Francois-Philippe Champsgne as Foreign Minister

Colin Robertson November 20, 2019 Comments Off

Smart,’ ‘dynamic’ Champagne set to put traits to test as foreign minister

Champagne, then Canada’s trade minister in December 2017, was left behind for what would be two days of intense closed-door meetings in the Chinese capital while Trudeau and his entourage decamped to their next destination.

For the next two days, Champagne was thrown into an intense set of talks, in an attempt to find some sort of way forward on a free-trade negotiation with China — an effort that ultimately failed.

Now, the unflappable and unfailingly upbeat Champagne is headed back into the thick of Canada’s thorny international relations as one of Canada’s faces to the world, second only to the prime minister.

Champagne, 49, may not have the name recognition that his predecessor Chrystia Freeland brought to the post as an author and ex-journalist in London, Moscow and New York, but his easygoing manner belies his own ambitious rise in business and international-trade law, which earned him a “Young Global Leader” award from the World Economic Forum.

Champagne has held the Quebec riding of Saint-Maurice-Champlain since 2015. It includes the city of Shawinigan, whose famous son, former prime minister Jean Chretien, is a personal hero of Champagne’s.

Champagne has also publicly and privately hinted he might one day aspire to the same job Chretien once held.

In January 2017, Champagne took over from Freeland in the trade portfolio, tasked with delivering a massive trade deal among Pacific Rim countries known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

“Champagne’s experience with the skirmishes over TPP and Canada’s first ill-fated venture into trade talks with the Chinese is good experience for some of the continuing battles he will be facing — especially when it comes to the Chinese,” said Fen Hampson, of the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University.

Shortly after, Trudeau shuffled his cabinet again and put Champagne in charge of infrastructure spending.

In an interview after the shuffle, Champagne joked about how he had banned the word “spend” at Infrastructure Canada, because money it deploys is an investment, and talked about a need for the government to “move from numbers to impact.”

And then a short while later, he also showed he can be blunt. “It’s about doing things better and smarter,” he said about getting infrastructure dollars out the door. “I know that may sound very logical, but trust me, it might not always have been the case.”

Champagne often held roundtable meetings with local officials during his countrywide travels, and rarely missed a gathering of Federation of Canadian Municipalities officials. FCM president Bill Karsten said Champagne’s ability to build relationships with big-city mayors and rural reeves was evident.

“He put a lot of focus and his trademark energy into consistent, direct federal-municipal communication and partnership, including giving out his own cell phone number, which undoubtedly caused some anxiety for staff on both sides,” Karsten said.

“No matter how difficult it might be to meet in person or how complicated the logistics were, he (was) willing to do whatever it took to make a conversation happen.”

Now, those skills will be put to a new test as Canada’s place in the world has never been quite so precarious, from its relations with China to unprecedented threats facing the world’s institutions and traditional alliances — from NATO to the World Bank to the European Union.

Roland Paris, Trudeau’s first foreign-policy adviser, called Champagne “smart and dynamic,” adding the new foreign minister will need every ounce of those capacities to meet the significant challenges that await him.

“He will need to deal with the situation with China, clarify and co-ordinate Canada’s broader Asia strategy, work with the trade minister to diversify and expand Canada’s trade,” said Paris, of the University of Ottawa.

Canada also faces an uphill battle for a temporary seat on the United Nations Security Council, a vote for which will take place in June for a term that would begin in 2021. Canada faces stiff competition for the two available seats.

Colin Robertson, a retired diplomat and foreign-affairs analyst, said Champagne will have to “run very hard and with a strategy and a campaign plan” if he hopes to land the seat and make up Norway’s and Ireland’s head starts.

Hong Kong

Colin Robertson November 19, 2019 Comments Off

Hong Kong protests: a former diplomat’s viewpoint

By Marc Montgomery |
english@rcinet.ca
Posted: Tuesday, November 19, 2019 11:09

Many of the several hundred students barricaded at Hong Kong University have surrendered to police early this morning. However, it seems unlikely that the protests, now several months old, will abate anytime soon.

Colin Robertson, is Vice-President at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, an independent, non-partisan research institute related to foreign policy a former diplomat, as Canadian Consul in Hong Kong,

Former Canadian diplomat in Hong Kong gives his analysis of protest situation there

Reports this morning say only a handful of student protesters remain in the university, but without food or water so that situation is likely over.

As Robertson says however, with about 2 million supporters of the movement, the overall protest situation will likely continue. He also suggests that with such strong support the legitimacy of the Beijing supported Carrie Lam government is in serious doubt.

While there has been some suggestion that China could send in the military, Robertson thinks that unlikely at this point, if for no other reason than the international optics that would represent.

It also appears unlikely that neither the Hong Kong government or China will relax their positions, in light of protesters demands for democratic guarantees or reforms.

Police have been accused of excessive use of force, including use of rubber bullets. (Tyrone Siu-Reuters July 2019)

Fears of a mass exodus of ex-pats with Canadian, British, U.S. and other citizenship seems not on the immediate horizon.

Nonetheless, Hong Kong’s status as entry point into the vast Chinese and wider Asian market, and an exit point for those same countries is weakening, as Robertson says, due to the uncertainties and disruptions of the protest movement, and in the shadow of the U.S-China trade dispute. This is says is not good for Hong Kong, for China, for Canada-because of a long trade relationship, as well as for other countries with similar trade and business ties with Hong Kong.

Additional information-sources

CBC News report Nov 18/19
Canadian Press (via CP24) Nov 18/19: Canadian universities encourage exchange students in Hong Kong to head home

Hong Kong

Colin Robertson November 18, 2019 Comments Off

CBCNovember 18, 2019

The University of British Columbia says 32 of its students on exchange in Hong Kong have either left the city or confirmed they are safe after the school urged them to leave the area for their own well-being.

Hong Kong has been roiled by six months of anti-government protests. The once peaceful demonstrations have steadily intensified, and are now punctuated by shootings and violent clashes between protesters and police.

UBC administration said Friday that staff had reached out to exchange students advising them to leave their schools. An email from university officials Monday confirmed 11 students have left Hong Kong, while the remaining 21 “are safe and accounted for.”

The email said the school is helping students with travel plans. Any student who is choosing to stay in Hong Kong has been asked to watch for directives from their host university and monitor International SOS for updates and guidance on how to stay safe.

Simon Fraser University says it has 17 students on exchange there and they have all confirmed they are safe. The university says it is working with each student on their return to Canada.

Montreal’s McGill University, Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont., and the University of Toronto are also urging all their students to head home.

Universities have become the latest battleground for protesters, who used gasoline bombs and bows and arrows in their fight to keep riot police off of two campuses in the past week.

Police backed by armoured cars and water cannon tightened their siege of Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) Monday, where hundreds of protesters remained trapped in a sign of a fresh escalation for the movement.

Colin Robertson, a former Canadian diplomat and a former Canadian consul in Hong Kong, expressed sympathy for the students locked inside who are protesting for freedoms many in Canada take for granted.

He says the protests have taken a worrying turn.

“When you look at the pictures today, and you know this has gone on for six months, it’s hard to be optimistic about what might happen,” he said. “I hope I’m wrong.”

Protests raged across other parts of the city, fuelled by public anger over the police blockade of the school and the desire to help the students stuck inside.

The UBC students had been studying at four different schools — Chinese University of Hong Kong, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and Hong Kong University — and not the polytechnic university, the Canadian school said.

The protests started peacefully in early June, sparked by proposed legislation that would have allowed criminal suspects to be extradited to the mainland. By the time the bill was withdrawn, the protests had hardened and broadened into a resistance movement against the territory’s government and Beijing.

Jane Li, a born-and-raised Hong Konger who now lives in Vancouver, is a spokesperson for the group Vancouver Hong Kong Political Activists.

Li says the protest movement has reached a tipping point.

“This morning I got on the phone with a friend and she said, ‘I don’t know if there’s going to be a tomorrow.’ That really hit me,” Li said.

“It seems like for both sides, it’s going to be a really violent ending.”

Freeland and Foreign Policy

Colin Robertson November 17, 2019 Comments Off

Freeland’s imprint of foreign affairs remains even if she’s shuffled: analysts

She could be moved to a different position that would also require tough negotiations

THE CANADIAN PRESS Nov. 17, 2019 11:30 a.m.

Whether or not Prime Minister Justin Trudeau shuffles her to a new cabinet post on Wednesday, Chrystia Freeland’s imprint on Canada’s foreign policy will remain visible for some time to come, analysts suggest.

That will be especially true in how Canada pushes forward with its top priority: getting the new North American trade deal ratified and reinforcing the crucial economic bond with its key ally, the United States.

But her decision to position Canada as a leader on a crisis in Canada’s greater neighbourhood, the meltdown of Venezuela, may be Freeland’s most influential move as the country’s top diplomat.

Freeland was appointed foreign-affairs minister in January 2017 with one very important marching order: deal with the newly elected U.S. President Donald Trump and keep the North American Free Trade Agreement, and Canada’s economy, from being trashed.

Freeland largely accomplished that, even though NAFTA’s replacement has yet to be ratified. But behind the headline-grabbing fight to save a trade deal that was crucial to Canada’s economic survival, a debate simmered within Canada’s foreign ministry over how to address the very real economic and political implosion that was underway in another nearby country: Venezuela.

According to Ben Rowswell, Canada’s then-ambassador to Venezuela, the internal division at Global Affairs Canada boiled down to this: should the problem be left to its Latin American neighbours, or should Canada step up to help?

Three years later, Canada is a key member of the Lima Group, a bloc of about a dozen countries in the Americas, minus the United States, that has made a concerted, if not successful, effort to promote democracy in Venezuela and stanch its epic flow of refugees.“One of the reasons why Canada is at the centre of regional and international discussions of Venezuela is very much due to the personal initiative of Minister Freeland,” said Rowswell, the president of the Canadian International Council.

“There was a real internal debate inside Global Affairs Canada that was resolved when Minister Freeland made this a signature issue of Canadian foreign policy in the Trudeau years.”

Which raises the question: how indispensable does that make Freeland?

Though she represents a downtown Toronto riding, Freeland is fond of her Alberta roots — she was born in Peace River — and that connection could be of some use to a governing party with no seats there or in Saskatchewan.

Having faced unpredictable negotiating partners abroad, Freeland might appeal to Trudeau as a domestic intergovernmental-affairs minister, or in some other capacity where contending with fractious premiers would be a big part of the job.

As a journalist, she reported on finance and particularly economic inequality, one of the Liberal government’s policy preoccupations.

“If a new minister is appointed, there will be quite a lot of relationships to be built that she’s already established through the very significant support she’s shown to the people of Venezuela over the last few years,” said Rowswell.

“She’s a household name in Venezuela because of her leadership of the Lima Group.”

As effective as she was, especially in dealing with the Trump administration on NAFTA, no minister in any portfolio is indispensable, said Colin Robertson, a retired diplomat with extensive experience in Washington and across the United States.

“I think she’s done a superb job as foreign minister. But I don’t think she has to have that job,” said Robertson, vice-president of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute.

Freeland’s approach to widening Canada’s approach to relations with the U.S. beyond the White House and the Capitol will be her greatest policy legacy, and one that any successor will have to carry forward, he said.

With NAFTA under threat, and Trump so unpredictable, Freeland presided over a charm offensive that targeted key Congressional leaders, as well as state governors and business leaders in key states that had strong economic ties with its partner to the north. Canada’s then-ambassador David MacNaugton quarterbacked the effort on the ground and it also involved the outreach of about a dozen cabinet ministers.

Transport Minister Marc Garneau and Environment Minister Catherine McKenna were among them, and both have the bona fides to take over where Freeland left off, Robertson argues.

Garneau chaired the cabinet committee on Canada-U.S. relations and was the Liberal foreign-affairs critic in opposition prior to the party’s 2015 ascent to power. McKenna has travelled widely as the international face of Canada’s climate-change policy — a bruising fight that has made her a lightning rod for online trolls and real-world haters.

Even if she’s shuffled, Freeland would still have an influence on foreign policy during confidential cabinet discussions because she has a proven track record, and Trudeau is known to allow such cross-pollination, Robertson said.

“Freeland is always going to speak out. You don’t lose anything. She will still be in cabinet. She still has all that experience.”

But in an uncertain world, and with a minority government facing an uncertain lifespan, some argue it would be inadvisable to remove Freeland now.

Bessma Momani, a senior fellow the Centre for International Governance Innovation in Waterloo, Ont., said there isn’t a deep pool of options from which Trudeau could draw a replacement.

“It’s not an easy file,” she said.

“These are important bilateral personal relationships that are built. In a minority parliament, this might not last very long. You don’t want to put someone in there for two years, at most, where they don’t really get a chance to grasp the characters and personalities.”

Mike Blanchfield, The Canadian Press

Competiveness

Colin Robertson November 15, 2019 Comments Off

COLIN ROBERTSON THE GLOBE AND MAIL

Trade diversification – meaning looking beyond the U.S. and China – should be the top priority for the new minority Trudeau government.

Selling the Canadian brand and our goods and services requires effort at every level of government. Success will generate jobs and income, build trust and bolster national unity.

Seventy-five per cent of our exports go to the United States. We receive about 18 per cent of their exports, meaning that we rely more on the U.S. than they rely on us. It’s a dependence that U.S. President Donald Trump exploits. We don’t get the world price for our oil and gas because without pipelines to tidewater, we really only have one buyer. Passage of the new North American free trade agreement won’t change this over-dependence. NAFTA gives us a partial shield, but U.S. protectionism is as old as the Republic. And Mr. Trump loves tariffs.

China is lifting the curbs on our beef and pork exports. It’s a good start for new ambassador Dominic Barton, but it likely had as much to do with the Chinese government’s need to make up the shortfall caused by Asian swine flu. Our canola remains embargoed, and the detention of the two Michaels and China’s human-rights record have significantly soured Canadian attitudes toward China, according to recent polling by Pew Research Center and the University of British Columbia.

For both Chinese President Xi Jinping and Mr. Trump, trade is a geopolitical weapon based on a “reciprocity” that will always tilt in their favour. Canada needs to look at other markets. We should start by better utilizing our free-trade partnerships.

We have bilateral deals with countries such as South Korea and Israel, as well as big multilateral deals – the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans Pacific Partnership and the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement with the European Union – negotiated by both the Harper and Trudeau governments with deep provincial involvement. This should make it easier for Mr. Trudeau to persuade Opposition Leader Andrew Scheer and the provincial premiers to participate in what needs to be regular visits to our free-trade partners.

Official visits are especially important in the Asian market to open doors and close deals. In the past, minority governments went years without seeing ministers. This leaves an impression of inconsistency and uncertainty about what the next change in government means. Liberals and Conservatives agree on the importance of trade. So do provincial premiers, regardless of their political stripe.

The leaders’ first visit should start in Tokyo, with side trips to Seoul and Ho Chi Minh City, and then to Brussels, with side trips to London, Paris and Berlin. It will deliver a message that Canadians are united when it comes to open trade and investment. Mr. Trudeau also needs to re-visit Delhi with Alberta Premier Jason Kenney and Saskatchewan’s Scott Moe to market our agri-food, including canola, and smart-energy technology.

Canadians are blessed. We have abundant resources and a diverse, well-educated work force constantly renewed through smart immigration. Our trade commissioner service is good and we’re improving our export financing services

But Canada is falling behind in global competitiveness. We have a poor record in utilizing our trade deals. We continue to slip down the ladder, according to the World Economic Forum’s competitiveness index.

Once in the top 10, Canada is now ranked 14th, burdened by too much red tape (we rank 38th), a complicated legal system (we rank 24th) and a tax system needing reform (we rank 45th). Our transportation infrastructure needs work (we rank 32nd).

A recent Brookings report concluded that our advanced industries lag significantly behind those of the U.S. Nor is it just a matter of keeping up with Uncle Sam. It’s keeping up with the rest of the world. We claim to be open for business, but as the Public Policy Forum points out, foreign investment has grown by just 2 per cent a year, compared with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development average of 7 per cent.

It’s not as though we don’t have road maps to help us. There is lots of considered advice, including from the Business Council of Canada and the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.

Canada can compete, but we need our political leaders working together, not bickering. Advancing shared trade goals is the place to begin.

Podcasts

Colin Robertson October 21, 2019 Comments Off

Pod save us all: the growing role of political podcasts in election 2019

By MIKE LAPOINTE & AIDAN CHAMANDY OCT. 21, 2019

As podcasts continue to soar both in number and in popularity, podcasters are playing an increasingly important role in political debates around the world. It’s no different here in Canada, with a number of Canadian political podcasts, such as CBC’s Party Lines and Kevin Newman’s Attention Control, created specifically for election coverage.

Others, such as The Herle Burly, modified their format specifically for the election, and The Herle Burly has multiple journalists, bureau chiefs, high-level communications experts—and even Pamela Anderson—voicing their enthusiasm for the show on social media.

The Hill Times spoke with some podcast hosts taking a deeper dive into the political nitty-gritty, within a medium that only continues to grow in popularity.

In an interview with The Hill Times, David Herle said he started The Herle Burly to contribute to an informed dialogue about the future.

“I really think there are so many enormous issues that are facing us as people, and I had been, through my time, active in politics, and getting increasingly disturbed about how low [in] information the dialogue was, and how talking points were back and forth, and I thought things were more complex than that,” said Mr. Herle.

Currently a principal partner at the PR firm The Gandalf Group, Mr. Herle, a Saskatchewan Roughriders fan who hails from the province, was the federal Liberal campaign co-chair in 2004 and 2006, and worked on former Ontario premier Kathleen Wynne’s campaigns in 2014 and 2018.

Mr. Herle said he’s been privileged to have “stunningly interesting” and “directly political” people on his podcast so far, most recently including Jenni Byrne, who ran former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper’s 2015 campaign, and former Liberal adviser Scott Reid, a group he brought together specifically for the 2019 election.

“You’ve got three people who’ve worked on countless campaigns, right at the centre of them,” said Mr. Herle. “As my friend Bill Fox said, three people who are in the room after the meeting is over.”

Traditional media commentary simply can’t go into the same kind of detail around policy developments and election campaign developments as podcasts, said Mr. Herle.

“Yesterday, we talked for an hour, and that’s not possible on media. I’m not blaming the media for not doing it, I just thought it was a gap,” said Mr. Herle.

His thoughts on the 2019 election? “It feels to me, at the end of the day, it’s coming down to the leadership question, which it often is.”

“Maybe the first question for people is, am I for Trudeau or am I not for Trudeau? And if you’re not, you might go to Singh or Scheer or Blanchet, and if you can’t go to Scheer, it’s likely also because there’s something about him that’s not sitting square with you,” said Mr. Herle.

“As people are getting to know him, and I don’t mean to say this in a partisan way, just look at the data, but as people are getting to know him, they are not liking him,” said Mr. Herle of Mr. Scheer. “People are struggling with their leadership choices, I think.”

Justin Ling and Jen Gerson are co-hosts of Canadaland’s OPPO. Mr. Ling, a freelancer with bylines in almost every Canadian paper, and Ms. Gerson, a National Post correspondent turned freelancer, are both fiery personalities. Both independently reached out to Canadaland about doing a show, and Jesse Brown suggested they team up, according to Mr. Ling. Then, on Feb. 5, 2018, OPPO appeared on the airwaves.

Despite hosting a Canadian political podcast, Mr. Ling isn’t a big fan of the ways the medium is used in Canada. That criticism even extends to his own podcast.

“I think Canada, on the politics and current affairs side, hasn’t done a very good job of innovating or changing the format,” he said. “A lot of Canadian podcasts are just adaptations of what we’ve seen Americans do, and I think OPPO is included in that.”

He said he would like to see outlets with larger budgets to “do something different.” He cited another Canadaland podcast, COMMONS, doing “longform pieces on something you don’t understand about politics” as an example. Mr. Ling, however, said he understands that a lot of “people see it as a risk” especially considering the failure of other large-scale digital media launches in Canada.

“I just don’t see the huge public interest in having two people chat about politics for 45 minutes. We have enough people chatting about politics on CBC News Network for two hours a day,” he said. “I would just challenge everyone in the space to do something slightly different.”

OPPO typically also features Ms. Gerson and Mr. Ling debating the political issues of the day, but since Ms. Gerson’s departure in early September, Mr. Ling has brought on more guests to dive deep into different issues.

Erica Ifill, who writes a regular column for The Hill Times and is one of three hosts on the Bad + Bitchy podcast, which analyses politics, current events, and pop culture through an intersectional feminist perspective, said that what makes her podcast unique is that “we know our audience, we know who we’re trying to pull in.”

“Pop culture features a lot in our writing and what we do,” said Ms. Ifill. “If you can put those digital and pop culture references in, you get to anchor people in your writing, and you keep people engaged, because it’s always a point of familiarity.”

Ms. Ifill said podcasts appeal to her because the medium provides more leeway to the hosts, and is less filtered than traditional media.

“You know when they say dance like nobody’s watching? That’s literally how I talk,” said Ms. Ifill. “Once you start self-censoring, it’s over. I mean, for me, because I’m coming from a certain perspective.”

Canadian think tanks are entering the podcasting sphere for many of the same reasons as regular media companies. Young people are more digitally inclined, are constantly on the move, and want access to free content on demand. Podcasting checks all of those boxes.

American think tanks have flooded the podcast market, something Canadian think tanks have yet to do. Most of the top American think tanks, such as the Brookings Institution or the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, have multiple podcasts released on a regular schedule. Most are slickly produced with an appealing logo to greet you on your feed.

The Global Exchange host Colin Robertson, left, with EU Ambassador Peteris Ustubs, right, talking about the CETA trade deal. Photograph courtesy of Twitter

Colin Robertson, vice-president of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute and host of The Global Exchange, said a big part of the reason why American think tanks are so far ahead of their Canadian counterparts in producing digital media products is money.

“American think tanks have their own studios, and we do it pretty simply,” Mr. Robertson said. At first, Mr. Robertson said, The Global Exchange was done “on a shoestring, basically. Mac computer and a couple of headphones.” Mr. Robertson didn’t see lower-quality recording as an impediment to releasing the podcast.

“Don’t worry if the quality is not great, we will improve it over time, it’s better to get it out there,” he said. Mr. Robertson said that approach has worked, because The Global Exchange listenership has been steadily growing, now sitting at around 2,000 listens per episode, and bringing more people to CGAI’s work.

According to CGAI’s 2018 annual report, the institution had just over $1.28-million in revenue, drawn from donations, events, and grants, and just over $1.33-million in expenses. The total shortfall was $49,981, a marked improvement from the 2017 shortfall of $311,447.

The Brookings Institution’s 2018 annual report, on the other hand, shows an operating revenue of just over $87-million. In fiscal year 2017-18 alone, their four podcasts had over two million downloads. That number reaches above five million downloads when Lawfare podcasts, a Brookings-affiliated online publication focusing on national security and foreign policy, are included.

Brett Byers-Lane, communications director at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, who also produces and occasionally hosts Pod Bless Canada, said despite the obvious challenges Canadian think tanks face when compared to their American counterparts, there is reason for optimism.

“Canadians are among the more Internet literate people in the developed world. So it makes it would make sense that podcasts [have] a good potential market in Canada and I think that will see them expand over time,” Mr. Byers-Lane said. “So it’s not to say that we’re doing poorly. But I think that once we start getting more organizations and individuals doing regular interesting podcasts on a on a wider range of subjects, we’ll see, I hope, a renaissance in this media form.”

Here are some of the podcasts you can tune into:

The Global Exchange

Screenshot courtesy of Twitter

CGAI’s vice-president Colin Robertson has hosted the Global Exchange since its creation in June 2016. The first episode was on the aftermath of the Brexit referendum, a topic the podcast has returned to numerous times. The Global Exchange focuses strictly on foreign policy, but CGAI has Defence Deconstructed, focusing on Canadian defence policy, and Battle Rhythm, looking at international security issues.

Foreign Policy in the Election

Colin Robertson October 19, 2019 Comments Off

Trapped in the ‘bubble’: Why has the 2019 campaign ignored foreign policy?

CBC Radio · Posted: Oct 19, 2019 4:00 AM ET | Last Updated: October 19

The morning after he led the Liberals to a stunning victory in 2015, Justin Trudeau had a clear message for those who believed Canada had relinquished its role on the world stage: “We’re back.”

But four years later, the world beyond Canada’s borders hasn’t received much attention during this 40-day election campaign, according to a leading expert on international relations.

“It’s stunning that this election campaign has really not dealt with foreign policy, has not dealt with the world,” said Janice Stein, founding director of the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto.

“I call this the bubble election. We’re living in a bubble, we Canadians. We talk about ourselves as if the world isn’t impinging on us but it’s impinging on us on every single issue that matters to us — the environment, energy, exports, trade, security,” Stein told The House.

CANADA VOTES

The party leaders and the world stage

Scheer promises to slash foreign aid spending by 25 per cent

It’s not like the world is a particularly stable place right now. Turkey’s invasion of northern Syria is sowing chaos, tensions are still simmering with China over trade and the detention of three Canadians, and the Brexit project has profound implications for the future unity and stability of Great Britain — and that’s just the short list of major foreign policy concerns likely to land on the desk of the person Canadians choose to be their next prime minister.

“It’s a messier world and it’s a meaner world,” former Canadian diplomat Colin Robertson told The House.

“Under (U.S. President) Donald Trump, we don’t have the friend we thought we had, that reliable partner both on security and trade. And so, we are having to manage on our own.”

When the campaign kicked off last month, Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer attacked Trudeau’s record on foreign affairs.

NAFTA Election 2019

Colin Robertson October 7, 2019 Comments Off

NDP says position unchanged on renegotiation for new NAFTA, despite saying improvements ‘can and should be made to this deal’

By NEIL MOSS OCT. 7, 2019

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said the Democrats are ‘making progress’ in negotiations with the White House over the new trade pact.

The NDP will wait to see what changes are made by U.S. House Democrats to the new NAFTA before deciding whether they will vote to implement it in the next Parliament, says its most recent international trade critic.

“We will have a full debate in the next Parliament and a vote based on whatever the results are out of the U.S.,” NDP MP Tracey Ramsey (Essex, Ont.) told The Hill Times in a phone interview last week. She was the her party’s international trade critic in the 42^nd Parliament.

Speaking to CBC on Sept. 30, Ms. Ramsey, who won her riding in the last election with 41.4 per cent of the vote, questioned the decision to agree to the trade pact in the first place.

“We should have never signed the deal,” said Ms. Ramsey. “There are improvements that can and should be made to this deal and we would make every effort to ensure that we do so.”

In response to the a CBC tweet that the NDP would renegotiate the new NAFTA, Ms. Ramsey told The Hill Times there was a “misunderstanding” of her comments.

“I never said that we would renegotiate,” she said. “Our position on the new NAFTA has not changed at all.”

After a gruelling renegotiation of NATFA, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA)—also called the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA)—was signed by the three North American nations on the margins of the G20 Summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina on Nov. 30, 2018.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, right, then-Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto, left, and U.S. President Donald Trump signed the USMCA on Nov. 30, 2018, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Behind the leaders are former Mexican economy secretary Ildefonso Guajardo Villarreal, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, and Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland. Photograph by Shealah Craighead/White House

The trade deal was ratified by the Mexican Senate in June. While in the United States, the negotiations continue between the White House and House of Representative Democrats before Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi will bring it to the floor for a vote.

Ms. Pelosi told reporters last week that Democrats are “making progress” and are “on a path to yes.”

She said the outstanding issue remains the enforceability of provisions in the agreement.

“We are quite keen,” Ms. Ramsey said in a phone interview last week with The Hill Times, “to see what improvements they will make in the United States. And then I imagine they will bring that to us in Canada, and we will be able to have that full debate in the next Parliament.”

Asked what improvements would need to be made for the NDP to vote in favour of implementation, Ms. Ramsey said she didn’t want to “pre-judge” the work on Capitol Hill.

“We know they have a history of opening up agreements and improving them,” she said, pointing out the House Democrats concerns over the enforceability of labour and environmental provisions.

But Colin Robertson, a former diplomat who sat on the trade deputy minister’s NAFTA advisory council, said the NDP position is “irrelevant” no matter if the Liberals or Conservatives form a minority or majority government because the Tories and Grits will be voting to implement the pact.

“Any amendments [added by the United States] are only likely to work to our benefit,” Mr. Robertson said, who was part of the original Canadian negotiation team during Canada-U.S. free trade talks in the late 1980s.

He said because the changes are likely to involve environmental and labour provision enforcement on Mexico, it is something Canada would want.

“It’s exactly the kind of things we argued for in the negotiations themselves,” Mr. Robertson said, adding if there is change to reduce the patent protection on biologics it would work in Canada’s favour as it was a concession that Canada had to give the U.S. during the talks.

The Liberal government has said they will proceed “in tandem” with the United States on ratification. Before the House of Commons was adjourned in June, Bill C-100—a bill to implement USMCA—was read a second time on division and referred to the House Committee on International Trade.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh (Burnaby South, B.C.) told reporters in Toronto on Oct. 3 that an NDP government would be in “no rush” to implement the USMCA.

“What’s the point of having provisions on labour rights, having provisions on the environment, if there’s no enforceability? That’s—to me—meaningless,” he said.

Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland (University-Rosedale, Ont.) countered in a tweet directed at Mr. Singh that the government “negotiated and secured enforceable, standalone chapters on labour and the environment,” and said “facts matter.”

Eric Miller, a former diplomat and president of the Rideau Potomac Strategy Group, said the NDP doesn’t have a strong track record supporting Canada’s trade agreements.

Mr. Miller said the challenge for the NDP on saying they will wait on the House Democrats is what if the agreement reached in D.C., isn’t one they agree with.

“What happens if the House Democrats deliver something much less than they would like on the environment? Are they looking for their ideal agreement? Are they willing to accept something less?”

Mr. Miller, who also sits on the trade deputy minister’s NAFTA advisory council, said of the Canadian government’s position of saying they will not go back to the negotiation table is that if the deal gets renegotiated, the U.S. could ask for more concessions, such as even more access to Canada’s supply managed dairy sector.

“There’s a very good reason why the outward view that Canada has taken is to not be willing to accept changes,” he said, adding that if House Democrats wanted to change some conditions of the agreement back to what Canada was asking for at the negotiation table then Canada will gladly agree.

Flavio Volpe, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association Canada, questioned why would Canada want to risk the gains Canada got in the USMCA by re-opening the agreement.

“Why would you risk the gains we got in automotive, for example, against a belligerent counter party who—by the way—is increasingly unhinged in an impeachment inquiry?” Mr. Volpe said, adding especially for the NDP who are disproportionately representing a lot of automotive ridings.

Mr. Volpe, a former Liberal staffer in the the provincial government of former Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty and whose father is former Liberal MP Joe Volpe, said the trade pact is a good one.

“We got a net-positive deal negotiating with a madman. I’m very satisfied with where we went and the way … Canada conducted itself with coordination with industry. I don’t think I’d like to try again. I’d like to take what we got,” he said.

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer (Regina-Qu’Appelle, Que.) has said that Mr. Trudeau agreed to a weaker North American trade agreement. But he said earlier in the election campaign that if the Conservatives form government, they will vote to implement the pact.

Green Party MP Paul Manly (Nanaimo-Ladysmith, B.C.), his party’s international trade critic in the 42^nd Parliament, said the Greens will have an open vote on the implementation in the next Parliament.

“When we were looking at this, [Green Party Leader] Elizabeth [May] and I were actually of two different views on it. So probably if the vote came up in Parliament, I would have voted against the new NAFTA and she may have voted for it.”

Mr. Manly said that Ms. May (Saanich-Gulf Islands, B.C.) doesn’t think that Canada can get a better deal. But he said the Canadian government could.

He said the caucus would try to reach consensus, but it would not be a whipped vote.

Trump remains ‘great unknown’ in USMCA ratification; concern over NAFTA withdrawal: former diplomat

Mr. Miller said U.S. President Donald Trump remains “the great unknown” if the USMCA will be implemented.

“If he continues to put out these points of disruption, you could end up seeing them snatching defeat from the jaws of victory,” he said.

Mr. Miller added that he is “concerned” over if Mr. Trump would decide to withdraw from NAFTA and it is something that needs to be “actively” worried about.

“If you’re Trump, what better thing to do than to reframe the debate about your signature trade deal. Not from new NAFTA versus old NAFTA, you reframe as new NAFTA versus no NAFTA,” he said.

In the past, Mr. Trump has threatened to withdraw from NAFTA if Congress didn’t ratify the USMCA. But he said among Canadian business leaders, that threat has receded.

“If USMCA looks like it is struggling … then why would Donald Trump who is willing to do many things, not use that tool to push things forward,” Mr. Miller added.

“The USMCA is a victory for the president,” Mr. Volpe said, adding if Mr. Trump decided to withdraw from the original NAFTA he will “reset the standard on reckless behaviour.”

Mr. Volpe said it’s hard to see the upside for throwing away one of the few achievements that Mr. Trump has.

Mr. Miller said the current impeachment inquiry in the House of Representatives could give House Democrats coverage to vote in favour of USMCA while not be seen supporting a victory for U.S. President Donald Trump.

“The whole idea of not wanting to give Trump a win is not something they have to worry about because if you are saying you are voting for the Trump trade deal, but you are in the process of impeaching him, how can someone say that you’re soft on Trump?” Mr. Miller said.

Election 2019 and Foreign Policy

Colin Robertson October 7, 2019 Comments Off

Scheer, Trudeau face foreign policy criticism

NEWS Oct 06, 2019 The Canadian Press

OTTAWA — Monday’s English-language debate may open a window on how the major party leaders would try to steer Canada through a world of economic and political turbulence.

Not a moment too soon, say foreign policy experts, who accuse federal leaders of largely drawing the blinds during their campaigning on how they’d cope with the forces beyond Canada’s borders that will shape the country they are vying to lead.

Canada’s role in the world is almost never a dominant theme in federal elections, but experts argue there’s never been a more important time in recent memory for party leaders to get a grip on how they would steer the country.

They cite no end of obstacles: the rising influence of authoritarian leaders; the drumbeats of war in the Middle East; the extended drama of Britain’s Brexit divorce from Europe; and the instability of the Trump impeachment saga swamping Canada’s top trading partner and ally, the United States.

“That’s just totally absent from this campaign. Instead the discussion is about how we need to put money back in the pockets of Canadians, focusing on us as individual chequing accounts instead of as a nation that’s facing threats on the world stage,” said Ben Rowswell, who witnessed the implosion of Venezuela as Canada’s last ambassador there, and now heads the Canadian International Council think-tank.

Monday’s debate is divided into five themes and two of them — “leadership, in Canada and on the world stage” and “polarization, human rights and immigration” — might provide an opportunity for the leaders to expound on foreign policy.

Six party leaders will be on stage on Monday, but the focus will be on Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau and Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, the two frontrunners. Canadians were deprived of a separate debate on foreign policy after the Toronto-based Munk Debates cancelled its event, set for last week, because Trudeau declined an invitation.

So far during the campaign, Trudeau and Scheer have marked their differences on climate change, but have offered few specifics on moving forward with the U.S., including on a new North American trade agreement, as well as mending fences with China and India, and the possibility of building new alliances to cope with waning global leadership from the U.S.

Instead, Scheer and Trudeau are attacking what they see as each other’s vulnerabilities: Among other things, Scheer says he would have done better than Trudeau in renegotiating NAFTA, and that the prime minister has been a global embarrassment, especially on his heavily-wardrobed 2018 trip to India; Trudeau says Scheer is showing bad judgement by promising to cut foreign aid by 25 per cent, and for initially supporting Brexit, which has since become a debacle.

Managing relations with the U.S. is the most important job of any prime minister and President Donald Trump’s repeated threats to rip up NAFTA were the paramount foreign policy concern for Trudeau.

Meredith Lilly, an international trade expert at Carleton University, said the new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement is inferior to the old NAFTA because it is “more cumbersome and complicated and actually reflects less free trade.” But Trudeau had no choice but to accept the compromised deal to maintain Canada’s market access to the U.S., she said.

“The new NAFTA is worse than the old NAFTA, but it’s better than no NAFTA.”

Ratification of the new NAFTA hangs in the balance in the U.S. because Trump’s Democratic opponents control the House of Representatives and are negotiating changes with Republicans on labour, the environment, drug prices and enforcement provisions.

Canada is waiting to see what happens in the U.S. before it moves to ratify, but Trudeau and Scheer haven’t answered a key question for Canadians, said Fen Hampson, an international affairs expert at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University.

“What’s Plan B? It may be the status quo, but I don’t think we should assume that because Pandora’s Box has been opened and we’re hearing that the Democrats want to look at the agreement and make changes to it,” said Hampson.

“At a time when there is such turbulence internationally, including political turbulence south of the border that looks like it’s only going to get worse, not better … Canadians have a right to know from their parties what their plans are.”

Sarah Goldfeder, a former U.S. diplomat turned consultant who advised two American ambassadors to Canada, said the campaign is an appropriate time for Trudeau and Scheer to explain how they would try to build new alliances for Canada “with the United States and China focused on each other, and the international rules-based order disintegrating around everybody.”

That means forging stronger bonds with countries like Japan, South Korea, Germany and France, she said.

“There’s a lot of opportunity for Canada to be part of this re-orientation of global power that favours middle powers — at least if not giving them a balance of power, giving them an opportunity to determine where their destiny takes them.”

Scheer says he would better represent Canada abroad and has frequently cited Trudeau’s India trip, with its elaborate photo-ops and the invitation of a man convicted of attempted murder to an official function.

Fair enough, but Scheer is woefully short on specifics of how he’d repair relations with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, said Colin Robertson, a retired diplomat and vice-president of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute.

“The India trip was indeed a debacle. These were unforced errors. Forget the costumes — the real harm we did was to the Modi relationship. He’s there for the next four years.”

Robertson said it’s essentially a wash on whether Scheer or Trudeau would better represent Canada on future forays abroad. If Scheer succeeds, he will grow into the job and likely modify some of his thinking, especially his campaign promise to slash foreign aid by 25 per cent.

“I think the discipline of power would mean some of the sillier things that I observe in their platform would be modified,” he said. “When you get in, you realize, ‘hmm, that’s not really going to work out so well for us.'”

But Bessma Momani, a foreign policy expert at the University of Waterloo, said too much of the language behind Scheer’s aid-cut announcement had overtones of populism. She referred to Scheer’s contention that Trudeau was using Canadians’ “hard-earned tax dollars to support anti-Semitic organizations and prop up foreign dictatorships.”

“When you look at the trend among all of these populist leaders, mostly right wing, there is an ‘othering,'” she said, including calls that political elites are siphoning tax dollars towards “refugees and attempts to undermine our national culture.”

But don’t expect Trudeau to throw any punches at Scheer over foreign aid on Monday.

Under Trudeau, Canada overseas development spending has declined, but the Liberals have tried to mask that by repackaging existing funds through high-profile initiatives, said Momani.

“When people hear about all these great programs — we’re doing all this with all this Canadian feminist foreign policy, our foreign aid — you would think we were one of the top donors. We’re not even close.”

Foreign Aid

Colin Robertson October 2, 2019 Comments Off

COLIN ROBERTSON

THE GLOBE AND MAIL

OCTOBER 2, 2019

Canadians think of this country as having a big heart. After all, we now accept more refugees than Donald Trump’s America. But when it comes to foreign aid – which largely helps the poor, the sick and the destitute, most of whom are women and children – we are downright miserly.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) currently places Canada’s official development assistance commitment at 0.28 per cent of gross national income, representing about 25 cents for every $100. To put that in historical context, from 1970 to 1995, Canada committed about 46 cents for every $100 of national income – 75 per cent more than we do today. Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government embraced a feminist development policy, but that mostly reallocated rather than added new monies. Canadian aid is not growing in real terms.

Our UN Security Council seat competitors are outdoing us. Norway stands at 0.94 per cent and Ireland at 0.31 per cent, which is the OECD average. The organization has already told Canada that our words need to be matched by “concrete action to increase aid flows.”

And now, according to Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, a Tory government would cut even that by 25 per cent.

Fifty years ago, Lester Pearson got it right when he argued the case for aid: “The simplest answer is the moral one, that it is only right for those who have to share with those who do not.”

Mr. Pearson identified aid as part of “enlightened and constructive self-interest” in an increasingly interdependent world. He recommended a goal of 0.7 per cent of GDP for foreign aid, and that remains the benchmark for the OECD, Group of Seven and United Nations. Canada has never achieved the target, although it came close under prime ministers Brian Mulroney and Pierre Trudeau.

No doubt, foreign aid can be a hard sell to domestic voters. The idea of giving away money to other countries is one that suffers from compassion fatigue, and there are certainly problems around transparency and accountability.

But foreign aid works. In the wake of a disaster, it provides immediate relief, in the form of food, medicine and relief workers such as Doctors without Borders. It also offers a hand-up – teaching how to fish, farm and, increasingly, digital skills – that feeds aid recipients for life.

There are benefits to lending a hand, too. The United States’ aid-driven Marshall Plan resurrected Western Europe after the Second World War and boosted our economy when it allowed loan money to be directed to Canadian goods. Since then, our trade and investment with the European Union only grows. The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership is just the latest dividend generated in no small measure by Canada’s historic generosity through the multinational Colombo Plan, which took aim at poverty in Asia.

When the UN set out its millennium goals in 1990, there was lots of talk about whether its grasp exceeded reach. But by 2015, it turned out that those living in extreme poverty had declined by half. So, too, had the mortality rate for kids under 5. The working middle class – living on more than US$4 a day – nearly tripled.

Now, we have a new set of sustainable development goals for 2030 that includes ending poverty and hunger, as well as establishing gender equality. They’re ambitious aims, but they’re doable – as long as countries such as Canada continue to give.

Whichever party forms our next government needs a passionate advocate as Canada’s next international development minister. That person needs to clearly tell the public why Canadian foreign aid is vital. Every speech should answer three questions: Does aid work? Where can Canadian aid make the greatest difference? And what results should Canadians expect over the next decade?

With democracy under threat, good governance matters again. The Liberals have promised a new centre for peace, order and good government, but rather than create anew, why not make better use of existing institutions such as the Parliamentary Centre? And beyond money, we can share our competence and capability in harnessing energy, growing food and water stewardship.

Other OECD members are also reforming aid delivery by working with the private sector. We could learn from Australia’s Innovation Xchange experience.

Working with various organizations, the Canadian Council for International Co-operation will co-host a conference this November to look at development assistance. Their recommendations should serve as reference points for our next government.

Meanwhile, Andrew Scheer should talk to fellow conservatives Joe Clark, Brian Mulroney and Stephen Harper. They understood the value of foreign aid in advancing Canadian interests. They understood that foreign aid is not yesterday’s cause.