A farewell to Scarlata

A good-bye dinner for Toronto's Italian consul general

Angelo Infusino, director of the Italian Trade Commission (ICE), called him "an impeccable civil servant, a man who always harboured the utmost respect for the institutions he represented and therefore commanded the same respect from everybody else."
This was maybe the praise that Francesco Scarlata, Consul General of Italy in Toronto, liked the most. In his honour, the Italian Chamber of Commerce of Toronto organized a farewell dinner at Villa Colombo's Sala Caboto. Scarlata's mandate, in fact, is over, and he is going to leave shortly. His next posting will be the Consulate General of Italy in Munich, Bavaria, a prestigious seat for a diplomat who leaves excellent memories in Toronto and who has been recently promoted to ambassadorial rank.
Around this concept of "impeccable civil servant" were centred all the speeches of those who came to wish Scarlata good-bye, both for themselves and for the institutions they represented: Clemente Benelli, president of IntesaBCI (who's also leaving, bound for London); Carlo Coen, director of the Istituto Italiano di Cultura; Gino Ripandelli, president of Toronto's Comites; Glen Hanna, RCMP inspector; Vince Luca, president of the National Congress of Italian-Canadians; Claudio Lizzola, member of the Consiglio Generale degli Italiani all'Estero (CGIE); Anna Gaspari, of Centro Scuola e Cultura; and Marianne Corigliano of the Canadian-Italian Business and Professional Association (CIBPA). Words of appreciation were used not only towards Scarlata, but also his wife Annamaria. "A real lady," said Inspector Hanna.
As usual, the evening started with the Canadian and Italian national anthems, sung by Giovanna Carini and Joey Niceforo of Centro Scuola e Cultura. Then came the orators, impeccably introduced by MC Alf De Blasis, while in the interval between the speakers the numerous guests were offered high-class wines and dishes created by Gino Marchetti (Ristorante Boccaccio), Giuliano Tassinari (The Lighthouse), Gabriele Paganelli (Romagna mia), Oscar Turchi (Toulá), Rocco Agostino (Silverspoon), and Rita Sale (The Lighthouse). Both the organization, which must be credited to Toronto's Italian Chamber of Commerce, and the service were perfect.
Scarlata is not easily moved, but when he took the podium, after the speeches and dinner, his words were not routinely spoken. "All of us at the Consulate tried to make you feel closer to Italy, giving timely service and specific interventions," he began by summarizing these four years, in a period when consulates and embassies all over the world began to mutate. "In the past Italians went to them; nowadays consulates and embassies actively reach for Italians," explained Scarlata, remarking that teamwork inside Italian diplomatic representations, recently introduced with a reform, was in Toronto a long-acquired practice. "Co-ordination," he said, "is standard method at the Consulate as well as in the planning of interventions in the fields of culture and business." A long, standing ovation saluted Scarlata, manifestation of the most heartfelt gratitude from the Italian-Canadian community for a diplomat of great value and great popularity. The Italian Chamber of Commerce of Toronto and CIBPA decided to give his name to a bursary created with the proceedings of the farewell dinner.
"We wanted to make him a special gift," says Nick Simone, secretary general of the Chamber. "We thought that this was the most appropriate. Scarlata liked it a lot and asked that the bursary be given to a young Italian-Canadian university student. So it will be."

Publication Date: 2002-09-22
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=1770