Civil servant and author David Malone had an extensive career that covered a half-century.Eskinder Debebe/UN Photo
One of the giants of Canada’s Foreign Service, David M. Malone had an illustrious 50-year career as a diplomat, academic and international civil servant, with leadership positions in Ottawa, New York, Delhi and Tokyo. He was also a prolific author of books and essay collections, focusing on international security, the United Nations, development and Indian foreign policy. In his last posting, as rector of the United Nations University (UNU) in Tokyo, he held the rank of UN under-secretary general.
Mr. Malone was diagnosed with prostate cancer more than a year ago and, more recently, with Alzheimer’s disease. His niece Justine Malone, a lawyer in Canada’s Department of Justice and executor of his estate, says he was able to demonstrate that he still had the requisite level of lucidity to make the free choice of medical aid in dying and could determine when he would take the procedure. He was not in physical pain but chose an early date, Nov. 24.
And so, that morning, in his own bed in his own apartment in Victoria’s Regent Hotel, with his niece, as well as Hélène Bouboulis (a friend from his boarding school days in Paris) and three other friends at his bedside, he prepared for his life to end.
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The day before, Mr. Malone had taken a friend to a Sunday afternoon concert of the Victoria Symphony (the program featured Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring) and the pair were joined for dinner by his niece and another friend at one of Mr. Malone’s favourite restaurants, the Ugly Duckling.
As the final procedure began at midday on the Monday, the administering doctor suggested the patient think of a particularly fond memory – Mr. Malone said he was thinking of the concert with his friend. He died that day at the age of 71.
The youngest of five children, David Michael Malone was born in Ottawa on Feb. 7, 1954. His extensive career began in 1975 when, at the age of 21, he followed in the footsteps of his father, Paul Malone, and two of his brothers, Anthony and Christopher, and joined Canada’s Foreign Service.
For a while, all four Malones served at the same time in the diplomatic corps. Prime minister Pierre Trudeau, when being introduced to David at an official function, is said to have quipped: “Not another Malone!”
Mr. Malone had taken his baccalaureate while at school in France, received his BA at the University of Montreal (at the age of 18) and completed a graduate degree at U of M’s École des hautes études commerciales (now HEC Montreal), so he moved swiftly up the diplomatic ladder. An early assignment was to take a Master’s of Public Administration at Harvard, which he received in 1980.
The young diplomat was then sent off to Egypt, where he studied Arabic and modern Arab history at the American University of Cairo. From there, he was assigned briefly to the Canadian embassy in Kuwait and then, in 1983, as first secretary to the embassy in Amman – a strategic appointment.
Mr. Malone had a particularly good gig. Every month or so, he would travel north to the Syrian capital of Damascus, where he would meet quietly with leading figures in the various Palestinian militant movements, including the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Fatah movement, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
These groups had been condemned by Canada as terrorist organizations and official contact with them was forbidden. They were also not welcome in Jordan, where 50 per cent of the population was Palestinian and where the PLO in 1970 had challenged Jordan’s King Hussein.
As Mr. Malone’s position at the Canadian embassy was not that of ambassador or head of mission, the meetings were not considered “official.” He filed reports to Ottawa, briefed his own embassy and accepted frequent invitations to various embassies in Jordan where he could trade intelligence, and win brownie points for Canada.
It was at that time that this writer was first introduced to Mr. Malone by, of all people, the mayor of Bethlehem, Elias Freij, a Palestinian. During an interview on the state of Palestinian militancy, the mayor said that this Canadian, David Malone, knew more about the militant Palestinian groups than him or anyone else. “Go see him in Amman,” he insisted.
I did and benefitted greatly from his knowledge and his contacts then and for years to come.
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Mr. Malone rose quickly through the ranks. Two years as Canada’s ambassador to the United Nations’ Economic and Social Council were followed by his appointment as deputy permanent representative to the United Nations (1992 to ’94), then to Ottawa as director-general for policy, international organizations and global issues from 1994 to ’98.
The last appointment was a mouthful to pronounce but it provided him opportunity to cultivate support for Canada which was seeking election to a seat on the UN Security Council in the 1999-2000 term. He was successful, the last time Canada has held such a seat.
During this time, he also took a leave and completed his DPhil at the University of Oxford.
From 1998 to 2004, Mr. Malone led the International Peace Academy (now the International Peace Institute), a New York-based independent research and policy development organization. During his tenure, Mr. Malone turned the institute into the unofficial “salon” of the UN community.
The United Nations University, in its memorial statement last week, said Mr. Malone succeeded in “bringing together diplomats, researchers and NGOs to discuss critical issues facing the United Nations outside the formal strictures of the UN halls.”
Mr. Malone stressed that the impact of the IPA‘s work could be seen in the scores of young researchers for whom the institution was “a launchpad for careers in diplomacy, the UN, academia and the think tank world.”
His own research at that time was focused on the appalling turbulence at the UN Security Council over dealing with Iraq, a renegade state in the eyes of many. His book The International Struggle Over Iraq: Politics in the UN Security Council 1980-2005 was a critical success.
Writing in the journal Foreign Affairs, G. John Ikenberry called it “a fascinating portrait of the changing and often conflicting uses of the Security Council by the major powers, played out against a backdrop of shifting security threats, geopolitical realities and U.S. foreign policy ambitions.”
“This book,” Prof. Ikenberry concluded, “is essential reading for those who want to use the lessons of the Security Council’s tumultuous encounter with Iraq to guide UN reform.”
Mr. Malone returned to Ottawa in 2004 as assistant deputy minister for global issues, then quickly went back into the field in 2006 as high commissioner to India, which he recently told his niece had been his favourite assignment.
A friend who visited him during his time in Delhi reported that she had never seen him happier and that he was engrossed in researching his next book – a study of India’s contemporary foreign policy.
He moved on after just two years in Delhi, however, to take the helm of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) in Ottawa, a federally funded corporation that encourages and supports research into the problems of the developing regions of the world.
A workhorse by nature, Mr. Malone had made a habit of changing jobs within five years. He appeared to believe that one’s efficiencies were greater this way, that whatever new ideas one might bring to a position could be passed on within that length of time, and that whatever new input one might derive from the position could be acquired within that period. Staying any longer, he believed, risked laziness and inefficiency.
So it came as a bit of shock, one senior analyst said, when Mr. Malone first addressed the IDRC staff at a town hall and told them bluntly: If any of them had been at IDRC for more than 10 years, they should consider moving on. The crowd was silent.
Looking back at that incident, this analyst also acknowledged that Mr. Malone was an intellectual force, and wonderful to talk to about new ideas and projects.
When he left after his five-year term, the outgoing president told an interviewer, “I’m very excited about IDRC.” He added “I’ve enjoyed every minute of being here.”
A remembrance of Mr. Malone published last week noted that he “encouraged IDRC to go beyond its core role as a research funder to also distill, analyze and share its knowledge and expertise.”
This reflects Mr. Malone’s own record of continuing to publish work alongside his leadership roles. Indeed, while at IDRC, he completed his landmark study on India’s foreign policy: Does the Elephant Dance? Contemporary Indian Foreign Policy.
Mr. Malone seems to have relished writing this book more than any other. In a preface he wrote of his infatuation with India, encouraged by his journalist mother, Deirdre Lavalette Ingram Malone.
“My mother unreservedly adored India,” he wrote, “and everything to do with it.”
He himself, he said, had “travelled in the country, exploring it as much as I could over the years, ever since my youth.”
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Mr. Malone broke with past practice and stayed two full five-year terms at his final stop as rector of the United Nations University in Tokyo. He wrote prodigiously and mentored bright graduate students, two of his favourite activities.
It was not long after he left UNU in 2023 that he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. But more troubling to Mr. Malone was that he also was experiencing memory loss, which eventually led to his diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease. He realized that a loss of memory might one day mean he would lack the capacity to authorize MAID and face the kind of drawn-out, mindless ending he dreaded.
“His standards of being alive were very high,” said Lyndsay Green, author of a book on aging, who became a friend of Mr. Malone’s in the past few months.
Mr. Malone never married and had no children, two things that might have alleviated his fears. But, lacking those things, he chose to act.
A few days before his last day, Mr. Malone sent an e-mail to a dear friend in India, Shashi Tharoor, an author, politician and former diplomat. In that note he wrote, matter-of-factly, “If all goes well, by next Monday I will be no more;” then explained about Canada’s right to die.
Mr. Tharoor was aghast and tried to talk his friend out of it, to no avail.
Upon reflection, and after the fact, he wrote: “David asserted a final act of agency. He refused to let disease dictate the terms of his existence.”
“He chose to leave while he was still himself. In doing so, he left his friends not with the image of a man diminished, but with the memory of a person who remained brilliant, humane and generous to the last.”
True to form, David Malone planned every detail of his own exit – a cremation, no funeral and burial of his ashes at a spot he had chosen near Meech Lake, Que., outside Ottawa.
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