantos Obama Ondo 2020 16th St., N.W., Washington, D.C., DC 20009 Tel: (202) 518-5700
ERITREA
1708 New Hampshire Ave., NW Washington, D.C., DC 20009 Tel: (202) 319-1991 embassyeritrea@embassyeritrea.org
ESTONIA
His Ex. Margus Rava 168 Daly Ave., Ottawa, ON K1N 6E9 Tel: (613) 789-4222 embassy.ottawa@mfa.ee
ESWATINI
His Ex. Kennedy Fitzgerald Groening 1712 New Hampshire Ave., NW Washington, D.C., DC 20009 Tel: (202) 234-5002 embassy@swaziland-usa.com
ETHIOPIA
His Ex. Tewodros Girma Abebe 908-350 Sparks St., Ottawa, ON K1R 7S8 Tel: 343-961-7212 ottawa.embassy@mfa.gov.et
EUROPEAN UNION
Her Ex. Geneviève Anne M. Tuts
150 Metcalfe St., 19th floor, Ottawa, ON K2P 1P1 Tel: (613) 238-6464 delegation-canada@eeas.europa.eu
FIJI
His Ex. Ratu Ilisoni Caucau Cabealawa Vuidreketi 200-1707 L St. NW, Washington, D.C., DC 20036 Tel: (202) 466-8320 info@fijiembassydc.com
FINLAND
Her Ex. Hanna-Leena Korteniemi 850-55 Metcalfe St., Ottawa, ON K1P 6L5 Tel: (613) 288-2233 embassy.ott@gov.fi
FRANCE
His Ex. Michel Miraillet
42 Sussex Dr. Ottawa, ON K1M 2C9 Tel: (613) 789-1795 politique@ambafrance-ca.org
GABON
His Ex. Alexis Bengone 103-2283 St. Laurent Blvd., Ottawa, ON K1G 5A2
Tel: (613) 232-5301 info@ambassadegabon.ca
GAMBIA (THE)
His Ex. Momodou Lamin Bah 5630, 16th St., NW, Washington, D.C., WA 20011
Tel: (202) 785-1399 gambiaembassydc@gmail.com
GEORGIA
Mr. Bakari Makaridze
940-340 Albert St., Ottawa, ON K1R 7Y6
Tel: (613) 421-0460 ottawa.emb@mfa.gov.ge
GERMANY
His Ex. Matthias Luettenberg
1 Waverley St., Ottawa, ON K2P 0T8
Tel: (613) 232-1101 info@ottawa.diplo.de
GHANA
Mr. Simon Atieku
1 Clemow Ave., Ottawa, ON K1S 2A9
Tel: (613) 236-0871 ottawa@mfa.gov.gh
GREECE
Her Ex. Ekaterini Dimakis
80 MacLaren St., Ottawa, ON K2P 0K6
Tel: (613) 238-6271 gremb.otv@mfa.gr
GRENADA
His Ex. Sylvester Quarless Ottawa, ON
GUATEMALA
Her Ex. Guisela Atalida Godinez Sazo
1010-130 Albert St., Ottawa, ON K1P 5G4
Tel: (613) 233-7188 embcanada@minex.gob.gt
GUINEA
Mr. Alhassane Diabate
483 Wilbrod St., Ottawa, ON K1N 6N1
Tel: (613) 789-8444 ambagui.canada@maegn.net
GUYANA
His Ex. Keith Linden George 902-123 Slater St., Ottawa, ON K1P 5G4
Tel: (613) 235-7240 guyana@guyanamissionottawa.org
HAITI
His Ex. Anthony Dessources 1110-85 Albert St., Ottawa, ON K1P 6A4
Tel: (613) 238-1628 info@ambassade-haiti.ca
HOLY SEE
His Ex. The Most Reverend Ivan Jurkovic
Apostolic Nunciature 724 Manor Ave., Ottawa, ON K1M 0E3
Tel: (613) 746-4914 nuntiatura@nuntiatura.ca
HONDURAS
Mr. Aldo Federico Rosales
Espinoza
504-130 Albert St., Ottawa, ON K1P 5G4
Tel: (613) 233-8900 assistant@embassyhonduras.hn
HUNGARY
Mrs. Katalin Kapocsne Haas
Deputy Head of Mission & Chargé d’affaires, a.i.
299 Waverley St., Ottawa, ON K2P 0V9
Tel: (613) 230-2717 mission.ott@mfa.gov.hu
ICELAND
His Ex. Hlynur Gudjonsson
710-360 Albert St., 7th floor, Ottawa, ON K1R 7X7
Tel: (613) 482-1944 ottawa@mfa.is
INDIA
His Ex. Shri Dinesh K. Patnaik 10 Springfield Rd., Ottawa, ON K1M 1C9
Tel: (613) 744-3751 hoc.ottawa@mea.gov.in
INDONESIA
His Ex. Muhsin Syihab 55 Parkdale Ave., Ottawa, ON K1Y 1E5
Tel: (613) 724-1100 publicaffairs@indonesia-ottawa.org
INTER-AMERICAN INSTITUTE FOR CO-OPERATION ON AGRICULTURE
1002-130 Albert St., Ottawa, ON, K1P 5G4
Tel: (613) 230-1044 iica.ca@iica.int
IRAN
Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran 245 Metcalfe St. Ottawa, ON K2P 2K2
IRAQ
His Ex. Abdulrahman Hamid Mohamed Al-Hussaini
189 Laurier Ave. E., Ottawa, ON K1N 7N3
Tel: (613) 236-9177 info@iqemb.ca
IRELAND
His Ex. John Concannon 1700-150 Metcalfe St., Ottawa, ON K2P 1P1
Tel: (613) 233-6281 ottawaembassy@dfa.ie
ISMAILI IMAMAT
Delegation of the Ismaili Imamat 199 Sussex Dr., Ottawa, ON, K1N 1K6 Tel: (613) 237-2532 akfc.info@akdn.org
ISRAEL
His Ex. Iddo Moed 1005-50 O’Connor St., Ottawa, ON K1P 6L2
Tel: (613) 750-7500 info@ottawa.mfa.gov.il
ITALY
His Ex. Alessandro Cattaneo 275 Slater St., 21st Floor Ottawa, ON K1P 5H9 Tel: (613) 232-2401 ambasciata.ottawa@esteri.it
JAMAICA
Her Ex. Marsha Monique Coore Lobban 910-350 Sparks St., Ottawa, ON K1R 7S8 Tel: (613) 233-9311 executiveassistant@jhcottawa.ca
JAPAN
His Ex. Kanji Yamanouchi 255 Sussex Dr., Ottawa, ON K1N 9E6 Tel: (613) 241-8541 info@ot.mofa.go.jp
JORDAN
Her Ex. Sabah Nizar Rashid al Rafie 701-100 Bronson Ave., Ottawa, ON K1R 6G8
Tel: (613) 238-8090 ottawa@fm.gov.jo
KAZAKHSTAN
His Ex. Dauletbek Kussainov 700-150 Metcalfe St., Ottawa, ON K2P 1P1
Tel: (613) 695-8623 ottawa@mfa.kz
KENYA
Her Ex. Carolyne Kamende Daudi 415 Laurier Ave. E., Ottawa, ON K1N 6R4
Tel: (613) 563-1773 balozi@kenyahighcommission.ca
KIRIBATI
His Ex. Teburoro Tito Permanent Mission of Kiribati to the UN 1109-685 Third Ave., New York, NY 10017
Tel: (212) 867-3310 kimission.newyork@mfa.gov.ki
KOREA, DEMOCRATIC PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC
Permanent Mission of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to the UN 820 Second Ave., 13th Floor, New York, NY 10017
Tel: (212) 972-3105
KOREA, REPUBLIC
Mr. Younggi Ahn Minister & Chargé d’affaires, a.i. 150 Boteler St., Ottawa, ON K1N 5A6 Tel: (613) 244-5010 canada@mofa.go.kr
KOSOVO
His Ex. Adriatik Kryeziu 470 Somerset St. W., Ottawa, ON K1R 5J8
Tel: (613) 569-2828 embassy.canada@rks-gov.net
KUWAIT
Mr. Ali H. A. A. M. Alastad 333 Sussex Dr., Ottawa, ON K1N 1J9 Tel: (613) 780-9999 info@kuwaitembassy.ca
KYRGYZ REPUBLIC
2360 Massachusetts Ave. NW Washington, D.C., DC 20008
Tel: (202) 449-9822 kgembassy.usa@mfa.gov.kg
LAOS
His Ex. Sisavath Inphachanh 2222 S St. NW, Washington, D.C., DC 20008
Tel: (202) 332-6416 embasslao@gmail.com
LATVIA
His Ex. Kaspars Ozolins 1200-350 Sparks St., Ottawa, ON K1R 7S8
Tel: (613) 238-6014 embassy.canada@mfa.gov.lv
LEBANON
Mr. Ali Dirany
640 Lyon St., Ottawa, ON K1S 3Z5 Tel: (613) 236-5825 info@lebanonembassy.ca
LESOTHO
His Ex. Malehlanye Constantinus Ralejoe
1820-130 Albert St., Ottawa, ON K1P 5G4 Tel: (613) 234-0770 lesotho.ottawa@bellnet.ca
LIBERIA
5201, 16th St. NW, Washington, D.C., DC 20011
Tel: (202) 723-0437 Amb.office@Liberianembassyus.org
LIBYA
Mr. Nouri F. M. Elkasah
1100-170 Ave. Laurier W., Ottawa, ON K1P 5V5
Tel: 613-842-7519 assistant@embassyoflibya.ca
LITHUANIA
His Ex. Egidijus Meilunas 1600-150 Metcalfe St., Ottawa, ON K2P 1P1 Tel: (613) 567-5458 amb.ca@urm.lt
LUXEMBOURG
His Ex. Jean-Claude Kugener 1014-222 Queen St., Ottawa, ON K1P 5V9 ottawa.amb@mae.etat.lu
MADAGASCAR
Mrs. Sahondra Harilala Rakotoniaina
3 Raymond St., Ottawa, ON K1R 1A3 Tel: (613) 567-0505 ambamadcanada@gmail.com
MALAWI
Her Ex. Esme Jynet Chombo c/o Embassy of the Republic of Malawi
2408 Massachusetts Ave. NW Washington, D.C., DC 20008 Tel: (202) 721-0270 malawidc@aol.com
MALAYSIA
Her Ex. Shazelina Binti Zainul Abidin 60 Boteler St., Ottawa, ON K1N 8Y7 Tel: (613) 241-5182 mwottawa@kln.gov.my
MALDIVES
His Ex. Abdul Ghafoor Mohamed c/o Embassy of the Maldives to the UN 250-1100H St., NW, Washington, D.C., DC 20005 Tel: (202) 516-5458 WashingtonInfo@foreign.gov.mv
MALI
Mr. Amadou Diallo 50 Goulburn Ave., Ottawa, ON K1N 8C8 Tel: (613) 232-1501 ambassade@ambamali.ca
MALTA
His Ex. Mark Anthony Pace 401-275 Slater St., Ottawa, ON K1P 5H9 maltahighcommission.ottawa@gov.mt
MARSHALL ISLANDS
2433 Massachusetts Ave. , NW Washington, D.C., DC 20008 Tel: (202) 234-5414 info@rmiembassyus.org
MAURITANIA
His Ex. Djibril Niang 1200-81 Metcalfe St., Ottawa, ON K1P 6K7 ambarimOttawa@diplomatie.gov.mr
MAURITIUS
1709 N St., NW, Washington, D.C., DC 20036
Tel: (202) 244-1491 mauritius.embassy@verizon.net
MEXICO
His Ex. Carlos Manuel Joaquin Gonzalez 1000-45 O’Connor St., Ottawa, ON K1P 1A4 Tel: (613) 233-8988 infocan@sre.gob.mx
MOLDOVA
His Ex. Sergiu Odainic 801-275 Slater St., Ottawa, ON K1P 5H9 Tel: (613) 695-6167 ottawa@mfa.md
MONACO
Her Ex. Maguy Maccario Doyle c/o Embassy of the Principality of Monaco 888 17th St. NW, Suite 500 Washington, D.C., DC 20006 Tel: (202) 234-1530 embassy@monacodc.org
MONGOLIA
Her Ex. Sarantogos Erdenetsogt 1620-130 Albert St., Ottawa, ON K1P 5G4 Tel: (613) 569-3830 ottawa@mfa.gov.mn
MONTENEGRO
1610 New Hampshire Ave. NW Washington, D.C., DC 20009 Tel: (202) 234-6108 Fax: (202) 234-6109 usa@mfa.gov.me
MOROCCO
Her Ex. Souriya Otmani 38 Range Rd., Ottawa, ON K1N 8J4 Tel: (613) 236-7391 sifamaot@maec.gov.ma
MOZAMBIQUE
His Ex. Alfredo Fabiao Nuvunga 1525 New Hampshire Ave. NW Washington, D.C., DC 20036
Tel: (202) 293-7146 washington.dc@embamoc.gov.mz
MYANMAR
Ms. San Sandar Win Embassy of Myanmar 336 Island Park Dr., Ottawa, ON K1Y 0A7 Tel: (613) 232-9990 meottawa@rogers.com
NAMIBIA
Her Ex. Margareth Mensah-Williams c/o Embassy of the Republic of Namibia 1605 New Hampshire Ave. NW Washington, D.C., DC 20009 Tel: (202) 986-0540 info@namibiaembassyusa.org
NAURU
Permanent Mission of Nauru to the UN 1601-300 E 42nd St., New York, NY, NY 10017
Tel: (212) 937-0074 nauru@onecommonwealth.org
NEPAL
His Ex. Bharat Raj Paudyal
408 Queen St., Ottawa, ON K1R 5A7
Tel: (613) 680-5513 nepalembassy@rogers.com
NETHERLANDS
Her Ex. Grietje Landman
2020-350 Albert St., Ottawa, ON K1R 1A4
Tel: (613) 237-5031 ott-bb@minbuza.nl
NEW ZEALAND
Ms. Jocelyn Claire Woodley 150 Elgin St., Suite 1401 Ottawa, ON K2P 1L4
Tel: (613) 238-5991 info@nzhcottawa.org
NICARAGUA
1627 New Hampshire Ave. N.W. Washington, D.C., DC 20009
Tel: (202) 939-6570 embanic.ca@gmail.com
NIGER
2204 R St., NW, Washington, D.C., DC 20008
Tel: (202) 483-4224 communication@ embassyofniger-usa.org
NIGERIA
Mr. Abba Kawu Zanna 295 Metcalfe St., Ottawa, ON K2P 1R9
Tel: (613) 236-0521 chancery@nigeriahcottawa.ca
NORTH MACEDONIA
His Ex. Agron Budjaku 1006-130 Albert St., Ottawa, ON K1P 5G4
Tel: (613) 234-3882 ottawa@mfa.gov.mk
NORWAY
Her Ex. Hanne Ulrichsen 1300-150 Metcalfe St., Ottawa, ON K2P 1P1
Tel: (613) 238-6571 emb.ottawa@mfa.no
OMAN
2535 Belmont Road NW Washington, D.C., DC 20008 Tel: (202) 387-198 washington@fm.gov.om
PAKISTAN
His Ex. Muhammad Saleem 10 Range Rd., Ottawa, ON K1N 8J3 Tel: (613) 238-7881 pahicottawa@mofa.gov.pk
PALAU
His Ex. Hersey Kyota 200-1701 Pennsylvania Ave. NW Washington, D.C., DC 20006 Tel: (202) 349-8598 info@palauembassy.org
PALESTINE
Palestinian General Delegation 18 The Driveway, Ottawa, ON, K2P 1C6, Tel: (613) 736-0053 caemb@mfae.gov.ps
PANAMA
Mrs. Thais Augusta Collado Castillo 803-130 Albert St., Ottawa, ON K1P 5G4
Tel: (613) 236-7177 embpanamacanada@mire.gob.pa
PAPUA NEW GUINEA 1825 K St. NW, Suite 1010 Washington, D.C., WA 20006
Tel: (202) 745-3680 info@pngembassy.org
PARAGUAY
His Ex. Raul Montiel Gasto 418-130 Albert St., Ottawa, ON K1P 1B1 Tel: (613) 567-1283 / 1005 embaparcanada@mre.gov.py
PERU
His Ex. Manuel Talavera Espinar 1901-130 Albert St., Ottawa, ON K1P 5G4 Tel: (613) 238-1777 embassy@embassyofperu.ca
PHILIPPINES
His Ex. Jose Victor Chan-Gonzaga 30 Murray St., Ottawa, ON K1N 5M4 Tel: 613-233-1121 embassyofphilippines@rogers.com
POLAND
His Ex. Witold Miroslaw Dzielski 443 Daly Ave., Ottawa, ON K1N 6H3 Tel: (613) 789-6542 ottawa.info@msz.gov.pl
PORTUGAL
His Ex. Antonio Manuel Torres Domingues Leao Rocha 645 Island Park Dr., Ottawa, ON K1Y 0B8 Tel: (613) 729-0883 ottawa@mne.pt
QATAR
His Ex. Khalid Rashid S. H. Al-Mansouri 150 Metcalfe St., 8th Floor and 12th floor Ottawa, ON K2P 1P1 Tel: (613) 241-4917 Ottawa@mofa.gov.qa
ROMANIA
His Ex. Bogdan Manoiu 655 Rideau St., Ottawa, ON K1N 6A3 Tel: (613) 789-3709 ottawa@mae.ro
RUSSIA
His Ex. Oleg Stepanov 285 Charlotte St., Ottawa, ON K1N 8L5 Tel: (613) 235-4341 info@rusembassy.ca
RWANDA
His Ex. Prosper Higiro 404-294 Albert St., Ottawa, ON K1P 6E6 Tel: (613) 569-5420 ambaottawa@minaffet.gov.rw
SAINT KITTS AND NEVIS
His Ex. Samuel Alharjai Berridge 421 Besserer St., Ottawa, ON K1N 6H4 Tel: (613) 518-2447 mission@hcstkittsnevis.ca
SAINT LUCIA
1250-1629 K St. NW Washington, D.C., DC 20006 Tel: (202) 364-6792 embassydc@gosl.gov.lc
SAINT VINCENT AND THE GRENADINES
Her Ex. Louanne Gaylene Gilchrist 704-1629 K St. NW, Washington, D.C., DC 20006 Tel: 202-364-6730 mail@embsvg.com
SAMOA
His Ex. Paolelei Luteru
Permanent Mission of Samoa to the UN
685 Third Ave. , 44th St., 11th Floor, Suite 1102
New York, NY 10017
Tel: (212) 599-6196 samoa@samoanymission.ws
SAN MARINO
His Ex. Damiano Beleffi
Permanent Mission of San Marino to the UN
327 East 50th St., New York, NY 10022 Tel: (212) 751-1234 sanmarinoun@gmail.com
SAO TOME AND PRINCIPE
c/o Permanent Mission of Sao Tome and Principe to the UN 1807-675 Third Ave., New York, NY 10017 Tel: (212) 651-8116 rdstppmun@gmail.com
SAUDI ARABIA
Her Ex. Amal Yahya Almoalimi 201 Sussex Dr., Ottawa, ON K1N 1K6 Tel: (613) 237-4100 caemb@mofa.gov.sa
SENEGAL
His Ex. Gorgui Ciss
381 Kent St., 4th Floor, Ottawa, ON K2P 2A8 Tel: (613) 238-6392 info@ambsencanada.org
SERBIA
His Ex. Stefan Tomasic 21 Blackburn Ave., Ottawa, ON K1N 8A2 Tel: (613) 233-6280 communication.ottawa@mfa.rs
SEYCHELLES
Permanent Mission of Seychelles to the UN
400C-685 Third Ave., New York, NY NY 10017 seychelles@un.int
SIERRA LEONE
Mr. Sheku MESALI c/o Embassy of the Republic of Sierra Leone 1701 - 19th St. NW, Washington, D.C., DC 20009 Tel: (202) 939-9261 hoc@embassyofsierraleone.net
SINGAPORE
His Ex. Chin Siong Tan c/o Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Tanglin Singapore 248163 Singapore Tel: +65 6379-8000
SLOVAK REPUBLIC
Her Ex. Viera Grigova
50 Rideau Terrace, Ottawa, ON K1M 2A1 Tel: (613) 749-4442 emb.ottawa@mzv.sk
SLOVENIA
His Ex. Andrej Gregor Rode 2200-150 Metcalfe St., Ottawa, ON K2P 1P1
Tel: (613) 565-5781 sloembassy.ottawa@gov.si
SOLOMON ISLANDS
Her Ex. Jane Mugafalu Waetara
Permanent Mission of Solomon Islands to the UN 1105-685, 3rd Ave., New York, NY
10017
Tel: (212) 599 6192 simun@solomons.com
SOUTH AFRICA
His Ex. Rieaz Shaik 15 Sussex Dr., Ottawa, ON K1M 1M8 Tel: (613) 744-0330 hc.ottawa@dirco.gov.za
SOUTH SUDAN
300-1015 31st St. NW Washington, D.C., DC 20007 Tel: (202) 600-2238 southsudan.official@gmail.com
SPAIN
His Ex. Alfredo Martinez Serrano 74 Stanley Ave., Ottawa, ON K1M 1P4 Tel: (613) 747-2252 emb.ottawa@maec.es
SRI LANKA
Mr. Kiritharan Kumarasamy 1204-333 Laurier Ave. W., Ottawa, ON K1P 1C1
Tel: (613) 233-8449 slhcit@rogers.com
SUDAN
Mr. Bakhit Ismail Dahya
354 Stewart St., Ottawa, ON K1N 6K8
Tel: (613) 235-4000 sudanembassy-canada@rogers.com
SURINAME
His Ex. Jan Schalkwijk
400-4201 Connecticut Ave. NW
Washington, D.C., DC 20008
Tel: (202) 629-4302 amb.vs@foreignaffairs.gov.sr
SWEDEN
Her Ex. Signe Fenja Burgstaller
350-377 Dalhousie St., Ottawa, ON K1N 9N8
Tel: (613) 244-8200 ambassaden.ottawa@gov.se
SWITZERLAND
His Ex. Olaf Andreas Kjelsen
5 Marlborough Ave., Ottawa, ON, K1N 8E6
Tel: (613) 235-1837 ottawa@eda.admin.ch
SYRIA
46 Cartier St., Ottawa, ON K2P 1J3
TAIWAN
Harry Tseng Representative Taipei Economic and Cultural Office
45 O’Connor St., #1960 Ottawa, ON, K1P 1A4
Tel: (613) 231-5080 can@mofa.gov.tw
TANZANIA
His Ex. Joseph Edward Sokoine
50 Range Rd., Ottawa, ON K1N 8J4
Tel: (613) 232-1500 contact@tzrepottawa.ca
THAILAND
His Ex. Kallayana Vipattipumiprates
180 Island Park Dr., Ottawa, ON K1Y 0A2
Tel: (613) 722-4444 contact@thaiembassy.ca
TIMOR-LESTE
504-4201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington, D.C., DC 20008
Tel: (202) 966-3202 info@timorlesteembassy.org
TOGO
Mr. Tchilabalo Abaki
12 Range Rd., Ottawa, ON K1N 8J3
Tel: (613) 238-5916 secretariat@hctogocanada.org
TONGA
His Ex. Viliami Vainga Tone Permanent Mission of Tonga to the UN 250 East 51st St., New York, NY 10022
Tel: (917) 369-1025 tongaunmission@gmail.com
TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO
Ms. Joanne Melissa Alfred
200 First Ave., 3rd Level, Ottawa, ON K1S 2G6
Tel: (613) 232-2418 hcottawa@foreign.gov.tt
TUNISIA
His Ex. Lassaad Boutara 515 O’Connor St. Ottawa, ON K1S 3P8
Tel: (613) 237-0330 tunisianembassycanada@diplomatie. gov.tn
TÜRKIYE
His Ex. Can Dizdar 197 Wurtemburg St., Ottawa, ON K1N 8L9
Tel: (613) 244-2470 embassy.ottawa@mfa.gov.tr
TURKMENISTAN
His Ex. Meret Orazov 2207 Massachusetts Ave. NW Washington, D.C., DC 20008 Tel: (202) 588-1500 turkmenembassyus@verizon.net
TUVALU
Permanent Mission of Tuvalu to the UN 1104-685, Third Ave., New York, NY 10017 Tel: (212) 490-0534 tuvalu.unmission@gov.tv
UGANDA
Mr. Allan Kajik 601-350 Sparks St., Ottawa, ON K1R 7S8 Tel: (613) 789-7797 ottawa@mofa.go.ug
UKRAINE
His Ex. Andrii Plakhotniuk 310 Somerset St. W., Ottawa, ON K2P 0J9
Tel: (613) 230-2961 emb_ca@mfa.gov.ua
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
His Ex. Abdulrahman Ali Almur Ali Alneyadi
125 Boteler St., Ottawa, ON K1N 0A4
Tel: (613) 565-7272 Ottawaemb.oa@mofa.gov.ae
UNITED KINGDOM
His Ex. Robert John Tinline
140 Sussex Dr., Ottawa, ON K1N 5A2
Tel: (613) 237-1530 ukincanada@fco.gov.uk
UN HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR REFUGEES
280 Albert Street, Suite 401, Ottawa, ON, K1P 5G8 Tel: 613) 232-0909, canot@unhcr.org
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
His Ex. Peter Hoekstra 490 Sussex Dr., Ottawa, ON K1N 1G8 Tel: (613) 238-5335
URUGUAY
His Ex. Gustavo Anibal Alvarez Goyoaga 800-55 Metcalfe St., Ottawa, ON K1P 6L5 Tel: (613) 234-2727 urucanada@mrree.gub.uy
UZBEKISTAN
His Ex. Furkat Sidikov 1746 Massachusetts Ave. , NW Washington, D.C., DC 20036 Tel: (202) 887-5300 info.washington@mfa.uz
VENEZUELA
Embassy of Venezuela
32 Range Rd., Ottawa, ON K1N 8J4 Tel: (613) 235-5151 consular@misionvenezuela.org
VIETNAM
His Ex. Vinh Quang Pham
55 Mackay St., Ottawa, ON K1M 2B2 Tel: (613) 236-0772 info@vietnamembassy.ca
YEMEN
His Ex. Jamal Abdullah Yahya Al-Sallal Embassy of the Republic of Yemen 54 Chamberlain Ave. Ottawa, ON K1S 1V9 Tel: (613) 729-6627 yeminfo@yemenembassy.ca
ZAMBIA
His Ex. Kennedy Mpolobe Shepande 900-130 Albert St., Ottawa, ON K1P 5G4 zhc@zambiahighcommission.ca
ZIMBABWE
His Ex. Cecil Toendepi Chinenere 332 Somerset St. W., Ottawa, ON K2P 0J9
Tel: (613) 421-1242 zimfaottawa@gmail.com
Ambassador of Andorra
Ambassador Forner Rovira is Andorra’s permanent representative to the United Nations and is dually accredited to Canada. Prior, he served as permanent representative to the Council of Europe and as ambassador to the UN Office in Geneva. He was also deputy permanent representative to the Council of Europe.
He has held numerous other positions, including director of the department of multilateral affairs and co-operation, director of the department of bilateral and consular affairs and legal adviser in the international conventions department.
He was minister-counsellor to Spain from 2002 to 2007 and to Andorra’s permanent mission to the UN from 1993 to 2000.
Forner Rovira has a master’s degree from New York University and a degree in Andorran law from the University of Andorra.
Ambassador of Belgium
Ambassador Dhaene’s posting to Canada represents a return. He served as consul-general in Montreal from 2011 to 2015.
Dhaene joined the foreign ministry in 1997. From 1999 to 2002, he was first secretary in Paris and later served as head of the political section in Kinshasa. From 2005 to 2008, he was counsellor at the United Nations mission in New York. In 2008, he became Belgium’s special envoy to Africa’s Great Lakes region.
He served as deputy permanent representative to the UN in Geneva and was director of counterterrorism and extremism at headquarters from 2019 to 2021, when he became ambassador to Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay.
He has degrees in law and international relations. He is married and the father of five children.
High Commissioner for Botswana High Commissioner Mophuting joined the diplomatic corps in 2023 from the defence ministry where, after 35 years of service, he was deputy commander of Botswana’s defence forces.
Mophuting has served in various capacities in and out of Botswana. He was permanent executive secretary of the East and Southern Africa Liaison Office of the International Military Sports Council and adjunct lecturer at the Africa Centre for Strategic Studies. He led the COVID-19 National Emergency Operations Centre (NEOC) in March 2020.
Mophuting is a graduate of the U.S. National Defense University. He holds a master’s of arts degree, a master’s of science and a master’s of business.
Ambassador of Cambodia
Ambassador Keo is the permanent representative of Cambodia to the United Nations and is non-resident ambassador to Canada. Prior to these appointments, he served as ambassador to the United States from 2022.
He has held many other positions, including as adviser to the foreign and international co-operation ministry on ASEAN affairs from 2017 to 2022. In academia, he was dean of the Techo Sen School of Government and International Relations at the University of Cambodia from 2016 to 2018.
From 2003 to 2016, he was a head of external relations at the ASEAN Secretariat in Jakarta, having served as deputy director-general of ASEAN Cambodia from 2001.
Keo holds a master’s degree in foreign affairs and trade; a bachelor’s degree in English literature and linguistics from; and a post-graduate diploma in international law.
Ambassador of Costa Rica
Ambassador Serrano, is an attorney and notary public with more than three decades of professional experience in the fields of civil, commercial, corporate, banking and labour law.
From 2020 to 2024, he served as substitute magistrate of the first chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice of Costa Rica. Throughout his career, he has held positions in the public
and private sectors, including director of the National Consumer Commission at the ministry of economy, industry and commerce, and director of the National Wages Council at the ministry of labour and social security. He also served as a member of the Commission of Users of the Judiciary System of Costa Rica, representing trial lawyers appointed by de Costa Rican Bar Association.
Serrano studied law at the University of Costa Rica and did postgraduate studies in international trade law at Syracuse University. He speaks Spanish and English.
Ambassador of Haiti
Ambassador Dessources is making a return to Ottawa. He was ambassador for five months in 2003 and 2004.
Throughout his career, Dessources has held senior positions in Haiti’s public service. He served as minister of planning and external co-operation, chief of staff at the foreign ministry for two years and was a member of the presidential cabinet. He also served as deputy director of the Diocesan Institute of Adult Education, co-ordinator of planning and development at various ministries, consultant to several public institutions and a lecturer at the Centre for Diplomatic and International Studies. He has expertise in natural resource management, local development, institutional communications, community mobilization, project management, and multidisciplinary team co-ordination.
Dessources studied agronomy in Haiti and then completed a master’s in agricultural business and project management in Paris and studied Law at Cap-Haïtien Law School.
High Commissioner for India
Shri Dinesh K. Patnaik is a career diplomat and has had postings in Geneva, Dhaka, Beijing and Vienna. He was the deputy chief of mission in Vienna from 2009 to 2012, ambassador to Cambodia from 2012 to 2015, ambassador to Morocco from 2015 to 2016 and ambassador to Spain from 2022 until September 2025. From 2016 to 2018, he was deputy high commissioner to London.
At headquarters, he has served in multiple divisions, include Western Europe, external publicity, Africa and the United Nations. He was also previously director-general of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations.
He holds a master’s degree in business administration from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Kolkata, and a master’s degree in advanced international studies from the University of Vienna. He is married and has two daughters.
In addition to being ambassador to Canada, Ambassador Muhsin is Indonesia’s representative to the International Civil Aviation Organization. From 2020 to this year, he served as adviser to the minister of foreign affairs on inter-institutional relations and for the two years before that as deputy permanent representative to the United Nations in New York.
He joined the foreign service in 1996 and served in Paris between 2003 and 2005, and Geneva between 2009 and 2013. He has chaired various UN Security Council sessions, he served as Indonesia’s sous-sherpa for the G20 between 2016 and 2018 and as a negotiator for the post-2014 development agenda document in 2014 and 2015.
The ambassador completed a degree at Oxford in 2007, Saitama University in 2000 and Gadjah Mada University in 1994.
Commissioner for the Maldives
Abdul Ghafoor Mohamed is ambassador of the Maldives to the U.S. as well. He formerly served as his country’s foreign secretary and, more recently, as ambassador at large.
He began his career as a program officer in 1983 and served as counsellor and then deputy high commissioner to Sri Lanka and later to Malaysia. He was appointed permanent representative of the Maldives to the United Nations in Geneva. He also previously served as the ambassador to the U.S. and high commissioner to Canada.
Ghafoor graduated from the University of Tasmania with a bachelor’s degree in political science and completed a master’s in international relations at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University.
He is married to Mariyam Khalida. They have a son and a daughter.
Ambassador of Mauritania
Ambassador Djibril comes to diplomacy from politics, most recently as governor of the region of South Nouakchott beginning in 2022. Prior to that, as of 2021, he was an adviser to the national hydropower commission and before that a minister in the government. In 2018, he was director-general of the Friendship Port of Nouakchott and prior to that, director-general of the Port of Nouadhibou from 2018. He served as director-general of the budget at the finance ministry for four years from 2014 and directorgeneral of the national printing house for two years before that. Earlier in his career, he held several positions within the federal civil service.
The ambassador has a master’s in economics and finance and a bachelor’s degree in mathematics. He also has some previous Canadian experience, having completed a diploma in advanced professional administration and management. He is married and has two children.
Ambassador Ulrichsen’s most recent position was as director of the Middle East and North Africa section at the foreign ministry in Oslo. She was previously posted from 2005 to 2008 as the deputy head of mission to Amman, with dual accreditation to Iraq. She served as a transatlantic diplomatic fellow in the bureau of near Eastern affairs at the U.S. Department of State from 2008 to 2009 and at the embassy in Washington, D.C., from 2009 to 2011. At headquarters in Oslo, she’s worked in the office of the prime minister, the Office of the Norwegian director of intelligence and the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI).
She holds a master’s degree in political science from the University of Oslo and a master’s of European administrative studies from the College of Europe in Bruges.
Ambassador of the Philippines
Ambassador Chan-Gonzaga is a career diplomat and lawyer. The ambassador has held key positions in both bilateral and multilateral postings, including as consul-general and minister for economic affairs at the embassy in Washington, DC, and as first secretary to the permanent mission to the World Trade Organization in Geneva.
In Manila, he served as assistant secretary of the office of American affairs and executive director and director for treaties in the office of legal affairs. He was director for social development issues and human rights and economic, finance, agriculture and intellectual property matters of the Office of the United Nations and other international organizations.
He holds a master’s degree in international law from Columbia Law School, where he was a Fulbright Fellow and Bretzfelder International Law Fellow. Born in Tacloban City, Leyte, he is married and has one son.
Ambassador Tomasevic started his career in law, but soon returned to studies at the diplomatic academy at Serbia’s foreign ministry. He started his diplomatic career as an independent adviser in consular affairs and, in 2013, became a counsellor at the office of the secretary-general. He was chief of the consular division at the embassy in Prague from 2014 to 2018 and first counsellor at the department of international legal affairs at the foreign ministry for one year in 2018. In 2019, he became minister-counsellor at the general secretariat for a year. He was ambassador to Romania from 2020 to 2025, with added responsibilities as a non-resident ambassador to Moldova for the latter four years.
The ambassador is married and has two sons.
Ambassador Plakhotniuk is a career diplomat, having started at the foreign ministry as an attaché in 1997. He was posted as second secretary to China is 1998 and returned to headquarters five years later. In 2003, he became the assistant to the deputy minister of foreign affairs and then a counsellor in the Asia and Pacific division. In 2006, he returned to Beijing as political counsellor for five years. He served at headquarters from 2011 to 2020 in the prospective partnership division, the policy analysis division, the directorate of the Russian Federation and the directorate of countering Russian threats. In 2020, he was posted as ambassador to Sweden and he came straight from Sweden to his new posting in Canada.
The ambassador has a master’s degree in international economic relations. He is married and has two children.
Ambassador of the United States of America
Prior to this posting, Pete Hoekstra served as chairman of the Michigan Republican Party (MIGOP) during the 2024 elections. He was a board member of the Council for a Secure America. He served as Ambassador to the Netherlands during the first Trump administration.
Hoekstra was a member of Congress from 1993 to 2011 representing Michigan’s 2nd District. He was chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence from 2004 to 2007 and he was a distinguished fellow at the Heritage Foundation. He began his career with furniture-maker Herman Miller, rising to vice-president of marketing.
Hoekstra has a bachelor of arts from Hope College in Michigan (1975) and a master’s in business administration from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor (1977). He and his wife Diane have three adult children.
Japanese Ambassador Kanji Yamanouchi has given 17 Canadians the ambassador’s award for their contributions to Canada-Japan relations.
By Ülle Baum
Tony Walby, a highly accomplished judoka and two-time Paralympic athlete, was diagnosed as blind at 35. Since that recognition, he has continued to compete in para judo and judo kata and became the only visually impaired judo athlete in the world. He will soon compete in the World Judo Kata Championships and last spring, he received the ambassador’s award from Japanese Ambassador Kanji Yamanouchi.
During an interview at the embassy, Ambassador Yamanouchi says that in today’s world, the role of sports as a bridge between cultures is more important than ever. “Through judo, Tony Sensei has contributed not only to the development of Canadian athletes, but also to strengthening the friendship between Japan and Canada.”
Walby’s is one of the 17 awards Yamanouchi has presented during his diplomatic posting in Canada. The ambassador’s award is presented in recognition of distinguished service contributing to the deepening of mutual understanding and friendship between Japan and Canada. The award is not only for individuals, but also for groups, and the award ceremony is traditionally held at the ambassador’s residence in Rockcliffe Park. A total of 25 ambassador’s awards have been presented by the Embassy of Japan in Canada since 2006.
“I am very lucky to be stationed in a country like Canada and what I want to do is to deepen our friendship, to deepen our mutual respect and to deepen our mutual understandings,”
Yamanouchi says. “That’s the whole purpose. People-topeople relations are so important and so is the Japanese Canadian community. Once we discover people who’ve been doing important things, then we just want to recognize them, not just with words, but with something tangible. This honour, this prize, is something to cement our respect for those people. That is the meaning of the award.”
While the award is an important way to enhance the bond between the embassy and the community, recipients do not have to be Japanese — anyone can earn the award through dedication and achievement.
Ülle Baum is Diplomat’s public relations director.
Since it relaunched in May 2025, Diplomat magazine’s team has been busy meeting with heads of mission and introducing the goals of the magazine.
On the left-hand page:
On this page: 1. Indonesian embassy
Kazakh Ambassador Dauletbek Kussainov hosted a roundtable at the Senate of Canada building. The event was timed to coincide with the International Day Against Nuclear Tests.
Photos: Ülle Baum.
To mark the national day of Egypt, Ambassador Ahmed Hafez hosted a reception at his residence. He and Rob Oliphant, parliamentary secretary to foreign minister, both spoke at the event, which was attended by parliamentarians, diplomats, foreign service officers from Global Affairs Canada and members of the Egyptian diaspora in Canada.
Photos: Ülle Baum.
Estonian Ambassador Margus Rava hosted a reception to mark Victory Day and Jaanipäev (St. John’s Day).
Guests had the opportunity to view an exhibition title “The Formula of Love,” which featured the life and work of Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, who celebrated his 90th birthday on Sept. 11, 2025.
Photos: Ülle Baum.
Irish Ambassador John Concannon hosted a concert and reception for Friends of the National Arts Centre Orchestra (FNACO) at his residence. FNACO supports education and scholarship programs for aspiring young musicians. Paul Casey, viola; Stephanie Morin, flute; and NACO associate harpist, Angela Schwarzkopf performed traditional Irish music and works by Claude Debussy and Canadian Kevin Lau. Photos: Ülle Baum.
Upwards of 4,000 people attended Latin Festival & Fair 2025 in Ottawa. A parade took place and cultural performances and food stands were also set up. El Salvador, Peru, México, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Dominican Republic and Panama took part in the event, which was organized by the embassies and the local community organizations
Photos: Ülle Baum.
To mark the national day of Mongolia, Ambassador Sarantogos Erdenetsogt took part in a flag-raising ceremony at Ottawa City Hall. Councillor and Deputy Mayor Ariel Troster, and Joya Donnelly, directorgeneral for North and East Asia at Global Affairs Canada, spoke.
Photos: Ülle Baum.
Then-Filipino Ambassador Maria Andrelita Austria with the Canada-Philippines InterParliamentary Friendship Group hosted a reception to mark the 127th Anniversary of the Proclamation of Philippine Independence at the Sir John A. Macdonald Building.
Photos: Ülle Baum.
A Moroccan flag-raising ceremony took place at Ottawa City Hall to mark the Glorious New Throne Day and the 26th anniversary of the accession of His Majesty Mohammed VI the King of Morocco. That evening, Moroccan Ambassador Souriya Otmani and her husband, Merouane Sadqi, hosted a reception at the Westin Hotel.
Photos: Ülle Baum
Pakistani High Commissioner Muhammad Saleem and his wife, Rehana, hosted a mango-tasting reception at Pakistan House in Ottawa. Distinguished guests, dignitaries and journalists attended, including Ottawa City Councillor Laura Dudas. Pakistan produces 24 different types of mangoes.
Photos: Ülle Baum.
Malaysian High Commissioner Shazelina Binti Zainul Abidin, hosted Merdeka Day celebrations to mark the 68th Anniversary of Malaysia’s independence at Sala San Marco in Ottawa.
Photos: Ülle Baum
