Théodore Jean "Ted" Arcand (25 June 1934 – 16 April 2005) was a Canadian diplomat. He was Canada's Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Hungary, and the Holy See.[1]
His foreign policy career began in 1958 in the Department of External Affairs, now Global Affairs Canada.[2] Over the course of the following two decades, he assumed various roles in several Canadian embassies in Africa and Europe.[2]
In 1979, he was appointed as the Canadian ambassador to Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.[2] In the 1982 Lebanon War, during the Israeli siege of Beirut, the Canadian embassy headed by Arcand became the only Western embassy still operating in west Beirut.[3] For this reason, the embassy played an important role in receiving information from the Palestine Liberation Organization and sharing it with other Western nations, such as the United States, the United Kingdom, France and West Germany.[3] On 28 July, a unanimous resolution at the House of Commons of Canada commended Arcand and his staff for their commitment.[3] After Arcand's apartment was bombed by Israeli jets, the embassy was finally evacuated on 2 August.[4]
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