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The prospect the son may be as big a Sinophile as his father has many Asian countries looking askance. Canada may not have fleets of dreadnoughts to send to trouble spots around the world, but we are still a G7 nation and offer a useful counterweight to the United States.

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Over the course of the past week, I have been grilled by senior officials in the Department of Foreign Affairs and by foreign diplomats about what might be expected from the Trudeau government.

The short answer is, we simply don’t know. The suspicion is, neither do the Liberals.

The Liberals convened a foreign affairs advisory committee of experts, co-chaired by caucus members Marc Garneau and Andrew Leslie, but it was geared to briefing the leader on the issues that might come up in the debate with Stephen Harper and Tom Mulcair. It did not offer a roadmap for Canada’s future foreign policy. Nor does the party election platform offer many specifics, beyond lifting the visa requirement for Mexican visitors and developing a North American clean energy agreement.

What the platform does make explicit is that the “antagonistic” tone used by the Conservatives will change. Foreign policy will be more open and Canada will be more willing to work with others in a multilateral context, say people familiar with the broad thrust of the Liberal plan.

“I don’t imagine Justin Trudeau will speak to Putin the way Harper did. It doesn’t mean the absence of force or sanctions. But there will be more civilized dialogue and attempt to reach an accommodation where both sides feel their interests are being respected. It’s a return to a more traditional approach where we don’t necessarily rub people’s noses in it and then expect positive results,” said one Liberal advisor.