Property management

For decades Foreign Affairs has had a deplorable track record in its management of staff accommodations abroad, while its portfolio of properties – often lavishly extravagant and wasteful – has ballooned into billions of dollars.

When the Auditor General criticized the department for its lack of controls, it responded by setting up the Bureau of Physical Resources to ensure that its real estate assets were managed efficiently and in line with Treasury Board rules. But the Bureau found itself powerless in the face of entrenched opposition by senior diplomats accustomed to indulging themselves.