A diplomat in environmentalist's clothing
Subtitle: a memoir
By: Raymond M. Robinson
Publisher: BPS Books
Published: 2014
Place of publication: Toronto [Canada]; New York [New York]
Language: eng
Number of pages: 474
ISBN-13: 9781927483763; 9781927483756; 9781927483770
Copyright date: 2014
Subjects: Canadian Diplomatic and consular service; History; Foreign correspondents; POLITICAL SCIENCE; Government; International; International Relations; General
Description: A multilayered memoir of a life well lived, told in words that are informative, entertaining, funny, and truly inspiring. In A Diplomat in Environmentalist's Clothing, Ray Robinson relates how, as Canada's youngest diplomat, he rose to become, arguably, his country's most influential environmental official, serving throughout the first two decades of the contemporary environmental era. Robinson's account also details his central role in cleaning up the Great Lakes, battling acid rain, getting lead out of gasoline, and writing the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. The book is also a romantic, though sometimes troubled, personal tale. The illegitimate descendant of an aristocratic family with a thousand-year history, Robinson nearly died at birth in London, England, before being taken as an infant to be raised by his single mother on Canada's West Coast. Adventures abound, including facing the feared Soviet KGB, evading murderous attacks in a South American jungle, saving the life of a Canadian correspondent, and helping transform a very poor Bogota neighbourhood. After an unprecedented Parliamentary send-off, Robinson left for Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1991. Only fifty-four, he chose to end his Ottawa career and give full-time care to his wife, Ardith. Woven throughout this book are his experiences of a home life that has been dominated for nearly half a century by a battle with family schizophrenia, and more recently Alzheimer's, which tested the marital vow of in sickness and in health almost beyond the limit. A series of crises in far-off New Zealand forty-five years ago led to a dramatic spiritual transformation that enabled him and his wife to fulfill that vow and recently celebrate fifty-five years of marriage. Robinson also provides: constructive comment on the inside workings of Canada's Government and Parliament, with many anecdotes of working up close with fourteen different Cabinet ministers.
Notes: Includes index.