A Weyburn-born diplomat with a long career in foreign affairs has not forgotten his roots in promoting his hometown in far-flung corners of the world, members of the Rotary Club and guests heard in a Zoom presentation on Thursday.
James Hill, who is currently Canada’s ambassador to Costa Rica, has had a career of over a quarter-century serving with Foreign Affairs in a variety of postings around the world, and he shared some stories of his life, including encountering a Weyburn connection in Kuwait City.
“You would be surprised how often Weyburn, and Saskatchewan, come up in my conversation or as an aspect of my work. Weyburn has an inordinate amount of play in the news, and I think it’s a combination of its exotic location,” said Hill, sharing a particular story where his hometown came up.
He has served in a variety of postings, including in Kabul, Afghanistan, and just after leaving that area in 2014, he had a temporary assignment in Kuwait City for four months before being posted to Seattle, Wash. During this brief stay, he received a request from a Canadian-Lebanese businessman who had an extensive Canadian stamp collection, and he asked the embassy for help in putting on a show of these stamps.
The show was easy to set up, and while on a tour of the show with the Canadian Minister of Culture and Tourism and a number of other people, they came upon a set of stamps showing Prairie landscapes, and he said it reminded him of his home.
“I heard a voice behind me say, ‘it looks like it could be Weyburn.’ How would anyone in Kuwait know what Weyburn looks like, other than myself?” he asked, chuckling, and turned around to see who said this.
He asked the man if he had ever been to Weyburn, “and he said he had been, back in 1937.” As it turned out, he was the son of Sarah (Powell) Jamali, Usameh Jamali, who now lives in Kuwait.
“This is where I really value my education in Weyburn. In Grade 8, Jim Nedelcov taught the history of Weyburn, and it was full of facts and figures about Weyburn. Part of it, I remembered the Powell family, and how Sarah had married a Dr. Jamali of Iraq,” he said, noting Dr. Jamali was a foreign minister and later prime minister of Iraq for a time.
Sarah and her husband had three sons, and one of them was Usameh, “and he was behind me and happened to make a comment about Weyburn in the middle of nowhere.”
Hill later met him for dinner, and he explained the story of his family and his mother. “It just confirmed to me you can go anywhere in the world and still be tied to your hometown, so I was proud of that. It was such an interesting evening, talking with this man who hadn’t been to Weyburn in about 70 years, but still had the memory of it, and a memory of his mother who grew up there.”
Sarah Powell and the Jamali family were also the subject of a recently-released book by Weyburn author Jan Keating, entitled “A Prairie Girl: Living in Baghdad”, and she was able to present a signed copy of her book to Hill on Monday.
Hill graduated from the Weyburn Comp in 1978, and then attended the University of Saskatchewan with a bachelor of history, and he later took International Studies at a university in Rio de Janeiro.
Over the span of his career, Hill has worked for Foreign Affairs since 1989, with postings as the High Commissioner in Mozambique; a consul-general in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; consul-general in Seattle, Wash.; charges d’affaires in Kuwait; mission head in Kabul, Afghanistan; charges d’affaires in Tripoli; head of a diplomatic mission to Kosovo, former Yugoslavia; second secretary at the embassy in Iran; and currently is Canada’s ambassador to Costa Rica, with multiple accreditation for Honduras and Nicaragua. He has been home in Weyburn for the last while as his father, Ken Hill, recently passed away.
His position involves representing Canada’s interests in other countries, and the details of what his job entails depends entirely on where he is and what the needs are, whether to promote development, protect and promote Canadian interests, or represent political relations.
To illustrate how his position can arise, he noted when COVID lockdowns began in March, and the prime minister put out the word that Canadians should be coming home while the lockdowns were in place, there were roughly 8,000 Canadians in Costa Rica, many of whom at first thought they could ride it out in that country.
When it became apparent this wouldn’t be realistic or possible, the embassy worked in partnership with the Foreign Affairs office in Ottawa and with Air Canada and Westjet, and arrangements were made to repatriate Canadians back home again.
Asked how long he stays at a particular posting, Hill said it depends in part on the hardships of the posting, and the level of security required, if any. Missions or embassy locations are rated from 0 to 5, with the posting in Afghanistan or South Sudan rated as 5+, compared to low-security-risk postings like the United States, Japan or Singapore (which are rated 0), or Costa Rica, which is rated a 3.
The high-rated postings have a one-year posting, subject to renewal, while a safer posting, such as in the U.S., the posting is for three years, and his current assignment in Costa Rica is a two-year assignment.
“The more difficult a place, the shorter the time you have to spend there,” he said, noting this is so “people who are in the trenches don’t have to be there for extended periods of time.”
He also noted there are some people who purposely seek out the tougher assignments or locations.
“I’ve had a mix. Seattle was an easy one, and I must admit, I really liked it after being in Kosovo,” he said, adding of the more difficult postings, “as rewarding as they can be, they can tend to drain on you after a while.”
Asked if he ever met Ken Taylor, the former Canadian ambassador to Iran, where he helped American embassy workers escape from that country, Hill indicated he had met him in Brazil. Taylor’s “ghost” was still in evidence when Hill was in Iran, and when he was Brazil, he met Taylor because he was on the board of a Canadian mining company. They met and shared many stories of their careers.
