Global Affairs Canada takes on the Work of the World

When Jean Chrétien became Prime Minister in 1993 he changed the name of the Department of External Affairs, as it had been known since it was founded in 1909, to the Department of Foreign Affairs.

It had been called External Affairs for 84 years on the thinking that Britain, or Australia and other parts of what became the Commonwealth, were not foreign countries, as the United States or Paraguay were. The distinction is maintained in Britain to this day in the name of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Canada was part of a family of countries and only those outside the family were foreign.

Chrétien would have none of that. To assert Canada’s independence Britain, and Australia, must be foreign countries.

Now Justin Trudeau has rebranded Foreign Affairs as Global Affairs.

The rebranding hasn’t been much noticed. And the department, whose full name was Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development, still covers those three things and has a minister for each. Stéphane Dion is not the Minister for Global Affairs but the Minister for Foreign Affairs.

The implications of the rebranding are obscure but disturbing.

‘Global Affairs’ has until now been a questionable university subject, and perhaps a field for think tanks. Its most famous use in Canada has been at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto. Students there may aspire to serve Canada as diplomats, but for many a career at the UN or some other ‘global’ organisation may be more attractive. An understanding of Canada, which is essential for anyone who might serve Canada either at home or abroad, is secondary.

Transferred from the academy to government, ‘Global Affairs’ implies that the department is no longer concerned with Canada and its relations with other countries but with the Globe, of which Canada is only a rather small part. While Chrétien’s name change sought to assert Canada’s independence and identity, Trudeau’s rebranding implies almost the opposite. The people who work at Global Affairs are not there to serve Canada, but the Globe. In the phrase of the O. D. Skelton, Undersecretary of State for External Affairs from 1925 to 1941, they should occupy themselves with the ‘work of the world.’

Mackenzie King, who hand picked Skelton for his job, relied on him, but served as his own Secretary of State for External Affairs and kept a tight leash on the department, despite Skelton’s lobbying for expansion, and more missions abroad. After the Second World War, as External Affairs grew by leaps and bounds, King became concerned that it would busy itself with matters beyond Canada’s needs and interests. But soon he was gone and External Affairs did just that.

The people we pay at Global Affairs are there to serve us. And the politicians we have sent to Ottawa are there to tell them what to do and are accountable for what they do. But the message of Trudeau and Dion to our diplomats has been that they are ‘unmuzzled’ and are to ‘engage.’ Engage in what? What are our interests? What is our foreign policy? Does the government have one or are they leaving that to the public servants in Global Affairs?

What are the interests of our diplomats? Are they in the service of Canada or the Globe, or themselves?

The unseemly cheers with which Trudeau was greeted by public servants when he dropped in at Global Affairs two days after he was sworn in may have been partly just an expression of late onset Trudeaumania. But it may also have been glee at the prospect that they would now be free to occupy themselves with the exciting work of the world without having to answer to the people who pay them and whom they are there to serve.

Trudeau spent much of his first weeks in office on summitry, and most exciting it must have been for him. Such summitry seems unavoidable, though it is mostly a distracting waste of time. Particularly at Paris it may have seemed that he was part of the government of the Globe.

But there is, happily, no government of the Globe. There are no Global Affairs. There is, for us, only Canada, with its Foreign Affairs. Our public servants should understand that and do the work of Canada without being seduced by the conceit of the ‘work of the world.’

INSIDER REPORT Eddie Goldenberg's The Way it Works

March 1, 2007, Books in Canada

The Way it Works: Inside Ottawa
Eddie Goldenberg
A Douglas Gibson Book McClelland & Stewart Ltd.
402 pages, $36.99 cloth
ISBN 0-7710-3352-4


Eddie Goldenberg worked almost continuously for Jean Chrétien in government and politics from 1974 until Chrétien’s retirement in December 2003. The son of the superbly well connected Senator Carl Goldenberg, Eddie got a summer job working for Chrétien in 1972 through John Rae, Chrétien’s executive assistant from 1967-1971 and his perennial campaign manager. At Chrétien’s right hand as a cabinet minister and Leader of the Opposition, Goldenberg became “Senior Policy Adviser” to Prime Minister Chrétien. At cabinet meetings, meetings with premiers and foreign leaders, wherever the action was, Eddie, as he is careful to point out, and the many photographs in the book show, was almost always there. Often he represented Chrétien. He wrote speeches for him. To the public he was unknown.

Despite his title, Goldenberg had no head for the real work of government. Chrétien had the well known genius Chaviva Hosek as Director of Policy. A self-confessed “political junkie”, Goldenberg was a political strategist and fixer, seeing that Chrétien got what he wanted. He was the boss’s grinning consigliere. His idea of government is simply spending. His proudest personal achievement in government was engineering the flow of billions to universities and research in the last Chrétien years.

The Way it Works partly lives up to its title, giving an account of how cabinets are formed, what goes on at cabinet meetings - boring presentations, ministers catching up with their paperwork, leaving the table to get coffee - how decisions are made. Goldenberg thinks it all works pretty well. The book is also a defence and celebration of the Chrétien government. In this the implication of the title is that critics do not understand how it works, how it has to work.

He says his aim is to explain that cynicism about politics and government is misplaced. He has some explaining to do. The Liberals came to office on the basis that the GST was the work of the devil, NAFTA a bad deal, military helicopters unaffordable, the deficit no big problem that should crimp spending. They knew all this was untrue. At least they could have figured it out. Goldenberg describes David Dodge, then deputy finance minister, explaining to Hosek and himself the financial crisis Canada faced. Dodge said nothing that had not been in the newspapers for years.

Goldenberg confirms Chrétien’s big picture, chairman of the board approach to government, which got him compared to St. Laurent in the early years. He makes light of people who would not speak their mind to Chrétien or who took things Eddie said in casual conversation as commands from the Prime Minister. But if Chrétien was content to leave ministers to get on with their work he was nonetheless determined to have his way in what interested him. If what that was was not clear people were all the keener to do what they guessed was his will. Chrétien’s reputation as a tough boss was not a delusion of weak and inexperienced politicians under him, or a function of his office. Chrétien was a pure power politician. He enjoyed power and being able to help his friends and hurt his enemies. There was work that had to be done. He could not run the country into the ground and enjoy himself. But he could not enjoy himself if he was not securely in charge.

Chrétien’s one challenge was Paul Martin. Goldenberg paints an unpleasant picture of Martin, though of course the Goldenbergs had known the Martins since the 1930’s. There will be other accounts of Chrétien and Martin. What is unaccountable is that Chrétien should have decided to stay on for a third election in 2000 and hang on for three years after that simply to thwart Martin, as Goldenberg affirms. The failure of the Martin government makes it no more creditable. Chrétien would not give up power except by his own free will. Any other possible successor showing signs of restlessness would have provoked Chrétien. Indeed Allan Rock did.

A highlight of the book is Goldenberg’s account of Canada’s decision on the war with Iraq. He claims Canada’s position was always clear and consistent. How then can there have been such drama as he claims on March 17, 2003 when Britain asked what Canada’s position would be and Chrétien announced to the House of Commons that Canada would not participate?

Goldenberg expresses resentment at what he calls the ultimatum and that it came from Britain. It was not an ultimatum. The coalition was about to go to war and needed to know, Canada having sent mixed signals, whether Canada would be with them. Britain was as much in it as the United States, though necessarily on a smaller scale. Perhaps they felt the inquiry coming from Britain would avoid the anti-American paranoia in evidence.

Now that Iraq is a hellish mess the consensus is that the war was wrong and Canada smart to stand aside. At the time many Canadians thought Canada should join in. Opinion in English Canada was roughly evenly divided. Chrétien could have led either way. Support for the war went way beyond business groups trying to curry favour with the U. S., the only support Goldenberg acknowledges. He rightly minimizes the impact of political difference or closeness on trade relations, driven largely by U. S. domestic politics.

Goldenberg calls it a brave decision but what was Chrétien braving? The U. S. was keen to have support but threatened nothing and did nothing as it was refused. He risked no votes over it. The political risk was all on the other side.

There was some drama on March 17, 2003 because Canada’s position was anything but clear and consistent. Shortly before, three Toronto papers headlined three interpretations: we would go only with the UN; we would go whatever the UN said; we would not go in any circumstances. In the confused debate it seemed that some would have had us send forces to defend Saddam against a putatively illegal invasion. If UN authorisation was the issue we still had to decide whether an invasion was justified. If yes, we should have been pressing the Security Council to approve it. If no, we should have been pressing the Council to say so. Our UN ambassador Paul Heinbecker, a latter day Loring Christie with anti-Americanism replacing Christie’s anglophobia, scurried about promoting a resolution for more time for weapons inspections coupled with explicit authorisation for an invasion, a transparent attempt to thwart Anglo-American plans stymied by French opposition to an invasion in any event.

As Goldenberg maintains that Canada’s position was always what Chrétien stated on March 17, he can give no account of the development of the policy. He describes Heinbecker, Claude Laverdure, Chrétien’s foreign policy adviser, and himself considering the British inquiry for a minute and advising Chrétien to say no. A serious country weighing up its interests and principles does not appear. The Ministers of Defence and Foreign Affairs barely appear in the story.

In Goldenberg’s insider account the context disappears: Francie Ducros’ “What a moron?”, Carolyn Parrish’s “Damned Americans....I hate those bastards!”. Canada’s prevarication and the anti-Americanism it nourished resulted in Canada’s decision seeming a condemnation of the invasion, a position many in Canada were pleased to adopt. It is this rather than the decision itself that may have had an impact on relations with the US and events in Iraq. Those massacring scores of innocents every week in Baghdad were encouraged by it.

There is real drama in the story of the 1995 Quebec Referendum, set in the context of a kind of Whig history of national unity with all well after the recruitment of Professor Dion, the Supreme Court Reference and the Clarity Act. Time will tell whether Chrétien has not secured Joe Clark a place in history for his description of the Clarity Act as a “blueprint for separation”.

Goldenberg complains that media accounts of government are “incredibly superficial”. The Way it Works reads like a long newspaper feature.

THE SERIOUS BUFFOON - John Crosbie's No Holds Barred

Books in Canada

NO HOLDS BARRED
My Life in Politics
by John C. Crosbie
with Geoffrey Stevens
McClelland and Stewart,
ISBN 0-7710-2427-4

John Crosbie is the Mulroney cabinet minister held in the highest regard by both the general public and journalists. He is the only one, with the exceptions of the egregious Kim Campbell, and Erik Nielsen, who resigned in 1986, to have published memoirs. His book makes agreeable reading, but it contains few revelations and will be a minor contribution to Canadian political history. Its main interest is the story of an unusual political career.

Crosbie's entry into politics was effortless. He was easily elected Deputy Mayor of St. John's in the fall of 1965 but only seven months later, when he was 36, Joey Smallwood simply appointed him to his cabinet and practically appointed him to the Newfoundland House of Assembly. Not for him the years of going to mind numbing meetings and working in campaigns and trying to make connections from which most politicians emerge and which leave them too intellectually stunted to make any contribution to government. Politics was government to Crosbie and as a young lawyer in St. John's and a Crosbie he could enter government in Newfoundland at the top. He plays down the wealth of the Crosbies, who certainly had their financial reverses, but they were Newfoundland's most prominent business family and had been active in politics since the days of his grandfather, who had been Newfoundland's Minister of Finance from 1924 to 1928.

Crosbie was an outstanding student at Queen's University and Dalhousie University Law School and won a Viscount Bennett Fellowship to study at the London School of Economics. Unfortunately he was to study law at LSE and gave it up after Christmas because "They weren't really teaching me anything new or different...". If he had returned to his undergraduate interest in politics and economics at LSE he might have learned to think more deeply and critically about those subjects to the benefit of his politics and his book.

Crosbie's father had warned him against getting involved with Joey Smallwood. Crosbie's two years under the madcap, corrupt, petty tyrant he depicts were frustrating but they launched him on his political career and enabled to him to make important contributions to the reform of Newfoundland government. Resigning with Clyde Wells over Smallwood's eagerness to pour government money into John Shaheen's doomed Come by Chance oil refinery, he sought the Liberal leadership but was frustrated again by Smallwood's trickery and corrupt domination of the party. He sat as an Independent Liberal  until June of 1971 when he joined Frank Moores' Tories, serving four years in his government before his election to the House of Commons in a by-election in 1976.

In helping to clear up the mess left by Smallwood and bring in long overdue reforms Crosbie was able to do the good work in government that he entered politics to do. In his first taste of power in Ottawa, as Joe Clark's Minister of Finance, Crosbie was frustrated by politics. The budget that he presented in December 1979, and which led to the government's defeat, was a worthy effort to address Canada's growing financial problems so far as Clark's stupid raft of election promises permitted. In contrast to Crosbie, Clark, who had beavered away at politics from his early teens, had no idea what government was about. Policy was for Clark just another kind of political equipment like buttons and posters and a campaign bus. Crosbie is scathing about Clark's promises but admits to sharing his inept political judgment that they should govern as if they had a majority and that the Liberals would not risk an election. Thus he must share a small part of the blame for Trudeau's disastrous last government.

Crosbie's account of his nine year in Mulroney's government is superficial. He gives little sense of how he worked and what difference he was able to make. He recounts his difficulties with Mulroney's underlings. He had none with Mulroney himself. He complains that twenty-five to thirty hours of cabinet or committee meetings every week left little time "to think or act intelligently on issues...".  His account of his activity in his four successive portfolios seems to confirm this.

His most important work was as Minister of International Trade in piloting free trade legislation through Parliament and speaking up for it and initiating negotiations for the North American Free Trade Agreement, but his account of this is simply a series of anecdotes. Whether he can take as much credit as he claims for the establishment of the World Trade Organisation history will tell, but it was a worthwhile Canadian initiative.

As Minister of Justice Crosbie presided over the kind of supposed progressive reforms that seem to happen regardless of politics and he takes pride in them and the number of bills that he got passed as proof that on "social and human issues" he is an "intelligent liberal". But his account of his work shows no great thought or awareness of the contradictions in his positions. The review of all existing legislation lest it might conflict with what it was imagined the Supreme Court of Canada would make of Section 15, the equality section, of the Charter was basically a technical job. It amounted to making parliament subject to academic theories of equality that are always abstract and dogmatic but not always coherent. It would have been better simply to wait for legislation to be challenged and defend it before the courts, unless, without speculating as to what the courts might do, it was simply thought to be bad legislation. Crosbie was gung ho for expanding the powers of the Canadian Human Rights Commission to cover alleged cases of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and for women in combat roles in the armed forces and most other correct causes. On the other hand he introduced precise anti-pornography legislation that would have been made mincemeat of by the courts if it had not died on the order paper after the usual outcry from arts groups, the National Action Committee on the Status of Women and others.

Crosbie finally says that he is a Newfoundlander first and he unashamedly fought for Newfoundland's interests in Ottawa. But he does not seem to see any future for Newfoundland beyond
its dependency on money from Ottawa: equalisation payments for the Newfoundland government and Employment Insurance scamming for its people, and the kind of big projects that obsessed Smallwood. He calls the development of the Hibernia oil field off Newfoundland his proudest accomplishment in politics. He devotes a chapter to it and his two successful efforts to save it. He is contemptuous of his critics but he does not explain what exactly Ottawa's role was or why it should have had any role in financing the project.

Though Crosbie's manuscript was cut to a fraction of its original length with the help of the distinguished political journalist Geoffrey Stevens and the book is easy reading, it is still too long without managing to get into enough detail to come to grips with many of the issues Crosbie faced. Incidents and arguments are repeated and trivia, like a trade mission to Boston are recounted. The early chapters of the book setting out his family background and his struggles with Smallwood are the best. The book is as much reflections as memoirs but these, while thoughtful, are too casual to be persuasive.

Many of his digressions concern the difficulty of intelligently addressing public issues in the face of political correctness and public suspicion of politicians encouraged by the media. From time to time he launches a tirade against media bias and the wilful gullibility of the public. His observations are not altogether unfair, but these are problems that must be faced up to. It does no good to dismiss them with humourous abuse, calling journalism a "grubby little craft". Crosbie has no answer to these problems. The only answer is to show leadership, as Crosbie did to the extent his positions permitted. He earned respect for it. Many politicians have contributed to public suspicion by their unprincipled conduct. Crosbie could say something about this, but he is too genial to draw sharp and insightful portraits. Even Smallwood is finally proclaimed " a great Newfoundland patriot". He is far too generous to Joe Clark and claims to like and admire Trudeau, whom he voted for in the 1968 Liberal leadership convention.

Crosbie is most fondly remembered for his humorous sallies in the Commons and on the hustings. He retails many of these, but however successful they were when launched and however well they filled the need for media sound bites and served Crosbie and his party they mostly seem pretty lame in cold print. Crosbie complains that he was a victim of political correctness when his jokes were denounced as sexist and that the media stereotyped him as a buffoon. But he consciously developed his public speaking style to overcome a native shyness. It worked very well for him and he obviously enjoyed it. The uproar from feminists never did him much harm and if he was not always taken completely seriously, he had no one but himself to blame.

Twice in the book Crosbie calls the Liberals "brothel keepers". Colourful as the phrase is, coming from someone who was a Liberal until he was 41 and sought the leadership of a provincial Liberal party, it does not convey a serious contempt earned from a lifetime's experience. Crosbie calls Trudeau a "worthy adversary'' and Sheila Copps a "worthy antagonist". Whether they conceived as high a regard for him, future memoirs will show, but for Crosbie his exchanges with two people he should regard as particularly vicious and responsible for great damage to the country seem not to have been much more than a jolly game.

Crosbie would have won the 1983 Tory leadership convention if he had been able to speak French and most likely would have become Prime Minister. At the end of the book he reflects on "the importance of being number one". A Crosbie government would undoubtedly have made a difference. Good political leadership is so scarce in Canada that the frustration of Crosbie's ambition must count as a serious loss. As this book shows, when someone of Crosbie's intelligence, talent and disinterestedness makes his way into politics but not to the top, there can be disappointingly little to show for it.