A coffee with… Pierre Lemonde | The aptly named man

There are people we know for years, whom we like, without knowing much about each other. Such was my relationship with Pierre Lemonde, the president of the Council on International Relations of Montreal (CORIM) who has just announced his departure.

For more than a decade, I have met him around ten times a year at an event held by the organization he heads and which he is preparing to leave after nearly 25 years. Dressed to the nines, smiling, he always has a topic of conversation on his lips.

Perfect for this column, I said to myself. And perfect for going beyond cocktail conversation. However, I didn’t expect to have coffee with a cosmic twin, a fan, like me, of Kyrgyzstan and its great lake Issyk-Kul. “We must be the only two Quebecers to have swum there,” he said, laughing.

Originally from the Quebec region, he left this “beautiful big village” early in his career. He abandoned his law studies at Laval University, which he considered “too boring”, to exchange them for the study of psychology and psychoanalysis in Montreal and Paris.

Passionate about the concept of the collective unconscious, he had some difficulty convincing the teachers of the “Freudian chapel” he attended in the City of Lights. Another little intellectual disappointment.

When he returned to Quebec at the end of the 1980s, free trade negotiations were going well. “International economic law was in full swing and I found it intellectually very stimulating,” he says today.

It was also at this time that he crossed paths with Louis Sabourin, professor specializing in international relations at the University of Ottawa as well as at the National School of Public Administration (ENAP) and instigator of a thousand and a projects, including the creation of CORIM.

Pierre Lemonde was first executive director of CORIM from 1998 to 2002 before becoming president in 2004.

As part of his duties, he provided a platform in Montreal to hundreds of heads of government, ministers, diplomats, business leaders, creators and leaders of all kinds wanting to speak to the Montreal public. on a subject related to the international.

He found himself embarrassed when, in 2021, he hosted Chinese Ambassador Cong Peiwu for the second time in less than two years while China detained two Canadians in retaliation for Canada’s arrest of the businesswoman and daughter of the founder of the Huawei empire, Meng Wanzhou, at the request of the United States. “I explained myself at the time and we heard nothing more about it,” he said, affirming that he preferred dialogue to a ban. “We must always open the door to dialogue and give people the chance to form an idea. That’s the essence of a public forum,” he says, drinking mineral water at the chic Café Holt.

Pierre Lemonde also believes that the pragmatic – rather than ideological – approach to Canadian diplomacy put forward by the current Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mélanie Joly, is the right one in the era of redefinition of international relations. which is ours.

“She made the announcement to CORIM,” he proudly recalls.

Have any guests particularly impressed him over the years? Two come to mind. Stephen Breyer, in 2017, while he was a justice on the United States Supreme Court. “It was a great catch. His speech was of incredible depth,” recalls Pierre Lemonde. “The differences that matter in the world are not racial, national or religious, but those between those who believe in the rule of law and those who do not,” the American lawyer said at the time. Subject for reflection today.

Pierre Lemonde also remembers the visit in 2010 of Zbigniew Brzeziński, former national security advisor to Jimmy Carter, great critic of the Soviet Union and defender of the world order based on American hegemony. “Everyone was amazed by his speech,” recalls Mr. Lemonde.

“I’ve always liked big thinkers, but they’re not always the most popular at conferences. Quebecers especially like to listen to other successful Quebecers,” he remarks, giving as an example the immense popularity of the last conference by Pierre Fitzgibbon, Minister of the Economy in the government of François Legault, in last November.

And he, Pierre Lemonde, what does he think about the state of the world? “We live in fascinating times. Everything was frozen until the fall of the Soviet Union. After this fall, we experienced a period that could be called “happy globalization”. For 30 years, we saw phenomenal economic growth like we have never seen in history,” he says, before noting that this period is over.

When we talk to him about the gaps in inequality that “happy globalization” has created, he responds by recalling that hundreds of millions of people have been able to escape poverty. Formerly impoverished countries like China and India are now among the world’s five largest economies.

“And these emerging powers no longer want to let the West decide everything,” notes Pierre Lemonde, in connection with the current major global tensions and the rebalancing of power. He also believes that the G20, much more than the G7 and the United Nations Security Council, is today the true seat of world power. “There are more than half of the world’s population and 85% of international GDP. If this group makes a common decision, there is a lot more chance that it will be implemented,” he maintains.

If he has always been interested in the planet, if he has traveled around it several times – he has visited 144 countries to date! –, Pierre Lemonde does not regret at all having made Montreal his base. Even today, he is convinced that the metropolis of Quebec, “despite some flaws”, has many assets to shine on the world stage, with its diverse population from a hundred countries, its “breeding culture” , the presence of more than 70 international organizations on its soil and its French-speaking character combined with its bilingualism. “You just have to look at our airport to see that Montreal is increasingly connected directly to major cities around the world,” he rejoices.

In the fall, he will say goodbye to CORIM and take a long break. “I don’t want to know what’s coming,” he said.

My little finger tells me that it will remain faithful to the name it bears so well.