OTTAWA – Former Liberal foreign affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy says Ottawa’s current approach to foreign policy has run out of road.
“Maybe it’s a good thing we’re having an election, because now it’s a chance to change,” Axworthy told a Monday panel discussion held by the Canadian International Council.
“If you listen to the same song too much … it gets a little boring. Well, it’s not got boring here. It really got sort of toxic.”
Canada is set for an election sometime this year and Axworthy said it’s a welcome chance to return Ottawa to its historical role of identifying issues that concern multiple countries and finding ways to address them.
He said that could mean working with peer countries to advance shared interests that don’t align with those of U.S. President Donald Trump — by, for example, using the Arctic Council to fight climate change.
Trump has called climate change a hoax, recently threatened to impose damaging tariffs on Canada and has said he wants to absorb Canada and Greenland.
That means this year’s Canadian election will be one of the few where foreign policy is a major topic.
“We’re going to have a change and an election that isn’t going to be just decided on ‘axe the tax’ or the child benefit,” Axworthy said, citing common Conservative and Liberal talking points. “We’re going to talk about a serious issue of where does Canada go in this world.”
“That’s a healthy thing, but it also means that we have to have some ideas,” he added.
Axworthy said Canada should rebuild the strong ties it once had with developing countries, such as those in the Commonwealth and the Francophonie.
Leaning on those ties helped Canada host a pivotal 1996 conference that led to the Ottawa Treaty, which banned the use of anti-personnel mines while boosting Canada’s influence on the world stage.
“If there’s one sort of characteristic of being a Canadian, it’s that we have learned, by our own history, to accommodate,” he said. “We know how to make things work.”
Speaking at the Monday panel, former prime minister Joe Clark said Canada should look to past initiatives like the North Pacific Co-operative Security Dialogue, a project led by Ottawa from 1990 to 1993 meant to help countries sort out their security needs after the end of the Cold War.
“We have to look at those things where we have the capacity to succeed, identify them deliberately, and try to find the ways in which we can follow the examples” of success, he said.
“We have the standing and the capacity in the world to be able to give effect to things that others can talk about.”
Clark said that could restore Canada’s status in places like Africa, where Ottawa doesn’t carry the same colonial baggage or legacy of mistrust associated with countries like the U.S. and France.
Axworthy said Global Affairs Canada should engage with the public on diplomacy by reviving a think tank that studied the effectiveness of various foreign-policy projects, and through an internship program to give hundreds of young Canadians experience in diplomatic missions abroad.
He also said Canada needs to reform its electoral system so that Parliament better reflects the Canadian public. He said the current structure doesn’t align with Ottawa’s advocacy for democracy abroad.
Axworthy also said political parties “no longer serve a function of bringing people together and discussing important things. They’ve become an election machine.”
He warned in a recent book that “a revolving door of ministers” in charge of foreign policy is undermining Ottawa’s ability to build alliances and influence on the world stage.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 28, 2025.
