Liberals’ pulpit diplomacy gets little done
Pulpit diplomacy has consequences
Certain things in public life should not be taken at face value — including election promises, government spending estimates and former ministers furthering their commercial interests under the guise of speaking about the national interest.
John Baird’s appearance on the Saudi regime’s mouthpiece channel, Al Arabiya, complaining that the Trudeau government has been “poking a finger in the eye” of the Saudis through its “hectoring tweets” did his reputation few favours.
He was billed as a “former Canadian foreign minister,” which of course he is, but he should have been listed as a member of the international advisory board of Barrick Gold, a Canadian mining company with a copper mine in the kingdom. It was transparently in Barrick’s interests that he was speaking.
Baird’s ill-advised intervention is a gift to the Liberals, who have framed themselves as standing alone on the moral high ground in defence of women’s rights, after publicly taking the Saudis to task for arresting two activists, including Samar Badawi, sister of imprisoned writer Raif Badawi.
The peevish Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman took offence at the “blatant interference in the Kingdom’s domestic affairs,” expelled the Canadian ambassador, froze bilateral trade and dumped Canadian assets.
But the anger is synthetic on both sides. The damage from this little war of convenience is slight. But the Saudis have sent the message to other Western countries to keep their own counsel on the kingdom’s right to imprison, behead and crucify its citizens, or lose access to its markets.
For their part, the Trudeau Liberals have once again been able to engage in their particularly sanctimonious brand of pulpit diplomacy, preaching to the rest of the world without having to back up the rhetoric with resources.
The spat hints at a struggle within Canadian foreign policy circles that has been going on since the Second World War — that between romanticism and realism. As extolled by veteran diplomat Allan Gotlieb in a memorable 2004 lecture, this is the tension between Canada’s “idealistic vocation” to promote democracy and reduce inequities in the world, and the realpolitik that puts the national interest ahead of all other considerations.
Gotlieb explained that the two have not always pulled in opposite directions, but successive governments have usually been dominated by one or other approach. Gotlieb was critical of foreign policy under the current prime minister’s father, Pierre, that “swung erratically between the poles of aggressive nationalism and unrealistic internationalism. For Trudeau, one day it was brass-knuckles realism, the next feel-good idealism.”
That bipolarism declined under Brian Mulroney, where the “bedrock reality principle was that the U.S. was a friend and ally, not a power against which one sought counter-weights.”
But it re-emerged under Jean Chrétien, whose activist foreign minister, Lloyd Axworthy, saw Canada as an “agent of change.” The result was policy “characterized by a profound lack of coherence, then by an increased anti-american inflection,” according to Gotlieb.
The current prime minister (and his global affairs minister, Chrystia Freeland) possess a similar missionary zeal, but the election of Donald Trump has dictated that policy is often less virtuous than either might like. Freeland has called Canada “an essential country” that is obliged to step up and defend the principles of human rights, democracy and rule of law.
But finger-wagging at world powers like China and India has proven counterproductive and the “valuesbased” foreign policy has been more muted of late. The desire not to rile Trump has dictated that discretion has often proven to be the better part of valour.
When the president withdrew the U.S. from the Obama-brokered nuclear deal with Iran in May, Trudeau’s response was muted. Similarly, Canada abstained on a General Assembly resolution at the United Nations last December that repudiated Trump’s decision to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem — a resolution both France and Britain supported.
By and large, Canada has not lived up to its own rhetoric in setting its own “clear and sovereign course” in foreign affairs — unless it has suited the Liberal party’s domestic political agenda.
Trudeau condemned Israel for using “excessive force” against Palestinian protesters at the border of the Gaza Strip last spring, and made no mention of Hamas encouraging the protests. The reaction was deemed “unbalanced” by some Jewish groups but was well-received by left-of-centre voters at home, who saw the protesters as peaceful civilians.
Yet Canada once again resumed its sitting position on the fence when it opposed a United Nations Human Rights Council vote to establish an investigation into the deaths at the Israeli-gaza border, on the grounds that it was pushed by Muslim countries and was biased against Israel.
Canada’s oscillating foreign policy has been dictated by the fact it has neither the power nor the influence to transform other states’ behaviour — and the attempts to do so are more focused on making its supporters feel good than on achieving results.
John Baird’s outrage at the treatment meted out to “our friend and ally” in the desert was driven more by avarice than conviction. But the criticism that Samar Badawi is further from freedom as a result of Canada’s intervention is perfectly valid.
Gotlieb’s observations are as true today as they were when they were made 14 years ago — Canada’s role as a middle-power can never be regained, and utopianism, millenarianism and visionary crusades should have no place in Canadian foreign policy.