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"I never cared about being rich. Getting an education was just about pursuing my passions."
James Bartleman’s life story is part quest, part fairy tale. On one hand he has overcome formidable obstacles to achieve career success. On the other, he has been graced all his life with a natural drive to learn and improve—and has met with some astonishingly good luck throughout an extraordinary journey.
Mr. Bartleman grew up in a humble, working-class family as a member of the Mnjikaning First Nation. Today, following a distinguished career in the Canadian Foreign Service, he serves as Ontario’s 27th Lieutenant Governor. He holds the highest Foreign Service rank of any Canadian aboriginal person and is the first native person in Ontario to hold a vice-regal position.
He is renowned for his efforts as Lieutenant Governor to encourage aboriginal learning, to fight racism and to reduce the stigma of mental illness. In 2004, Mr. Bartleman initiated the Lieutenant Governor’s Book Program, which has collected more than one million used books to stock libraries in First Nations communities. In 2005, he organized summer camps for First Nations children with the purpose of increasing literacy and reducing mental illness and suicide. In recognition of his work he has received numerous accolades, including membership in the Order of Ontario and investiture as a Knight of Justice in the Order of St. John.
Mr. Bartleman’s story begins in the Muskoka Lakes town of Port Carling where he was raised. The family was not permitted to live on the neighbouring Indian River reserve because Mr. Bartleman’s mother had married a non-native man. Living in Port Carling in the 1940s and 1950s meant racism was a part of their everyday lives.
Mr. Bartleman knew from an early age that he aspired to something other—perhaps something greater—than the life his family had provided. Typical for children in the 1940s, he began to make money at the age of eight running paper routes after school, cutting grass and doing other odd jobs.
“You didn’t need much education to trim trees and paint porches,” he says. “I was aware that if I didn’t get an education I was looking at a lifetime of this kind of labour.”
What set Mr. Bartleman apart from his working-class peers was his family’s willingness to nurture his natural aptitude for reading from a young age. “When I opened a book I was able to travel wherever I wanted to go,” he explains. Port Carling had an excellent library and Mr. Bartleman was encouraged to spend a good deal of his time there.
His most important influence growing up, however, was his paternal grandfather, a Scottish immigrant who had arrived in Canada as a young man with only an elementary school education. Although the elder Bartleman was a well-known union organizer and energetic champion of social justice, his lack of formal learning prevented him from achieving many of his goals. He never enjoyed living in small-town Ontario, but believed he lacked sufficient education to leave.
“My Granddad always said ‘Get an education. You don’t want to live out your life as a member of the rural poor.’ His views had a tremendous impact on me.” Mr. Bartleman was a diligent student throughout elementary school and the pride of his mother’s family when he was the first among them to enter continuation school—the Port Carling equivalent of modern high school.
“I had this blind faith that I would eventually get a first-rate education. It seemed inconceivable that I’d spend the rest of my days working as a labourer in Port Carling.”
Then one day, as the teenaged Bartleman tended the grounds of a cottage owned by wealthy American Robert Clause, his employer made him the offer of a lifetime: was he interested in pursuing Grade 13 and university? Mr. Clause was offering to pay for it.
“My career would not have been as rich without his support,” says Mr. Bartleman. “And since my lifestyle and relatives had already taught me the value of getting an education, it’s no exaggeration to say his offer was made to the most eager student in town.”
Mr. Bartleman entered university without any particular career goals. He loved history and international relations and pursued both subjects with fervour at the University of Western Ontario, where he obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree with honours.
“I never cared about being rich,” he says. “Getting an education was just about pursuing my passions. I wanted an honest job that didn’t involve manual labour—and I wanted to travel.”
After graduation, Mr. Bartleman bought a one-way ticket to Europe. He landed in London and took a job with the British Council, where he was able to slip away from his desk and listen to in-house lectures about art, literature, British foreign policy, and the Foreign Service. The British Council librarian gave Mr. Bartleman tickets to spectacular London shows. He watched the Royal Philharmonic orchestra perform at Royal Albert Hall, and visited the city’s best art galleries. He was at St Paul’s Cathedral when Martin Luther King Jr. repeated his “I Have a Dream” speech. He waited in line for six hours to walk by Winston Churchill’s coffin in 1965.
“It was among the most enriching times of my life,” says Mr. Bartleman. “A great deal of it happened because I was so enthusiastic about learning—any kind of learning. I decided then to join the Foreign Service because it seemed like the surest route to a life of travel and interesting experiences.”
Mr. Bartleman wrote the Canadian Foreign Service exam in 1965, and joined in June 1966. He says he did not actively plan his career over the next 35 years; he took on with equal enthusiasm, the often difficult assignments that came his way.
“After more than three decades in the Foreign Service I became an expert in at least a dozen specialties. The real lesson was that there was so much to learn from the people around me.”
Some of Mr. Bartleman’s more memorable postings were Colombia, Cuba, Israel and Bangladesh. He learned Spanish, deepened his understanding about South Asian history and, through intensive study, became an expert on Judaism and Islam. He learned about development assistance, international terrorism, arms control and the unique history of the threat of Communism in the Caribbean during the late 1950s.
He remembers a particularly intimidating assignment that he handled with characteristic aplomb: NATO named Mr. Bartleman as Canadian representative on a military/technical working group focussing on conventional troop reductions in Central Europe.
“Well, I didn’t have a clue what that meant,” he laughs. “But I had a group of Colonels teaching me and briefing me. So in time, and with hard work, I became an expert on military technical matters.”
In 1994 Prime Minister Jean Chrétien asked Mr. Bartleman to serve as Foreign Policy Advisor. He accepted the appointment with confidence; in many ways it was the culmination of three decades of experience with foreign policy and international affairs. “The Prime Minister could phone me up and I was there, ready, because of my learning.”