Strangers with Memories by John Stewart

Author:John Stewart
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press
Published: 2017-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

5

Non-Americanism: Be Careful What You Wish For

I had conversations with family, friends, and acquaintances during 1990 and 1991 about my unusual new job at the US Embassy in Ottawa. These conversations prompted some thinking on my part about citizenship and national identity.

Many people are surprised to learn that embassies employ staff who are not citizens of their home countries. But many non-diplomatic roles – accountants, clerical and maintenance workers, drivers, gardeners, and cooks – are usually needed to support an ambassador and even just a handful of Foreign Service personnel. And there are many non-salary costs (such as long-distance travel, housing allowances, home leave, and private schooling) that add to the burden of employing official, accredited Foreign Service staff. There are consequently great savings available from using local employees wherever possible, even in a high-wage country like Canada.1

Businesses often hire foreign-country sales representatives or consultants who understand the local market better than an employee from head office ever could. For governments, similarly, international legal or commercial problems may be best untangled by a lawyer or former official who is resident in another country. In my case, prior knowledge of the Canadian parliamentary system and also of the organization of Canada’s government, federal bureaucracy, and federal-provincial relationships were essential to our work. In analysis and advocacy, such knowledge gives one a big head start over a rotational Foreign Service officer who is only in the country for two or three years.

If a government is reluctant to employ another country’s citizens, it can likely find expatriates of its own nationality living in the host city, and hire them on local terms, rather than using individuals expensively posted from the home capital. In our case, the US Mission to Canada had some staff who were locally engaged Americans who had been living in Canada before they were hired.2 They might know little more about Canada than a new arrival would, but at least they did not have to be paid the costly allowances due Foreign Service personnel.

NATIONALITY, PRINCIPLES, AND LOYALTIES

A less frequent but still common reaction among people who learned about my job at the Embassy was surprise that the highly security-conscious US government would trust a non-US citizen to work inside Embassy walls (where there would presumably be sensitive documents and perhaps covert activities being concealed). And finally, there was surprise that a Canadian could, in good conscience, agree to work (some even said spy) for another country’s government, particularly that of the United States.

I would say that, between allied countries, much of the work of an Embassy is developing and maintaining a smooth working relationship in which both countries’ capitals and citizens can pursue their interests – and interests are better pursued when they are mutually informed and coordinated. Even at low points in their relationship, Canada and the United States have substantially similar values and interests, and our governments are trying to accomplish mostly similar goals. The US Embassy in Ottawa and the Canadian Embassy in Washington work to build a constructive relationship and to pursue those shared goals.

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