What duty of care does Canada have? Joly denies abandoning Ukrainian embassy staff

This is another embarrassing episode for the government in general, and Global Affairs and Minister Joly in particular. Hopefully any review of “duty of care” will start with a review of relevant historical examples such as Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Iran (1980 and 2012), Afghanistan, and analyse the similarities and differences, along with the policy rationales. But before the report, this letter to the editor provides a sharp contrast to what happened in former Yugoslavia in 1999:

When NATO bombed Yugoslavia in 1999, the Milosevic regime threatened the Serbian staff of member country embassies, labelling them as collaborators from whom retribution would be exacted. Before evacuating the Canadian staff of the embassy in Belgrade, we advanced six months’ salary to all local staff and the immigration section issued visas to them and their immediate families. None of this was directed by what was then Foreign Affairs in Ottawa. Since ambassadors have plenipotentiary powers, I was able to make the necessary decisions sur place. Had we waited for instructions, I am afraid little would have been done. That same inability to act promptly in a crisis may have been the underlying reason for Global Affairs Canada abandoning our local staff in Kyiv. Raphael Girard Former ambassador to Yugoslavia; Montreal

Source: Different time

The Canadian government says it is reviewing its duty to local staff members at missions abroad following a media report that its Ukrainian employees in Kyiv were not alerted to the threats against them and were left to fend for themselves with the Russian invasion looming. On Wednesday, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly was asked if her office was aware of the intelligence that Ukrainian staff for foreign embassies were allegedly on Russia’s list of targeted individuals — and deliberately withheld the information from the local staff at the mission. “Never did I or the department have any information targeting locally engaged Canadian staff. We never got that information, nor me or my team or the department,” Joly told reporters at a joint news conference with her visiting German counterpart, Annalena Baerbock, after the two met to discuss the energy and food security crises as well as trade. “I know we have a specific duty of care. I know this is in conversations within the department whether that duty of care applies to locally engaged staff. I would say that morally we have an obligation toward locally engaged staff.” This week, the Globe and Mail reported that the Canadian embassy in Kyiv received a secret briefing from allies in January that the Russian invasion was imminent and that Ukrainians working for western countries could face arrest or execution. The Canadian staff members were also reportedly warned not to share the information with their Ukrainian colleagues. Joly said she had spoken “directly” with the locally engaged staff about their safety and security during her visits in Ukraine in January before the war and followed up with the department and Canadian ambassador in Kyiv, Larisa Galadza, on this issue, throughout, including on Feb. 24, when the war was declared. “Ukraine is a war-torn country, we wanted to make sure that they had options. They were offered options to come to Canada. Some of them have decided to come. Some of them have decided to stay,” said Joly, who praised the contributions of the local Ukrainian staff members. “They were also given full payment and compensation and benefits, although for some time the diplomats were outside of the country.” Joly said a review process called the “Future of Diplomacy” has already been launched to study the issues surrounding the duty of care for local employees in time of crises. The alleged abandonment of the Ukrainian local staff has called into question how Canada applies its duty of care to local staff at diplomatic missions abroad. In Afghanistan, for instance, Ottawa introduced a special immigration program for current and former Afghan employees and contractors, as well as their families, in anticipation of the takeover of Kabul by the Taliban last year. Experts on consular services say evacuations of locally engaged staff are inconsistently applied based on the quality of risk assessments. Local employees are crucial to consular operations, especially in a crisis. “There is no straight line in diplomacy and there is no straight line in security,” said Ferry de Kerckhove, a career Canadian diplomat who was ambassador in Indonesia during the 2002 Bali terrorist bombings and in Egypt between 2008 and 2011 during the Arab Spring movement. De Kerckhove, who spent 38 years in foreign service, said whether to evacuate local staff or not is decided by the ambassador in consultation with Ottawa. The assessment is complex and involves Global Affairs Canada, the immigration department and other ministries. Although he is not privy to the intelligence or circumstances on the ground in Kyiv, he said, generally, unless there’s a really dire situation, the government would need those staff on the ground. “I would assume that if there was a situation in Kyiv that would become really worrisome, we would probably consider bringing in the staff the same way we bring refugees in,” said de Kerckhove, now a senior fellow in public and international affairs at the University of Ottawa. “I don’t think there is a prima facie case of saying yes or no. It would be on a case-by-case basis.” Any evacuation involving Canadian and domestic staff is taken seriously because it’s an onerous and time-sensitve process and officials are often hesitant to let go of the essential staff. He said there are also concerns by officials over “opening the floodgate” in terms of eligibility and access. “The consistency comes from the quality of the analysis of the assessment of the given situation. It’s the situation at any given time that determines the quality of the assessment,” said de Kerckhove. “So any consular manual rule would allow enough leeway to be able to make an assessment based on changing circumstances.” Earlier this year, the Senate committee on foreign affairs and international trade initiated a review of the Canadian foreign service. In May, Joly announced the review to modernize the department and adapt to the changing geopolitical environment. Global Affairs Canada officials said discussions over the duty-of-care issue have been part of that review. Patricia Fortier, an expert on consular services with the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, said the inclusion of the issue in the review is timely. “There is a need for people to understand the balance that’s needed. And if this results in a more balanced approach to duty of care, this will really be helpful,” said the retired Canadian diplomat, who was most recently assistant deputy minister for security, consular and emergency management in Global Affairs Canada. “Right now, the problem of taking duty of care to its logical end is you end up (being) totally risk-averse. Diplomacy requires always a certain amount of risk. You can’t keep everybody under lock and key and not go places that are risky.” Fortier said actions required in response to a crisis are never straightforward and there are no cookie-cutter solutions. While the United States, Canada and Britain withdrew their embassy staff in Kyiv in the buildup of the Russian war, other allies opted to stay. “I’m not sure what kind of thinking went into the decisions, but what I want to address is intelligence. Anybody within the foreign service for any length of time can get a lot of stuff across their desk. And all intelligence needs to be assessed,” said Fortier. “Sometimes it’s right. A lot of times it’s not right. Nothing happens. So one of the questions I have is, how serious was this?” Carleton University international affairs professor David Carment said there’s no indication that Kyiv is going to be under any form of attack except for missile strikes, which target assets such as arms shipments that the Russians deem important to the Ukrainian war effort. If the locally engaged staff have been engaged in work and activities related to the war effort such as collecting intelligence, which would certainly put their lives at risk, a strong argument could then be made for their evacuation to Canada, he said. “We don’t know the details on that. But to automatically assume that the Russians are going to capture them and torture them just because they happen to be on the Canadian side is problematic,” noted Carment, a senior fellow with the Institute for Peace & Diplomacy, a non-partisan think tank based in Toronto. The issue is beyond just securing the safety of individual foreign service officers, but ensuring Canada has a credible presence in countries that are risky, he said. “One of the questions that needs to be considered is whether this duty-of-care approach is an effort to convince Canadians who might want to be foreign service officers to serve abroad where they’re more likely to be at risk,” said Carment. “So it is a bigger argument. It’s one that has to be placed in the context of having a strong diplomatic presence.” Source: What duty of care does Canada have? Joly denies abandoning Ukrainian embassy staff