Diplomacy, it’s been said, is the velvet glove that cloaks the fist of power. If so, Canadian diplomats are poised to drop their gloves.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade is moving to hire martial-arts instructors, to educate its envoys on how to handle themselves should words fail.
“Employees posted abroad must be sensitized to personal security threats in foreign countries,” says a solicitation for martial-arts instructors that was publicly tendered by DFAIT last month.
Ambassadors deployed to “certain higher-risk countries,” the bid says, need to know rudimentary “reactive techniques to manage confrontation in potentially dangerous situations.” ....