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Dear Diary: What a long week! Really looking forward to the saffron festival tonight at the Iranian embassy

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As Russias brutal war on Ukraine continued last Friday, Yasemin Heinbecker, deputy chief of protocol at Global Affairs, attended a Russia Day party at the Russian Embassy in Ottawa. The government has since apologized, called this unacceptable, and vowed no Canadian officials will do so again.

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In Dear Diary, the National Post satirically re-imagines a week in the life of a newsmaker. This week, Joseph Brean imagines what Heinbecker might have been thinking.

Monday

Fun weekend! But now I am back to work at protocol headquarters at Global Affairs, where our motto is our mission. Diplomats Do It Properly. Sounds better in Latin. I am here early arranging a tea service, because Mlanie Joly, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, wishes to visit. I wonder why. Ive opened a tin of caviar, as one does on such occasions. Dont ask me how much I paid for it! (Nothing. Shhh.) I have arranged some chopped onion and egg, bit of crme frache, and mother of pearl spoons. You know, properly.

Blini? I say as the minister sits down.

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Mlanie, actually, she says, coldly.

No, I mean would you like one? Theyre little pancakes for the caviar. Speaking of, did you see that New York Times trend piece about caviar bumps? Like dancefloor cocaine, off your own skin? Honestly, some people are so clueless about how little luxuries can be so obviously linked to major societal problems like drug addiction, or cartel wars in South America.

Or Ukraine? she says, nodding accusatorily.

I dont think thats where cocaine comes from, I say. More of a wheat and beet sort of place, I think.

Well, Joly says. Im glad to hear you read the newspaper. Because youre in it. At a tea party. A Russian tea party. For Russia Day. Did you go to a fing tea party for Russia Day at the Russian embassy?

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Da. I mean, yes. I mean oui. Sorry. Is that bad?

Tuesday

Turns out this is a very bad problem indeed. More than one problem, actually. There is the problem for me, for my fellow protocol experts, for the minister, the government, Canada itself. Its as if each time I open up one problem, there is another problem inside. It is like a little problem inside of a bigger problem inside of an even bigger problem, and so on.

Wednesday

This is getting worse. The minister says she did not know, but her office knew. Obviously we told them. Thats protocol. Its our specialty. Its right there on the Global Affairs protocol headquarters fridge calendar: Russia Day Tea Party, Russian Embassy, Dress: festive, but not too festive, obvs. Avoid blue/yellow combo.

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But now the minister is calling the whole thing unacceptable. If theres one thing a career in diplomacy has taught me, its that Donald Rumsfeld knew whats up. There are known knowns. Thats easy. There are known unknowns, which bother us so much. And there are the sneaky unknown unknowns. This one, however, is the rarest of all, the unknown known. Seems to me the minister knew nothing of it, any of it, all of it. All of what? Exactly.

Thursday

Out for lunch with the minister to discuss my future, as she put it, not very diplomatically. Sounds a little threatening to be honest.

What the heck is Chicken Kyiv?, I said, trying to lighten the mood. Actually, how do you feel about poutine? Im a big fan. I may be a senior Government of Canada employee, specializing in diplomatic protocol, but Id sell my soul for poutine. Such a robust connection to history. Mmmm, love that poutine, I said, en franais, as we are in Gatineau, and its proper to speak French. Not sure why everyone is looking at me.

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Friday

What a long week! Really looking forward to the saffron festival tonight at the Iranian embassy. I knocked off work a bit early to see Top Gun Maverick, which is about a pre-emptive fighter jet strike against the nuclear weapons facilities of an enemy state covered in snow and pine forests, with Cold War military equipment just lying around. So, like, China maybe? They never say. Its very intriguing, like a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, which is how Winston Churchill once described some country or other. Germany, probably. Its just like that problem of mine, in a metaphorical way, kind of like those stacking dolls. After the movie, I asked my friend if she knows what I mean.

Matryoshka, my friend said.

Bless you, I said.

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'Sorry. Is that bad?' The imagined thoughts of the protocol expert who attended a Russian party - National Post