Foreign Affairs Committee on Dec. 13th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

I'd like to call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 90 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format pursuant to the Standing Orders. Therefore, members are attending in person in the room as well as remotely through the Zoom application.

I'd like to make a few comments for the benefit of members and witnesses.

Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. You may speak in the official language of your choice. Interpretation services are available.

Although this room is equipped with a powerful audio system, feedback events can occur. These can be extremely harmful to interpreters and cause serious injuries. The most common cause of sound feedback is an earpiece worn too close to a microphone.

With regard to a speaking list, the clerk and I will endeavour to do our best to have a speaking order that is acceptable to the members.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on Wednesday, November 8, 2023, the committee resumes its study of Canada's diplomatic capacity.

At this point, I would like to welcome the witnesses. We are grateful to have them before us today.

We start off with Mr. Allan Rock. As members are aware, Mr. Rock currently serves as chancellor of the University of Ottawa. By Zoom, we're grateful to have Ms. Louise Blais, diplomat-in-residence at Université Laval. We have Dr. Stéphane Roussel, professor, École nationale d'administration publique. We are also grateful to have with us today Mr. Guy Saint-Jacques, former Canadian ambassador to the People's Republic of China; and Ms. Pamela Isfeld, president, Professional Association of Foreign Service Officers.

Each of our witnesses will have five minutes for their opening remarks. We will start with you, Mr. Rock. The floor is yours.

[Allan Rock, Former Canadian Ambassador to the United Nations, As an Individual]

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and honourable members.

Thank you for inviting me to appear before the committee today. The mandate of this committee is crucial, as it assesses Global Affairs Canada's ability to fulfil its important functions and achieve its essential objectives.

There is no shortage of challenges. Global warming, an existential threat, is upending everything from food production to transportation and global public health. Massive flows of migrants, many forceably displaced, are destabilizing societies and changing governments in many countries. The number and strength of democracies worldwide are diminishing and authoritarianism is on the rise.

Two major wars, each engaging Canada's national interests, continue with no end in sight. The UN Security Council, on paper the most powerful organ in the UN system, is seriously dysfunctional, raising questions about its fitness for purpose. Indeed, some major powers are, through BRICS, fashioning and expanding an alternative model of global governance that they believe better serves their interests.

Global Affairs Canada's mission is to represent and promote Canada's values and interests in this volatile and unstable environment, not only by pursuing a coherent foreign policy, but also by coordinating the efforts of trade portfolios...

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

All good?

You have my apologies. Please continue.

[Allan Rock]

I probably spoke too quickly.

I just said that Global Affairs Canada's responsibility is to maintain a coherent foreign policy, while coordinating the trade and international development portfolios.

In that context, let me identify three subjects that I respectfully suggest merit the committee's attention.

The first is the level of funding. Global Affairs and its foreign service cannot succeed without resources commensurate with the breadth and significance of their mission. That means money to establish and maintain the presence of appropriate size, not only in capitals, but also at the busiest intersections of the multilateral world. It also means levels of development assistance that will earn us influence and credibility at the table. At present, in comparison with our key allies, we underinvest in both.

Secondly, GAC must open the doors. It cannot be a closed shop. It needs a diversity of views and the expertise of those beyond the department, whether in universities, in think tanks or in civil society. Bringing other voices in through consultations and secondments will enhance the department's ability to plan for over-the-horizon events. That might be done, for example, by returning to the former practice of organizing annual, multi-day consultations or by having standing advisory bodies.

Finally, there must be scope for boldness. Canada has in the past been seen on the international stage as a leading source of good ideas. We were among the most active in the establishment of the International Criminal Court. We led the process that resulted in the Ottawa Treaty to ban land mines. We introduced the human security agenda and made it a central part of the Security Council's work—when the council was working. That agenda included things that echo to this day: the protection of civilians; women, peace and security; children and armed conflict; and the responsibility to protect.

We are still uniquely positioned to show leadership by conceiving of and promoting fresh ideas and new thinking. There have been occasions in the recent past when we've done just that.

However, we can do much more. The department and its officials should be encouraged to imagine a leading role for Canada in devising new solutions to contemporary problems.

Mr. Chair, there are other important topics I could mention that will perhaps be raised during the committee's question period.

In particular, I can think of the need for effective sharing of information among GAC, security intelligence and defence; the urgency of strategic recruitment and lateral transfers to build the department of tomorrow; the importance of strengthening consular services; and showing leadership in international criminal justice and before the International Court of Justice.

Thank you again, Mr. Chair and members, for having invited me.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you very much, Mr. Rock.

We next go to Ms. Louise Blais, who is joining us via Zoom.

Ms. Blais, you have five minutes for your opening remarks.

[Louise Blais, Diplomat-in-Residence, Laval University, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank the Foreign Affairs and International Development Committee for this invitation to be with you today.

The issues you are addressing are fundamental. In the absence of a comprehensive review of our foreign policy, it is important to examine Canada's current capabilities to deal with this changing world.

It is therefore an honour and a privilege to share my observations with you, which are based on the experience I have gained during my long career with GAC, including my experience with Canada's last campaign for a seat on the United Nations Security Council.

Distinguished members of the committee, to say that the world has changed has become a cliché. Unfortunately for Canada, it hasn't done so in a way favourable to our interests. However, what we're facing today is within our control, because it's about our inability, until now, to adapt to this changing global chessboard.

Many factors are responsible for this observation. First and foremost, the bureaucratization of Global Affairs Canada has undermined its effectiveness. Indeed, the essential qualities of diplomacy such as sound analysis, intelligence gathering, international networks, negotiating skills and time spent abroad have been replaced by internal management prowess. Over the past 20 years, civil servants who have risen to high-level positions have done so predominantly on the basis of their administrative skills rather than their foreign policy experience.

Equally damaging, the administrative burdens on our missions abroad mean that diplomats spend more time in embassies dealing with human resources and other internal initiatives than with diplomacy.

A lack of coordination between departments on global issues has also been unfavourable. The imbalance between interdepartmental priorities sometimes directly undermines our interests. For example, a year before the vote for the UN Security Council, when Canada was a candidate, the Immigration Department implemented onerous biometric requirements for people from dozens of countries despite advice from Global Affairs Canada. It didn't improve our chances.

So, how can we ensure today that Canada has the tools to navigate the current geopolitical context?

First, we need a foreign policy more closely tied to our core interests and less focused on virtue-signalling. To achieve this, we need to set clear, and fewer, priorities. Canada belongs to far more international organizations than many countries of similar size. We are too dispersed. A systematic review of our commitments and a rationalization of our field of activity are called for.

Secondly, we need to put foreign experience back at the heart of the skills required for senior GAC officials and heads of mission. Diplomacy is an extremely complex profession. Knowledge and skills are acquired over time, starting with junior positions in the field. This experience has no equivalent in the rest of the government apparatus. You neglect its importance at your peril.

I recently had the honour to contribute to a paper co-authored by Michael Manulak and Kerry Buck, entitled “Canada and the United Nations: Rethinking and Rebuilding Canada's Global Role”. It puts forward recommendations for how Canada could navigate today's more challenging context at the UN and demonstrate leadership. I'll be happy to share the full report. There are a few key recommendations relevant to today's hearing.

One would be to review our UN priorities with the aim of identifying a short list of five or six focus issues. We should ensure that we communicate to our allies what we will be focused on with a view to complementing each other's work. The European Union negotiates on behalf of its members on many issues at the UN, while countries like Canada, Australia and New Zealand have to stretch themselves across an increasingly vast UN agenda.

We need to adapt our working methods.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you very much, Ms. Blais.

We will now go to Professor Roussel.

Professor Roussel, you have five minutes for your opening remarks.

[Dr. Stéphane Roussel, Full Professor, École nationale d'administration publique, As an Individual]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank the committee for inviting me today. It's always a great privilege to be able to address the elected representatives of the House of Commons.

In the coming years, Canada will face major structural challenges. Climate change has already been mentioned. Combatting climate change must be a priority. We are also witnessing the rise of China, which will perhaps become one of the two great superpowers of the international system, which will shake things up a lot.

I would like to draw the attention of the members of the committee today on the risk, unfortunately increasingly real in recent months, that we will see elected, in the United States, a president or, indeed, a leadership team that abandons the role played by the United States—its role as leader of the western world and guarantor of the international order in which we have been operating since the Second World War.

I'm not alone among my colleagues in being concerned about issues like these. I'm thinking in particular of my colleague Kim Richard Nossal, retired from Queen's University, who a few weeks ago published a book entitled Canada Alone: Navigating the Post-American World, which also posits this problem as being at the heart of what should preoccupy Canada. Right now, I'm speaking for myself, but I mention it, because it is, I think, an important resource for the committee.

There's a good chance, then, that the next American presidency will be much closer to an isolationist foreign policy, tinged with distrust, if not contempt, for international institutions; this would include military alliances such as NATO. Such a presidency and policy would have strained, or difficult relations, to say the least, even with its allies and closest partners.

Of course I am referring to Donald Trump, but the individual himself is no longer, in my view, as important, insofar as the Republican Party of the United States and a large number of American leaders espouse the “Make America Great Again”, or “America First” approach. This policy, which we generally attribute to Donald Trump, may therefore become institutionalized in American foreign policy.

This phenomenon has several consequences for Canada. On the one hand, Canada is likely to have very difficult relations with the United States in the years, if not decades, to come; on the other, the international system that was put in place, largely under U.S. leadership after the Second World War, could be called into question. Yet this international system has largely served Canada's interests.

To address this, what recommendations can we make? I won't go into strategies today. Canada generally uses three or four main strategies in its relations with the United States, but I will simply remind you that should a more isolationist government be elected next November, the Canadian government will have to be ready this time, rather than improvising a policy towards the United States in a hurry, as seems to have been the case in 2016-17.

As for the purpose of the committee's current work, the need to have a very competent diplomatic apparatus, and with a very large staff, is going to be crucial in this context. On the one hand, the Canadian government is likely to rely on a classic strategy of cultivating its relationships with interest groups in the United States, groups that would also benefit from maintaining good relations with Canada.

On the other hand, Canada must also cultivate perhaps closer relations with other countries, especially western states that would find themselves in a similar situation and would also have to deal with a more inward-looking and perhaps tougher U.S. government in its relations with others.

These two fundamental missions of Global Affairs Canada do require resources, and they require personnel in the field, and therefore foreign service officers, both numerous and ready to fulfil this role.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you very much.

We now go to Ambassador Saint-Jacques.

You have five minutes, Ambassador.

[Guy Saint-Jacques, Former Ambassador of Canada to the People's Republic of China, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for your invitation to testify today.

I spent nearly 40 years at Global Affairs Canada, 25 of them abroad. In Ottawa, among other things, I worked for five years in the personnel office, where I was responsible for some 2,000 rotational employees, i.e., those whose careers alternate between posts in Ottawa and postings abroad. I therefore supervised staff recruitment, assignments in Ottawa and abroad, including heads of mission, promotions, but also conditions of service abroad.

It's worth noting that over 60% of employees serve in difficult posts abroad, and that we must try to manage careers using a balance between difficult assignments and those that are a little easier, while developing regional expertise, which includes learning difficult languages. It should also be pointed out that this career poses particular challenges in terms of spouses' careers, moving the family every three or four years, choosing a new school for the children, not to mention security issues.

It is fair to say that Global Affairs now presents many problems. How can this be explained?

I would say that there were tensions in the past between the department and the Public Service Commission, which wanted the department to open its competitions to the rest of the public service. However, this neglected the fact that the working environment is very different from the rest of the public service and that you cannot become instantly a diplomat.

Global Affairs eventually lost that battle, and for the last 15 to 20 years, we have seen an influx of people without much relevant experience. This was further exacerbated by the fact that there was a succession of deputy ministers coming from outside of the department, with the resulting loss of expertise in foreign matters and a lack of understanding of the challenges faced by people serving abroad and of the culture of the department.

To give you a small example, traditionally in Washington, London and Paris, if the ambassador is anglophone, his or her number two will be francophone and vice versa. This is for obvious national unity reasons. Well, what is the situation now? The number twos in London and Washington are anglophone, despite the fact that the ambassadors are also anglophone.

Also, for reasons that are difficult to understand, as we knew 20 years ago that we would lose lots of employees as they were going to retire, the department stopped recruiting foreign service officers for many years. That's when the chain came off the bicycle. We stopped recruiting great young people from across the country, training them and offering postings to further develop their expertise and competencies. The result of such policies has been a gradual weakening of the department in the quality of the advice it can provide to the minister and to the government.

To be frank, if I look at the previous prime minister and the present Prime Minister, I don't think they have devoted enough attention to foreign policy, failing to recognize its link with the economic prosperity of the country. As well, a succession of five foreign affairs ministers since 2015 has not helped to build expertise.

I would add that appointing an increasing number of political appointees as ambassadors to our most important missions is not the recipe to be taken seriously by our partners.

That said, I congratulate the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mélanie Joly, who has clearly understood that her department needs urgent attention, who has recognized the existing problems and who is trying to rebuild the department's expertise. This will take several years, and I hope she will have the resources to carry out her mission successfully.

I also recommend that you read the report just published by the Senate, entitled “More than a Vocation: Canada's Need for a 21st Century Foreign Service”. Among the report's recommendations, I would urge you to pay particular attention to the need to hold annual competitions to recruit foreign service people, to relaunch the training program, to pay more attention to the difficulties faced by spouses and families abroad, and finally to recognize that the work of a diplomat is different from that found in the rest of the public service.

In conclusion, I would add that it is urgent that Canada increase the budgets devoted to defence, particularly in Canada's north. Such spending could, moreover, count as part of NATO spending.

We also need to devote more attention to international development. Canada has already had a great deal of influence through its investments in development.

We need look no further for the reason why our last two campaigns for a seat on the UN Security Council have been failures.

Thank you. I'll be happy to answer your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you very much, Ambassador Saint-Jacques.

We now go to Ms. Isfeld.

You have five minutes.

[Pamela Isfeld, President, Professional Association of Foreign Service Officers]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

As president of the Professional Association of Foreign Service Officers, the organization that represents the 2,000 current service officers in Canada, I'm very pleased to be here.

As a career foreign service officer myself, I'm very happy that the committee has chosen to hear about Canada's diplomatic capacity from those of us who represent the current practitioners in the field.

I believe that my presentation is going to be a little more “nuts and bolts” than are those of some of my colleagues, but that's because that's what we hear about in our domain from the people who are currently working there.

The FS group is the only Canadian public service group whose entire membership is committed to serving both at home and abroad as one of its fundamental conditions of employment. This commitment affects not just foreign service officers themselves but also our partners, our children, our extended families, our friends, our neighbours and even our pets.

Over the past decade or so—people have already covered the turmoil that the world has gone into—the international conflict has been on a scale that we haven't seen since World War II, along with a global pandemic that we are still recovering from, economic recession and climate crisis. At the same time, Canada's career foreign service has found itself fighting for the political support, the funding, the training and the leadership that we need to really effectively represent Canada and Canadians abroad.

We were very happy to see the launch of the Senate study on the foreign service as well as Minister Joly's future of diplomacy initiative, and this study, all of which signal to us that Canadian decision-makers might be willing to give Canada's diplomatic and international engagement the attention and the practical support it deserves. This is very welcome, and it certainly has not always been the case since I joined the foreign service back in—I hate to say it—1993. Time flies when you're having fun.

We agree with most of the points that were made by the Senate committee in its final report, especially on the need for reinvestment in our diplomatic and foreign policy infrastructure. Although we understand the reality of diminishing resources, we do believe that refocusing on priorities and core business and investing in the foreign service right now are essential. We're hoping that the views of this committee will help to encourage the government to do just that—to take practical action to support the great words and analysis that we are hearing.

We also agree with the Senate committee's recommendation that the foreign service directives, in particular, which govern many of the conditions of service abroad, need to be fundamentally revamped and modernized to meet the needs of today's public servants and their families.

Many of the principles on which those directives are founded have not been re-examined since the 1981 McDougall commission report. Many of the issues identified in that report have never really been properly addressed.

The gaps are particularly large when it comes to issues related to spousal employment and support for employees and families with disabilities.

I note that Professor Roussel referred to our need to pay more attention to the U.S. in light of what might be happening there. Getting people to go to the U.S. is one of the problems that the foreign service has faced. A lot of that is related to FSDs, including provisions for health care. That's something to think about in terms of how these very practical things can affect our ability to represent Canada and Canadians abroad in a very practical way.

We also support the Senate committee's recommendations on enhancing expertise in the foreign service, but one point I would like to make—as I understand my time is almost up—is that it needs to be layered on top of the traditional diplomatic skills of networking, analysis, cross-cultural awareness, flexibility and adaptability. Language capacity is great, but if you have poor judgment, that is not going to work. We need to recognize those areas as important areas of expertise as well.

We're very happy to see that both the minister and the Senate committee agree with us that we need to continue to recruit, and just so that I'm not being completely negative about Global Affairs, I do want to point out that they have taken many measures.

We have seen over 170 new members in PAFSO in the last 18 months, and that is making a big difference to our capacity to represent Canada and also to represent Canadians of different backgrounds and younger people as well.

When I gave evidence to the Senate committee, I think I reported that the average foreign service officer was 45 years old. Global Affairs Canada came out to say that the average officer is actually 47 years old. That is definitely a demographic that absolutely should be heard from, but we need to hear from other people as well, and they are taking steps to do those things—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Ms. Isfeld, you're at five and a half minutes. I will ask you to wrap it up in the next 15 seconds or so.

[Pamela Isfeld]

I'm sorry.

I just want to say thank you. Five and half minutes is not very long, and I'd be very happy to follow up with any members of the committee who have other questions.

Thank you all very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you very much, Ms. Isfeld.

Now we go to the members for questions. We're going to start off the first round with four minutes per questioner.

We will start with Mr. Aboultaif.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Thanks for all great testimonies from the witnesses.

Among resources, funding, influence, credibility and opening up, there are so many things that we need to do. For Mr. Roussel, we need to be ready for the next American administration. Also, our relationships with China and India are not at their best.

I would like to ask Mr. Rock and then Mr. Saint-Jacques how we are going to navigate between those two superpowers, the United States and China. They seem to basically agree on many things. Of course, they have their own plans for the future of the planet and the leadership they present. How can Canada navigate those relationships? Is there a way back to fix some of those broken relationships? Do you see any path forward?

Mr. Rock is first.

[Allan Rock]

Thank you.

I believe there is. First of all, with the Americans, it depends very much on what happens next November. As has been pointed out, we don't know what's going to turn up in the White House a year from now, and some of the prospects are quite frightening. As we like to say, the Americans aren't always right, but they're always right there, and we have to manage that. We have to deal with that.

I thought the current government took a wise approach with Trump number one by deploying as many resources as we could to other levels of government—governors and members of the Senate and the House of Representatives—to make sure that Canada's presence was felt and our views were known, without having to confront the man himself. I thought that was an effective strategy. It assisted in softening up the position of the administration in the negotiation of the renewed North American Free Trade Agreement. I think that kind of artful approach, where you pick your spots and you deploy your resources laterally, is a good one.

With respect to China, obviously we have to take steps to thaw before we can actually start to relate to one another. I've always felt that health—health care, public health—is a very good point of entry. I spent almost five years as Canada's minister of health. During that period, I established an annual meeting between the Canadian and the Chinese health ministries. We found that we had an enormous amount in common. They admired our public health care system. The single payer is, for them, the most effective way of deploying health for 1.3 billion people.

Furthermore, they're interested in our model of community care. When I was president of the University of Ottawa, our medical school was chosen to open a medical school at the University of Shanghai—Jiao Tong. They took our curriculum. They sent their professors to our campus to learn how to teach it. They took it home and opened a medical school in Shanghai with our MD curriculum, because they want four-year MDs to practise community care and family practice.

I think that kind of relationship based on common interests in health, something which is a very positive and important subject, can help open the doors, get people to relax and thaw the environment and the atmosphere so that we can make progress on bigger items. I think there are ways we can do it.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Mr. Saint-Jacques, can you please weigh in on the same question?

[Guy Saint-Jacques]

In the case of the U.S.A., I would say first that of course we have to watch very closely what's going on there, but again, I think the department and the government have proven in the past that we can mount a very well-coordinated effort involving premiers as well—because there are many premiers who have good relationships with governors—to demonstrate how much prosperity we create in the U.S.

In terms of dealing with difficult countries, I was encouraged when I heard Minister Joly say recently that Canada will have a “pragmatic diplomacy”. I hope by this that in fact we will have ambassadors in countries like Iran. I'm glad that we have a new ambassador in Saudi Arabia. It's important to discuss with these people—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Ambassador Saint-Jacques, could you wrap up in the next 15 seconds, please?

[Guy Saint-Jacques]

In the case of China, the Indo-Pacific strategy outlines a very good approach.

I agree with Mr. Rock. Global health, the environment and biodiversity are good areas where we should focus. Hopefully, there will be movement on both sides of—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

I'm afraid I'm going to have to cut you off, Ambassador Saint-Jacques. I apologize.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Chair, I have a point of order.

Can I ask for clarification? How long is each of our sessions right now?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

For the questions, it's four minutes.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Why is that? We have until six o'clock.