Canada can maintain ties with virtual embassies

In March, Canada closed its embassy in Syria. Earlier this month, Canada closed its embassy in Iran. Now we learn that sharing embassies with Britain may benefit Ottawa’s bottom line. In some of these cases, there were important diplomatic and security reasons for scaling down formal ties. But even without diplomats on the ground, Canada’s relationships don’t need to suffer. How do we protect ties in countries where we have no physical presence? The next best thing is a virtual embassy. And virtual embassies should be the anchor to Foreign Affairs’ strategy in the area of digital diplomacy.

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