Liberals get a failing grade on foreign policy in 2022

OTTAWA—Prime Minister Justin Trudeau deserves full credit for managing Canada’s domestic agenda in 2022 with thoughtfulness and care. His handling of the pandemic, the economy, and managing the effects of inflation has had positive impacts. His international program, on the other hand, remains off-kilter. It might be helpful, therefore, to evaluate Trudeau’s foreign policy performance over the past 12 months. If one took the Trudeau government’s rhetoric at face value, it would seem that 2022 was a year of utter misery: the death of democracy, the rules-based order, and even Europe, as in Ukraine. No one delivered that message better than Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland. Maybe the fearmongering was all for show. Rumours were flying in late August that what Freeland really wanted was the job of North Atlantic Treaty Organization secretary-general when it opens up in 2023. Let’s strengthen her chances by giving Freeland an ‘A’ for peddling doom and gloom. Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, pictured on Nov. 28, 2022, gets an ‘A’ for peddling doom and gloom, writes Bhagwant Sandhu. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine opened the doors for Freeland. She comes from a long line of Ukrainian nationalists. She is also a white liberal, which affords her the privilege to act as the defender of Europe and still keep her job as Canada’s deputy prime minister. Freeland spent 2022 urging what she calls “the non-geographic West” to decouple from global supply chains for a Western-based alternative. In October, when a Black audience member challenged her Euro-centric musings, she replied: “if a white person has offended someone, the first answer is to say, ‘I really didn’t mean to offend you.’” That was a real doozy, let’s upgrade Freeland to an ‘A+.’ Minister of Foreign Affairs Mélanie Joly fared better in 2022. She didn't jump head-first into Haiti or meddle in the internal affairs of any Latin American country, writes Bhagwant Sandhu. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade Next up, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly. When she wasn’t channelling Freeland, Joly was actually not doing too bad. In March, she reminded us that “Canada is not a nuclear power, but a middle power that is good at convening.” She was chided for it, but she was right. In May, she launched a much-needed operational review to modernize our diplomatic corps. In September, she selected a career diplomat as Canada’s ambassador to China, instead of a political hack. And, she did not jump head-first into Haiti or meddle in the internal affairs of any Latin American country—not yet anyway. Joly gets an ‘A’ for effort. Now, the prime minister. With the retirement of German Chancellor Angela Merkel in late 2021, Trudeau became the longest-serving leader in the G7. He was supposed to shine in 2022 as dean of the G7. That didn’t happen. American efforts to counter the economic rise of China got in the way. This could explain Trudeau’s dustup with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the November G20 meeting in Indonesia. Xi told Trudeau not to share their private discussions publicly. Rather than giving a nonchalant nod, Trudeau, who is also a white liberal like Freeland, replied with appropriate smugness: “in Canada, we believe in free and open and frank dialogue.” Trudeau gets an ‘F’ for easily getting frustrated. Turns out Trudeau wasn’t frustrated at all, he was only executing U.S. President Joe Biden’s National Defence Strategy. Released in October, Biden’s strategy claimed that we are neck-deep in “the contest for the future of our world.” The contest is with China, of course. Trudeau released his own anti-China compendium a month later. He called it the Indo-Pacific strategy, a newly invented nomenclature to replace the region formerly known at Asia-Pacific. It was praised by the American Ambassador to Canada David Cohen as being “completely synced up” with Biden’s plan to beat China back. China didn’t bat an eye. When Trudeau wasn't fighting China, he was battling Russia. Not with boots on the ground as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy would have wanted, but with his favoured tools of war: strong moral statements and economic sanctions. By July, Canada had sanctioned over 1,600 Russians and their entities. By December, meanwhile, Russia had decimated Ukraine’s infrastructure, blown up its energy grids, and displaced 11 million of its citizens. Not once during this carnage did Trudeau, as prime minister of the country that invented the idea of international peacekeeping, call for a ceasefire or negotiations. Bhagwant Sandhu is a Canadian foreign policy commentator and author. He retired as director general from the federal public service. Photograph courtesy of Bhagwant Sandhu White liberals can get away with stuff because, unlike the rest of us, they have the liberty to say one thing and do another. In June, at the Commonwealth Heads of State meeting in Kigali, Trudeau extolled the virtues of democracy. He then voted to admit Gabon and Togo, two of Africa’s worst kleptocratic dictatorships, into the Commonwealth. In November, commenting on anti-lockdown protests in China, he said “everyone in China should be allowed to express themselves.” That was a week after he had testified at the Commission investigating his use of the Emergencies Act to squash similar protests in Canada. Exuding a high moral posture or trafficking in fears and phobias might have short-term appeal, but it does not constitute good policy-making—or for that matter, good politics. Trudeau’s predecessor, former prime minister Stephen Harper, had anchored much of his 2015 election campaign on base tribalism and exploiting Islamophobia. He was sent home packing with a big fat ‘B,’ as in booted out of office. Let’s hope Trudeau, Freeland, and Joly can make the necessary course corrections and turn that ‘F’ into a passing grade in 2023. Bhagwant Sandhu is a Canadian foreign policy commentator and author. He retired as director general from the federal public service. The Hill Times

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Liberals get a failing grade on foreign policy in 2022

Exuding a high moral posture or trafficking in fears and phobias might have short-term appeal, but it does not constitute good policy-making—or for that matter, good politics.

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