Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you very much, Chair. I'd like to thank you all for inviting me to participate in your consideration of the effectiveness of sanctions as a tool of Canadian statecraft. I should begin by stressing, if you haven't already figured out from what is not in my bio, that whate

Foreign Affairs committee  Absolutely. When I focused on that particular act and the 18 individuals, it was really to underscore the nature of the targeted sanctions that, as you say, try to be as precise as possible. As Professor Goldman notes, the idea is to try to avoid unintended consequences. What ha

Foreign Affairs committee  The key here is the target. When you're focusing on individuals, there's a particular logic. The real issue is what happens when the target is a state, is another government. It seems to me that what one wants to do is to recognize the crucial role of these kinds of measures th

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you. I agree 100% with Professor Goldman about the punitive purpose, and I would never suggest that the purpose of punishment, when it is achieved, whether in domestic law or international affairs, is useless. On the contrary, punishment is of crucial importance here beca

Foreign Affairs committee  I am an anti-unilateralist when it comes to sanctions policy and the Canadian government. My own view is that when Canada engages in sanctions it is most effective when it is as multilateral as possible. There's no doubt that you can take multilateral sanctions and make them hars

Foreign Affairs committee  That conclusion was reached largely because, if I use Professor Goldman's terms, it's difficult, generally speaking, to change the cost-benefit calculations of certain kinds of governance. Among the interesting cases of sanctions success historically, two cases are usually held

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you very much, Chair. Let me begin by thanking the committee for inviting me to participate in its examination of the impact of the Trump administration. It's a particular pleasure to appear alongside my friend Colin Robertson. Given his diplomatic experience and expertis

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you very much for that question, Mr. Kent. I think the key here is to differentiate between these two accords. What the Canadian government did on the TPP was to indeed to pause, to wait for the reaction of others around the Pacific to see what would emerge from the gener

Foreign Affairs committee  That's a good question. I think the argument about American soft power on the decline needs to be questioned a bit. In fact, in terms of the response to Mr. McMaster and Mr. Cohen's denial of there being a global community and the rise of an administration that has indeed called

Foreign Affairs committee  I think the question of middle-power leadership is a problematic one, mainly because in Canada there is a reluctance to embrace the ideas of middle-power leadership in those particular terms. As Colin suggested, even if we don't talk about middle powers any longer—and Canadian l

Foreign Affairs committee  That's a very diplomatic answer.

Foreign Affairs committee  The diplomatic service in Canada made an excellent decision in 1974 in rejecting me—

Foreign Affairs committee  —so I actually don't have to be as diplomatic as Mr. Robertson does. I think the issue of the Russians and the Russian involvement in American politics is a story that has yet to be fully told. Despite the fact that there are strong forces in the United States seeking to squelch

Foreign Affairs committee  Can I just add a very quick comment here? It seems to me that part of what drives your question is, in fact, a very Canadian focus. In other words, we are not hearing in Canada the discussion, but if you go to the Asia-Pacific region, there is a lot of discussion about the role