Renowned Ottawa playwright and actor Pierre Brault is taking audiences on a trip back in time to an imagined scenario where John Diefenbaker sets foot in his eponymous underground shelter during a time of tense Canada-U.S. relations.

Dief the Chief: October ‘62, is a two-person act, with Brault as a fictional civil servant, and Peter Haworth portraying Canada’s 13th prime minister whose already rocky relationship with then-American president John F. Kennedy is tested during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

And it all literally takes place 75 feet under ground at the Diefenbunker: Canada’s Cold War Museum in Carp, Ont., 38 kilometres west of Parliament Hill.

“For me, it was ‘How do we use this bunker to best tell the story?’,” Brault told CBC Radio host Rebecca Zandenbergen on July 22. “The bunker itself is a huge, fascinating structure. It’s like if you took the Rideau Centre and buried it underground in Carp.” 

Commissioned by Diefenbaker and built between 1959–1961, the emergency government headquarters was—fortunately—never used for its intended purpose, and was decommissioned in 1994. It’s now a museum to the Cold War era.

Brault described his play as “an ambulatory piece of theatre, meaning we get up, we move around, we walk to the next place.” The audience follows the actors into the bunker’s blast tunnel, down to the war conference room where the red phone to the White House waits, and into the vault.

While Diefenbaker never officially went into the bunker, Brault’s play is based on the premise of what if he had gone down there, 17 years after the Cuban Missile Crisis? 

“It’s a speculative play about Diefenbaker coming to the bunker for his own personal reasons, which we find out at the end, and I think it works wonderfully to have Diefenbaker discover his own bunker, as it were,” Brault told Zandenbergen, who asked whether audiences are still interested in the Cuban Missile Crisis, over 60 years later.

“The real issue [in this play] is Canada’s relationship with the United States, and guess what? We still have it. It has a lot to say about the present day, as well,” said Brault.

The six remaining performances of Dief the Chief: October ‘62 are scheduled on Aug. 15, 20, and 22, and Sept. 12, 17, and 19. Tickets to the play include admission to the Diefenbunker museum.

New book on Chrétien-era foreign policy out next month

There’s a new book coming out this fall about foreign policy during prime minister Jean Chrétien‘s era.

Published by UBC Press, Chrétien and the World: Canadian Foreign Policy from 1993 to 2003, is edited by Jack Cunningham and John Meehan. It features “personal recollections, interviews, and research to portray a foreign policy that was more coherent and engaged than previously believed,” according to the publisher’s website.

“Conventional wisdom holds that foreign policy was not a priority for Jean Chrétien over his 10 years as Canadian prime minister. In reality, he and his government pursued an often ambitious, activist policy to forward not only national interests but liberal ideals on the world stage.”

While UBC Press has a release date of Sept. 15, the book will be officially launched at the Couchiching Conference in Toronto on Sept. 30 featuring “a special presentation exploring the book’s key themes and insights,” followed by a reception, according to the conference’s website. 

Both Cunningham and Meehan are affiliated with the Bill Graham Centre for Contemporary International History at the University of Toronto, and have both edited and written other books on foreign policy.

New heads of mission to Jordan, Libya, Mumbai and Sydney

Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand announced two ambassador and two consul-general appointments on July 30.

Louis-Martin Aumais takes over from Tarik Khan as Canada’s ambassador to Jordan. Since 2024, Aumais has been legal adviser and director general of the International Law Bureau, and an agent for Canada at the International Court of Justice. He counts Beijing and Canberra among his previous postings. As reported in Heard on the Hill on July 9, Khan is headed over to Pakistan to lead our high commission there.

Erstwhile head of mission to Myanmar Allison Stewart is headed to Libya to take over as Canadian ambassador from Isabelle Savard who has been in that role since 2021.

Jeff David will succeed Diedrah Kelly as our consul general in Mumbai, India. Kelly’s LinkedIn shows that she left that role in December 2023. David’s CV includes postings to Afghanistan and to China three times, most recently as consul general to Chongqing from 2017 to 2021. In Ottawa, he’s been lately a special adviser in the Office of the Deputy Minister for International Trade.

And taking on a new posting after four years at headquarters, Ghislain Robichaud will become our consul general in Sydney, Australia, succeeding André-François Giroux. According to Giroux’s LinkedIn profile, he left Sydney in September 2023 and has been Canada’s ambassador to Haiti since October that same year.

Holland’s the new head of the CNE

Former federal health minister Mark Holland has a fun new gig: he’s CEO of the Canadian National Exhibition.

“I’m thrilled to share that I’ve stepped into the role of Chief Executive Officer of the Canadian National Exhibition, a historic institution that has been woven into the cultural life of Toronto and Canada for nearly a century and a half,” the former veteran Liberal MP for Ajax, Ont., posted on LinkedIn on July 29.

Now in its 146th year, the CNE runs from Aug. 15 to Sept. 1 at Exhibition Place along the waterfront in downtown Toronto. Holland didn’t reoffer in the last election.

Former Grit senior staffer joins Fortinet

Former senior Liberal staffer Mike Power has joined Fortinet as head of government affairs for Canada, the global cybersecurity group announced on July 29.

He will also expand Fortinet’s government affairs program, according to a press release.

“Mike’s significant experience in federal government relations and policy experience on national security and technology issues will play a pivotal role in advancing Fortinet’s cyber resilience and policy leadership efforts across Canada,” the firm’s vice president for corporate and government affairs Hugh Carroll is quoted as saying in the press release.

Power left the Hill in March 2023 after eight years working for the Trudeau government. A former director of communications, parliamentary affairs, and issues management to then-innovation minister Navdeep Bains, Power joined Justin Trudeau’s Prime Minister’s Office from early 2016 to early 2020, first as a special assistant for issues management and ending as deputy director of issues management, according to a Hill Climbers profile in February 2023. Power’s last role was as chief of staff to Anita Anand when she was defence minister from the 2021 election until his 2023 departure. 

Off the Hill, Power had been Zurich Resilience Solutions Canada’s assistant vice president for cyber resilience since June 2024. 

cleadlay@hilltimes.com

The Hill Times