Foreign Affairs Committee on Dec. 11th, 2023

[Martin Théberge]

Let me begin by reminding you that the foreign affairs department, whose role includes the promotion of French and English abroad, is mentioned for the first time, to my knowledge, in the new Official Languages Act. Canada's bilingualism is therefore something we should turn to our advantage abroad.

I would also like to refer to a 2004 report prepared by the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages, following its study on the disappearance of the public diplomacy program, the PDP. I alluded to it in my opening address, but there are three quotes from this report I would like to highlight. I believe they would answer your question.

The first thing that it says is “Within DFAIT, the Public Diplomacy Program is widely seen as an important source of funding for projects relating to Canada’s linguistic duality.” Then it points out that: “The operation of the program is based on partnerships. It complements various federal programs that do not all have the same vision of duality. This raises the question of the integration of linguistic duality into federal government programs.”

My view is that there's a lot of talk about linguistic duality in Canada, but very little outside of Canada. Civil society organizations should be given the space they need to play a role in this respect and be able to establish partnerships, as we at the Société nationale de l'Acadie have been doing, to support Canadian government measures.

[Sameer Zuberi, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Thank you.

The use of French is growing around the world, particularly in Africa. How does our ability to express ourselves in French in our diplomatic and trade dealings influence our international relations and commitments?

[Martin Théberge]

In much of what we do, we come up against the fact that foreigners believe that in Canada, French is only spoken in Quebec. They are often surprised to learn that French is also spoken elsewhere in Canada. I live in Halifax, Ms. Mallet lives in Moncton and we work hard internationally to familiarize people with Atlantic Canada. Acadia also extends to Quebec. People are rapidly becoming aware of the fact that French is not only spoken in Quebec. The more we talk about it, the more people become interested, and that opens the door to economic and other exchanges and collaborations. We also do a lot in terms of youth education and promotion.

It opens the door to many opportunities.

[Sameer Zuberi, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

With respect to Africa, do you have any specific ideas about how we could become more involved on that continent?

[Martin Théberge]

We are exploring that. For example, a great deal of recruitment is being done for African international students in our educational institutions, whether at Université de Moncton or Université Sainte-Anne. Not only that, but the Société nationale de l'Acadie manages the Comité atlantique sur l'immigration francophone, which promotes Atlantic Canada as a place to live in French or in English.

All kinds of things are being done, including youth and student mobility. We could do more if we had support to do so.

[Sameer Zuberi, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Thank you.

Mr. Devlen, I have 90 seconds remaining.

In your opening remarks, you said that Canada should be engaged with multilateral organizations. It's not that we aren't already, but you were indicating that we should consider other engagements or thickening other engagements. Do you want to elaborate on that in the next 60 seconds?

[Dr. Balkan Devlen]

Sure. Engaging in multilateral organizations for the sake of engaging in them is not necessarily in our interest. What the trends suggest in the past 10 to 15 years is an increasing number of minilateral arrangements, be it AUKUS or be it various trilateral forums that are emerging as the centre of gravity when it comes to international diplomacy.

Canada needs to focus on what part of minilateral settings—for example, our own quad that we mentioned, of South Korea, Japan, Canada and the United States when it comes to northeast Asia—we need to focus on, on where we need to engage, and whether that is better served in a traditional multilateral organization such as the UN or in smaller groupings of like-minded states. We need to take good stock of that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you, MP Zuberi.

Mr. Bergeron, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would also like to thank the witnesses for being here today, to inform our deliberations on the modernization of Canadian diplomacy.

I am among those who think that a confident government devotes more resources to supporting parliamentary diplomacy, public diplomacy and cultural diplomacy. Indeed, these different forms of diplomacy strengthen traditional diplomacy. Conversely, an apprehensive government will tend to see parliamentary diplomacy, public diplomacy and cultural diplomacy as potential threats and will cut back on the resources allocated to them.

As I was listening to Mr. Théberge, I was rather impressed by everything that the Société nationale de l'Acadie had been able to accomplish without any support from a public diplomacy program. Would the Société nationale de l'Acadie be able to do a lot more if it were to receive funding to support Canadian diplomacy? In other words, what would be the benefits for Canada if it were to invest in fields like public diplomacy and cultural diplomacy?

[Véronique Mallet, Executive Director, Société nationale de l'Acadie]

Thank you for your question.

There are certainly benefits. I could discuss those of the past few years. Imagine what we could do if adequate funds had been invested!

As for what public diplomacy brings to Acadia, it spreads the benefits throughout the Atlantic provinces. Were it not for the international work that Acadia, and hence its mouthpiece, the SNA, Atlantic Canada's international efforts would mostly be limited to relations with New England.

Public diplomacy makes it possible for the entire region to maintain relations abroad, with countries it does not generally do business with. I'll give you an example.

Two years ago, President Macron asked us to put together an Acadian delegation to accompany Ms. Antonine Maillet to the l'Élysée. We also invited Mr. Colton LeBlanc, the minister of Acadian affairs and la Francophonie for Nova Scotia. He was a young minister and part of a government that had been elected only two months earlier. It was in the middle of the COVID‑19 pandemic, with borders about to be closed and travel Limited. Mr. LeBlanc came with us, and when he returned the following week, he told his colleagues in cabinet what he had experienced. He told them that President Macron had promised to come to Nova Scotia, at the invitation of the delegation. This young minister had thefore opened the door to collaboration between France and Nova Scotia. We would never have expected that to happen.

Since then, the Premier of Nova Scotia has been to France on two occasions, to forge further ties and establish relations. Not only that, but the Premier of Nova Scotia has also been to France since then. So there have been benefits for government.

This has also had an impact on our work. One of our initiatives was the strategy to promote Acadian artists internationally, called SPAASI. We were able to demonstrate that every dollar invested in this program by the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency generated five dollars for Acadian artists. Since the launch of SPAASI 25 years ago, benefits from abroad for Acadian artists have totalled $200 million. That's nothing to sneeze at.

And the 1999 summit generated $78 million in benefits for the region.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Are you talking about the Sommet de la Francophonie de Moncton?

[Véronique Mallet]

That's the one.

Francophone immigration to the region also increased by 77% between 1996 and 2011, and by 37% since 2011. That's significant.

As for the economic impact of international students, there was a major change in international student recruitment following the summit. In New Brunswick alone since 1999, the economic impact of international students has totalled $310 million. The France-Acadia scholarships were created in 1969, following the signing of the first France-Acadia agreement. Thanks to the scholarships, 350 Acadians were able to study in France. Since the 1990s, the Acadia-France scholarships, funded by Acadia, have enabled French students to come and study in Acadia. A half-million dollar fund has made it possible for approximately 50 French scholarship recipients to come and study here.

Over the past 50 years, these scholarships have also generated Acadian leadership.

So there are major benefits, but our means are limited. One can only imagine how significant these might have been had we had the resources to introduce certain programs.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Mr. Théberge, you referred to some recommendations from the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages, but I understand that none of these recommendations has been implemented.

[Martin Théberge]

It's true that not one of these recommendations was implemented. That was the purpose of our 2022 brief and it is why we are here to testify today. Everything Ms. Mallet has just explained makes me think of a Club Med advertisement: "Imagine having the means to get there!"

Then there's the example of our visit to the Élysée. President Macron made four promises. I mentioned one of them, his visit to the Acadian world congress to be held next August. he had also promised to establish an international French lycée in Acadia, in Saint John, New Brunswick. There was also the issue of keeping the consulate open, when its closing was repeatedly threatened. Lastly, there is Acadia's presence at the Cité internationale de la langue française.

Promises were made. There are a lot of promises, but we have very few resources. Imagine if we had some!

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

We now go to Madam McPherson.

You have six minutes.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you all very much for being here today.

I want to thank you for bringing up the fact that there are a lot of French speakers outside of Quebec. I represent the French quarter in Alberta, and about 20% of my riding is French. It's an important thing to note, but my questions today are for you, Mr. Devlen.

In an article in 2021, you spoke about the need to align our foreign policy with public opinion, and I've struggled with this for a very long time. I've thought about this in terms of our international development efforts, and one thing I wonder about is the fact that, first of all, in recent years—over the last 15 years or so—there have been massive cuts to public engagement and massive cuts to public education with regard to public opinion around global citizenship. The implications of that are that we're no longer talking about it in schools, in media and in universities the way we used to do. On the other hand, we're saying that we should align with public opinion when we have not invested in making sure that Canadians are engaged in public opinion.

Could you talk about the implications of that? Then, if this is the case, if we have a population whose public opinion has not been informed by some of these initiatives, should we be trying to align with that public opinion?

I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.

[Dr. Balkan Devlen]

Thank you very much, and I think that's a very, very important question, particularly given the fact that in a democracy we need to be able to have citizens' support when it comes to pursuing our national interest. That requires a well-informed citizenry that is informed about the importance of why and where Canada engages in the world, why we pursue particular foreign policies and how that advances the interests of everyday people.

That requires, as you pointed out, a sustained effort, particularly in a country as fortunate as Canada, which does not have to deal with the threats that many other countries in the world deal with. We are surrounded by three oceans and a very friendly superpower, and we have been, in the past 150 years, part of the group that shaped the international order, so our citizens are comfortable ignoring international politics.

Now, the fact that it is changing today—that we no longer have the luxury of assuming that bad things happen to other people in faraway places—should be a wake-up call, not only for the government but for civil society, media and others to engage regularly with everyday Canadians and explain to them and inform them, and there has to be a feedback mechanism. There has to be a back-and-forth to address their concerns and explain how pursuing our foreign policy interests is also about increasing their security and prosperity, and that requires investment. If we don't do that, we will lose the democratic legitimacy of pursuing what we are doing.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Also, I would say that our foreign policy right now picks and chooses when we need to align with public opinion.

For example, you will often hear the government say that it doesn't support increases to development assistance because there isn't public support for that, yet we see, for example, with the call for a ceasefire in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, a Mainstreet poll that says that 71% of Canadians do support a ceasefire, and the government chooses not to do that.

We pick and choose when we want to use public opinion as a legitimizing force for our foreign policy, which is obviously a very big problem.

We're also talking today about diplomacy, though, and Canada's diplomatic role, and I would say, too, that what we have here is a focus on trade, which I think is important. However, from my perspective, trade is a reward you get when you do the hard work of diplomacy, development and all these other foreign policy issues, which I don't think we've done.

Could you talk a little about that and perhaps about how some of the things that we see Canadian companies doing abroad are quite detrimental to our reputation? How might they harm our bigger foreign policy goals?

[Dr. Balkan Devlen]

Let me just address the first point about the democratic alignment as well, and then I'll talk about how we can actually engage in diplomacy in advancing our interests.

On the aligning component, it is also important to note that leadership does matter. No one is really expecting the public to lead in these particular issues. It is the job of the elected representatives in a represented democracy to be able to lead in this and engage. It is the job of the government and the elected representatives to make the case to the public that pursuing certain policies is in the national interest.

It is not about blindly following what the public and the public mood does. Foreign policy is in no country a public sport, in a way; it is always government elite-led. However, it is important that it is aligned with the broader interests of the public, and that requires constant interaction with the people, rather than assuming and picking and choosing places where we believe it is aligned.

On the diplomacy front, I agree that we need to do the legwork, but that also requires focused attention on what our strengths are, what we can bring to the table. We should avoid basically lecturing to other countries without offering something substantial in improving their security, improving their well-being or increasing their prosperity. Just talking to the people will not necessarily get us there, but we also need to listen to other countries, our allies and partners, not necessarily go there with our own perceptions of what is good for other countries. We need to listen to their needs—what they are hoping to get out of an engagement with Canada, and whether those desires and aspirations align with our interest. That's where I think the diplomacy component is key.

I would add one more point—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you, Mr. Devlen. I'm afraid you're way over time.

We will now go to the second round.

We start off with Mr. Aboultaif for three minutes.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Thank you.

Mr. Devlen, you said that geography is our best friend. Could it also be our worst enemy?

[Dr. Balkan Devlen]

In terms of thinking carefully about foreign policy and the need to put resources into it, it could be a curse as well.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

How can we leverage that good geography that we have? Are we doing so? Are we able to do so? If you can give some examples, it would be great.

[Dr. Balkan Devlen]

I think we could leverage our safe and secure position in a much more effective way in the world. Our geography, as I said, blessed us with a presence in two of the largest oceans—the Atlantic and the Pacific—as well as in the Arctic, which is increasingly becoming important in international politics. We are fortunate enough to have a neighbour that we have a very long and friendly relationship with. That means that apart from maintaining those two keys areas that I mentioned—good relations with the United States and a stable, open international order that our prosperity depends on—everything else is, in a way, a luxury for Canada to engage in.

As a rich country, we are in a place where we can put resources into addressing questions where we can leverage our resources, geography and position to help solve the world's problems, because we have to deal with only two basics things, rather than 20 different things like other countries.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

We've put in as many resources as we can. Norway's put more into development than we have. They have not even one-fifth of the population of Canada. The role of Canada on the international stage is also part of the policy within our allies. Do you believe that we have lost any independence in our position on international issues over the last two decades?