Thank you very much, Chair.
Thank you very much, Dr. Galston.
I was a diplomat for Canada for 15 years and I have to say that I'm a big fan of the Brookings Institution. I retweet your stuff frequently and I believe many of the ideas that you've outlined were also outlined in Stephen Harper's recent book, Right Here, Right Now. However, I'm very interested, as my colleagues are, in regard to.... You talk about the practicalities of things we must do to help these established democracies. I certainly agree with them, but I'm looking for your opinion—I know you said you would give it if you were pressed, and I will press—on a mentality, vision or approach for Canada to take with respect to our foreign affairs agenda.
I'm just going to quote the recently published “2019 Trudeau Report Card”, which was issued not by me or my party but by the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton, a major university in our capital city. In the report they discuss two types of approaches to foreign affairs. I'm going to ask which approach you think is better for these established democracies in Europe that are troubled right now, and how we can best assist them.
The first approach is one that the Harper government is known for having used. It is more hawkish: to stand in the face of dictators and to directly promote democracy abroad. In fact, it has been noted that the current Minister of Foreign Affairs, Chrystia Freeland, has used this as well. I genuinely believe that the difference is that—and this is stated in the report; these are not my words—the Trudeau government relies on “virtue signalling” and as opposed to a grand strategy, sort of a more piecemeal, ad hoc approach. With the Harper government, we did a have a direct strategy. I would say it was a more fulsome strategy.
The alternative—and the current government is criticized for this, but we were criticized for it as well—to this hawkish outlook is one of more diplomacy. In the recent example of Venezuela, Canada having taken a leadership position in the Lima group, some are saying this degrades our ability to act as a fair broker, which of course, since the time of Pearson, we are historically known for doing.
In your opinion, in regard to Europe, which is better, the more hawkish approach or the more diplomatic approach?