The Diplomatic Dance

Canada established its Department of External Affairs amidst little controversy in 1909. Although some opposed the decision on the grounds that it would weaken the unity of the British Empire, order in the management of our foreign relations was so badly needed that, in the end, the government’s will prevailed. These, however, were modest beginnings for External. For years, it had to rely on a skeletal staff and low funding. As late as 1937, it was still without a minister of its own and its headquarters in Ottawa had to make do with a mere eleven officers, all of them males, most of them Anglo-Saxon. By 1939, our diplomatic presence abroad was still limited to seven posts. Change, however, was just around the corner.

Between the late 1930s and the late ’90s, the department was transformed beyond recognition. Canada’s major contribution to the Allied effort in World War Two prompted the first burst of expansion. In the late 1940s and early ’50s, another followed...