‘Canada now talks more than we act, and our tone is almost adolescent — forceful, certain, enthusiastic, combative, full of sound and fury’

The Harper government is skilled at conveying, and controlling, its own image among Canadians. But sometimes the most disciplined guard goes down, and the government actually says what it means. In October 2012, in the heat and fatigue of war-torn Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and at the end of the summit of La Francophonie, Stephen Harper said:

“I hope that in the future, La Francophonie and other major organizations will decide to hold a summit only in countries with democratic standards.”

Note the word “only,” as though achieving democratic standards was some kind of external award rather than a demanding work in progress, which requires the presence and pressure and support of countries who have made their own progress in the transition from authoritarian to more democratic systems. In many cases, as in Canada’s, that transition took centuries.

It happens that, in 1989, at the third francophone summit, in Dakar, Senegal, I co-chaired the meeting of foreign ministers that negotiated the first resolution on human rights to be adopted by the organization. That initiative had been proposed forcefully by Prime Minister Mulroney, with the strong support of Quebec premier Robert Bourassa and others. We understood fully that many of the nations at that conference might sign or support a resolution, but would continue their terrible abuses of human rights — that included, notoriously, the regime of then-president Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, the country that later would become the Democratic Republic of Congo. However, we also knew that adopting international declarations on human rights was often a first essential step toward bringing legal or other pressures to bear that could change the behaviour of such regimes. That was one enduring lesson of the end of the Cold War.

The Helsinki Accords, signed in 1975 by members of NATO and the Warsaw Pact, “included promises related to the respect for and promotion of human rights.” They have been described as “a political agreement . . . not a binding treaty,” but they nonetheless created both leverage for pressure on offending states and, as importantly, an incentive and support for domestic advocates of rights and democracy in countries where those were denied.

“Post-cold war analyses of the Helsinki Accord,” says the Encyclopedia of Human Rights, “connect its human rights provisions to the mobilization of dissident movements throughout eastern Europe and even to the collapse of communism in 1989–91.”

These are not instant developments. They require time, care, persistent engagement and an understanding that they cannot be achieved “only n countries with democratic standards,” but also on the harder ground of the developing world and oppressive regimes.

Mr. Harper was not a new prime minister when he let slip his preference regarding the location of international summits. He had been in Canada’s highest elective office more than six years, attending and hosting international summits, necessarily meeting with leaders of developing and poor and conflict-torn countries, and insisting on being the active final arbiter of what policies and priorities Canada should follow in the world.

This is a notoriously controlling prime minister, who dominates and decides his government’s domestic and international policy more rigorously than any of his predecessors since, at least, the Second World War. Over those three terms as the undisputed “key man” in Canada’s government, he had been exposed, frequently, to the hard realities faced by countries that are nowhere near as rich or lucky as Canada, and where economic development, and social justice, and democracy, and stability must be pursued steadily, and patiently, and with the help and understanding of friends.

There is no gentle way to say this: Prime Minister Harper should have known better than to suggest that issues of democracy — or development — are best addressed from a distance than in the countries where they are most acute.

Most Canadian prime ministers arrive in office with much to learn about societies more troubled than our own, and their interactions with foreign leaders offer a privileged crash course in the real nature and challenges of very different societies and sets of problems. Certainly that was my experience, in a prime ministership marked by an energy crisis, remarkable common purpose in rescuing Indochinese “boat people,” a Commonwealth conference creating Zimbabwe, an Olympics boycott and a hostage rescue in Iran.

More to the point, because Brian Mulroney was longer in office as prime minister, I watched him sop up information he could never have acquired in Montreal or Baie-Comeau, and use that knowledge to supplement the advice of colleagues and officials and help guide Canada’s international conduct. That happened regularly, but I remember a specific circumstance with a broad and immediate impact.

In 1985, Mulroney stepped out of a G7 economic summit meeting in Bonn to take an urgent call from President Kaunda of Zambia, a colleague in the Commonwealth whom he often consulted about Africa. A drought was devastating and starving Zambia, and Kaunda believed the G7 needed to better understand its urgent implications. Mr. Mulroney returned to the table and helped persuade this summit of wealthy nations to respond to drought-stricken Africa.

In the seven years between his first election and the time I am writing this, Stephen Harper would have been exposed directly to informed and passionate leaders describing similar challenges and opportunities in the developing countries they lead. Conversations of that kind may well have influenced his willingness to serve as co-chair, with President Kikwete of Tanzania, of the UN Commission on Information and Accountability for Women’s and Children’s Health. They could have informed his government’s more recent interest in international trade, including with some countries in Africa and the Americas. However, there is little evidence of much impact on the government’s understanding of the human and political dynamics of countries outside the West.

During the decades when Canada was earning a respected reputation in the world, part of our strength was that we felt no need to sit always at the head of the decision table. Our competence meant we often served there — on issues respecting arms control, the environment, human rights and international development. But Canada operated as effectively from a seat at the side, becoming trusted as a reliable, respected and responsible partner, and building concentric circles of influence on issues from defence, to development, to conciliation, to trade. Perhaps to a fault, we were known for our quiet and constructive work. By contrast, the Harper government’s performance in international affairs has shown more interest in the podium than in the playing field.

The tone is often confrontational — “court every dictator”; “just go along to get along”; “sell out human rights to the almighty dollar” — or marked by dramatic gestures that prove counterproductive — deliberately staying away from the Beijing Olympics; suddenly closing Canada’s embassy in Iran with no credible explanation; threatening “there will be consequences” when Palestinians prevail in a General Assembly vote.

During the Cold War, the Secretary-General of NATO, Lord Peter Carrington, urged the superpowers to avoid what he called “megaphone diplomacy.” That was defined as “diplomacy based on assertion through the media rather than on discussion,” and Lord Carrington considered it a dangerous practice between nuclear-armed superpowers. It is as counterproductive today, especially for a country like Canada, which has real skills and assets in diplomacy, when we apply them.

The case of the embassy in Iran is worth considering. What does Canada gain — what do our friends, including Israel, gain — from shutting down our channels of communication with a country that is unquestionably powerful, assertive and internally divided? What do the friends of democracy in Iran gain by having another door closed? It’s not impertinent to ask what would have happened in 1979 to the six Americans who became Canadian “house guests” in Tehran if we had shut our embassy because we disapproved of the regime.

Governments are regularly tempted to shut down relations with countries whose policies they find deeply offensive. That was an issue with South Africa in the 1980s, when many committed Canadian opponents of apartheid believed closing our embassy would be a powerful symbol and statement of our disapproval of an offensive regime. That’s true, it would have been. But it would also have been our last effective gesture, and would have pushed Canada to the sidelines of influence.

Analogies are unreliable, but the decision to stay in South Africa, or to stay engaged in China after Tiananmen Square, increased our influence. In South Africa particularly, Canada employed the podium, but our real strength was being present on the ground, reinforcing the citizens and forces who sought to change their own country.

With the exceptions of Afghanistan and trade, there is a curious and recurring pattern in the Harper government’s actions. It is unusually assertive in its dramatic gestures and declarations, but it has drawn back steadily from initiatives designed to actually resolve critical problems — drawn back from the fight against international poverty, peacekeeping, Kyoto, arms control, a broad presence in Africa and Canada’s customary leadership in the United Nations, Commonwealth and related multilateral institutions.

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It has taken virtually no new initiative to lead any significant international reform — no equivalent of the partnerships for change represented by the north-south dialogue, the anti-apartheid campaign, the land mines treaty, the International Criminal Court (ICC), the Contadora process, the diplomatic recognition of China or Canada’s early leadership on environmental issues.

Canada now talks more than we act, and our tone is almost adolescent —forceful, certain, enthusiastic, combative, full of sound and fury. That pattern of emphatic rhetoric at the podium, and steady withdrawal from the field, raises a basic question: What does the Harper government consider the purpose of foreign policy?

The government has indicated its preference for bilateral discussion where, by definition, the number of factors and actors is limited and easier to predict, if not control. That seems to be a strong personal instinct, and extends well beyond international policy. It may be why he avoids the federal-provincial conferences and co-operation at home which have been key to critical Canadian accomplishments — from health care to the free trade agreement, the environmental round table to the Kelowna Accord. It is an ironic legacy for a party whose “reform” promise was to open a closed political system, and allow more transparency and engagement.

Excerpted from How We Lead: Canada In a Century of Change by Joe Clark. Copyright © 2013 Right Honourable Joe Clark. Reprinted by permission of Random House Canada.

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