Madam Speaker, the government has had some foreign policy accomplishments. It has continued Operation Reassurance in eastern Europe and Operation Unifier in Ukraine, both military missions that we support. In trade, the new USMCA was concluded, a mostly defensive outcome that will see drop of 0.4% in real GDP relative to NAFTA, as outlined by the C.D. Howe Institute. A trade agreement with the European Union was also concluded, but, it must be said, it was largely negotiated under the previous government. The Trans-Pacific Partnership, also largely negotiated under the previous government, was concluded, but it was almost upended by the Prime Minister, who failed to show up at a meeting for 10 heads of government at the apex summit in Vietnam in November 2017.
However, whatever hope Canada had in starting trade talks with India was lost in the embarrassing antics of the Prime Minister during his eight-day trip to the world's fifth-largest economy. So, too, it was with trade talks with China, when he opened with the progressive proposal on the environment, labour and gender rights, all non-starters for China. The deal was over before it had even begun.
In general, the government's foreign policy has been a disappointment. The Speech from the Throne does nothing to change that.
The government came to office with a big commitment to resurrect Canadian peacekeeping.
It sent hundreds of peacekeepers and hundreds of millions of Canadian dollars to Mali. As in many other cases with this government, these efforts were made for only a short time, barely a year. The government then lost interest in helping this country, as well as the political will to do so.
Now, just one year after the mission has ended, there has been a coup in Mali, with the government replaced by a military junta.
The previous foreign minister mentioned the rise of populism and distrust of the global economy as one of the two big challenges in foreign policy. She pointed at her government's economic plan as a solution. After five years in power, we can judge.
The Canadian economy was in trouble before the pandemic had hit, with record-high levels of household debt. The OECD and the IMF predict that we will have a deeper recession and a slower recovery than our economic peers, an economy with the highest unemployment in the G7 and a middle class that is further behind today than it was in 2015. Under the current Prime Minister, Canada has become less prosperous, less united and less respected on the world stage.
The government came to office in 2015, telling the world that Canada is back, but the facts say otherwise. Canada lost its vote for the UN Security Council seat last June. It got 108 votes, six fewer than it got a decade ago. That is six fewer countries in the world today that see Canada as a leader on the global stage. That is a quantitative and identifiable indictment of the current government's foreign policy.
The government came to office saying it was going to make Canada a global leader in helping the poorest around the world. The opposite has happened. Under the current government, official development assistance has declined. Under the previous Conservative government, ODA averaged 0.3% of GDP for the 10 years that government was in office. During the current government, it has averaged 0.27%, a 10% decline.
Bob Rae called out the government on its failure in foreign aid in a damning indictment. About Canada's ODA target number, he said, “Canada has never come close to that number, and if our rate this year looks slightly better than last year's, it is only because the GNI number is stagnant, if not declining. Despite this record, Canadians think of their country as generous, and deeply engaged on the international front.”
On climate change, the current government has been a disappointment. It came to office promising to do better, but the facts say otherwise. In 2016, the first full year the current government was in office, emissions were 708 megatonnes. In 2018, the last year for which we have data, emissions jumped to 729 megatonnes. Canada's emissions are increasing, yet the government said in the Speech from the Throne that it will not only meet the Paris targets, it will exceed them, yet again, another yawning gap between rhetoric and reality.
The Liberal government's foreign policy has been incoherent and inconsistent. For example, China is not upholding its responsibility to the rules-based international system. It is ignoring its condition of entry into the WTO. It interferes through its state-owned enterprises. It infringes on intellectual property, and it engages in cyberwarfare. It violates human rights in international treaties, and in its treatment of Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, the Uighurs and the people of Hong Kong. In short, it is threatening our interests and our values.
In that context, it is really important that the government speak with a consistent, coherent voice. Unfortunately, that is not happening.
In July, the foreign affairs minister told this House that he was looking at sanctions on Chinese officials, and a day later the government told Reuters that is off the table. Just two weeks ago, the foreign affairs minister told the Globe that trade talks with China were off the table, the same day Ambassador Barton said that we should expand trade and do more in China.
These are some of many examples.
The government acknowledges its China policy is broken. That is why it is supposed to come forward this fall with a new framework, but I am not confident it is going to address the problem. Here is why. Foreign policy starts with who we are. It is about our projection abroad of what we are all about. The problem is that the Prime Minister has said that Canada has no core identity, that we are just a collection of different groups, that we are the first post-national state.
I could not disagree more. Canada is not simply a collection of different groups with no common identity or common purpose. We as Canadians are some 37 million citizens who live on the north half of this vast continent, who share together a common identity and common purpose, a shared citizenship, rooted in our two official languages, our shared history, our collective institutions and our future together. That is who we are as Canadians.
The problem with the Liberals' foreign policy is, if they do not know who they are, then their foreign policy will reflect that.
Let me finish by saying this: foreign affairs matter. I know this first-hand. At the start of the Second World War, a young Chinese boy was defended by Canadian soldiers in Hong Kong. Half of them died or were wounded. At the end of that same war, a young Dutch girl was liberated by Canadian soldiers in the Netherlands. Some 7,500 of their comrades never came back home, and died in the canals, the fields and the villages of the Netherlands. That Dutch girl and that Chinese boy were my parents.
They came to Canada in search of a better life. They believed in Canada. They believe in our nation's ability, generation after generation, to look beyond a person's colour or their creed, to harness their ambition to build a better Canada.
That is also true of the millions of Canadians who came to Canada over the past few decades or in the more distant past to make this country our home and native land, to build a better life for themselves and their children, to build a better Canada.
This is a nation whose founders, just 150 years ago, came together to build a new country. They built a Constitution and a democratic system that endured to this day, a Constitution that has enshrined timeless values and principles of democracy, freedom and the rule of law.
They made Canada a free, prosperous and united country that was able to overcome divisions based on language, religion or ethnicity.
This is the Canada we must stand for, here and abroad. This is the Canada the government must stand for, here and abroad.