Last Saturday’s appearance on the show The Houseon CBC Radio, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly had a hard time suppressing a laugh when host Catherine Cullen asked her to define her “doctrine” on international relations.
The question was far from innocent. The phrase ” the Freeland doctrine has been on everyone’s lips in Ottawa since Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland delivered a speech last month in Washington in which she sounded the death knell for the era of rapprochement between democratic countries and authoritarian regimes that has been going on since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Many people wonder if Mme Freeland did not take it upon herself to redefine the foreign policy of Justin Trudeau’s government in place of the current head of Canadian diplomacy. This exit occurs in fact at the very moment when Mme Joly is preparing a new Canadian strategy for the Indo-Pacific region that is supposed to guide Sino-Canadian relations in the years to come.
Hence the blunt question of M.me Cullen. Mélanie Joly’s response, once her laughter was mastered, sounded like a shot arrow to her colleague Deputy Prime Minister. “I don’t believe in doctrines. I don’t think this is the time for a doctrine, she blurted out. My vision, to tell the truth, is to be pragmatic. More than ever, it’s realpolitik. »
A year after inheriting one of the most prestigious positions in Ottawa by becoming the fifth Minister of Foreign Affairs since the Liberals came to power in 2015, Ms.me Joly still seems to work in the shadow of the Deputy Prime Minister, who held this position from 2017 to 2019. Of course, she has not been idle for all that. The Russian invasion of Ukraine upset anything resembling a diplomatic agenda in Ottawa, forcing Mr.me Joly to multiply the trips to Europe.
The deterioration of relations between Canada and China, as well as the hardening of the tone of the Americans towards Beijing, also forced the Trudeau government to review its policy on international trade. And now the delicate question of sending an intervention force to Haiti suddenly occupies all minds within the Trudeau government, while the United States urges Canada to lead a potential international mission in this Caribbean country. .
In short, the first year of Mme Joly at Foreign Affairs was marked by the management of multiple crises. Freeland-style grand speeches are clearly not his cup of tea.
The Indo-Pacific strategy that it is about to table should be an opportunity for it to make its mark. It is clear that expectations are quite low in Ottawa. After nearly a year of deliberations and consultations, the best expectation is a 20-page document that will incorporate none of the heavy-handed “friendlocation” rhetoric (friendshoring) of Mme Freeland or “decoupling” (decoupling) vis-à-vis China recently advocated by the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, François-Philippe Champagne, who also visited Washington last month.
Mme Joly took advantage of the visit to Ottawa of his American counterpart, Antony Blinken, last week, to announce that Canada wished to join the economic framework for the Indo-Pacific region (Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity) set up l year by the United States and its allies in the region. But there is still no question of Canadian participation in AUKUS, this new military alliance bringing together the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom. This absence risks relegating Canada to the margins, far from making major geopolitical decisions in this hyperstrategic region.
Mme At the same time, Joly was beaten by Mr. Champagne, who has just announced his intention to restrict Chinese investments in the sector of critical minerals. He indicated last week that the participation of Chinese state companies in Canadian companies in the sector would henceforth be authorized only on an exceptional basis. “If a foreign state-owned enterprise were to participate in this type of transaction, it could constitute a reasonable ground to believe that the investment is likely to harm the national security of Canada, regardless of the value of the transaction”, had he explained, as Canada and the United States try to create an all-North American supply chain in the highly strategic electric battery sector.
The same is true for the semiconductor industry, after Washington decided to block the export of any technology that could help China make advances in artificial intelligence. Canada will have to comply with new US regulations, placing stricter limits on collaborations with Chinese institutions of Canadian companies and universities.
The world has changed a lot since Mélanie Joly took the reins of Canadian diplomacy a year ago.Looks like Mme Freeland and Mr. Champagne, by their recent interventions, seem to want to force her to finally take note.