Robert R. Fowler O.C. Bob Fowler was the Foreign Policy Advisor to Prime Ministers Trudeau, Turner and Mulroney; Deputy Minister of National Defence; Canada’s longest serving Ambassador to the UN (representing Canada on the Security Council in 1999 and 2000); Ambassador to Italy, Albania, San Marino, the three Rome-based UN Food Agencies (FAO, WFP, and IFAD), and High Commissioner to Malta; and Personal Representative for Africa of PMs Chrétien, Martin and Harper. He retired in of 2006. In July 2008, the Secretary General of the UN, Ban Ki-moon, appointed Mr. Fowler to be his Special Envoy to Niger. While engaged in his UN mission, Mr. Fowler and his colleague, Louis Guay, were captured by Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), and held hostage deep in the Sahara Desert for nearly five months. In November 2011 HarperCollins (Canada) published his account entitled, “A Season in Hell : My 130 days in the Sahara with Al Qaeda". Bob and Mary have four daughters and seven grandchildren