THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Thursday, April 20, 2023
The Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade met with videoconference this day at 11:31 a.m. [ET] to examine, and report on, the Canadian Foreign Service and elements of the foreign policy machinery within Global Affairs Canada; and, in camera, to carry out a comprehensive review of the provisions and operation of the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act (Sergei Magnitsky Law) and the Special Economic Measures Act.
Senator Peter M. Boehm (Chair) in the chair.
[Translation]
The Chair: My name is Peter Boehm. I am a senator from Ontario and the Chair of the Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade.
[English]
Before we begin, I wish to invite committee members participating in today’s meeting to introduce themselves.
Senator M. Deacon: Good morning. Marty Deacon from Ontario.
[Translation]
Senator Gerba: Amina Gerba from Quebec.
[English]
Senator MacDonald: Michael MacDonald from Nova Scotia.
Senator Coyle: Mary Coyle from Antigonish, Nova Scotia.
Senator Ravalia: Mohamed Ravalia from Newfoundland and Labrador.
Senator Woo: Yuen Pau Woo from British Columbia.
Senator Boniface: Gwen Boniface from Ontario.
Senator Cardozo: Andrew Cardozo from Ontario.
The Chair: Welcome, senators, and I wish to welcome all who are watching us today from across our country.
Today, we continue our study on Canada’s Foreign Service — the objective of which is to evaluate if Canada’s Foreign Service and foreign policy machinery are fit for purpose, and ready to respond to global challenges today and in the future.
To discuss the matter, we are very honoured to welcome, by video conference, the Honourable Lloyd Axworthy, the former minister of foreign affairs from 1996 to 2000. Welcome, Mr. Axworthy, to the committee, and thank you for being here.
Before we hear your remarks, Mr. Axworthy, and proceed to questions and answers, I wish to ask members to please refrain from leaning in too close to the microphone, or remove your earpiece when doing so. This will avoid any sound feedback that could negatively impact the committee staff and our interpreters who are wearing earpieces for their work.
We are ready to hear your opening remarks, Mr. Axworthy, and these will be followed by questions from senators and your answers. You have the floor.
Hon. Lloyd Axworthy, P.C., Former Minister of Foreign Affairs, as an individual: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I really appreciate the invitation. It’s good to see you again. I welcome the opportunity to have a good discussion with members of the committee. I think you are focusing on a very crucial part of the infrastructure for Canada’s diplomacy.
Let me begin by providing you with a little bit of context: As you pointed out, I served as the foreign minister in Jean Chrétien’s government for close to five years which, compared to the revolving door that we have had recently, is a pretty long stretch. It is a very important factor to take into account. It gives you a long runway to continue to see where you lift off and where you land.
For me, it was the culmination of a very long boyhood dream. When I was a 17-year-old high school student in the north end of Winnipeg, I heard Mike Pearson talk about what it meant to be a Canadian and how Canada could make a difference. He was newly a Nobel Prize winner, and had been a major participant in the creation of the UN and other areas. I came away from that meeting struck by the fact that there was a calling — there was a vocation — both individually for me and for the country as a whole.
It was interesting that around 30 years later, I ended up being in the position to follow in those footsteps — to try to design and set a course for Canada’s role in the world.
I should say, by way of full disclosure, that it did not come to me in a straight path. I thought that my first step after graduating from university and graduate school was to take the exams for the Foreign Service. Well, I did not make the cut. As a result, I had to take the political route to work my way up through being a member of the House of Commons — a somewhat strange pathway, but not unknown.
What I learned from following the different foreign ministers that we have had over our time is that part of the job is being a plumber: You are fixing leaks. You are responding to emergencies. You are doing transactions. But, from time to time, you have to look at the architecture, the engineering and the design, and see whether, in fact, the water main system is broken and has to be fixed. In other words, you have to move away from transactions and daily events, and put in some kind of framework — a paradigm, or a set of goals and visions — that can give you instruction and definition about where you want to go as a country.
Fortunately, for me, when I took office in early 1996, we were in an incredible time of change: The Berlin Wall had collapsed. The Cold War conventional wisdoms were now being disputed. There was a lot of flux and flexibility. It was an opportune time to begin thinking through the way in which Canada could play a distinctive role, as well as the kind of positioning we would take in this new environment.
It was a time of turbulence. We know that. We also know that, domestically, Canada was not well placed. We were under extreme financial pressure from the international financial institutions. We had been going through a very risky time due to the threat of separatism in Canada; that was a major preoccupation. It was not a particularly good time for innovation reform.
At the same time, it meant that there were some pluses. I had the advantage of being with a Prime Minister who was prepared to give leeway to ministers and decisions. It wasn’t totally centrally controlled. There was discussion. There was consultation. There was sitting in planes at night and talking about our views. When the mandate came, I was expected to live up to the mandate, and, if it worked, that would be okay. If it didn’t work, I would probably look for new employment. But it was an area of fairly high discretion.
I was also faced with what was going on at the time: major budget cuts. The kind of neo-liberalism of that era was having a full impact on the canal way, and, as a result, Foreign Affairs, Defence and others of our tool kit that enabled us to play a role in the world were being hamstrung — restricted. There wasn’t a lot of walking money to try new things.
However, the pluses were there. In the preparation for coming into government in 1993 and putting forward the Red Book campaign platform, I was asked to conduct a lot of consultation across Canada. I think the reflection of that was in the Red Book.
There was a very clear statement of government policy. It said that Liberals believe that Canadians want their national government to play a more active, independent and international role in the world of change. That was what I took as the mandate because it was one that had been fully and carefully worked out through long periods of consultation with the militants in the party, interest groups and civil society groups. We felt that was a reflection of where Canada was at.
The important point to make here is that, first, to have effective foreign policy, there has to be a good rapport or relationship between the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Prime Minister. If they are at odds, if they are not on the same page or if they are not talking very often, then you are not going to have an effective implementation. That means you have to find some common objectives. You have to translate the broader rhetoric of the Red Book campaign platform and turn it into actionable directions.
In terms of a big plus, I also found that when I moved from the phase four offices of human resources — where I had been the minister for a year and a half in a department that had just been recently melded, with no particular unity in its culture or its outlook — to go to the Lester B. Pearson Building — where there was a cadre of highly trained Foreign Service professionals steeped in a history that went back to the 1930s and who were knowledgeable in the ways of diplomacy — I recognized that was, without a doubt, the most important tool in the tool kit for me to use. It included mobilizing that particular red line of diplomacy that we had strung around the world and that we had located in Ottawa.
I was fascinated by the deluge of telegrams that ambassadors such as you would send in — some of them were almost Shakespearean in their tone. But it was a fascinating connection about the way the world was working. It was much more insightful than anything you could read in a national newspaper or watch on a CBC broadcast. It was an unparalleled network of communication, intelligence and advice.
To me, this is fundamental for your committee to look at: How do we keep up that ability and capacity to have an open two-way network — a reciprocity of ideas coming in and going out, and intelligence coming in and going out? I’m not sure that we have paid enough attention to that. We have turned over a lot of it to the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service, or CSIS, and other groups. I think Global Affairs Canada itself should be a much stronger repository for that kind of international information.
It is even more critical today when there is so much worry about the interference and the way that people are using new information technologies to interfere.
I also saw some flaws when I arrived. As I have already mentioned, the subtraction of funds on an annual budget basis was demoralizing for the Foreign Service. It prohibited innovation; there wasn’t a lot of scope for new ideas. Much of the focus at that time was on Canada-U.S. relations — a continentalist point of view applied. Not a lot of attention was being paid to other parts of the world, including Africa, the Americas and what was beginning to emerge in terms of our connection at the UN. I felt that there would have to be a shift in that.
I also noticed that, as a department — and they were not alone in this — there wasn’t much outreach to the public. There wasn’t much engagement with Canadians, whether they were non‑governmental organizations, or NGOs; civil society; think tanks; university academics; or people on the street. There wasn’t a lot of tapping into that kind of repository of ideas, interests and commitment.
One of the things that I set about doing was to change that. Mr. Chair, you would remember that we set up a special in‑departmental think tank. It was the Canadian Centre for Foreign Policy Development where the deputy minister and I could initiate outreach, connections, consultations and new research to help us be informed on some of the new issues emerging. We set up an internship program where 2,000 young Canadians were recruited to work in our embassies and consulate posts abroad, as well as in the headquarters in Ottawa, to help conduct some additional ancillary information gathering and outreach. We also set up a lot of major advisory groups. As a ministerial group, we also had a series of regular consultations with the NGOs to ensure they were full participants in the making of policy.
Out of that particular exercise came what was probably the most significant decision: to recalibrate our efforts around the concept of human security. That was basically a UN idea, but it dealt with the fact that security is as much based upon the protection of people as it is on the protection of the nation-state. I still think that is a fundamental axiom for Canada to follow. That is what we’re good at; we understand that. We have an effective, responsible population that approves of that.
Then, I got very lucky because along came the opportunity to take a leadership role in the movement toward the banning of anti-personnel land mines. I was doubly lucky because within the Department of Foreign Affairs, at the time, there was a small unit that had been working on the land mine issue for over a year. They were smart, tough and knowledgeable, with great connections. Once we gave them the opening — I think my predecessor André Ouellet had started that, and the Prime Minister was interested — I basically said, “Here is the best example of a human security initiative.” As many of the committee members will know, we went on to take a leadership role in signing the Ottawa Treaty which banned land mines. If people want a little bit of significance, rough computations indicate that close to a quarter of a million people have been saved from being wounded or maimed.
It also set up a brand new standard for international diplomacy where governments could be challenged and assessed regarding the degree to which they met their commitments. It also opened up for us, as a department, a whole new set of relationships, connections, friendships and allies because we had direct contact with the 120 countries that came to Ottawa to sign the treaty. We were able to establish relationships.
I would say that led to the invitation, or opportunity, to undertake a whole new series of human security-related initiatives. We were very active in the creation of the International Criminal Court and the signing of the Rome Statute. We took a strong role in the whole issue to provide a new convention for the protection of war-affected children. We became very much involved in the efforts of the United Nations to get the change in. We actually worked to establish the Human Security Network — it was 13 countries, 7 or 8 major NGOs and international institutions, like the Red Cross, that met regularly to track out a mapping of a forward human security agenda.
I will tell you that, for two years, it became the touchstone of our foreign policy. It showed that soft power — using influence — has a very strong ability to change decisions and to get people onside, particularly to provide reform.
The idea for the committee to consider is that we are at a similar crossroads today as we were in the 1990s. There is a whole new set of factors and emergencies. It will require a redesign — a vision, and an architecture — at Global Affairs Canada to be able to respond to it.
I do not think that Canadians are being engaged in an open debate about where we should go. I think that the department suffers severely due to ongoing cutbacks, restrictions and zoning. I think that too much of the leadership of the department is accounted for budgetary reasons — not for reasons of new policy or new direction.
We need to recast and redesign the way in which decisions are made, and let Global Affairs Canada take a much more central role in defining the international presence and posture of Canada.
That is a fairly short summary. I tried to cover a lot of history in a short time, but I welcome and I am open to any questions or discussions that you would like to have.
The Chair: Thank you very much for your remarks, Mr. Axworthy. I want to acknowledge that Senator Housakos of Quebec has joined the meeting.
Colleagues, I want to, as usual, advise you that you will have a maximum of only four minutes per question, so please keep your preambles short and your questions precise.
That also goes for the witness, Mr. Axworthy.
Mr. Axworthy: I hear you.
The Chair: I have always wanted to say that.
Senator Ravalia: Thank you, Mr. Axworthy, for your very insightful remarks, and for your many contributions to our country.
In the current global context of an increasingly polarized world, how do you feel that we can best work with our allies and partners to create a pathway to a more effective and equitable world order, given the current state of our foreign affairs?
Mr. Axworthy: Do you want to ask two questions, or should I answer this directly?
The Chair: Yes, please answer directly.
Mr. Axworthy: I think right now there is a real open territory. If you were using football terms, there is space for open field running.
We have certain talents and abilities to convene, to mobilize, to innovate and to put things forward, and we have a whole new set of issues that the great powers — as they flex muscles — are not paying a lot of attention to.
Look at what is going on in the field that I am working in right now regarding migration and refugees. The system is broken; it is not working. Everyone is closing their borders. Everyone is shrinking their commitments, and I think Canada is probably the best-placed country in the world to provide a counter to that, and to provide a whole new set of thoughts about how we have a migration system that ensures that people who are forcibly displaced have a place to go — a sanctuary. That requires a much larger and different set of international networks and collaborations than we have right now. This is one example.
Another example, I think, is clearly regarding the issue of what we are facing in terms of the re-emergence of the nuclear threat. You have Mr. Putin brandishing his weapons and the Chinese responding. We are, again, approaching the point where the muscle-heavy nuclear powers are beginning to put the world at risk.
From 1945, Canada took a leading role in asking for an international system of management and control. There is a major debate going on in the world right now about the banning of nuclear weapons. Canada is not a participant in that. Why have we abandoned our 40 years of tradition? I do not know. I do not understand why, basically, we have withdrawn from that field.
I think another area that is very important is the whole question of democratic reform. Michael Adams wrote an essay as a pollster that was published in The Globe and Mail, and said that right now Canada has the most tolerant, diverse cultural society in the world.
How do we begin to take advantage of that particular Canadian characteristic and attitude in order to ensure that we build upon it in terms of our own democracy, and then also provide models and lessons?
Our Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms should be a model out there for the rest of the world, and we should be using it as the basis of our foreign policy.
Senator Ravalia: Thank you.
Senator Cardozo: Welcome, Mr. Axworthy.
I should say — full disclosure — that I have been a long-time fan of Mr. Axworthy in his various roles, and I have had the good opportunity to work with him on various occasions over the years.
Welcome here, sir. It is wonderful to see you and hear your thoughts about what is going on.
I look at the world, and I am thinking about the period when you were the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and then you continued to be involved in Global Affairs Canada on the refugee front. Are things today — they just seem to be infinitely worse than they were — more complex and more dangerous throughout the world than they were during your time as the foreign minister? Do you share that view?
I look at the problem areas, such as China, Russia and many other parts of the world. I look at the untapped opportunities with Asia and Africa.
My two-part question is as follows: What are your thoughts about what the heck is going on in the world, and, in regard to the question of today, how can the public servants at Global Affairs Canada work on those issues? What is the best way of channelling the large number of diplomatic corps and people based in Ottawa?
Mr. Axworthy: Senator, as I said in my opening remarks, I think that the core of Foreign Service knowledge, experience and history is one of the great assets that Canada has, but we have been wearing away those assets by nickel and diming, by shredding and by not providing the resource base, or the opportunities, to really strike out.
We have already gone through three or four of the major challenges that we face, and I think it’s important to have a foreign affairs department that is smart, quick, mobile and democratic in its own way. I would begin by correcting what I think has been a mistake in the last decade or so which is cutting off access to so many Canadians, whether they are in a think tank — as you were at one time, Senator Cardozo, in the Pearson Centre for Progressive Policy — or other kinds of academic institutions, or people at the neighbourhood level, and then getting the discussions going.
The problems that we faced coming out of the climate are ones that have to take a very strong political involvement. You are right in the sense that we are looking at the hovering of new authoritarian powers who are, once again, asserting that might makes right.
At the same time, I’m also encouraged by, as I look around at the street demonstrations in Iran, the way in which public will has been able to change policies in the United States on a number of key areas, such as pushing back against right-wing trends, and even in our own country, including the ability of the public to take real issue — which, I think, is different from the government — with things like climate.
I really do believe that there is a strong, untapped element of public participation, involvement and engagement that has a massive international impact. And I think that — to me — is what we, as a government and as a country, should be building upon.
I mentioned the Human Security Network that we set up in the 1990s. It included 13 countries; a large number of NGOs; international institutions, like UNICEF and the Red Cross; and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees — and we were working together. We had common agendas. We went to the United Nations. We were able to ensure reform was made.
To me, that convening, mobilizing and entrepreneurial role for Canada is one that we need to redesign and re-enact.
The Chair: Thank you.
Senator Woo: Good morning, Mr. Axworthy.
I wanted to pick up on your opening remarks about how you entered the Foreign Service through the indirect route. You had to do that partly because the Foreign Service is, for all intents and purposes, a closed structure, whereby it does not allow for entry through intermediate points from outside of the service.
I want to get your view on porosity between the Foreign Service per se, Foreign Service officers and diplomats and non‑Foreign Service people with expertise in international issues who can be brought in, from time to time, to augment the work of diplomats.
This is something that we see is used much more effectively in other countries, particularly in the United States. It is a different system, I understand, but you see that in the U.S.; you see that in a number of Asian countries.
Would you care to comment on whether that is desirable for our own Foreign Service?
Mr. Axworthy: There are three things that I would recommend: The first is that the recruitment of Foreign Service officers itself should have a much wider net to spread.
Again, as I said, we are becoming one of the most diverse countries, and we have an incredible richness of cultures, but I am not sure that we are making full and appropriate use of that.
I think that there could be a different set of criteria used for the selection of Foreign Service officers — spread it not just to people from big universities with degrees in international trade or international politics, but also to people who are smart in technology or smart in science and climate.
I will give you one example: I was on the board of the MacArthur Foundation — a big U.S. foundation — and I headed up their international committee for granting. One of the most important things we did was we were able to provide programs where a variety of U.S. departments could hire people with science and mathematics backgrounds to come in and advise them. They were working on nuclear issues. They were working on environmental issues. They were working on information technology issues. That would be for a two-year period. Many of them stayed on and became full-time civil servants.
I also think that something we need to use an awful lot more of is internships. One of the most exciting things that I find — even at my advanced old fogey age — is the way in which young Canadians are beginning to challenge a lot of the conventional wisdoms. There should be an internship program with Global Affairs Canada in which we recruit, I would say, 1,000 young people a year, and bring them in to stock up our embassies and consulates where they can work on different ideas and connect with community groups, diaspora groups and groups in other countries.
One of the most exciting things I had when I was the foreign minister was we worked with Ghana on a project of a new convention, or protocol, to protect war-affected children. We set up a daylong exchange between high school students in Ghana and three high school groups in Canada. The technology then wasn’t anywhere near as good as it is now. It was exciting to watch young people.
Soon, the Ghanaian foreign minister and I were basically pushed into the background. It was these young people who had the ideas and the exchange. We have to tap into that. That’s a richness that could refresh and re-energize our system.
The Chair: Thank you.
Senator M. Deacon: Mr. Axworthy, thank you for being here today. I also thank my colleague Senator Woo for that question. You are helping me in trying to find the balance between that outside perspective of Global Affairs Canada and Foreign Service while keeping the critical institutional memory of staff flowing in and out. That was very helpful.
Your tenure as the Minister of Foreign Affairs ended in 2000. We know that there were some significant, world-altering events that happened shortly afterwards — 9/11 being the main one, of course, and the subsequent invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq shortly thereafter.
This question may have a little bit of recency bias, but it certainly feels like the two decades after your retirement have been marked by one international crisis after another.
My question today is as follows: When these crises happened, starting early in the 2000s, did you feel confident in the department’s surge capacity and crisis management at that moment? You are still pretty near to it. Are there any changes or pivots that you wish you could have done during your tenure with the benefit of hindsight?
Mr. Axworthy: Hindsight is always a great luxury to have.
We were on a very good roll in setting up a set of, as I said, new standards, new treaties, agreements and international collaborations. The whole question of terrorism was on the plate. In fact, Canada was one of the first countries to bring resolutions on terrorism into the UN system.
Were we equipped for the response as much as the action? It became fully defined by the U.S. administration’s military view. The way to solve the problem was to seek out and destroy. That was a legitimate issue, but it was not the only answer. I think we bought into that.
As a result, in regard to Afghanistan — which, I think, is one of the most serious embarrassments for this country in terms of its foreign policy — we didn’t know why we went in. We were there. People made a huge commitment. We left quietly, almost behind the doorway. It was not our finest hour.
One reason is because we were focused. Our Defence Department — I’m going to be really blunt now — had Rick Hillier as the new Chief of the Defence Staff. He said that the role of our military is to kill, not to make peace.
I fought against that kind of attitude along the way. I had good defence ministers like Art Eggleton and David Collenette who said that, yes, we could do an awful lot by providing a major airlift to Haiti to ensure that the whole Disaster Assistance Response Team, or DART, had proper health care. We won some friends. We showed the rest of the world that we were open to alternative ways of dealing with terrorism.
We became so imbued in this country. Our institutions were taken over by a security mentality that it had locked in so many other kinds of options and alternatives we should have used.
Senator Coyle: Thank you, Mr. Axworthy, for being with us, and for what you have done and what you continue to contribute to Canada and the world.
Listening carefully to what you have said, I’m going to pick up on a couple of things that other colleagues have mentioned. I keep hearing about two-way networks of communication, reaching out, reaching in, global engagement, et cetera.
You started off by speaking about Global Affairs Canada — internally — with its heads of mission, and that being a strength. I would like to hear how that could be encouraged in today’s Global Affairs Canada in order for it to be what you have described it as in your heyday as the minister — internal Global Affairs Canada with its missions abroad. Also, you mentioned that two-way engagement with Canadians, experts, civil society, universities, think tanks, et cetera, as well as reaching out so that more Canadians know what Canada is about, and actually get on board with it. Then, there’s that mobilization globally, and that leadership role of convening and engagement with others to move big issues.
Could you speak to those? It’s the same thing, but with different groups that, I think, has been a strength of Canada. How would you see those things being important for today — and how, in today’s Global Affairs Canada’s reality, could those be done, or is it still important to do those?
Mr. Axworthy: Let me begin, senator, with an anecdote, if you don’t mind.
I had a shrewd, smart individual named Gordon Smith as a deputy minister. He was a real leader in developing international communications capacity for what was then the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. We worked together.
I had some experts come in from the outside to start putting together a plan for a fairly broad-scale Canadian international information system where people — if they were sitting in their hotel room in downtown Singapore and turned it on — would see that there is a Canadian discussing climate change or human rights, or talking about how we hold accountable, through Parliament, the decisions of executive branches.
We made a submission to cabinet for $11 million over three years, and we got shot down because, at the time, people asked what this was. There was no idea that information was, itself, a powerful tool, and an increasingly more effective tool in developing your interests, values and proposals.
With today’s technology leaping ahead — as it is into artificial intelligence, or AI, and other areas — that has to be an area of very strong preoccupation about how we can utilize that for good purpose.
Let me provide you with one other example:
Through the World Refugee & Migration Council, we helped set up a platform for women refugees around the world, where they could voice their concerns. It was particularly helpful during the COVID period because they could talk about how COVID was affecting their communities or their camps. There was a place for their voices to be heard.
But the sad part is that, as we engaged in that kind of conversation, one of the women said, “When it comes to health issues, we used to be at the end of the queue. We’re not even in the queue anymore.” And it was their voices that were not being heard.
If those voices are not being heard, you are not making the right policy. I’ll make that clear assertion.
Those are the areas that Global Affairs Canada could move ahead with.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
[Translation]
Senator Gerba: Thank you, Minister Axworthy, for sharing some of the highlights from your event-filled time at Global Affairs Canada, which was known as the Department of Foreign Affairs then.
During that time, Canada was indeed very strong on diplomacy, especially in Africa. I imagine that it was just after you left, in the 2000s, that you worked on the creation of the investment fund for Africa.
That fund, the Canada Investment Fund for Africa, which had a budget of $100 million, has since disappeared. Although the fund was put in place shortly after you left, I have a question for you. Can you tell us more about the objectives of the fund? Was it helpful? Should we bring back a similar fund? That’s my first question.
If I can ask a second question, here it is. In 2013, the Canadian International Development Agency, CIDA, and the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade were amalgamated, creating the department known since as Global Affairs Canada.
In 2018, the OECD published a report in which it criticized Canada for delivering its aid program through an overly centralized and bureaucratic organization. Where do you stand on the CIDA merger?
[English]
Mr. Axworthy: I’ll try to give you a quick answer to a very broad question.
First, in Africa, the investment fund and other areas were designed such that a number of departments within the Canadian government could participate in health, education for children, legal rights for women and protecting war-affected children. They weren’t single-shot efforts. We tried to find interdepartmental coalitions that would be able to meet these issues — and to demonstrate in Africa that we weren’t simply making strong declarations; we were actually delivering the goods.
Here’s what I believe: Today, as Senator Cardozo has mentioned, the challenge is the big powers moving in. We know that China and Russia are actively proselytizing in Africa itself, trying to bring them onside to their way of thinking — to an authoritarian, “forget human rights” way of thinking.
The antidote to that is the kinds of things we were doing in Canada — showing that there are better ways of doing it. There is a better way of having human rights protections, a better way of educating the children and a better way of making decisions.
I think that we have forgotten that particular sort of dialogue. We won a lot of friends because we did those things. The land mine campaign showed a lot of countries that were full of land mines, such as Mozambique, that we were there to help them survive and live. The kinds of efforts we made in protecting war‑affected children had a strong resonance, as did the work in trying to provide a form of accountability for international criminals who were using international crime as a way of furthering themselves.
Today, I would say that there must be the effort to help refund by taking a lot of the assets that have been frozen by the kleptocrats and authoritarians and repurposing them back to the people in Africa, and other areas, who have been victimized.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Senator MacDonald: Mr. Axworthy, it is good to see you again, sir. The last time we met was in Kyiv, four years ago this month, as observers at the election. It was so full of hope then. I know we’re both saddened by what’s gone on there. You were a gracious host; thank you very much.
There are so many questions that I have for you. You just mentioned how to deal with Beijing and Russia. It’s so difficult for us to work with them today. Just this week, we had about 60 senior Canadians sign an open letter to the government imploring the Government of Canada to take defence seriously, given our increasingly conflictual world. Would you agree that our lack of hard power capability is undermining our diplomatic credibility?
Mr. Axworthy: Senator, I would like to rephrase it slightly.
I agree with you fully. I think that the capacity of our Defence Department has really been restricted by finance but also by policy. There was a time when our Defence Department — I will use a good example: When I was still the foreign minister, there was the major earthquake in Haiti. The DART — a mobile, quick-to-move medical assistance team — moved into Haiti and provided incredible emergency support for Haitians. That was noticed around the world. We were there.
We can’t do it anymore. The DART has been put on a shelf.
So I agree: The hard power side of improving our capacity for defence is necessary. It’s kind of embarrassing to say that we can no longer mount a brigade to go to Europe because we don’t have enough troops. Here’s a comment, senator — and I know you are interested in this: When it comes to recruiting Canadians, I think we have to give them more reasons to join the Canadian Armed Forces. I think what happened in Afghanistan has left a bit of a charred reputation. That has to be corrected.
We are capable of effectively working in the defence of Ukraine and Eastern Europe, but not increasingly in the breakdown of governance that we’re now finding in places like Sudan.
We should be at the United Nations. You may recall this ancient history, but there was a time when Canada led a major peace mission to Zaire, which is now the Congo, to stop the persecution of refugees and migrants in the camps. We had the capacity then, and we had one of the best peacekeeping networks in the world. We had three centres for peacekeeping in Canada. All of them are shut down.
We were good at some real things, and I think we have to establish those targeted areas where we can be really effective, starting with our own protection. I would put a lot more focus on the Arctic than we currently are right now. I think our Arctic strategy is fairly thin when it comes to actually ensuring our security. We’re suddenly finding that even our own Indigenous people are being affected by climate change and are now being forced to move. We should be in there, and making sure that the infrastructure and other protections are there to support them.
I think you are right; the feds and Global Affairs Canada need a boost, but I think it’s a boost that would broaden out their capacity to deal with issues in a multi-sectoral, multi‑dimensional way.
The Chair: You are out of time, Senator MacDonald; I’m sorry. But we’ll see what we can do in the next round. We have a lot of senators, and we’re running out of time.
Senator Housakos: Mr. Axworthy, thank you for your honourable service to Canada for so many years.
You are absolutely right; Canada used to do big things, even though we are known to be a middle power. We exercised our capacity tremendously well. We were internationally known, and it was a source of pride being the world’s number one peacekeeper.
We accomplished amazing things like taking on apartheid and succeeding — and, of course, government after government, for many decades, had many wins, both in multilateral forays and bilateral forays. Would you agree that our lack of economic investment in our defence and in Global Affairs Canada is hindering our capacity to play that role? In those years, when we did those big things, Canada was a top six or top seven economy. Now we’re probably number 11 or number 12 in the world. How much of that — the lack of wealth creation and economic competitiveness — is hindering our capacity to be a player in the world? And, as a result of our lack of capacity to invest in those areas, do you feel that Global Affairs Canada has become more of a transactional ministry — an economic transactional ministry — rather than a value-based foreign policy ministry?
Mr. Axworthy: You took the words out of my mouth. Yes, I do.
But there’s something that I would like to pick up on within your comments, senator. You touched on something that I think is not well recognized these days. When we entered the government in 1993, we were building on some very important things that the Mulroney government had done. You mentioned apartheid. I would also mention that Joe Clark and Prime Minister Mulroney had opened Canada up to Latin America; they got our first seat in the Organization of American States, or OAS. One of the instructions that I received from Prime Minister Chrétien was to build upon that, as well as go there and be far more active in the Americas — and the chairman of this committee would know that because he was the ambassador there that we really tried to follow.
We built upon a certain degree of consensus in the two major parties — let me provide you with an example: There was a time when John Bosley, who was the Conservative Speaker of the House; Bill Blaikie; and I travelled around Central America for two weeks to determine what Canada’s role should be in Central America and the Contras dispute. We gave a report back to Joe Clark which he implemented. There was a time when our foreign policy was able to build upon that kind of political consensus. I’m not saying it was agreement because we had differences, but I think the accomplishments were not ones where everything was wrong on one side and everything was good on the other. As parliamentarians, working toward that also helps rebuild the capacity for it.
I think part of that is to say, “Let’s take a look at the ability of how we use our money.” We have a very large budget these days, but I think COVID threw a lot of that into remission. It captured a lot of that flexibility. I think we have to work our way out. To me, it’s not just money — it’s capacity; it’s ability. We talked earlier about information technology, and that if you put some investment into our global affairs, our diplomacy and our defence in those areas, along with our climate, we could make major efforts at bringing together all kinds of people around the world in a public strength and force of numbers, as we did in the land mines campaign, to show that change had to take place.
You are right about the investment, but I think the investment is one that needs to be accompanied by a recheck of the way in which that money would be used in the policies that it’s used for.
The Chair: Thank you.
Senator Boniface: Thank you, Mr. Axworthy, for being here, and for the work that you have done for Canada. My question is quite brief. There are countries that are viewed as punching above their weight, as the expression goes, and this study is looking at a review of Canada’s Foreign Service. Could you share — in your experience, particularly any recent experience — your observations around countries that are punching above their weight, and perhaps share some of the indicators for you that help you reach that conclusion?
Mr. Axworthy: Let me begin with Norway, which I think has really targeted — it’s a wealthy country. And, by the way, one of my ambitions as the foreign minister was to become very friendly and very co-operative with the Norwegians because I thought we had good ideas and they had the money to help spend on it. I mean, that’s being a little facetious, but Knut Vollebæk and I were the two authors of the Human Security Network because we knew that Norway also invested a lot in ideas. If you look at some of the institutional frameworks, they spend money on developing ideas in developing implementation. They have a very good sense of how to draw on the broad base of resources and intelligence of their own people. I think that’s one very key group.
Here’s another country that is not often recognized: Costa Rica has led this world in so many ways, including its attitude toward militarization, as well as its efforts to help come to grips with the migration issue in the Americas. Again, it’s a small country, but it has political leadership, I think, based upon large consensual support of the country that has enabled it to throw its weight.
Increasingly, we’re seeing in Eastern Europe, as well as in Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Finland, a whole new cadre of political leadership regarding how to deal with the Russians. They have to be listened to more than we do.
One area that we have a special commission — at least I believe we do — was we had a channel into Washington. One of my closest friends — who sadly just died several months ago — was Madeleine Albright; she and I became soulmates. But that meant that when other countries wanted to send a message to the State Department, they came through us, and I would call her and say, “I was just talking to the folks in South Africa, and here’s an issue we should address” — and we tackled things like the environment and fish.
We had a wonderful program called the “Three Amigos” with the Mexican foreign minister where — I know this sounds a little specious — as a group of foreign ministers, we sponsored a major cultural tour of museums in North America for Mexican, Canadian and American young people, and we did it virtually. You may ask, “Why are you wasting your time on that?” Coming out of that, a lot of people said, “Yes, we can work together” — not just on trade, but also working together on common values and common cultural outlooks.
I think there is a lot of capacity to punch above weight. It’s just that the opportunity isn’t always there. I think that’s where our leadership is important because a lot of those countries look to us to provide that leadership.
The Chair: Thank you very much. Colleagues, we’re obviously not going to have a second round since we only have three minutes left. But I will use the three minutes to ask a very short question and see if Mr. Axworthy has an answer.
Mr. Axworthy, in this committee, we have often heard from witnesses regarding what they view as a bureaucratic reticence, or hesitancy, and a lack of creativity in Global Affairs Canada — but, in my recollection, it’s a department that can be very creative, yet needs to be sparked sometimes from the top. You were quite an activist minister, as well as internally to get new ideas flowing, and I know you brought some people in from the outside, and that has been suggested as well. Is there a formula that you could suggest to spark some creativity and less hesitancy, knowing that the role of the civil service is to provide advice of all kinds and then, of course, its loyal implementation afterwards?
Mr. Axworthy: Mr. Chair, I would start with one basic rule. The decisions should not be made unless the people affected by those decisions have some say or voice in the decision making. That goes back to some of the examples that I mentioned, such as setting up the Canadian Centre for Foreign Policy Development inside the department. Mr. Chair, you remember Steve Lee — it was a small group; we funded them. He could reach out, and I would say to him, “There is an academic in B.C. who is talking about North Korea. Contact him. Let’s bring him here. Let’s have a little meeting on it.” Former Deputy Minister Gordon Smith and I would get together and say, “Let’s bring in some people and deal with new technology. Let’s talk about what’s going on in Central America, and about what’s happening with Fidel Castro in Cuba.” We had the capacity to connect, and that’s the connectivity, but it has to be done, as you said — I think there has to be ministerial imprimatur to make that happen.
There is a capacity there. I keep thinking about the incredible role that Jill Sinclair, Ralph Lysyshyn and Mark Gwozdecky played in land mines. They were the land mine spear carriers, and they really made it happen; that was a small group on the inside. Once we said, “Let’s open the gate,” they knew how to get through. They were very much the authors of that Ottawa agreement.
The Chair: Mr. Axworthy, on behalf of the committee, I would like to thank you for appearing today. You have enriched us with your comments. Who knows? We might even have you return later on once we are drawing some conclusions from our observations.
Mr. Axworthy: I would be pleased to return anytime. Thank you, and keep up the good work.
(The committee continued in camera.)