Meet Practitioner Fellow Joël Dalibard, Diplomatic Relations and International Law Specialist



SPPGA Practitioner Fellow Joel Dalibard

The School of Public Policy and Global Affairs welcomes Joël Dalibard to our community as he serves as a Practitioner Fellow for the start of 2025. Joël has extensive experience in international operations of diplomacy, having working as a Foreign Service Officer at Global Affairs Canada since 2008. He has been posted to the Embassy of Canada in Tokyo as both Second Secretary, covering bilateral security cooperation, as well as First Secretary in which he led the embassy’s outreach efforts toward Japanese parliamentarians. He has also been seconded to Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. Beyond his work on Japan, Joël has practiced international law within the Legal Affairs Bureau at Global Affairs Canada, most recently serving as the departmental lead on legal issues related to maritime security.

We caught up with Joël to gain a deeper understanding of his career in public policy and his upcoming time with us. He shares how his work on relations between Canada and Japan have served as invaluable lessons toward the strategic development of international policy, as well as future expansions of Canada’s international partnerships. Check out his Q&A here:

What has been a meaningful moment in your career that underscores the need for good public policy?

Diplomacy is often an exercise in persistence. Implementing public policy effectively in the international sphere means taking the long view, patiently ensuring that the appropriate institutional frameworks, personal connections, and resources are in place so that they can be rapidly mobilized when necessary. Developing new initiatives between states can sometimes take months or years, and progress may seem frustratingly imperceptible, but the gradual advancement of preparatory work is what sets the stage for an eventual breakthrough.

In the course of my experience working on Canada-Japan relations, I have had the opportunity to observe how sustained planning and preparations can ultimately make it possible to deliver concrete diplomatic results when they are most needed. Over the past 16 years, I have watched bilateral ties expand in unprecedented and exciting directions as a result of such groundwork. The last six years alone have not only seen Canada join Japan in one of the world’s most ambitious trade agreements (the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership), but also the establishment of an overarching framework for bilateral cooperation (the Shared Canada-Japan Priorities contributing to a free and open Indo-Pacific), as well as the entry into force of a bilateral Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement that allows mutual material assistance between the Canadian Armed Forces and the Japan Self-Defense Forces. Many other bilateral initiatives have been implemented or are underway on issues related to security, trade, energy, health, and the environment.

Recent global events have undoubtedly played an important role in driving forward Canada-Japan relations. The challenges facing the rules-based international order, upon which Canada and Japan have long relied, have created a sense of urgency and prompted both sides to deepen their collaboration. This context alone, however, does not explain how the relationship was able to progress so rapidly in recent years. Policy proposals laying out a path toward greater Canada-Japan security cooperation and trade integration were not designed on the spur of the moment. Early versions of these projects were being planned when I first joined the Japan desk in 2008 and efforts to develop them continued in subsequent years. Certain ideas proved unviable and were discarded along the way, but the better options were advanced and refined over time. When international circumstances prompted Canada and Japan to place greater emphasis on bilateral relations, the existence of proposals already in preparation made it possible to quickly present decision-makers with well-considered and, in certain cases, pre-negotiated options. The many recent bilateral initiatives resulting from these efforts constitute, arguably, an example of successful public policy. Hopefully, they can provide relevant lessons for future efforts to expand Canada’s international partnerships.

What are you most looking forward to engaging in as an SPPGA Practitioner Fellow?

During my fellowship at SPPGA, I am keen to participate in the ongoing work of faculty and students. UBC is an important source of policy ideas regarding the Indo-Pacific, so I look forward to any opportunities to use my Japan experience to assist with research and teaching in this field!

One of my main objectives while at the School is to provide insights regarding the procedures that shape government decisions and international diplomacy. When I was a student, I had only vague notions of how the machinery of government was structured and I would have found it useful to know more. The mechanisms applicable to international diplomacy seemed similarly opaque to me, until I had the opportunity to work within them. If I can provide the SPPGA community with a better understanding of these institutions, both to assist with research and to help students with their career choices, then hopefully I will have served one of the purposes of the practitioner fellowship programme.

Given the opportunity, I would also like to use my time at SPPGA to share knowledge with Canadians at large. One of my previous assignments at Global Affairs Canada Headquarters was as deputy director of the Access to Information and Privacy Protection Division, and I am a strong believer in the importance of transparency so that citizens can be well informed about government policy. I hope my time in academia will be an occasion to promote a wider public understanding of the institutions that manage foreign policy and why they are relevant to everyday life.