A Conversation With Canada's Ambassador Ed Jager

Ambassadors in Depth

The UB Post is Mongolia's only English language newspaper that is distributed to all the embassies in Mongolia. We make an effort to work closely with all ambassadors and other accredited representatives as we acknowledge the crucial role they play in establishing and sustaining good international relationships. For our 20th anniversary, we are introducing a new regular feature story to The UB Post, "Ambassadors in Depth", to give our readers a closer look at our esteemed ambassadors as individuals and to learn about the work they do. We are grateful for the work these individuals do and are eager to learn more about them with our readers.

andand

By B.Ichinkhorloo

Canada's third resident Ambassador to Mongolia since 2008, His Excellency Ed Jager, was appointed on January 9, 2015, and has been serving as Ambassador since March 2015.

With a law degree from the University of Western Ontario, Ambassador Jager has gained a wide range of international experience in the business and trade sectors of Indonesia, Peru, Afghanistan, and Brazil while representing Canada. Ambassador Jager also contributed to the negotiation of Canada's air transport agreements from 2011 to 2014.

During his leisure time, the ambassador tries to be as active as he can. He jogs in the morning, rides his bicycle for 35 km stretches, enjoys horseback riding, walking around the city to discover nice places, as well as taking time to read good books, mostly non-fiction.

One of the books he is now reading is "Sinophobia: Anxiety, Violence, and the Making of Mongolian Identity", which takes an academic look at the psychological aspect of Mongolia's

relationship to China. He is also reading a book written by Chrystia Freeland, Canada's Minister of International Trade.

Ambassador Jager says he appreciates his job in the foreign service and the opportunity to represent his country abroad and deliver its foreign policy respectfully. The ambassador values family, and he and his wife have five children and seven grandchildren. He is engaged in many community activities, including helping children who want to see the world and building a great future for the children of Mongolia. In our interview with the ambassador, we learn more about his diplomatic mission and life for him in Mongolia.

You arrived in Ulaanbaatar a little over a year ago. Could you please highlight some activities you have initiated as ambassador?

If I may, I prefer to concentrate not so much on myself, but on the work of my team. Because although I have been here a year, I lead a really excellent team, and it's the work of the entire embassy that I think is worthy of discussion not just the work that I have done, but a great team effort.

Last year, we did some interesting things on the political relations front. We re-initiated the Canada-Mongolia roundtable discussion between high-level officials of the governments of both countries. This is something that we initiated 15 years ago, but 2011 was the last time we had one of these roundtables. So, in October of last year, we had another. While doing that, we had a good representation of senior officials from Canada in front of a very active and interested crowd of Mongolian officials. This was a very useful conversation, bringing our relationship up to...