McLeod Group guest blog by Daniel Livermore, June 22, 2023
Global Affairs Canada has taken the first important step in making GAC “fit for purpose”. After months of anticipation, Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly unveiled a discussion paper, Future of Diplomacy: Transforming Global Affairs Canada, first to a group of Canadian ambassadors on June 7, then to a Senate Committee. It’s a significant document, but it covers only the machinery of government, not the more important question of the resources that Canada devotes to its international engagement.
The Future of Diplomacy report (not yet officially released, but available here and here) covers the essential groundwork. Why is a reform effort necessary now, and what is happening both within Canada and abroad that is driving change? Most importantly, it argues that our diplomatic network matters, and that Global Affairs Canada “must maximize the advantages of having all the major elements of modern international engagement… under a single roof”. Predictably in a document written both for internal consumption and (presumably) for public information, it focuses on the upsides of reform. It doesn’t cover the inevitable questions: How did GAC get into this mess, and why should anyone trust a reform effort launched and sustained by essentially the same team that has presided over GAC’s slide from grace?
Lots of cynical comments are possible. Nobody accustomed to wielding an editorial pen can resist challenging the odd sentence here and there. But give the authors of this policy paper due credit. In a barely functional department that has grown enormously in size, even as it has lost its capacity for the very attributes that this paper values (openness, agility, responsiveness, etc.), the authors have pulled together a compelling case for reform. The data and charts support the argument that Canada’s international network is too small in comparison to our peers, and that we have far too few diplomatic resources abroad, compared to the resources we maintain at headquarters. The first half of the paper’s 31 pages makes a cogent case for reform.
The second half discusses the areas most in need of reform, as well as what to do about them. That is the section of greatest debate, exposing some of the paper’s fault lines. Some of the arguments are beyond dispute. For instance, GAC needs more expertise on some key topics and enhanced policy capacity to address new and emerging international issues. It also needs strategic thinking about crucial global concerns. But whether “an Open Policy Hub” is the solution is debatable, particularly in a department still aligned along traditional lines, with complicated reporting functions for the political, trade and development functions. Similarly, the report’s emphasis on GAC’s limited crisis-response capacity is a welcome recognition of a new requirement. But the proposal of a “standing geopolitical crisis task force” is questionable.
The problem in making the case for a stronger GAC is that this report doesn’t acknowledge many of our actual foreign policy deficiencies. Yes, our international network is too small; our posts abroad are insufficiently staffed to wield much influence; and we could make better use of the multilateral system. But there are other key problems that are barely acknowledged: an unwieldy and excessively large GAC executive cadre with insufficient knowledge of international affairs; large numbers of GAC managers who are unable to innovate; and numerous GAC employees who don’t want to work in a rotational foreign service. Two decades of incompetent and negligent management have produced a human resource nightmare for the managers of today’s GAC.
Yet the real problems of Canadian influence in the world are deeper than GAC’s structure, staffing and skill sets. They are built-in deficiencies in Canada’s commitments to development assistance, security cooperation, international cultural affairs programs, and information networks. The report needs a few more charts that would illustrate the problem, providing our standing in comparison to our peers in Canada’s development funding, the number of countries in which we have major bilateral programs, our peacekeeping contributions, our spending on cultural and other “soft power” programs, and our multilateral contributions.
Perhaps only in that latter category has the Canadian government made some recent efforts at international collaboration. In most areas, Canada has become a laggard and a backslider, a follower rather than a leader. Once the source of good ideas to address international problems and the means to implement them, we now have neither capacity.
GAC should, as the report capably argues, be looking to expand Canada’s network of missions abroad. It’s worth noting that the need for an expanded Canadian presence is greatest in Africa. And it’s precisely in Africa that Canada’s retreat in development programming is most noticeable, and where Canadian influence is most diminished. (Witness the outcome of Canada’s two most recent campaigns to be elected to the UN Security Council.) And while the case for a more systematic approach to post openings is indisputable, there is another essential message that the report could usefully have delivered: don’t come empty-handed. A post with no programs, no capacity to act, and nothing to say is simply not very useful.
So congratulations to Mélanie Joly for launching this effort and to GAC for delivering a short but compelling case for reform. But it’s only the beginning. It should not be allowed to foreclose greater progress on other requirements. Canada can regain its influence in the world, but we need to acknowledge frankly where our current deficiencies reside. We can then make rational decisions about the resources that we devote to our international aspirations, as well as the structure that GAC requires to manage those resources. Otherwise, efforts to transform GAC are bound to fail.
Daniel Livermore was a Canadian diplomat for three decades and is currently a senior fellow at the Bill Graham Centre for Contemporary International History, University of Toronto. Image: From the cover of GAC’s “Future of Diplomacy” discussion paper.