Robert Fowler (diplomat) - Career

Career

Born in Ottawa, Fowler initially attended McGill University where he was a member of The Kappa Alpha Society, then earned a B.A. from Queen's University in 1968. In 1969, he began his diplomatic career as a Foreign Service Officer in the Department of External Affairs. Throughout the 1970s he held various postings in Ottawa, Paris, and at UN Headquarters in New York. During his thirty-eight year career in public service, Fowler was the Foreign Policy Advisor to Prime Ministers Trudeau, Turner and Mulroney; Deputy Minister of National Defence; Canada's longest serving Ambassador to the United Nations. While at the UN, he represented Canada on the Security Council in 1999 and 2000 and issued two ground-breaking reports on sanctions-busting in Angola, which cut off UNITA's access to the arms bazaar and led to the end of the civil war which had ravaged Angola for 25 years. He was also Ambassador to Italy and the three Rome-based UN food agencies; Sherpa for the Kananaskis G8 Summit (for which he chaired the creation of the Africa Action Plan); and the personal representative for Africa of Prime Ministers Chrétien, Martin and Harper. Robert Fowler retired from the federal public service in the fall of 2006, and is now a Senior Fellow at the University of Ottawa's Graduate School of Public and International Affairs and sits on the Advisory Council of Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute. Ambassador Fowler is also a member of the Research Steering Committee for the Will to Intervene (W2I) Project.

During his tenure as Canada's Deputy Minister of National Defence, substantial evidence made available via Access to Information requests revealed that greed and corruption flourished in the Canadian military's highest echelons as part of his stewardship.

In 2000, he was responsible for producing the "Fowler Report", which led ultimately to the establishment of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme.

In a March 2010 meeting of the Liberal Party, Fowler was a guest speaker who took the opportunity to condemn the Liberals, saying, "I believe the Liberal party has, to a significant extent, lost its way, at least in policy terms, and of course I mean, in particular, my area of foreign policy terms, and is in danger of losing its soul...To this observer, it seems that Liberals today don't stand for much in the way of principles...I have the impression that they will endorse anything and everything which might return them to power and nothing which won't, whatever the merits of either. It's all about getting to power, and it shows...I believe Liberals seem prepared to embrace an infinite array of special interests in order to shill for votes rather than forging a broad-based principled alliance founded in deep Liberal traditions, one with a distinct social contract and an independent Canadian character, which would protect, project and defend core Liberal values at home and abroad..." and on the Conservatives, he said, "In a short period of time we've established unique credentials in Africa", Fowler said. "I fear, however, that we are in the process of squandering a hard-won and important asset.". Fowler did briefly praise the Harper government, "I owe a debt to Mr. Harper and I am all too aware that such criticism is a rather churlish way of repaying it....(however) after four consecutive Conservative budgets, it is clear that the current government has failed to live up to its 2006 election promise to move Canadian aid performance toward the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) average donor spending levels." Fowler stated that both major parties have been enticed by the allure of political gains within the Jewish community. He said it is a strategy that leads to an unproductive support for Israel and undermines Canada's reputation as a trusted mediator in the Middle East. "The scramble to lock up the Jewish vote in Canada meant selling out our widely admired and long-established reputation for fairness and justice", Fowler said.

During an acceptance speech for an honorary doctorate, on October 31, 2010, from the University of Ottawa, Fowler called out young Canadians for being apathetic and stating that they lose their "bitching rights" and "Your age group's involvement in the political process, at all levels of government, stretches any reasonable definition of apathy.".