During his 38-year-career in Canada's public service, Bob Fowler was the foreign policy advisor to Prime Ministers Trudeau, Turner, and Mulroney; the Deputy Minister of National Defense, Canada's longest-serving ambassador to the UN, the ambassador to Italy, sherpa for the Kananaskis G8 Summit, and the personal representative for Africa of Prime Ministers Chretien, Martin, and Harper. He is now a senior fellow at the University of Ottawa's Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. Ambassador Fowler spoke at Â鶹ƵµÀtoday about his experience as a 2008 hostage of Al Qaeda.