Last week, Canadian-Chinese relations took another turn for the worse.
 
Upon discovering that Canada had begun to accept refugees from Hong Kong (critics of Beijing no longer feel safe in the aftermath of a Chinese law that has all but criminalized negative commentary about the communist regime), China’s ambassador in Ottawa, Cong Peiwu, went on a tirade.
 
After labelling the asylum seekers “criminals,” he issued a clear threat:
 
“So, if the Canadian side … really cares about the good health and safety of those 300,000 Canadian passport holders in Hong Kong and the large number of Canadian companies operating in Hong Kong, you should support those efforts … to make sure the one country, two systems is most definitely and comprehensively implemented in Hong Kong.”
 
Canada’s foreign minister, François-Philippe Champagne, responded as follows:
 
“The reported comments by the Chinese Ambassador are totally unacceptable and disturbing. I have instructed Global Affairs to call the Ambassador in to make clear in no uncertain terms that Canada will always stand up for human rights and the rights of Canadians around the world.”
 
To the leader of the opposition, Erin O’Toole, Champagne’s actions were insufficient.
 
Ambassador Cong had engaged “in belligerent rhetoric unbecoming of his office.” O'Toole's party was “therefore calling on the Ambassador to fully retract his remarks and issue a public apology. Should the Ambassador fail to do so expeditiously, we expect the government to withdraw his credentials.”
 
As someone whose personal views of China today are likely closer to Mr. O’Toole’s than they are to some members of the Liberal government, I understand the anger and frustration.
 
I also recognize that it is the opposition’s job to oppose, and that in anticipation of an election that could come at any time, the Conservatives intend to differentiate themselves from the Trudeau Liberals on foreign policy. (Look, for instance, at how the Toronto Sun immediately praised O’Toole’s comments.)
 
But calling on Ottawa to escalate the conflict (since we all know that the ambassador will never retract his remarks) risks undermining Canadian interests both today and into the future.
 
First, and most important, kicking out the Chinese ambassador would inevitably lead to reciprocal action from Beijing.
 
Canada’s top representative in China, Dominic Barton, would soon be packing his bags as well, and that’s assuming that China did not escalate right back and shut down our diplomatic presence altogether.
 
From what I understand, whatever limited progress Ottawa has made in keeping tabs on the plight of the two Michaels is at least in part the result of Barton’s connections and diligence.
 
So, at best, we lose the relationships he has built. At worst, we lose access to the Canadian hostages altogether.
 
The longer-term problem is tactical.
 
States use diplomacy to resolve conflict without having to resort to war. Decisions to escalate must therefore take into consideration second- and third-order effects.
 
If Ottawa were to forcibly eject the Chinese ambassador for merely threatening the safety and security of Canadians in Hong Kong, what would it do if Beijing took real action?
 
Some might suggest that Canada could sever ties with China completely, but how would that help the Canadians stuck in Hong Kong?
 
Moreover, if or when escalation is truly necessary, Ottawa mustn’t act alone.
 
We share mutual interests with the United Kingdom, Australia, Sweden, and perhaps even the entire European Union. (Should the Americans choose a new administration in November, coordination with Washington would also be critical.)
 
We have significantly more leverage by acting together.
 
For now, it seems to me that Minister Champagne’s response was appropriate.
 
Our government is right to let Ambassador Cong’s comments be the story: yet another example of Chinese wolf warrior diplomacy that continues to undermine the communist regime’s international credibility.
 
***
On the dangers of diplomatic escalation, take a look at the recently retired (and already deeply missed) Kim Richard Nossal’s Rain Dancing: Sanctions in Canadian and Australian Foreign Policy.
 
If you’d like to read some more recent political history, check out Susie Colbourn and Tim Sayle’s new edited book, The Nuclear North: Histories of Canada in the Atomic Age.
 
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 This past weekend, the Government of Ontario sent Toronto, Peel, and Ottawa back to what it calls a modified Stage 2 in response to a surge in cases of COVID-19.
 
Practically, that means bars, restaurants, and nightclubs have joined strip clubs among the businesses that are no longer allowed to serve customers indoors.
 
Strip clubs have been prohibited from doing so since September 26th.
 
The decision to shut them down before everything else was the subject of at least two recent articles by current and former dancers.
 
In the Toronto Star, Barbara Sarpong asked: “If those other establishments are allowed to open, why aren’t we able to continue working?”
 
In the Globe and Mail, Marci Warshaft made almost the same case: “the province’s strip clubs are the only ones that, after being allowed to open at the start of Stage 3, have been ordered to shut down.”
 
And then she went on: “COVID-19 numbers are surging, and I completely understand the need to tighten our restrictions until we can get things under control. However, the callous way in which these restrictions are being enforced seems thoughtless and even misogynistic.”
 
The province’s initial explanation was hardly helpful: “Private social gatherings continue to be a significant source of transmission in many local communities, along with outbreak clusters in restaurants, bars, and other food and drink establishments, including strip clubs, with most cases in the 20-39 age group.”
 
Indeed, it could easily have been read to reinforce the idea that targeting strip clubs was, most generously, arbitrary.
 
I strongly suspect that was not the case.
 
A follow-up comment from the Ministry of Health, indicating that “contract tracing logs kept by the clubs were ‘often incomplete’,” seems to point to the real reason.
 
CTV News reported that after one outbreak, contact tracers couldn’t reach some 300 different attendees who might have been exposed because they had provided the club with phony contact information when they entered.
 
There is little incentive to hide your identity if you are dining at a restaurant. I suspect that many patrons of strip clubs are less comfortable confirming their presence.
 
So unless club managers are willing to demand photo ID and insist on working cell phone numbers and legitimate email addresses (and perhaps some would), welcoming patrons to strip clubs appears to pose a significantly greater risk to the spread of COVID-19 than does eating at a restaurant.
 
The issue might be moot for now – in Toronto, Peel, and Ottawa, at least – but I think there is a more significant lesson here.
 
Over the last nine months, Canadians have rewarded politicians who have embraced openness and authenticity in their response to this pandemic.
 
Many of us have been willing to forgive our elected officials for their flawed pandemic preparedness and action plans when we have sensed that they understand our concerns and are doing their best to respond to them.
 
I thought that Ontario premier Doug Ford – whose authenticity has always seemed genuine – got this, but the way his government dealt with closing strip clubs makes me less sure.
 
I recognize that Canadians are divided over the legitimacy of sex work. In this case, however, that really doesn’t matter.
 
Strip clubs are legal in Ontario, and when those in the industry lost their livelihoods to a decision from Queen’s Park, they deserved the same honesty and clarity as the rest of us.
 
Shame on the government for not giving it to them.
 
***
To learn more about political communication in Canada, take a look at Alex Marland, Thierry Giasson and Tamara A. Small’s book with that very title.
 
In other news, I just received my copy of Patrice Dutil’s new edited collection, The Unexpected Louis St-Laurent: Politics and Policies for a Modern Canada. It will be available for purchase (in hardcover and pdf) on November 1st and is a must for Canadian political history junkies.
 
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A couple of weeks ago, Harvey Schipper, a professor of medicine at the University of Toronto (with one of the most overwhelming/intimidating biographies I have ever read), published an article in the Hill Times that proclaimed:
 
“Canada is in a unique position to be a, if not the, world leader in preparedness. We now have an unprecedented opportunity to reframe our thinking of what a pandemic represents, and in so doing, we can potentially create a revolutionary and science-driven health economy.”
 
The piece goes on to describe a series of medically-informed steps that Ottawa could take in order to position itself at the forefront of “the advancement of global responsiveness.”
 
Schipper’s argument for Canadian leadership is, on its surface, compelling:

“Our biological and medical sciences expertise is, on a population and expenditure basis, world leading already… our diversity both provides the test bed for new interventions and links to other countries that no other country can match. Moreover, as a middle power with a track record of trust and success in forging new concepts for global well-being … we have specific advantages in terms of engaging the international community.”
 
His thinking harkens back to the logic underlying the functional principle, a Canadian recipe for foreign policy influence that was articulated with moderate success in the 1940s.
 
Canada, the story went, was not a great power, but there were times when it had the capacity to contribute just like one.
 
In such cases, should Ottawa invest the necessary political and/or human capital, Canada deserved to be recognized as a leading player on the world stage.
 
According to Schipper, when it comes to pandemic preparedness, the capacity is there. And there is no denying that Canadian interests will be well-served by better preparation in anticipation of Covid-19’s inevitable successor.
 
Presumably, then, all that is needed is political will.
 
Between 2013 and 2019, I made a similar – albeit far less eloquent – suggestion in lectures at my home institution, the Canadian Forces College.
 
If Canadians insisted on looking for global leadership opportunities, I argued, they could do worse than becoming the world’s pandemic preparedness experts.
 
Ever since Covid-19 hit, however, I have dropped pandemics from my text.
 
Ironically, my thinking can also be traced to the functional principle.

Only I am thinking about its less well-known caveat: opportunities for smaller countries to exercise global leadership are typically contingent on the degree of great power interest in the issue in question.
 
Put bluntly, the more the great powers care, the less space there is for everyone else.
 
Notwithstanding the underwhelming response from the White House, it seems to me that Covid-19 has brought pandemics to the direct attention of many of the world’s most powerful states.
 
It follows that the likelihood of a China or a Russia, or a new administration in the United States, tolerating Canadian efforts to dominate the preparedness realm is slim to nil.
 
Schipper’s call for Ottawa to embrace the opportunity to make an already capable public health sector “more resilient, flexible, innovative, and responsive” is still well-taken, but I suspect that the opportunity for Canadian global leadership on pandemic preparedness has long since passed.
 
***
 
I have been interested in the functional principle since graduate school. My most recent work on it can be found here.
 
If global leadership opportunities for Canada interest you, take a look at the work that the University of British Columbia’s Karen Jessica Bakker does on water security.
 
Recently, I was fortunate to get a sneak peek at some of the draft chapters from Stephanie Carvin, Thomas Juneau, and Craig Forcese’s forthcoming book, Top Secret Canada: Understanding the Canadian Intelligence and National Security Community. If you teach Canadian national security and intelligence, or if you want to understand how our system works, this book will be indispensable. Kudos to them for putting it together, and to all of their contributors for the great work.
 
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Late last week, I read a piece in the Economist titled: “Amateurs to the rescue: Politicians should take citizens’ assemblies seriously.”
 
The article is about the revitalization of an old idea:
 
Governments organize groups of about 100 randomly-selected citizens to recommend solutions to protracted public policy challenges.
 
“Ordinary people, it turns out, are quite reasonable,” suggests the author, pointing to citizens’ assemblies that have indicated a willingness among Irish Catholics to support equal marriage and an openness among US Republicans to immigration reform.
 
Since both British Columbia and Ontario have experimented with this method before, I briefly wondered whether it could help Canadians reach a consensus on the future of fossil fuel production in the Prairies.
 
For example, the current dispute between Western supporters of a resuscitated Energy East pipeline and their determined opponents in Quebec has become so heated that, no matter the ingenuity and creativity of our public service, it is hard to imagine a politically-imposed solution that might please both sides.
 
Nevertheless, I’m not certain that the problem is intractable.
 
Most reasonable Canadians will concede that, at some point (we can disagree on how far in the future that point might be), the Prairie provinces will have to wean their economies off of fossil fuels.
 
At the same time, it is hard not to feel sympathy for the tens of thousands of Westerners currently employed (directly and indirectly) in the extractive industry when they are called upon – often in sanctimonious tones – to abandon their livelihoods while millions, if not billions, of people around the world remain dependent on oil and gas (and will find it elsewhere if we don’t produce it here).
 
If only Canadians from across the country could sit down together, free of the partisan shenanigans, and try to sort this out…
 
It did not take me long, however, to reject such an approach as unworkable.
 
The problem, as I see it, is language.
 
According to the 2016 Census, less than 18% of Canadians are bilingual. As a result, a random sampling of 100 citizens would have trouble speaking to one another at all.
 
Irvin Studin, who briefly contested the Conservative party leadership last spring, advocates a national languages strategy to ensure that we all become multilingual.
 
But I suspect that, rather than uniting us, any federal initiative that orders Albertans to learn French and demands that the government of Quebec promote English language education would do the opposite.
 
A bottom-up approach offers greater promise.
 
I therefore hope that provincial leaders in Alberta and Saskatchewan make French language education a priority in their “building back better” budgets.
 
Not only is learning a second language good for the brain, it might also be the best chance for Western Canada to make a compelling case for a fair and just national transition to a post-carbon economy.
 
***
 
On the history of bilingualism in Canada, see Matthew Hayday’s So They Want Us to Learn French. The Canada West Foundation produces fascinating reports on Western Canadian politics and policies.

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The recent toppling of a statue of Canada’s first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, in Montreal has brought out the worst in too many Canadians.
 
The initial culprits this time – the statue has been targeted before – justified their behaviour at an otherwise peaceful protest as follows:
 
“We offer this action in solidarity with the Indigenous peoples of Tio’tia:ke, Turtle Island and across the globe, and all those fighting against colonialism and anti-Blackness in the struggle for a better world.”
 
Although I sympathize with their desire for a better world, I can’t imagine how they thought their actions would help get us there.
 
For one, the vandalism took attention away from the original intent of the demonstration – a call for police reform.
 
Second, although I don’t claim expertise in this area, it appears to me that the deliberate violation of Canadian law runs counter to the spirit of reconciliation.
 
As I understand it, Gusweñta, or the Two Row Wampum treaty (the meaning of which is meant to guide the management of the relationship between Indigenous peoples and European settlers) stipulates that “each nation will respect the ways of the other as they meet to discuss solutions to the issues that come before them.”
 
Third, the protestors prompted, as could have been expected, a barrage of puerile and unnecessarily partisan responses that have inflamed matters further.
 
When pressed, the prime minister was less confrontational, noting that “We are a country of laws and we are a country that needs to respect those laws, even as we seek to improve and change them.” But he stopped there, never offering a way ahead.
 
At least Premier Jason Kenney proposed a solution – Alberta would repair the statue and have it installed in Edmonton on the grounds of the provincial legislature – but his pledge to mobilize the power of the state against what he called “roving bands of thugs” was (quite understandably) interpreted by critics as just another act of colonialism.
 
The lack of empathy from all sides is disturbing.

Those claiming to seek an end to systemic discrimination need to understand that to effect lasting change in a liberal democracy you must appeal to citizens from across the political spectrum.
 
Resorting to deliberately provocative, illegal, activities when you aren’t satisfied with the pace of change will only set your cause back.
 
At the same time, passionate defenders of Sir John A. Macdonald’s political legacy must stop underplaying the extent of the trauma caused by the residential school system.
 
It is unreasonable to ever expect survivors of residential schooling to privilege the prime minister’s critical role in negotiating Confederation and managing our country in its early years over his callous approach to Indigenous peoples and communities.
 
How do we move forward?
 
I’m partial to the suggestion that the statue be restored and placed in a museum (or statue park) where Macdonald’s legacy could be properly contextualized and debated.
 
In the longer term, we might draw lessons from the experience of Yale University.

In 2016, when it faced calls to rename campus buildings that memorialized divisive figures, Yale formed a Committee to Establish Principles on Renaming.

Its final report – a product of four months of consultation and reflection – is thoughtful, inclusive, and thorough.
 
I recognize that the emotions in the case of Macdonald run particularly deep, and that statues aren’t names on buildings, but unilateral, deliberately divisive “solutions” get us nowhere.
 
Surely, we can do better.
 
***
 
If you’d like to read some good Canadian political history, check out the work of Penny Bryden and Matthew Hayday. Bryden is working on a much-needed history of the Prime Minister’s Office. Hayday is writing a biography of Joe Clark. On Indigenous issues, I’m consistently impressed by the work of Douglas Sanderson.

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The WE controversy will likely be recalled as one of the Trudeau government’s greatest failures.
 
Just about everything about the Canada Student Service Grant Program (CSSG) – an effort to compensate students up to $5000 for up to 500 hours of volunteer service during the summer of 2020 – stunk.
 
From the very idea of paying students to volunteer, to paying them less than minimum wage, to outsourcing the administration of the program at all, to outsourcing it to a charity with close ties to senior members of the government, to the failure of said members to recuse themselves from Cabinet discussions of the program, to the failure of just about everyone in Ottawa to realize that the charity itself was a questionable enterprise, one cannot help but wonder how any of this could have possibly happened.
 
(For a timeline of the controversy, see here.)
 
It is therefore hardly surprising that in the aftermath of WE Charity's withdrawal from the administration of the program, the Liberals have lost popular support, the prime minister’s personal approval ratings have declined, and the minister of finance has been replaced.
 
What I find more interesting is that support for the opposition (pick a party – this post is not a criticism of anyone in particular) has hardly budged.
 
It seems to me that, in the rush to catalogue the government’s failures with the CSSG, not enough attention has been paid to the disappointing response of the rest of Canada’s political parties.
 
While we have certainly been told repeatedly that the scandal “reeks of corruption,” I suspect that the less partisan among us would have liked to hear someone recognize that, ultimately, the checks and balances of our liberal democracy preserved the integrity of our system of government.
 
Thanks to the combination of a free press that kept digging and a minority Parliament that refused to stop asking questions, a government program that was flawed in every which way was stopped in its tracks.
 
A constructive response from the opposition might still have reminded Canadians that they made the right choice by denying the government a majority.
 
But it might then have pivoted to what seems to me to be the most significant challenge that the controversy (or scandal, if you prefer) has revealed:
 
The consequences for elected officials who fail to declare a conflict of interest are failing to deter behaviour that risks undermining public faith in our liberal democratic process.
 
Once Canadians begin to question, collectively, the integrity of their elected representatives, our entire political system becomes vulnerable to exploitation not just from within, but by external rogue actors as well.
 
There is no easy solution here.
 
Issuing even significant fines to those found guilty by the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner would punish parliamentarians of lesser means relatively more severely than it would those who can easily afford to pay.
 
Any sort of automatic dismissal from office would run counter to basic democratic principles.
 
And waiting for the public to decide the fate of an individual member’s misconduct during the next election risks sending the message that, in the immediate aftermath of the violation, the perpetrator gets a free pass.
 
Part of the opposition’s job is undoubtedly to oppose, but I suspect that critiques of the government of the day are more likely to resonate when they leave Canadians hopeful of what new leadership might provide – not just cynical about the political process as a whole.
 
On this front, all four of the opposition parties have disappointed. It is no wonder that their polling numbers have hardly moved.
 
***
As soon as I learned of its publication date, I asked the Canadian Forces College's library to order Memorial University professor Alex Marland’s Whipped: Party Discipline in Canada. It will be released by UBC Press next month. Marland understands Parliament’s political culture in a way that few others do. Until Whipped arrives, the second edition of Susan Delacourt’s Shopping for Votes: How Politicians Choose Us and We Choose Them is worth another look. For an academic examination of the role of the opposition in Canada, see David E. Smith, Across the Aisle: Opposition in Canadian Politics.
 
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On July 31st, Canada achieved a significant foreign policy victory. It wasn’t flashy; it had little to do with Ottawa’s commitment to a feminist approach to world affairs; and Canadians are unlikely to see or feel its results directly any time soon.
 
But that’s how diplomacy generally works.
 
Diplomats set the conditions for national success by building relationships, nibbling around the edges of conflict, and reaching obscure agreements with allies, associates, and sometimes even adversaries, to preserve a system of rules and laws that is consistent with Canadian national interests.
 
The July 31, 2020 supplement to Canada’s 2016 Statement on a Mechanism for Developing, Documenting and Sharing Practices and Procedures in the Conduct of WTO Disputes – now endorsed by Australia, Benin, Brazil, China, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, the EU, Guatemala, Hong Kong, Iceland, Mexico, Montenegro, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Pakistan, Singapore, Switzerland, Ukraine, and Uruguay – has effectively prevented the World Trade Organization (WTO) from imploding, for the time being.
 
Let me explain.
 
According to its website, the World Trade Organization “is the only global international organization dealing with the rules of trade between nations… The goal is to ensure that trade flows as smoothly, predictably and freely as possible.”
 
When a member-state believes that international trade law has been violated by another country, it can appeal to a three-person WTO arbitration panel.
 
If either state-party is unsatisfied with the ruling, they can then appeal to the seven-member WTO Appellate Body, which makes a final, binding decision.
 
Appellate Body judges are appointed by WTO member-states for four years. They can be re-appointed once.
 
(For an accessible summary of all of this, take a look at this great article in the Washington Post’s Monkey Cage).
 
The WTO’s arbitration system began to break down in 2011 under the Obama administration. Washington’s disappointment with an American judge led it to block her re-appointment.
 
The move was disturbing, but not critical, as Washington appointed another judge in her place, and life at the WTO continued.
 
But when the Office of the US Trade Representative blocked a non-American judge in 2013-14, things got more complicated. For all intents and purposes, America had exercised a veto over a WTO Appellate Body appointment.
 
True, every member-state has always had such power, but the unwritten rules of diplomacy had dictated that no one would use it (based on the assumption that only qualified judges would be nominated through an apolitical process).
 
The Trump administration – which seems to believe that every international organization is unfair to the United States – has since used that same veto power to block every recent potential appointment to the Appellate Body in an effort to choke the WTO out of existence.
 
WTO rules indicate that the board cannot function with fewer than three active judges. In December 2019, Washington’s ongoing veto left it with just one.
 
Canadian governments have long understood that Canada benefits when its trade disputes are resolved through transparent legal processes. The alternative, “might is right,” will never be ideal for a country of less than 38 million in a world of almost 8 billion.
 
And while Ottawa has acknowledged the WTO’s many flaws, it has rightly privileged reform over annihilation.
 
In response to Washington’s actions, Global Affairs Canada established the Ottawa Group, a coalition of 12 countries plus the European Union that pledged to devise proposals for reform.
 
In the midst of these broader negotiations, in July 2019, Canada and the EU finalized their own, pre-emptive, interim bilateral solution.
 
Essentially, they set up a private appeals board to settle disputes between them in the case that the WTO Appellate Body could no longer function.
 
The success of the Canada-EU agreement appears to be linked to the Ottawa Group's recent break-through.
 
The 17 signatories to the July 31st supplement have established a Multi-Party Interim Appeal Arbitration Arrangement – comprised of a pool of 10 arbitrators – to replace the Appellate Body until its minimum membership is restored.
  
The solution is hardly perfect – for one, Japan has yet to sign on – but it does preserve a broad, international commitment to a rules-based order.
 
It is a prime example of Canadian diplomacy at its best:

Hard work, relationship-building, careful negotiation, and compromise have bought the WTO and the international community some time.
 
Hopefully, this interim measure will hold until Washington rediscovers that it, too, is best-served by the rules-based international order that it so carefully designed 75 years ago.
 
***
 
When I have questions about international trade, I contact the University of Lethbridge’s Christopher Kukucha. For the history of the WTO’s predecessor organization, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, check out Western University’s Francine McKenzie’s book, GATT and Global Order in the Postwar Era.
 
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Should Canada ban China’s Huawei Technologies Company, the world’s leading telecommunications supplier, from involvement in our fifth generation (5G) wireless networks?
 
The Canadian government has been struggling with this question ever since Beijing passed a new intelligence law in June 2017. Article 7 of the legislation dictates that “any organization or citizen shall support, assist, and cooperate with state intelligence work according to law.”  
 
It appears, then, that Beijing could demand that Huawei spy on Canadians through their own networks.
 
That’s certainly what the Americans think. (They first banned Huawei years ago and have increased their pressure on the company over the last 12 months.)
 
Apparently, so do senior Canadian military officials. Australia has already banned the company, as have Japan and, most recently, the United Kingdom.
 
The British decision was taken largely in response to new sanctions announced by Washington that restrict organizations from exporting key technologies to Huawei, thereby limiting the company’s capacity to do business.
 
Washington has also made it clear that should Huawei become involved in Canada’s emerging 5G network, our access to intelligence within the Five Eyes alliance would no longer be guaranteed.
 
(The Five Eyes include the US, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. The first three countries have banned Huawei; New Zealand has thus far turned down every application from Huawei for involvement in its network.)
 
China’s disappointing international behaviour in recent years has convinced me (and, according to Angus Reid, at least 78% of Canadians) that it is not in Canada’s interests to allow Chinese technology anywhere near our critical infrastructure.
 
And yet, I hope that our allies do not ultimately compel us to officially ban the firm from involvement here.
 
It seems to me that banning Huawei risks bringing a degree of credibility to Beijing that Washington does not intend.
 
It could suggest to some states in the wider international community that if Western firms cannot compete on a level playing field, we resort to brute force to get what we want.
 
Such an aggressive posture creates a narrative of Beijing as victim, which it can use in efforts to promote Huawei as a credible partner elsewhere.
 
Ideally, Canadian telecommunications firms would not need to be directed to stay away from an enterprise that threatens our national security.
 
It would nonetheless be prudent for Ottawa to create criteria for investment here that make it all but impossible for Huawei to put forward a competitive bid on any opportunities to work on 5G networks.
 
We should aim to create incentives for the leadership at Huawei to be resentful of their own political masters. Better that they blame Beijing, and not Washington, for their lack of access to Western markets.
 
I therefore hope that Washington continues to tolerate the Trudeau government’s endless delay in coming to a final decision on a Huawei ban. I’d much prefer to see the company fail to secure contracts in Canada on any merit other than an American edict.
 
***
 
On Canada and China, I enjoy the work of Wendy Dobson and Paul Evans. Both were also delightful to deal with when I edited International Journal.

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Last week, the Trudeau government announced that Bob Rae would be Canada’s next permanent representative to the United Nations.
 
(Disclaimer: Mr. Rae has been a regular guest in my class on Canadian government and strategic decision-making and has said very kind things about my last two books.)
 
Two thoughtful journalists, Paul Wells of Maclean’s and Martin Regg Cohn of the Toronto Star, have come to virtually opposite conclusions about Rae’s appointment. I find it difficult to fully agree with either of them.
 
According to Wells, Rae might be “a gifted deliverer of impromptu remarks,” but he is not a career diplomat, and the posting to New York requires more than just a sharp intellect and superior negotiation skills.
 
The UN is “an infernally complex place. The rule book is as thick as the Manhattan phone directory, and much depends on whom you know.”
 
Perhaps it might have been prudent for the Liberals to choose from among the many seasoned professionals at Global Affairs Canada for this particular job.
 
In contrast, Regg Cohn draws attention to Rae’s time as Ontario’s 21st premier, suggesting that “There is no better preparation for the pinstripes brigade in the puffed up diplomatic corps than to run a province.”
 
Add to that his international experience, including his recent work on behalf of the Trudeau government looking into the plight of the Rohingya, and Regg Cohn can’t imagine a better choice.
 
I agree with Wells that Rae lacks UN experience, and my own research confirms that navigating the UN’s written and unwritten rules of behaviour takes time for even the best-prepared diplomat.
 
But I also concur with Regg Cohn’s suggestion that, in temperament and intellect, Rae will be an excellent fit in New York.
 
My problem with both analyses is that we don’t really know what Mr. Trudeau wants from his new UN representative. Without that understanding, I don’t think it’s possible to evaluate the quality of the appointment.
 
In recent history, there have been at least four kinds of successful Canadian permanent representatives in New York.
 
Stephen Lewis was an NDP political activist, lacking in formal diplomatic experience.
 
But his Progressive Conservative prime minister, Brian Mulroney, was looking for someone with an edge, particularly when it came to denouncing apartheid in South Africa. He got exactly that.
 
Yves Fortier, one of Mulroney’s closest friends and business associates, succeeded Lewis.
 
He, too, had no formal background at the UN, although he was a world-renowned arbitrator.
 
In Fortier, Mulroney sought someone he could trust implicitly while Canada was on the UN Security Council.
 
To compensate for Fortier’s lack of UN experience, Philippe Kirsch, one of Canada’s foremost diplomats, stayed on in New York as deputy permanent representative and took responsibility for the operational management of the delegation.
 
Fortier had the humility to defer to Kirsch on issues of procedure and protocol, and was generally a pleasure to work for. Moreover, his close relationship with the prime minister produced instant credibility at the negotiating table. No career diplomat I have spoken to resented his presence.
 
Fortier was followed by Louise Fréchette, an official with 21 years’ experience, including a number as part of Canada’s UN delegation in Geneva.
 
Fréchette was so well-regarded across New York that she later served eight years as the UN’s first deputy secretary-general.
 
Finally, in 2011, the Harper government appointed Guillermo Rishchynski Canada’s UN ambassador.
 
Rishchynski used the mediation skills he had developed over nearly 30 years as a foreign service officer to keep the low profile that his prime minister expected of him without compromising Canadian national interests.
 
That most readers won’t recognize his name suggests that he, too, succeeded.
 
Bob Rae has Lewis’ ability to effect change, Fortier’s gravitas, and the necessary deference to the diplomatic establishment.
 
He lacks Fréchette’s UN experience, and is unlikely to keep his head down.
 
He could be an excellent choice if his skill-set matches the policy objectives that the Trudeau government has presumably established for his time in New York.
 
But if Rae was selected for political purposes – as a fig leaf to the Liberal old guard, for example – the decision to pass over a number of eminently qualified career public servants is harder to justify, and morale at Global Affairs Canada is likely to suffer as a result.
 
***
 
For another perspective on this issue, take a look at what Susan Delacourt has written. And if you’d like to delve more deeply into the history of Canadian diplomacy, consider just about anything published by the late Greg Donaghy. Greg was an outstanding scholar whose kindness and generosity will be deeply missed across Canada’s academic and professional diplomatic community.
 
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Ever since Canada lost its bid for a seat on the United Nations Security Council, an overwhelming number of Canadian analysts have been calling for a comprehensive foreign policy review (see also here and here and here).
 
According to the University of Calgary’s Jean-Christophe Boucher, some are even advocating a Royal Commission.
 
I was not comfortable when Canadian Foreign Minister François-Philippe Champagne proposed to “launch a white paper on Canada’s feminist foreign policy” four months ago.
 
And while I don’t agree that Canada’s Security Council election defeat represents the global rejection of Canadian foreign policy that critics have made it out to be, even if it does, I still wouldn't think that the time was right for a foreign policy review.
 
Historically, foreign policy reviews conducted under minority governments have sputtered.
 
Prime Minister Joe Clark tried one in 1979, but it was cancelled when his government fell unexpectedly a couple of months later.
 
Prime Minister Paul Martin tried in 2005. His review made it to press, only to be archived a few months later when Stephen Harper’s Conservatives took power.
 
It’s also an election year in the United States, and Canada’s close ties to the US – economically, militarily, historically, and geographically – mean that the policy of the next administration will have a critical impact on Ottawa’s international realm.
 
To conduct a foreign policy review before we are certain of who will sit in the White House and control the Senate next year seems imprudent.
 
These reasons don’t begin to take into account the logistics of launching a review in the midst of Global Affairs Canada's efforts to deal with the impact of a pandemic while working remotely.
 
Nor do they consider how Canadians will pay for the findings of the review. (These sorts of exercises always conclude that Canada should do more in the world.)
 
None of this means that Canadian foreign policy is in a good place.
 
Critics are correct in suggesting that Ottawa’s searing rhetoric has failed to align with its more guarded international commitments.
 
But doing something is not the only way to address this discrepancy. For now, the best solution might be to simply cut down on the sloganeering.
 
Our government could do worse than dispensing with all of its talk of Canadian global leadership; avoiding the further politicization of foreign policy through its deliberate and unhelpful branding efforts; and empowering the outstanding people at Global Affairs Canada and in other departments with international responsibilities to promote and defend Canadian national interests.
 
We can start thinking more seriously about the future of Canadian foreign policy on November 4th, 2020. But I still don’t see the value of undertaking a formal review until one of our political parties commands a majority in the House of Commons.
 
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If you’re interested in learning more about Canadian foreign policy reviews, take a look at the work of David Malone, William Hogg, John Noble, and Randolph Mank. I wrote something about the origins of Canada’s feminist foreign policy here, but for a real expert’s take, check out the work of Rebecca Tiessen.

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