Embassy Magazine

"We had a great opening last Friday with the Governor General, so I feel absolutely great," says Paul Dubois, Canada's ambassador to Germany, on the phone from Berlin just three days after the grand opening of the new Canadian embassy on April 29. Mr. Dubois, who has only been in Berlin for eight months, is clearly excited and proud of his new digs, located in the former no-man's-land where the two imposing walls which divided the city during Communist times once stood. The official opening lasted all day, with nearly 700 invited guests from the political, business and arts communities getting a tour of the premises after the official opening by Governor General Adrienne Clarkson. The new embassy is located in the heart of Berlin, in what was formerly the business and commercial centre of the city before it was bombed flat during the Second World War. "Since the [1990] reunification of Berlin," Ambassador Dubois explains, "they have been trying to recreate it as the centre for business activities and office buildings and so on. The Potsdamer Platz has been completely rebuilt and the Leipziger Platz where we are now is rebuilt now, I'd say three-quarters finished. So it is a new life, a rebirth of the centre of Berlin," he says, noting that the mission is surrounded by diplomatic neighbours including the embassies of Mexico, Russia, France, Japan, Hungary, and soon the United States.