FOREIGN DIPLOMATS ACCUSED OF MISCONDUCT

Accused of assault, harassment

OTTAWA • Canada has arranged to get a foreign ambassador recalled and an honorary consul suspended from his post in Ottawa in recent months, one for sexual harassment and the other for assault.

Meanwhile a second ambassador to Canada is facing possible assault charges.

The three incidents are not connected. Global Affairs Canada will not identify the individuals or their countries.

But its internal summary of offences allegedly committed by members of Ottawa’s diplomatic community opens a window into these and a range of other crimes and civil offences, including fleeing police, impaired driving, armed robbery, unpaid bills and harassment.

There have also been six cases of diplomats’ families being referred to the Children’s Aid Society in a threemonth period early this year, and seven staffers or their relatives from two embassies have recently claimed refugee status here.

Documents released through an access to information request are heavily censored to remove all identifying references, even names of countries. But the quarterly reports to the protocol office at Global Affairs offers intriguing glimpses into undiplomatic behaviour.

❚ Global Affairs approached a foreign country last year to take action against its ambassador, with a deadline of last Dec. 8. “The reports regarding the ambassador’s conduct include allegations of harassment and unwelcome actions of a sexual nature,” the report says.

Police were not called, but Global Affairs decided that “the ambassador’s continued presence in Canada was deemed to be a significant disruption to the conduct of normal diplomatic relations.”

The ambassador was recalled by his own country in December. Since then, “the Office of Protocol has since been advised by the director of the West and Central Africa Division that, during a private conversation following his presentation of credentials, the newly arrived ambassador of (deleted) to Canada proactively expressed his dismay and embarrassment regarding the conduct of his predecessor.”

The ambassador of another country was facing possible assault charges earlier this year, though the internal reports don’t tell the outcome. The allegations stem from a 2017 incident.

Global Affairs notes that the RCMP wanted the protocol office “to prepare an appropriate request for a waiver of immunity to accompany the court documents.”

This means the ambassador’s country would be asked to set aside the immunity that otherwise protects him from criminal charges here.

An honorary consul has been charged with assault. The document doesn’t say which police force laid the charges. As an honorary consul, the man does not qualify for diplomatic immunity.

His country has suspended him from his post.

All these incidents are described in a report covering the period from last December to March of this year.

And there are lesser, but still serious, offences.

An ambassador has been charged with careless driving. He or she was not in an accident but was pulled over by police.

One embassy driver crashed his car and fled the scene, along with the passenger, who appears from the censored documents to be the driver’s father. It says the son “later approached police to provide a statement once his father was located by police ...

“The accident remains under investigation.”

Elsewhere, the son of a high commission official was charged with impaired driving. The high commission handed over the man’s driver’s licence and has promised to keep him off the road while the court deals with the impaired charge.

And yet another son of a diplomat got into other trouble behind the wheel. He has been charged with taking a car without permission, two counts of fleeing while pursued by police, failing to remain at an accident scene and mischief to property over $5,000, along with breach of his bail conditions.

One diplomatic agent left the country after police began investigating his acts of “unwanted attention and communication,” the Global Affairs reports say.

And a diplomatic agent who left Canada in late 2016 walked away from $4,700 in lease payments to an Ottawa car dealer.

One embassy sold its former staff quarters building and made a capital gain, which is taxable. The country still owed Canada Revenue Agency $283,000 in tax, as of March 2017.