Diplomatic Lunch

Join Rosemary McCarney, Junior Fellows and special guest Geoff White for lunch and a discussion in the Private Dining Room.

Geoff White is a writer and retired diplomat. During his career, he was first a journalist and subsequently an officer and executive with the department of foreign affairs and international trade (now Global Affairs Canada).

From 1990 to 2018, Geoff undertook a wide variety of assignments in the department of foreign affairs. He managed strategic communications for the negotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA); helped negotiate bilateral agreements for international air traffic rights; managed the softwood lumber controls division; and directed the public diplomacy and international arts promotion program. He was political counsellor at the Canadian high commission in South Africa from 2009 to 2013. He was later the senior trade commissioner at the Canadian embassy in Chile until shortly before his retirement.

From 1973 to 1990, Geoff was a staff writer, successively, for the Prince Albert Daily Herald, the Saskatoon Star Phoenix, and the Calgary Herald. For the latter, he covered the National Energy Program and the constitutional negotiations leading to the patriation of the Canadian constitution. As the Herald’s parliamentary correspondent from 1985, he covered the negotiations of the Meech Lake Accord, the introduction of the goods and services tax, and foreign policy and defence issues.

Geoff was born near Liverpool, England in 1951. He immigrated to Canada with his family in 1955. He was raised and educated in Calgary, graduating with a BA in political science from the University of Calgary in 1973. Geoff was a Southam Fellow at Massey College during the 1984-85 academic year.

In late 2022, he published a memoir of his career with the department of foreign affairs entitled Working for Canada: A Pilgrimage in Foreign Affairs from the New World Order to the Rise of Populism.