Thank you very much.
Mr. Chair, I think that if we want to compare historically, we have to take some context into consideration. Historically, when Canada's reputation was at its best, the world was infinitely smaller. As a result, it was a lot easier to stand out, particularly in the 1940s and 1950s when our reputation was at its peak. Europe was rebuilding; Germany was a defeated country, and we had a Cold War beginning. Coming out of the Second World War, Canada was one of the four most powerful countries in the world for a very brief period.
We parlayed that into influence, I would suggest, through humility. Canada did not look for opportunities to lead. We merely accepted them when they came. Our leaders did not speak to Canadians about how important we were. We allowed our actions to do the talking and took credit when credit came. It didn't actually come that often, until the mid-1950s, which was a testimony to the work we'd done up to that point that had not necessarily been recognized until then. As I suggested in my opening comments, that was the grunt workâkeeping a fledgling international economic and political and security system moving by participating actively and not seeking credit for everything that we did.
Is it harder today? Absolutely. Is Canada's reputation different today? Well, we're competing with 192 other UN members as opposed to 50 at the beginning, so that's not unexpected.
I think the biggest difference is that successive governments of every political stripe set up expectations amongst the Canadian public that are not necessarily realistic and don't necessarily reflect the good work that our diplomats do behind the scenes.