A new full-time voice for Canada’s diplomatic corps
In a pilot project, the Professional Association of Foreign Service Officers is getting a full-time president. OpenCanada spoke with Pamela Isfeld, the longtime Canadian diplomat who has taken on the role, about her to-do list, the ‘Havana Syndrome’ crisis, and more.
In her 26 years working as a Canadian diplomat, Pamela Isfeld has been teargassed, caught in riots and, a few times, nearly blown up.
She has served in Moscow, Nairobi, Sarajevo, Kabul, Kandahar and Warsaw, and has been tasked with everything from briefing Canadian ministers and accompanying them to meetings to advocating for the release of imprisoned Canadians and negotiating safe spaces for opposition political rallies.
At Global Affairs Canada headquarters in Ottawa, she has worked on United Nations issues, in the Stabilization and Reconstruction Task Force (START), focusing on Sudan and Afghanistan, in the Communications Bureau, and on Eastern Europe and Middle East issues, including as special coordinator for Iran.
Now, Isfeld is taking on the new role of full-time president of PAFSO, which is both the bargaining agent, or the union, and the professional association for Canadian foreign service officers in four streams (Political, Trade, Immigration and Management-Consular). She’s not exactly new to the job — she has been serving as volunteer PAFSO president since 2017, after a previous term from 2009 to 2011 — but she is the first to take on the position full-time, in a two-year pilot project launched last month.
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