A Canadian military connection

Times have changed. A letter of mine in the Ottawa Citizen‏:

Pearson no expat

The Ottawa Citizen May 9, 2009

Re: Getting to know Ignatieff, May 2.

L. Ian MacDonald writes that "The lure of politics, and the prospect of leadership, brought Pearson home after a lifetime in the foreign service, much as it brought Ignatieff home after nearly 30 years as a public intellectual, author and commentator in Britain and the United States." That is a wildly inaccurate comparison.

Mr. Pearson was no expatriate. Moreover when he returned to Ottawa in 1946, after serving as Canadian ambassador in Washington, it was not to get involved in politics -- it was to become the top public servant in the Department of External Affairs. He did not enter politics until 1948. And he did not become leader of the Liberal Party until 10 years after that.

Pearson was only abroad from 1915 until 1918, while serving in the military during the First World War; from 1935 until 1941 at the Canadian high commission in London; and from 1942 until 1946 at the Canadian embassy in Washington, D.C. That's a whole lot less than Mr. Ignatieff's lengthy, uninterrupted sojourn of almost three decades in foreign parts. One might add that, while out of Canada, Mr. Pearson -- unlike Mr. Ignatieff -- was always in the service of his country.

References sent with the letter:

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1957/pearson-bio.html
http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0006175
http://www.vicu.utoronto.ca/alumni/pearsongarden/Lester_B__Pearson_Biography.htm