New British Consul-General Arrives in Vancouver from Nairobi
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OUTGOING British Consul Martin Cronin welcomes Alex Budden who will be taking over the position in Vancouver which covers a vast area ranging across British Columbia, Alberta, the Yukon and the Northwest Territories.
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By MAURA McCAY
VANCOUVER - Alex Budden arrived here early in July to take up his new position as British Consul-General. He will replace Martin Cronin who has covered British Columbia, Alberta, the Yukon and the Northwest Territories for the past four years.
Cronin and his wife Kyla are expecting their first child in the next few weeks, so he has elected to take a career break to spend some time together with his family at their new home in Kelowna, B.C.
Alex Budden spoke to The Celtic Connection upon his arrival about the contrast between his new posting in Canada and the one he just left in Nairobi, Kenya.
He noted that his wife Diane their two children Rebecca (8) and Robert (5) are absolutely loving their new environment.
Budden said, "As much as the children enjoyed their time in Kenya - going on safari, seeing lions and giraffes, going swimming in the Indian Ocean - it was a very restrictive society.
"There was barbed wire and guards on the gates of the house. At night we had to have armed escorts. It was a very difficult environment.
"When we arrived in Vancouver, my son volunteered to be the gate guard because he realized there was no gate guard on our house here. So for the first hour we arrived here he was standing there watching what was going on, making sure no one came in.
"Now we've relaxed into it a little bit more. We found playgrounds for the children, we're five minutes from the beach. So there's this freedom that we're suddenly experiencing.
"I must admit for me there is this sense of real relief that I can come to work and do my job and my mind is not always preoccupied with whether or not my family is safe.
"The concern that if I can't contact them...why is that...what's the problem. It really distracts you and takes your mind off things. Whereas, here I can focus 100 percent on the job."
As difficult as it might be, Budden said he and his wife always try to choose postings where we can be together. "Postings like Kabul or Baghdad are unfortunately unaccompanied and there are times where you would have to do that" he said, "but as much as possible, we try to remain together as a family."
The situation in Kenya deteriorated very quickly to everyone's surprise in early 2008 after an electoral disagreement turned very violent.
Speaking about the importance of Kenya to Britain, Budden said, "It is a very important location for Britain for several reasons. The first, of course, is our colonial history, but more relevant, modern trade and investment. There are also the harder issues such as terrorism and counter narcotics, which are very relevant.
"We have something like 200,000 British nationals a year who travel to Kenya on holiday and we have about 25,000 to 30,000 British nationals living there, so it is a very important country for us in Africa.
"Unfortunately as most people will be aware through global news, about December-January we had some awful trouble around disputed elections, which led to a lot of deaths in the local community and which really pushed Kenya back many years.
"The country had only started to recover from the terrorist attacks of 2002 which had really dented the economy and impacted tourism there, and now it has gone through this trouble.
"Of course, it is nowhere nearly as bad as what we've seen in places like Zimbabwe but for what was seen as the most stable country on the east coast and the gateway to central Africa, it was a real shock to a lot of people.
"From a personal point of view, it was very hard being there. At the end of two-and-a-half years, thinking that we were going to see a democratic election and a shift of government, perhaps a step forward and a sense of hope for people, what we saw was a real step backwards to 10-15 years ago.
"For all of us UK-based and Kenyan staff working at the mission, it was a very upsetting time personally as well as professionally."
Despite the violence and turbulence, Budden and his family carried on and this was important as the British national community turned to him for guidance as to whether or not to leave the country.
He spoke about the importance of the lines of communication with the ex-patriot British community and how in a time of crisis how vital that was.
"Of course, we don't treat our family any different to any of the other British nationals. If the advice was that British nationals should leave, then our family would have gone.
"We got to the point a couple of times during January and February when we thought we would have to evacuate all British nationals, but it was very important to remember that we were still part of the community.
"For instance, my wife was still taking our children to school each day throughout the troubles and she was being asked by the other mothers what was the situation. In a way, us continuing to take our children to school was an indication of how we felt about the situation."
The message was clear: Nairobi wasn't going up in flames. Budden said, "we felt we could continue some element of life, but we made it clear to the British community that the moment we thought it was too dangerous, we would announce that we needed to make preparations to leave. It never quite came to the point, but it came very close."
In his new portfolio, Alex Budden will cover a large part of western Canada and the north. He spoke about the importance of this territory to the British Government saying, "from the briefings that I received in London prior to my arrival here, western Canada is quickly coming up the scale of importance and the role it plays in Canadian national politics.
"Also internationally, it is the gateway to the Pacific, with very close connections to the west coast of America, so I think the United Kingdom sees this as a very important part of the country."
Budden has been in the British diplomatic service for the past 17 years. Prior to that he was in the Hampshire Constabulary and then for a time in Scotland Yard. He decided to go back to University and upon completion, joined the Foreign Office.
He has served in Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Nepal (where he met his wife who was a nurse there.) From there they went to Croatia, and then to Kenya, and now Canada.
His career path has been very focused on international security conflict issues. He said, "I've never served properly in what we call the First World, the developed world, so in that respect, Vancouver is very new for me, but also a very pleasant surprise.
"The issues I will be dealing here with the Federal Government are the sort of things I have dealt with all my life such as Afghanistan, Iraq, terrorism. These are very big political issues which affect all of us.
"But also now looking very much at the trade, the economy, the issues around western Canada as well.
"In fact, the range of issues I'm going to be dealing with here will draw on all my experience including consular, visa, developmental work. I have a lot to bring to this job beyond a straight political analysis, so I hope that will shine through.
"I'll be here for four years, so I'll be here for 2010 Winter Olympics, which is very important for Canada but also for the United Kingdom with 2012 on the horizon. So we will be working very closely with British Columbia on that."
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