There's a larger problem, which is that we need to recapture the sense that what we do matters in the world. If what we do matters in the world, then Africa has to be part of that calculation.
Too much of the time what we've been doing in foreign policy has been about sending signals for domestic political purposes. What we need is a kind of serious engagement with the issues that we are going to have to live with. They're collective action challenges. They're world order challenges.
Africa is at the centre of those calculations. We have the potential, and we have, in the past, periodically played a role as a kind of honest broker between particularly the western world and other parts of the world. That role is badly needed. Too much of the time I see Canadian governments taking a kind of flight to safety, going to places that feel most familiar rather than thinking about what we can do to try to help navigate what is going to be a very bumpy transition, I think, over the next 20 years.