The twelfth incumbent of the Department of Foreign Affairs in fifteen years, Mélanie Joly, has launched a major project aimed at transforming the exercise of Canadian diplomacy. Failing to rethink the orientations of foreign policy in order to tie it to present and future times, the Minister preferred to attack the structures that animate it. It is a choice, and it is to be hoped that the Prime Minister will give him the time to complete this undertaking.
Global Affairs Canada, the structure that brings together the departments of Foreign Affairs, International Trade and Development Assistance, really needs a cleanup. For years now, Canadian officials and diplomats have been asking politicians to modernize the diplomatic tool so that it is better adapted to the upheavals that are transforming the world and affecting Canada.
Recently, during a meeting with her employees, the Minister invited them to participate in the transformation process by submitting comments and ideas to fuel the reflection on the actions to be undertaken in four key areas: recruitment of personnel, capacity policy development, adaptation to new technologies and Canada’s presence in the world.
The government wants to recruit the best and retain them, but the exercise may be difficult. The private sector snaps up the brightest graduates in a very competitive labor market by offering them excellent conditions. In the past, diplomacy attracted those who dreamed of a career abroad despite modest salaries.
Unfortunately, if Canadian diplomacy ticks the boxes so dear to Justin Trudeau — half of the heads of mission are women, and members of visible minorities and the LGBTQ community represent respectively 8% and 10% of employees — more than 80 % of Canadian diplomats complete paperwork in Ottawa and close out a posting abroad. France, on the other hand, deploys two out of three employees in its diplomatic missions.
Career diplomats
The inability of diplomats to work abroad deprives Canadian diplomacy of the experience needed for policy development. But there is worse. Donald Savoie’s work on federal governance highlights the continued marginalization of public servants in policy-making under Stephen Harper’s Conservatives and Justin Trudeau’s Liberals.
The author believes that their traditional role of strategic adviser, ideator for politicians, a role based on experience and knowledge, has been slowly replaced by that of public relations at the service of politicians. From then on, the policy-making process was reduced to the shaping of political programmes. When products replace ideas, talent dries up in useless promotional sessions.
In addition, writes Savoie, the private sector management model was highlighted, and civil servants were asked to adapt. Thus, within the structures of Canadian diplomacy, the emphasis placed on management skills has favored in recent years the promotion, to the highest levels, of public servants possessing these qualities to the detriment of career diplomats inclined to reflect . Many of them come from other departments whose ties with diplomacy are tenuous, if not non-existent, to say the least.
The increasingly recurrent absence of career diplomats at the highest levels (deputy ministers, assistant deputy ministers and ambassadors) does little to encourage strategic reflection on Canadian foreign policy, at a time when the world is experiencing a hardening in the international relations, a questioning of international norms and major geopolitical changes. The transformation process will have to find a way to put ideators back at the center of a diplomacy that is sorely lacking.
Home field advantage
Decoding the events that structure and will structure international relations will require more than adapting to communication technologies and digital tools. Admittedly, the practice of international relations cannot ignore social media and rapid access to data to optimize decision-making, but it still remains dependent on the links established between humans through a dense and rich diplomatic network. Here, Canada is in the worst position.
According to a study by the Lowy Institute published in 2019, Canada is at the bottom of the pack among the members of the G7 with its 144 diplomatic missions abroad, compared to 205 for Italy, 267 for France and 273 for the States. -United. The most embarrassing is the comparison with middle powers: South Korea has 183 diplomatic missions, little Sweden, 152.
Increasing its presence on the ground would provide Canada with more opportunities to better defend its interests and promote its values. This would also allow him to place his people at the head of major international organizations, to participate fully in the renewal of multilateralism and to lead a real campaign in order to return to sit on the Security Council.
Canadian diplomacy is regularly derided for its propensity to imagine the world as it should be rather than take it as it is. It is to be hoped that the reengineering of foreign policy structures proposed by the minister will allow the government to rely a little more on diplomats who have their feet on the ground and a little less on preachers. The world of today and that which is emerging on the horizon impose it.