Diplomacy, discourse and direction: Canada on the global and local stage
Posted Apr 14, 2014 7:11 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
For decades, Canada’s government and its citizens have prided themselves on being respected on the global stage and having international influence, but according to a couple of former prime ministers, that’s changed.
They also say this shift could be enhanced by an increase of blind partisanship in the House of Commons, which could even lead to economic problems.
In the Rt. Hon. Joe Clark’s book, How We Lead: Canada In A Century of Change, Canada’s youngest prime minister and Progressive Conservative suggests the tradition of having a strong economy, military and diplomacy is lacking in the final department.
Clark said it is up to governments to work with global agencies and organizations to put a stop to international problems, citing past examples of campaigns against apartheid and the use of land mines.
“Canada led a coalition between civil society and governments around the world, so that now change the law and are changing the practice,” he said.
However, Clark finds diplomacy as a priority has significantly decreased on the part of the federal government and the country isn’t handling major international issues, such as nuclear power discussions with Iran, as well as they could.
“There are a lot of issues like that, where we could be doing that more in the future and I think that’s critically important,” he said. “Canada has closed our embassy, the approach that the Harper government is taking at the United Nations has been generally quite hostile, it’s a pattern and it’s unfortunately changing our reputation, but it has not killed our capacity, we still have a great capacity to renew that.”
It’s a notion the Rt. Hon. Paul Martin agrees with; he argues although much of the focus of the government has been on the economy, this decrease in reputation could potentially hurt finances.
The last Liberal PM said Canada has lost ground when it comes to how the world views us, pointing to what he sees as the government turning away from relationships with regions such as China and Africa.
“You’re not the first country that people think about when they’re looking at how we extend our trading relationships,” he said. “You’re not looked upon as a country that can be relied upon.”
However like Clark, Martin does not doubt Canada’s capacity, saying the reputation of Canadians when it comes to our quality of life and respect for morality is still very respected and citizens of the world want our country back at the forefront.
“They ask the question more in sorrow than in anger and I believe that means that what they’re really saying is we really do hope that Canada once again will play an important role in the world,” Martin said.
They say it’s not just foreign policy that’s affecting our status, but the interaction in the House of Commons as well.
Along with his short stint as prime minister, Clark was opposition leader for many years and said although he battled the Liberals vigorously, no lines were ever crossed.
“I don’t think anyone on the other side of that house ever thought I hated anybody, I don’t think any of them hated me,” Clark said. “There is a very antagonistic sense now.”
Clark also points to a shift in how government now focuses much more on its base.
He claimed in the past, governments would reach out more to Canadians who hadn’t voted for them in an attempt to draw the country together, but today, strategies rely more on governing towards a party’s base rather than giving equal attention to the interest of the nation as a whole.
“There’s a tendency that it could be the case with opposition parties too and it leads to a much more counter-productive, almost poisonous atmosphere in public affairs,” he said.
It’s a shift John Duffy, founder of Toronto’s StrategyCorp, agrees with.
“The net result is I think it’s made politics a lot more of a bare-knuckle game where you’re just trying to out-organize the other guy, rather than persuade a broad mass of undecided voters in the middle,” he said.
Duffy is no stranger to tracking voters, as he authored 2002’s Fights of Our Lives: Elections, Leadership and the Making of Canada, which chronicled the country’s most important elections from the late 19th century to the late 20th.
The consultant is also a partisan for the Liberals, but isn’t afraid to credit his opponents, such as heavily praising Brian Mulroney for the 1988 free trade agreement.
He also acknowledged there is less civility in Ottawa.
“It’s a vast and complex phenomenon, but there’s no doubt that along the way, something enormously important has been lost in terms of collegiality in Ottawa,” he said, adding veterans of Parliament would say the shift in behaviour picked up when cameras were brought into the House in the early 1980s.
He also said it has increased much more with digital technology and regular citizens being able to communicate easier with lawmakers, agreeing with Clark that parties are focusing more on their base than the country.
Martin has also credited Mulroney, saying his stance against the apartheid movement was a high point in Canadian foreign policy and referenced his father, Paul Sr., who was a cabinet minister under four prime ministers.
“John Diefenbaker and my father were good friends and while they jousted in the House of Commons, it was in the bounds of the necessary and adversary relationship that the House of Commons required, but it never went beyond those bounds,” Martin said.
He also acknowledged both written and unwritten rules are being broken.
“Fairness, transparency and common sense and if you ignore them, then in fact your parliamentary system isn’t going to work,” he said. “It’s narrow ideology that basically is determining what government is going to do and not only narrow-based ideology by a particular party, but within that particular party, which is why you’re seeing the push for parliamentary reform from Conservative back-benchers.”
So if the country’s international reputation has suffered and infighting in Ottawa has potentially made it worse, how does it return to where it once was?
In 2010, Canada lost its bid for a United Nations Security Council seat, marking the first time in 60 years that’s happened and they won’t run to reclaim a seat this year.
But according to Duffy, multi-lateral institutions and global organizations are exactly where Canada has to focus on playing a part, especially when it comes to health initiatives and he’s worried the government will continue disengaging from them.
“I mean these are global governance challenges, pandemics and weird weather and climate change don’t care about borders and they don’t care about who our friends and allies are,” Duffy said, adding a simple, but difficult solution, is putting a price on carbon emissions.
“That’s something that even if you talk to some of the most senior people in the oil patch, they all understand that too,” he said. “It’s just a question of convincing voters that this is in our interest and that is something that a lot of smart people are working on in all kinds of parties.”
Martin also points to taking more action in groups such as the G20, a Canadian initiative which he also chaired in its early years.
“Because the nature of the world is going to be that all of those countries have to be a the table together,” Martin said, adding along with the G20, Canada can also have more of a say with the International Monetary Fund, United Nations and the World Bank.
“These are areas where Canadian officials, Canadian governments and Canadian enterprise can play a huge role,” he said.
As for Clark, he said political leaders have to revert back to looking at what’s best for the country as a whole, instead of the new trend of governing to a base.
“We’ve been at our worst when we’ve been narrow and focusing on our interest above others and there’s no doubt that characterizes Canada today,” Clark said, adding it’s cooperative efforts that led to campaigns against apartheid, as well as gaining free trade agreements and our health care system.
“We need to reignite that spirit in the country again and it should be easy because we’ve done it before,” he said.
